[Video Games] What are you looking forward to in 2008?

2007 was pretty good for gamers, but it seems like 2008 could be a good year as well (perhaps even better). Check out the older threads for reference (and so you can all laugh at any predictions or assumptions we made):
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=122349
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=106351

As usual, I'll go ahead and list some of the things I'm looking forward to:

The Ones That Didn't Quite Make 2007
GTA IV, MGS4, Alan Wake, Burnout Paradise, Mercenaries 2, Tekken 6, DMC4, Home, Spore, etc., were all originally scheduled as 2007 releases IIRC, but they ended up getting pushed back to 2008. Personally, I think I'm glad they weren't released in 2007. I'm having a hard enough time trying to keep up with the quality releases as it is.

Gears of War vs Resistance: Part Two
OK...the title a bit misleading since the two probably shouldn't be directly compared. Nevertheless, it seems like late 2008 would be a good time for the sequels to both games to be released. Hopefully they will be as good, if not better, than their predecessors. Technically I'm assuming a lot here (this assumes Epic and Insomniac can release 3 AAA games in 3 years each), but hopefully it won't be too far from what will actually happen.

More Shakeups Within the Industry?
In the last year, we've had:
1. Bungie going independent.
2. EA acquiring BioWare and Pandemic Studios.
3. Activision acquiring Bizarre, and then forming Activision Blizzard with Vivendi Games.
And probably a few smaller moves that I can't remember. Will there be more crazy moves in 2008? Who knows, but it will be interesting to see how everything plays out. Also, I suppose 2008 could be when we start seeing the results of some of these moves ("Mass Effect 09" releasing in November of 2008 ).

Major Japanese RPGs Not Named Final Fantasy
White Knight Story, Disgaea 3, Lost Odyssey, Yakuza 3, The Last Remnant, and a few other RPGs from Japanese developers seemed to be headed for a 2008 release. There hasn't been too many (good) games in this genre for "next-gen" consoles yet, so it would be nice to see some quality JRPGs in the near future.

Of course, some of these games may suck (like The Last Remnant) and others might as well be last-generation games (looking at you Digaea 3). But given what's out there now, you can't really be too picky.

More Firmware Updates
The 360 and PS3 both have added a bunch of extra functionality through firmware updates (and probably the Wii, but I haven't paid enough attention). We can actually play DivX files on these systems now or play PS3 games on the PSP from a remote location, which is something I wouldn't have guessed a couple of years ago. Here's to another year of extra functionality being added through firmware updates.

New Akira Yamaoka Music...oh yeah, and Silent Hill V
Kind of worried about the new Silent Hill game, but at least Akira Yamaoka will put out some new music for the game. I love the SH music, so that's reason enough for me to be excited about the release of SH5.

Sony 1st/2nd Party Games
Some games should be released in 2008 (LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2, MotorStorm 2, Wipeout, SOCOM, Infamous, MLB '08 The Show, The Agency, etc.), while hopefully we learn more about others. I want to know what Team Ico is working on (or Sony's other studios in Japan besides PD for that matter), what game(s) Rockstar and NCSoft are working on (technically 3rd parties I guess, although we don't have many details), what is Sony Cambridge working on, and more updates on Heavy Rain and Wardevil (mostly the former). I think Sony Santa Monica is working on some PS3 game...something involving Greek mythology if I'm not mistaken.

I still want to know WTH Afrika is.

More Awesome Square-Enix Sequels...for Cell Phones
So we have a FF13 game, a KH game, a Parasite Eve game, a FFIV sequel, and more already announced for cell phones. I'm waiting for Chrono Break to be reannounced for cell phones in Japan. Technically, I'm not looking forward to this, but I'm sure it will happen.

New FF13 Trailers from 2007...in 2008
Square-Enix recently released some "new" trailers to the public, although they were shown behind closed doors more than a year ago. Hopefully they'll start showing some of the newer trailers in 2008. Maybe they can throw us some gameplay footage or something by the end of the year too, although that might be too much to ask for.

Starcraft 2
Don't think I need to say much about this one.

Being Able to Play Crysis, and not Watch a Slideshow of the Game
Don't think I have to say much about this one either.

Fallout 3
Fallout Universe + Bethesda studios = Greatness. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

FF7:Crisis Core and GOW: Chains of Olympus
Looks like my PC and PS3 will get a lot of playtime next year, but these two games will probably keep from ignoring my PSP too much.


I'm sure I left out a lot, but I'll stop right there.

 

Starting to wonder if there will even be another Jade Empire, at least anytime soon and by BioWare. BioWare seems to have a full slate of games on their hands. They just finished off Mass Effect, and they want to get another 2 games in that franchise done before the end of the console generation (good luck with that). Along with that, they have their PC RPG Dragon Age and the Sonic RPG game for the DS (both should be 2008 IIRC). I'm not even mentioning the LucasArts project or the MMO they're working on in Austin...or whether they're the same project.

I think a 2008 release is very unlikely, at least outside of Japan. I'd figure that they would at least start showing gameplay or something ~6 months before release in Japan, and then it would probably be another ~6 months after that before the game would be released in the US (and probably another 6 months for Europe...suckers). The Jump Fiesta Festival is going on right now, and I believe there will be some new FFXIII trailers (behind closed doors of course). If they don't show anything of note (gameplay, release date, etc.), I'm probably going to assume a 2008 release in the US is pretty much impossible.

Of course, maybe I like taking the pessimistic approach in this case. It worked out with Crisis Core.

 

That probably isn't debatable (certainly my opinion), but I left it open to debate for the people that think Halo 3 is the only game out there.

Along with just about everything already mentioned, you still have Soul Calibur 4, Ninja Gaiden 2, Halo Wars (IIRC), a new Splinter Cell (SC5?), possibly Fable 2, a new Turok that looks decent, Banjo-Kazooie 3, Bionic Commando, Battlefield Bad Company (plus maybe another BF game?), possibly another PoP, GT5P (in America) and maybe GT5 itself. Some new IPs like Tom Clancy's EndWar (does this count as a new IP?), Saboteur, Prototype, possibly Rage (id's new game), No More Heroes, and Borderlands. Then your usual annual releases like COD5, although that will probably pale in comparison to COD4 (set in WW2 again and done by Treyarch IIRC). This is all mostly off the top of my head and focusing primarily on 360/PS3 games too (haven't really paid much attention to PC, Wii, and PSP/DS 2008 releases).

I saw this at NeoGAF, and also found out about this wonderful project:
http://www.collegehumor.com/tag:street-fighter-the-later-years
Probably old (at least the start of the project), but I never heard about it until today. The SF fans should like it.