Games you can't buy yet

Quite frankly, a ridiculous January period has passed us by. With Mass Effect 2, Bayonetta, Bioshock 2, Darksiders, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Dante's Inferno and a pile of other assorted titles, it was an absurdly busy month filled with an amazing selection of games.

Even though the rest of February is looking no less full, you're probably broke. Heat up some ramen and sit by the fire then, as I tell you tales of games to come (but not too soon please).

HALO: REACH

There's always more Halo. The series has joined Mario, Final Fantasy and sexually transmitted diseases on the list of life's inevitable constants. Now another Halo game is almost here, supposedly the last one to be made by the original company, Bungie.

Of course Microsoft will continue to churn out more Halo until the concept is a bloodied horse-corpse, till everyone who was once a fan has to burn all their old copies for fear of being locked up in concentration camps.

Halo: Reach is a prequel, which means you know how it ends and nothing matters. Before the Master Chief became the only bad ass in town, there used to be a lot of seven-foot-tall cyborg super soldiers wandering about, fighting dogmatic aliens. MINOR SPOILER: the last of them were deleted from life on a planet called Reach (or something like that, Halo lore is very thick). So while you follow the exploits of a team of Spartan (cyborgs) specialists, it is with all the depressing joy of throwing a birthday party for a cancer kiddie.

Footage so far looks like a bit like Halo. Mainly the parts with the first-person shooting, and the super soldiers, and the aliens, and the guns. Everything, really. Bungie aren't stupid enough to mess with a million dollar formula, but it would have been nice to see something different.

Anyway, Halo fans will probably like it. Me included.

ALAN WAKE

Alan Wake is the game you may have heard about in 2009... or 2008. Or maybe you read about it in 2007, saw a screenshot in 2006, or remember the announcement from 2005. The spookiest thing about this horror game from Remedy is that it's impossible to tell if it even exists. When it finally comes out it had better be so scary that I immediately poop my pants and the pants of everyone I know.

FABLE III

The original Fable gave us the chance to find out what it would be like to shape our own legendary hero and watch him get old and wrinkly after ten hours of farting at villagers. Fable 2 expanded on this by allowing you to buy houses and watch your dog get shot in the face.

Apparently, Fable 3 will let you become the ruler of the land (complete with some sort of crown, surely) and grow wings from your back to let people know you think they suck.

The problem with the Fable games is that while they give a huge amount of freedom to the player, there's no reason to give a damn. Hopefully someone at Lionhead has realised that you need interesting stories and characters to hang INFINITE CHOICE onto, although this video diary doesn't fill me with confidence. Still, who doesn't like wings?

TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON

Transformers are cool. At least they were, before Michael Bay made them into giant, mechanised urination jokes and explosion factories. Luckily, other creative people are working to fix the damage done by the director, including High Moon Studios, creators of the upcoming video game.

Transformers: War for Cybertron is set on Cybertron, obviously, the home world of the Transformers. It seems to deal with the big scuffle the Decepticons (evil) and Autobots (good) had before they came to Earth to become awesome trucks.

The trailer shows the two armies battling it out on the surface of the robotic planet, with missiles flying, robots transforming into cars transforming into robots transforming into jets transforming into robots, and a battle scene that looks like Lord of the Rings on electric crack. Optimus Prime has a glowing axe. The good guys have a massive robot ally that fires doom lasers. The bad guys have a freaking dinosaur.

To put things in perspective, the recent Transformers movies have metallic testicles and Megan Fox, whose breasts have more acting skills than her face.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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