So, what's going to be the biggest game of 2010?

[Jason]

Yes, it's time to put your money where your mouth is, and get some predictions rolling - which game do you guys think is going to dominate 2010? There are some huge releases coming this year, and it'll be interesting to see what you guys think.

Perhaps we can revisit this thread as the year goes on so we can point and laugh at the ones who got it horribly, horribly wrong. :D

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For me, unless the new Call of Duty arrives early, it's going to be difficult to look past Gran Turismo 5 - I genuinely think it's going to be a blockbuster game - it looks like Polyphony Digital have addressed almost all of the concerns of the previous games (the only notable exception being a couple of missing licenses, but that's not really their fault), and the size and attention to detail is mindblowing. Nearly 1000 cars, over half a million polygons PER CAR, 16 cars in a race at any one time... the numbers simply melt the mind, and I can see even the most reluctant of petrolheads being suckered into this one. I know I'm looking forward to it, and I can only just change a wheel.

[Lance]

Starcraft II will be very hard to beat - unless Blizzard push it back again (I can see South Korea completely shutting down before its release ;))

[Landy]

Can't say really. For the FPS genre i think its gonna be "Battlefield: Bad Company 2". Although I'm not sure about it's exact release date, sometime this year "Mafia II" is set to be released, which will def be a big hit.

Now, my game interest generally goes with PC games, but seeing how a lot of the games today are being developed either just for consoles or bad PC ports it's really hard for me to tell exactly, since i do not really care or know a lot about the "big" console game releases this year.

[Betty]

Left 4 Dead 3.





(lol)

[MotherGraham~]

Hard to say, really. But if I'm to guess one for the RPG genre, I'd dare to bet Dragon Age Origins - Awakening. BioWare did a real good job at Dragon Age: Origins and actually made it as the RPG of 2009. I'm pretty sure they'll do good work once more, or perhaps even better. BioWare is excellent at storyline-development and Dragon Age: Origins was very immersive - at least, to me. As said, I'm willing to say Dragon Age Origins - Awakening.

[MyNameDidntFit]

Left 4 Dead 3.
Nah, L4D4 will trump that in Q4.

[nilihanth]

I think it could end up being Final Fantasy XLVII or whatever iteration is coming out. Since it is coming, this time to 2 consoles, it could end up being pretty durn big. Any full FF title is going to be big but the dual console release could help it along.

Other than that I could see God of War III being a pretty big game of the year.

[Jason]

So, we're halfway through the year... some suggestions have come and gone, and so far the biggest game has been one that caught most of us off guard - Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption has completely sold out in some countries, and has sold 5 million copies in three weeks.

So, the question is, in the second half of the year, is anything going to beat it?

[JustaBitOutside]

Maybe not on merit of the game, but I'm sure that this new Call of Duty Black Ops will sell a shit ton, because there are so many douchebags that only play that game. I think it's one-dimensional, but what do I know. I still play it too.

[Jason]

Is that going to hit in 2010? Wow, Activision are really churning those games out...

As for the sales, yeah, the game is going to sell a bucketload, and it'll probably be a good game, but as you pointed out, it'll have millions of fairweather fans claiming it's the best thing ever when they win, and that it's a broken piece of crap when they're losing... welcome to the reason this site exists. :D

[Archangel]

I'm thinking Crysis 2 and Starcraft II could make some very sizable dents when they come out, in their respective genres.

[Jason]

Yeah, with Crysis 2 being a multi-platform title, I think that's a good shout. It's certainly gathering attention already, although as someone at Epic Games pointed out very correctly recently, for all their posturing and claims, CryTek have no pedigree or history with consoles whatsoever, and no-one's yet seen anything of the console versions apart from a couple of pre-alpha screencaps...
I have no doubt it'll be an excellent game on PC, but the history of FPS games transferring well from PC to console isn't exactly bulging with examples.

[Archangel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2UCnblmOMY&feature=related

That's played on console, I believe. Seems to run alright. ;)

Besides, the general failure of PC to Console gaming is that the game engine is designed for one or the other, and then at the end the devs decide to mess with their code a bit to see if it can go on the other. And for the most part, they don't do a good job.

When you design your game engine from the word go to be compatible on all platforms, though, it means you have to forgo certain code techniques to instead right it in something that is essentially multilingual. It makes the process more difficult, and it might make it not run quite as swimmingly as it could have if you'd just gone all-out for one platform, but it very dramatically limits the bugs, glitches and errors that you might see when you port something.

It's pretty much the difference between writing something in an obscure dialect that one other bloke knows fluently, then running it through a converter so everyone else can try and understand versus writing in a dialect that everyone already knows. Sure, that one bloke might not understand it quite as well as he might if you'd written it in his language, but it sure as hell makes it easier for everyone else.

[Jason]

Ah, but the worry then is that you simply make an average game for three platforms rather than a superb game for one - especially in the massively overcrowded FPS market, you have to strive for perfection in everything at all times if you want to make a game that's really going to make waves.

It's entirely possible that the CryEngine can beautifully handle both PC and Console gaming with ease, but if that is indeed the case, it's going to be one hell of an achievement, because not much before it has managed the transition well.

(and RE: the video, I stand corrected - perhaps the quote was made before that video was released.)

[Archangel]

Yeah, that's the one thing I'm expecting to go poorly with Crysis 2. I'm a bit of a fanboy of the first game, because it does look so gosh-darn pretty, and it plays better than most FPSs around. But if CryEngine 3 as a multiplatform engine doesn't excel quite as much as its predecessor, then I'm going to be at least a little disappointed. I like my hos lookin' fine, what can I say.

But I believe the PC version gets Cascaded Light Propagation, so I have high hopes.

For reference: light propagation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqeXuO2AlEE

I say that the PC version gets it, because unless Crytek have made one seriously optimised engine, there is no way a console can run that. And most Devs don't spend hours making cool lighting effects if nothing gets to use 'em, so, I'm looking for a new graphics card.

[dimples]

My money goes to Alan Wake :D

[JustaBitOutside]

I think I'm going to get Alan Wake today, looks creepy enough to scratch that Dead Space itch I have.

[dimples]

Good idea :D I'll wait a few months before I get mine :)