FEATURE: My Top Ten Most Anticipated Games of 2010

A new year, a new stack of games to play. 2010 is already shaping up to be a great year for new games from both Nintendo themselves and loads of third party developers. It really seems like a great start to the decade in the world of gaming. I mean, can you image what kind of revolutionary new consoles, Accessories and games the first parties will come up with in the coming 10 years? I certainly can't. The possibilities are endless, as they say. At least we know some of the awesome games coming out in the coming months though, and to hype myself for these titles even more I've crafted a list of the ten games I'll (hopefully) be buying this year on both the Wii and DS systems. I present 'My Top Ten Most Anticipated Games of 2010!' Let's go!

10. Professor Layton And The Last Time Travel

Unless it gets a name change of course! Personally, I found the first two Layton games pretty short. The Curious Village's main story took me around 6 hours to complete and Pandora's box, while being a much less bland experience took around 10 hours. The games are still awesome though, and are quite possibly some of the best puzzlers ever made and the third title in the series looks to be even better. The setting seems more interesting and (thank the gods) this one's actually a lot longer. Once again we only have 168 puzzles (excluding DLC) but the story seems so much better than the previous games. Layton and his cockney apprentice are taking some time off puzzle solving and are chilling out in their London based flat. After a scientist claims to have invented a time machine Layton and Luke check it out, hoping to see the future. Andrew Schrader (Layton's teacher who appeared in Pandora's Box) gets to be the first to try out the time machine. After the scientist's invention goes Awol and blows up, Layton and Luke believe that Schrader has been killed, while the scientist claims he has travelled into the future. Layton and luke visit the scientist's house only to find nobody home and they decide to leave, only to find they are in the future london after stepping outside! With more animated cut-scenes, a much longer story and a better plot, The Last Time Travel looks to be the best Layton game yet!

9. Infinite Space
When it was first announced I wasn't very interested in Infinite Space, sure it's coming from Platinum games, but it's kind of weird for them to bring out an RPG set in space after the excellent Madworld. Or so I thought. The Americans are saying it's one of the most enjoyable games on the DS and it'll keep you happy for around 100 hours and after hearing about what you can do in it on the ONM podcast I became hyped. The basic idea is you need to keep your spaceship in tip-top condition and also keep your crew happy by conversing with them and giving them jobs they enjoy. You can even clean up the place and buy furniture and items to customise the interior. It's your ship, do what you want with it! While the story doesn't seem to get my attention I love the idea of having your own spaceship! It's like the Sims but in space, What an awesome concept! I sure do hope Platinum games can pull it off.

8. Sin and Punishment 2
It's time the Wii got a good on rails shooter that wasn't just made to come with a peripheral. Well, we're getting one and it comes in the form of Sin and Punishment 2. Being the sequel to one of the hardest N64 games ever (which was unfortunately never released in the UK) the difficulty certainly isn't toned down. In fact, Sin and Punishment 2 looks to be one of the hardest games on the Wii, Maybe even one of the hardest games ever. Of course, I haven't played it so I don't know this for certain but I'll trust what we've heard so far; Millions of bullets swarm through each action packed level and homing missiles are constantly moving in on you and there's apparently no slowdown which is certainly very impressive for such a fast paced game. The game even has an online leaderboard where players of the game can submit their high scores for each level! I don't really see myself showing up on there though. The only slight problem is I suspect that the game may be pretty short. That's just a theory, mind. Anywho, I'll be keeping my hopes up for Sin and Punishment 2!

7. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
I think it's now safe to say that NMH2 is awesome. Much more bosses, better mini games, more replay value and even the ability to buy some new threads for travis make No More Heroes 2: Desperate struggle much better than the original game. I recently watched the first few parts of a walkthrough and the game looks truly awesome; the wacky characters Suda51 has come up with for the game are spectacular, hilarious and weird. The best thing about the original game was it's style and the sequel is packed full of it. Suda seems to have taken some ideas from loads of classic games and stuffed them all into his own game and it seems to work. Instead of the boring and badly made 3D minigames we got in No More Heroes 1, we now have NES themed 2D games! Huzzah! The overworld has also been scrapped for a simple map where you can go anywhere and continue the story with just the click of a button! There's also the customisation feature I mentioned before, where you can visit Airport 51 and buy some new threads for travis to wear. You'll need some cash which you can earn from the minigames to buy these though. Of course, you don't have to do any of this stuff if you just want to continue the story. Just press that ranking match button and get on with it! There's even cameos from Shinobi and Henry and some returning bosses to treat the fans of the first game. Lots of fan service then! It's out in April so there's still some time to wait for NMH2, but it'll be worth it.

