"The one time of year that single girls are most depressed and go down faster than the second tower"

Man, there are so many games coming out in the next little while that I am excited about. While the 360 totally captivated the Christmas market, February/March is going to be a time of some wicked, wicked shit.

First up, Fight Night Round 3 . Now, I’ve always kind of been a fan of boxing games. I mean, who doesn’t like Super Punchout, right? The one thing that’s really sold me on this game his how freaking amazing it looks. Obviously, the 360’s going to have sharper visuals than any other console, but in this game’s case, the difference is drastic. There’s sweat, blood, rippling skin as a punch lands. This game looks freaking great.  They’ve also tuned up the season mode from Round 2, giving it a bit more of a story—though, we’ll see how fleshed out that really is. Round 2’s season mode, while fun, was pretty one dimensional.

One game I’m really interested in seeing go gold is D&D: Stormreach. The idea of a D&D MMO is, quite frankly, pretty obvious, but from the beta and the stress test, I must say I’m not all that impressed. Now, keep in mind, I’m a WoW player, which means I like my MMO’s sharp. If there’s one thing about WoW I like more than, say, Star Wars Galaxies, is that there aren’t glaring visual and mechanical bugs. People can bitch about balancing issues all they want, but quite frankly, I think Galaxies proves that the game could be much worse.
Sorry, tangent. Stormreach looks interesting, and it will be interesting to see if the multi-classing and the “Everquest II but actually artistic” graphical style can win people over. Don’t expect a WoW killer here, but we’ll see just how far Turbine can take this game.

There’s also 24: The Game. Yeah, yeah, I know, television-to-game conversions never really pan out. This one makes me kind of hopeful though. The textures seem kind of gritty, though the character models and face are pretty good, plus they got the original cast to do the voice work—Keifer at his finest. The interrogation sequences seem very well done, capturing the intensity of the show very well. The action sequences, however, seem kind of clunky, so we’ll see how that pans out.

It’s near the end of March where we get into the real heart of it. There’s Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , which is probably one of the most anticipate sequels so far this year. I was never a huge Elder Scrolls fan, but lately I’ve been on a huge RPG crave, so this has really peaked my interest. One thing Morrowind had going for it was an insanely open-ended storyline and great graphics. All of that seems to still be present here, but so is the first person hack-and-slash style mechanics that kind of turned me off from the series in the first place. I guess I’m just falling into the hype, but I may be turned into a fan when it hits shelves.

I’ve already mentioned just how much I’m looking forward to Splinter Cell: Double Agent . This game looks to completely revolutionize and revitalize the franchise by turning Fisher into a NOC agent, working undercover. Basically, Fisher’s daughter dies, and to work through his grief, Lambert makes him covert, since Fisher can’t be trusted to do his regular splinter cell duties. I like the idea of mixing the original stealth mechanics of the series with a more “off the leash” attitude. There hasn’t been too much shown gameplay wise, so we’ll have to wait and see just how this works together.

Last, but definitely not least, Kingdom Hearts II . I cannot freakin’ wait for this game. Kingdom Hearts was one of those games that, on paper, should never have been as popular as it was. The mechanics weren’t all that innovative, the camera was blocky, and the platforming was pretty average. But for all its average qualities, the presentation was just so perfect that all those minor problems seemed like they somehow fit with what they wanted the game to be. KH II promise even more of the same stuff that true gamers fell in love with. It’s going to be freakin’ awesome.