With all the buzz surrounding E3, I thought it'd be cool to share my thoughts and hear your own, about which games this year you think will totally kick arse.

Alan Wake

This game has almost been completely invisible, and I almost feared it would turn into another Duke Nukem Fornever. However, Remedy seem to avoided that fate and have brought out.. what seems like an interesting survival horror game. While watching the gameplay on screen during E3, I kept thinking to myself: "This is what Alone in the Dark should've been", Alone in the Dark was a marred gem of a game, but it was marred by too many problems to call it a great game. I do hope this doesn't turn into another Silent Hill clone however, I want this to be a different experience of a survival horror game, not another blatent rip-off.(This is due out at the start of next year, not this year.)

Assassin's Creed 2

I loved the hell out of the first game, just the amount of freedom you were given to roam around the cities, and there was always SOMETHING to do. Even if that something was running around stabbing annoying beggar women for teh lulz. This sequel, seems to pickup on what made AC so great and expand upon that, whilst fixing flaws along the way! And that's what a sequel should be. The only thing I am worried about, is if the side missions are as boring and repetitive as the first, if they fix that, they'll have a perfect game on their hands.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

This game, looks like the definative badass Batman game, that fans of the comic book franchaise have been crying out for, for a long time. The setup seems almost perfect, going after the Joker in an insane asylum filled with an extra cast of villains such as; Bane, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Rocksteady seem to have also nailed the gameplay, Batman is NOT a super charged hero. He is an intelligent, rich and moderately strong human, and cannot take on a full army directed by The Joker hand to hand. I will be interested to see just how many ways, I'll be able to take down the criminals in the asylum, but overall it seems very promising. Also, getting Kevin Conroy to voice the caped crusader as well as Mark Hamill to voice The Joker is simply wonderful.

BioShock 2

This is another, AC for me. I loved the first game, so much so that I played through it over ten times. The atmosphere it created was just fantastic, I felt like I was in a living breathing world under the sea. I will agree than Kev Levine did seem to over hype the "choices" you made in the game, saying that each player's experience would be compeltely different.. and all it came down to was simply harvest or rescue. However, the story saved that factor immensely, as it came with one of the biggest twists I've seen in my gaming history. My jaw literally dropped when the moment occured, I'll not be saying anything more in case there are still people who have not had a chance to play this fantastic game. I'm a little unsure about the multiplayer, since there's just been an announcement and no other news to date (that I know of.) But none the less, it seems like a true spiritual successor to its predecessor, and I am happily awaiting my pre-order.

Brutal Legend

Ahh.. Brutal Legend, the very game which takes the music I love and makes it even more awesome. Brutal Legend comes from Double Fine, most noteable for its previous game Psychonauts. Unfortunately I haven't played Psychonauts, but from what I've been told it's a great game, and so I would expect the same of Brutal Legend. The humour in this game, is the most important thing to me right now. If they nail the humour, then I'll have fun just listening to the in game characters natter. From the trailers, the games gameplay looks like it could go either way.. but for the most part I think it will be successful.

Dragon Age: Origins

I've always loved BioWare games, ever since I was a wee lad and played the original Baldur's Gate on the PC, I still go back and re live it from time to time. Now BioWare seems to continuously master their craft at making outstanding RPGs, Dragon Age seems like a very promising addition to the BioWare library. I haven't hear much about the story, but from previous experiences I know that it should be a blast. Gameplay-wise.. I'm not so sure. It seems a little clunky, but maybe that's just me. Also, I hope there is a range of cusomtization for our characters, I want to be able to have a fairly unique character and not a near clone of the bloke who lives next door.

Modern Warfare 2

I think almost everyone played the original back in 2007, and my god were nearly all of us blown away at just how stunningly good both the single player and the multi player of this game was. Now Infinity Ward is coming back to kick some more ass, with Modern Warfare 2. Again, the sequel seems like another Assassin's Creed 2 type sequel, they're expanding on what made the game fantastic whilst fixing flaws the predecessor had. I haven't heard much about the story for this one, but so long as it's as dramatic as the first then I'll have no problem with the game. Also, I'd like to see what Inifity Ward wants to go with the Modern Warfare 2 multi player, considering it's one of the most played games on Xbox Live ever.

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Splinter Cell was the first XBOX game I owned, and while I was young at the time and didn't fully grasp just how good the stealth game was, I do now. The series has gone downhill ever since Chaos Theory in my opinion, it seemed less about the stealth and more about the gritiness and brutality of it and it didn't work for me. Conviction seems like this also, but strangely in a good way. They only mentioned Sarah Fisher's death briefly in Splinter Cell and didn't go into much detail about it, so it's nice to see that Sam is finally reacting how most father's would react if someone purposely killed their daughter. From the gameplay video shown at E3, I like the way Sam is using his environment to his advantage, for example the way he broke a side view mirror so that he could use broken glass to look under doors. Though no doubt, he will eventually end up back with Third Echelon and back into his old 3 eyed goggles (which are dearly missed by I.)

Overall it seems like a great year for gaming, possibly on par with 2007? What are your thoughts?

Other honourable mentions:

Prototype

Overlord 2

Need for Speed: Shift

The Sims 3