FEATURE: Sheikah_Link's Top Ten Most Anticipated Games of 2010

2010: The beginning of a new decade. The 'ooies' were fine, but the 'tens' seem to shine brighter. Opening year alone, for games atleast, wonderous things seem to be happening. Original ideas, follow-ups to older games and continuations of acclaimed series' are all set to put 2010 up in flames. In a good way, of course. To celeberate this, I've made a list of the top ten games I'm just gagging to get my hands on this year. I bet you know what's goin to be at number 1 already...

10. Okamiden (DS) Despite finidng the orignal PS2/Wii game rather boring, yet overrated, I'm giving this sequel the benfit of the doubt, and I'll hype it just a tad. The graphics are still as beautiful as the last time round, but seem to have a cutsier, Spirit Tracks edge on them, which suits the DS very well. As Chibiterasu (presumably Amaterasu's ancestor or descendant) you'll be painting the world into life again with your brush, while solving puzzles, collecting treasures and overcoming evil. Sounds alot like Zelda then. But so did the original, and that didn't quite match up in my opinion...

9. Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) Like most people outside of Japan, I've never played any game in the Monster Hunter series. I know it's all hyped up and apaprantly stunning, but it's never caught my eye. Literally. Pre-MHT mentions, I'd never even seen or heard of the series. Now that it's coming to Wii with emphasis in Europe though, my attention has well and truly been caught. The concept of seeking and taking down huge dinosaur-like creatures for snazzy rewards, combined with jaw-dropping visuals and a unique online experience has reeled me in, and I can't wait to be welcomed into Capcoms *ahem* "monster" series.

8. Red Steel 2 (Wii) Possibly this years best looker for Wii, RS2 follows a mysterious rouge, ninja/cowboy type hardman who uses his variations of gun and sword techniques to take down other maniacal ninja/cowboy types. So far, so "damn awesome" then. Mix in 1:1 MotionPlus controls for swordplay (correcting its predecessors weakpoint), fantastic cel-shaded graphics, and a Wild West setting with a hint of Japanese Culture, and you're certainly on to GotY material. Bags of cool and an original atmosphere is what's going to keep this game driving when you're dishing out combos of 'Up slash, down slash, boom, bang, stab', so let's just hope all that's currently being kept on the down-low will follow suit.

7. Dead Space 2 (PS3/360) Now, as I'm just finishing off the final few chapters of the classy, Wii-only Dead Space:Extraction, it's apparant to me that the series is pretty much the best survival horror series ever created besides Resident Evil. The third game to be released for the series has recently been confirmed and despite so little information, I'm hyped. Information is not needed though. Expectedly, it's going to be an action-packed, visually impressive gore-fest, where you blast through waves of alien/zombie things to save your group of space explorers. Some of the those explorers will live, most will die, but it's all in the name of a great game, right?

FEATURE: SteveTheDuck's Top Five Most Anticipated Games of 2010

The new year looks to be a great start to the decade in terms of gaming (provided the recession hasn't chucked you onto the streets yet, that is), especially for the Nintendo Wii. So, I'm going to list my 'Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of 2010!'. On a side note, this is going to be new games released in 2010, not the constantly growing pile of games I've yet to play – which has become even larger with my un-shiny new PS3 Slim.

5.Red Steel 2
Let's face it; the moment the Wii was announced, the first thing we thought was either 'sword game!', or 'Star Wars game!'. Just over 3 years later, we're finally getting the former: a proper hack 'n' slasher, featuring the fantastic 1:1 MotionPlus, which will make impaling our enemies much more fun. The first one may have been a bit meh, but this cel-shaded sequel looks to right all the wrongs. Except for the multiplayer, which has disappeared.

4.Tatsunoko VS. Capcom
In the blue cornerrrrrrr, Capcom! The famous developer with epic games like the Resident Evil series, MegaMan and Okami! In the red cornerrrrrrrr, is Tatsunoko, a Japanese animation studio you've probably never heard of, and neither have I. But to be honest, I don't care because their characters look great and it's a proper fighter. Like, Street Fighter or Tekken kind of proper; the kind that the Wii has yet to have in it's library. It looks great, it's over-the-top and for once, it's better than the Japanese version!

3.Super Mario Galaxy 2
It's a well-known fact that Super Mario Galaxy is awesome. So Miyamoto and his minions have done the next logical thing: made more, ramped up the difficulty and added Yoshi. Not to mention remixes of the orchestrated epics in the first one. Little is known about the game right now, but that just makes the hype train leave station earlier.

