Coming Attractions: Action-Adventure & Platformers
Where the action is.
Action-Adventure
If you think the dominant genre in gaming is still the shooter, let us disabuse you. Based on what we currently know, there are almost twice as many action-adventure games being released in 2010 as any other genre, with shooters and RPGs tying for second place. Last year, Uncharted 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum squeezed out Modern Warfare 2 in most best-of polls (if not at the checkouts), while the first week of 2010 saw two superb action-adventure releases in the form of Bayonetta and Darksiders.
Granted, this also the most broadly-defined and hybridised category, with most entries borrowing heavily from some combination of shooters, platformers, fighting games, RPGs and pure adventure games - but that diversity of style and substance is the attraction, surely. Last year, we attempted to cope with the volume by splitting the genre into loose "action" and "adventure" halves, but that exercise in fuzzy hair-splitting frustrated us and fooled no-one. So this year sees a joyous reunification, although it's not without its casualties: pure adventure games get relegated to a footnote, and things are so crowded in here that some of the biggest games of the year don't even make our highlights list.
Highlights
Crackdown 2
On: Xbox 360 / Developer: Ruffian Games / Publisher: Microsoft / Release: First half of 2010
It's an oft-repeated truism that no-one's nailed open-world gaming quite like Rockstar North, but the exception that proved the rule was close neighbour (in fact, blood relation) Realtime Worlds with 2007's fantastically free-wheeling Crackdown. Realtime's moved on, but from what we've seen, splinter studio Ruffian still preserves that magic DNA whilst ladling on the online modes - co-op for four, deathmatch for 16 - and, slightly disappointingly, giving you a justification for running over all those pedestrians by turning them into voguish zombies. Voguing zombies would have been better.
Dead Rising 2
On: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Blue Castle Games, Capcom / Publisher: Capcom / Release: 2010
Speaking of which... We wouldn't mind if the whole zombie thing got over itself quite soon, but no matter how bad the overexposure gets, we will always make time for a new Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. No game has better exploited the cathartic properties of shambling walls of mindless flesh than Capcom's innocently sadistic survival comedy, and the sequel will take things even further, we're promised. It certainly will if the multiplayer gameshow, Terror is Reality, is anything to go by, with its antler-tossing, hamster balls and "Slicecycles".
God of War III
On: PS3 / Developer: Sony Santa Monica Studio / Publisher: Sony / Release: March 2010
Sony's so confident in God of War III that it spent the entirety of 2009 showing the same 15 minutes of gameplay, first hands-off to journos, then hands-on at E3 and finally letting the general public loose on it at shows like the Eurogamer Expo, where it stormed away with the public vote for game of the show. And no matter how many times you saw or played that demo, the slick, bloody spectacle and tactile punch of the combat system never faltered for a micro-second. Sony must be wishing it could clone the obscenely talented staff of Santa Monica Studio and its neighbour Naughty Dog, so well do they show off the PS3 (also because it could start outfits called Santa Dog and Naughty Monica).
Heavy Rain
On: PS3 / Developer: Quantic Dream / Publisher: Sony / Release: 26th February
Within the space of a month the PS3 exclusive line-up swings from one extreme to another, trading bombast for introspection and gory monster-mashing for the gentle art of conversation - but the big-budget sheen and astonishing visual fidelity is a common theme. David Cage's brave psychological thriller is almost a pure adventure, but it's not without its action beats, and it's nothing if not brooding and tense. It's also a genuine attempt to take videogames to a new place, with serious money and technology behind it, and how often do you see that?
Just Cause 2
On: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Avalanche Studios / Publisher: Square Enix / Release: 26th March
Actually, scrap what we said earlier about open-world games, because here comes Sweden's Avalanche to join that exclusive club. It was clear from the first Just Cause that they got it, but while the spirit was willing, the execution was weak. The sequel's a slicker proposition, but that hardly matters when it also has the new grapple hook, a tool that allows you to connect anything in the game to anything else and quite possibly the greatest gaming toy since the Gravity Gun. No other game this year, not even Dead Rising 2, embraces sheer sandbox chaos so fully.
The Last Guardian
On: PS3 / Developer: Team ICO / Publisher: Sony / Release: we can dream.
OK, being brutally realistic, we don't really believe this has much chance of seeing the light of day in 2010. But we decided to allow ourselves one total indulgence, one blind but fervent hope, and to hell with Rage and Diablo III and Zelda - it had to be Fumito Ueda's next lonely epic. That spellbinding trailer (go on, watch it again, you deserve it) has all the bleached beauty and tender melancholy we remember from Shadow of the Colossus and ICO, not to mention staggering animation and technical virtuosity. But it's the dizzy possibilities of the simple premise - what if the colossus was your friend? - that really excite the imagination. We probably won't know a thing more about it until it's almost upon us, and so much the better.