Every year in January, I like to take a look at which games I'm anticipating for the coming year. So without further ado, here are a few of the titles I'm looking forward to in the next 12 months.

Assassin's Creed:

Sands of Time was one of my favorite games of last gen. However, the sequels seemed to focus too much on the details and take the series away from the things that made it great. Assassin's Creed looks to take the core gameplay from Sands of Time and expand it in some fresh directions.

Mass Effect:

KOTOR and Jade Empire were both did excellent jobs of creating worlds with rich storylines to draw the player in. However, the technical limitations of last gen consoles left a lot up to the imagination. I can't wait to see what Bioware is capable with current gen hardware.

Crackdown:

The sandbox genre has always had a lot of potential. The stuborn focus of the game industry on Hip Hop themes has kept me away though. Whenever developers expand the genre into new settings, like with Mercenaries, I'm immediately interested.

Blue Dragon:

Any game that can get Japanese gamers buying Xbox 360s has my attention.

Alan Wake:

The details on this game have been enigmatic at best. It was one of the first next gen games announced and we still know almost nothing about it. The visuals look impressive, to say the least though.

Other games I'm looking forward to that don't require much elaboration:

Halo 3
Spore

What's everyone else looking forward to in the coming months?