2.Gran Turismo 5
The day I got my PS3 (that's Christmas in case anyone's wondering), I downloaded the GT5 demo off the PlayStation Store. At first I hated it, but then it kind of grew on me, and it suddenly became so addictive that I couldn't stop trying to beat my own lap times. That was just one track with 2 cars. The full game has over 40 tracks (if my memory serves correctly), and more than 1000 cars. One of these tracks is the Top Gear Test Lap track from what I've read on IGN, and that has made me very excited. Oh, and the usual realistic gameplay is all there.

1.Metroid: Other M
I could not type anything and you'd all probably understand why I've put it as No.1, but I'll explain anyway. So far, Metroid as a series has had a pretty much perfect track record, from being developed by Nintendo and Retro Studios. Now, development has been handed over Team Ninja, the guys behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. It seems like a perfect partnership to me, and being a massive Metroid fan, I really can't wait much longer!

+Written by SteveTheDuck

REVIEW: Viewtiful Joe

Viewtiful Joe
[GC] [12+] [Beat ‘em up]
It’s very rare that I find a game that gets me obsessed. Not just with the title itself, but with the artwork and style, the music and merchandise and most importantly, the originality. While Disgaea (the first game I reviewed) wasn’t exactly original, I got addicted to the anime and toys after just a few weeks of owning the game. Seriously, my bedroom walls are infested with posters of Laharl, Etna and Flonne (not true). Ape escape, another game I fell in love with was one of my favourite titles as a young gamer and The Legend of Dragoon was the first RPG I ever played and is still one of my favourites to this day. Today I’ll be reviewing a game that I’ve just made one of my favourite Gamecube titles and it’ll be packed with plenty of henshin! Welcome to the awesome world of Viewtiful Joe! Viewtiful Joe was the fourth title in the Capcom five project, a series of 5 Gamecube exclusives published by the almighty Capcom. P.N.03, Dead phoenix, Killer7, Viewtiful Joe and Resident evil 4 were the games Capcom released but unfortunately, while they were all great they only reached average sales (minus Resi of course) and Dead phoenix was never actually released. Capcom had realised that their experiment didn’t exactly go to plan but what they also discovered was that Viewtiful Joe had developed quite a cult. Because of this they decided to get Clover studio (the team behind the game) to make a sequel, which they were very happy to do. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick that up sometime. Enough history for now though, let’s get on with the game itself!

Viewtiful Joe is a really awesome game, as you should already know. It’s a very stylish title with lush effects and awesome manga-like visuals, great character design and best of all, a hilarious script.
The story starts off with a dude named Joe and his (very annoying) girlfriend Silvia in a ‘movie theatre’, or cinema as we call it here in Yorkshire. They are watching a film called ‘Captain Blue’ about a superhero in a blue suit. Joe is obsessed with this guy; he has all the merchandise and he drags his girlfriend into watching the film with him. Silvia is more interested in making out with Joe while making weird and disturbing noises. She keeps begging when suddenly a giant figure comes out of the silver screen and grabs her. Joe’s response to this is a funny gag about special effects. When the young lad realises his girlfriend has been pulled into the screen he panics, but suddenly captain blue’s trademark robotic chum Six Majin pulls Joe into the screen as well! After arriving in the movie world Joe gets some superhero training from Captain Blue himself! It really is him! The old guy gives Joe a V-watch (standard superhero transformation accessory) and tells him to say the word HENSHIN! If you’re curious about that word it’s Japanese for transform. Joe shouts “Henshin a go-go baby!” and turns into the hero Viewtiful Joe! Well, he only really calls himself that in the last few chapters of the game, but still. VIEWTIFUL JOE!

Quite possibly the greatest thing about this game is it’s cell shaded
Graphical style. All the characters, enemies and even objects use the thick outline approach that is very likeable. The background of each level looks like a cardboard cut out and every cut scene uses the in-game graphics. While there are some dodgy moments in these scenes (where one part of a character will sort of morph with another part) they are still very entertaining to watch and even more importantly, they’re absolutely hilarious! One example of this when Joe meets Hulk Davidson, the big boss of the game’s second level; this beast of a green rhino makes some pretty funny Megaman references and talks like a gangster in the process. Speaking of bosses, the game is packed full of them and each has their own unique personality! And the music too, awesome! Seek out Viewtiful World (which is so amazingly awesome I put it on my ipod) and Standing Ovation, the game’s ending theme.