It's that time of year again - The Games Drought

By Ben Salter

We’ve played (and completed) a range of quality titles in the first quarter of 2009. These include Resident Evil 5 on the PS3 & 360, MadWorld on the Wii, GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS and Resistance Retribution on the PSP, but what is still yet to come in the next 6 months?

One can’t help but feel that at least one masterpiece needs to be published for each console in that period, especially one for the Wii. We’ve seen Wii Play and Wii Fit dominate the sales charts, but most other Wii games have dropped out. Why? Because they are old, there has been little from Nintendo themselves and that is what is required before the year’s end, if not before. Silent Hill: Homecoming looks promising for PS3 and 360 owners, but ideally each console needs another quality exclusive this year that blows gamers away, what will it be if it comes at all?

The DS has Pokemon Platinum set for a May 14 release, but like Silent Hill it’s a game that has been out overseas for a while now. After ten years the games are starting to suffer due to the lack of originality. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but after playing so many similar Pokemon games the formula is in dire need of a shake up. The people who really love the series will no doubt already have imported a US copy due to the region free nature of the DS, so perhaps we shouldn’t include this at all as an upcoming game to watch, as many of the eager fans will already have completed it by the time it hits Aussies shelves.

The lack of exclusives in the next 6 months is a worrying sign. Of the few games that might seriously be worth a look most of them appear on the PS3, 360 and Wii, if not the PC, DS and PSP as well. Another instalment in the Guitar Hero series will sell well in Metallica, but after so many games in such a short space of time it’s hard to get excited about this one unless you’re a diehard fan of the band. Ghostbusters: The Videogame will appeal to many childhood fans, but as a movie tie-in we have the right to be hesitant.

New Play Control Pikmin 2 on the Wii looks good, but that’s probably because it was a great game 5 years ago when we first played it. Hopefully it has stood the test of time to provide some relief to Wii owners; however, it can hardly be classed as an upcoming release, as we’ve been playing it for years now. The Conduit is set to be released in late June, but has it (or will it) received too much hype for its own good? Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Killzone 2 have all recently been victims of over hype. While they are all good games, it was impossible for them to live up to their expectations. As a result they were either loved by fanboys, or criticised too harshly by gamers who expected an unrealistic experience. I hope the same does not happen to what looks to be the 3rd party game the Wii really needs.

The DS has a great chance to capitalise with the recent release of the Nintendo DSi. But there’s little besides maybe LineRider that hasn’t already been mentioned, and that’s assuming it gets a release date soon. The PSP is in an even worse situation. Many developers practically gave up on the system, allegedly due to piracy, in 2008. If the same happens this year the handheld is all but dead. Sure games such as LittleBigPlanet and Rock Band have been announced, but they are yet to be given a release date. They could easily slide over to next year which could be too late.

The PC will be as reliable as anything in the coming months, especially for those that use Steam. I’ve purposely hardly commented on the system as I’m not a PC gamer myself and would most likely misinterpret the release list. From a brief look around the MyFrag there doesn’t appear to be anything massive coming in the next few months in a similar fashion to its console counterpart.

I have no doubt that the big games will come around November, in the Christmas period. Bioshock 2 and Modern Warfare 2 are a couple of massive sequels that we’ll see towards the year’s end. But we need something big, something special to tide us over until then. Mid-2008 gave us titles such as GTAIV and Mario Kart Wii. Presumably something will be announced for the next 6 months, but the next three especially appear bare. Are we heading into a gaming drought?

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Drought games ICC Pokemon RE5 SSBB