We can look forward to another banner year for the gaming industry with new hardware incoming in the form of the Wii U and the PlayStation Vita as well as a strong slate of games due for release throughout 2012. Here are six of our most anticipated titles for the year. Part two is here. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
Bioshock Infinite Xbox 360, PS3, Windows
More a spiritual and thematic successor to Bioshock than a true sequel, Bioshock Infinite moves the action from the undersea dystopia of Rapture to Columbia, a city in the sky. Ken Levine’s upcoming first-person shooter with role-playing elements sounds just as ambitious as Bioshock. It will tackle weighty themes such as American exceptionalism and feature a striking art style based on World War I propaganda posters.
Borderlands 2 Xbox 360, PS3, Windows
Gearbox’s “role-playing shooter” gets a stack of improvements and enhancements in its sequel, including new character classes, improved artificial intelligence and a more expansive and customisable set of weapons. Apart from that, it will feature the same single-player and cooperative looting and mayhem as the 2009 surprise hit Borderlands.
Darksiders 2 Xbox 360, PS3, Windows, Wii U
Darksiders from THQ was a sleeper hit in 2010, thanks to a compelling mixture of elements borrowed from the God of War and Zelda games. This time, the player takes up the scythes of Death, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and brother to War, the lead character of Darksiders. Developer Vigil is promising an even bigger world with tougher dungeons than the original, as well as better boss fights and a new questing system.
Diablo 3 Windows, Mac
The last time we saw new content for Blizzard’s action role-playing series was the release of Lord of Destruction expansion pack for Diablo 2 way back in 2001. Since then, many other developers have tried to pin down the mixture of loot, customisation options and production polish that make the Diablo formula so fiendishly addictive. None has succeeded. With new character classes and rich, modern online functionality, Diablo 3 should be the fix fans have waited for all these years. Don’t be too surprised if Blizzard announces console versions of the game.
Dishonored Xbox 360, PS3, Windows
One of only two new intellectual properties on this list, Dishonored is an intriguing-looking first-person game that casts the player as an elite assassin armed with a range of deadly weapons, nifty gadgets and magical abilities. Set in an atmospheric steampunk world with faint echoes of the Victorian era, the game will offer emergent stealth and shooter gameplay that could turn it into this year’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Bioshock.
The game, developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda, comes with a good pedigree. It is being put together by a creative team that includes people who worked on games such as Deus Ex, Thief: Deadly Shadows and Half-Life 2.
Grand Theft Auto 5 Probably Xbox 360, PS3
Aside from the teaser trailer launched with great fanfare last year, Rockstar North has been characteristically tight-lipped about what exactly we can expect from its next Grand Theft Auto game. We don’t even know for sure if it is scheduled for release this year.
We do know that it will be set in Los Santos — the GTA universe’s stand-in for Los Angeles — and that it will build on GTA 4’s “open-world freedom, storytelling, mission-based gameplay and online multiplayer.” It will be a classic Rockstar tale of greed and violence, and whenever it launches, it will be absolutely massive.
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