Following in the footsteps of 2009 and 2010, let's get a feel of what we're looking at in terms of video games this year.

[PS3]: Just picked up LittleBigPlanet 2, and while it's still early goings, I'm enjoying it a lot more than its predecessor.   Items like the grappling hook and Grabinator add some nice variety to the overall level designs, and helps to alleviate some of Sackboy's troubling jumps.  Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is the big PS3 exclusive of 2011, and it's undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games for me.  Having HD remastered editions of both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus under one roof with the Team Ico Collection should be a nice compilation to own, provided they do it right.  Which leads into The Last Guardian, which may or may not see release this year.  I didn't get too far in the first InFamous, so we'll see where I am once InFamous 2 hits.  I'm still undecided about Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds; I've never cared for the 'Vs' series of fighting games at all, though the great character roster and potentially awesome music remixes will make me at least give it a chance.  Finally, while they're both hitting PSN and XBLA, I'm more likely to pick up the PSN versions of Bionic Commando: Rearmed 2 and Hard Corps: Uprising.

[360]: In terms of Microsoft exclusives, it's all about Gears of War 3.  This one is running neck to neck with Uncharted 3 as my most desired title.  A shame it got pushed back to Fall, but it should be an insanely epic gaming season with these two hitting at the same time.  Speaking of Epic, Bulletstorm is looking nifty, and may inject some much needed innovation to the first person shooter genre.  id Software's RAGE has been getting a lot of hype, and it's certainly looking very good.  Batman: Arkham City will be mindblowing, and for XBLA, I'm hoping Trouble Witches Neo and Radiant Silvergun will make it over here in the West.  Dead Space 2 is less than a week away, and after the first game, I'm about ready for more scary, pants-soiling thrills.

[Wii]: I've all but given up on the Wii as a viable gaming device.  I've had nothing but bad luck with getting the system to work properly, so I'll need to sit out on whatever notables are hitting this year.  There is, of course, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword -- but more importantly, there's the new Rhythm Tengoku.  Provided Nintendo decides to release it here, I'll do whatever's necessary to play it.  What are the odds of The Last Story and Xenoblade (threads here and here) coming outside of Japan?

[DS]: I've already picked up Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, which was an awesome experience.  Muliple playthroughs should sufficiently hold me over until they localize Gyakuten Kenji 2 / Ace Attorney Investigations 2, which will hopefully be this year.  Seeing as how I've barely put a dent in Dragon Quest IX, I'm thinking of holding off on Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation.  I'll wait up on the reviews for Okamiden.

[3DS]: Promises are all we've got to by right now, but what lofty promises indeed.  Provided I even pick up a 3DS this year, I'm most looking forward to Paper Mario, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, and whatever that new Chocobo Racing title ends up being.  Kid Icarus Uprising looks like it's shaping up nicely, so hopefully it's further along than we think.

[PSP]: Gotta hand it to XSEED for bringing over Ys SEVEN and The Oath in Felghana last year, and now we'll be getting Ys I & II Chronicles and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky next.  My collective memory of the first two Parasite Eve games is that they weren't great, so unless The 3rd Birthday does some wonderous things to the formula, I may have to pass.  I haven't played much of the first Dissidia, so until I do, I'll probably hold off on Dissidia 012 or duodecim or whatever it ends up being called.

[iOS]: I can't say I'm exactly "looking forward" to games on the iOS, but I do hope that BigStack Studios goes through with a sequel to Sigma.  Frankly, I don't see how they can improve on an already perfect formula.

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At this time, I'll just say Uncharted 3 and Skyrim, and possibly the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus collection. I play on an SD TV though, so I don't know if it's worth it to get that last one. I've played Ico but not Shadow, so essentially the collection would just give me trophies and a better framerate on the PS3.
I still have other games to catch up on, like Red Dead Redemption and Bioshock. If Xenoblade actually comes out here then I'm buying a Wii.

Oh man, I already have a huge future back log waiting for me!

Next week The Last Story hits stores, and I'll be picking it up day one, because it's looking very interesting and original, not to mention pretty.

For february I was going to buy the 3DS, but I failed to procure a preorder, and they're all gone now. Considering the precedent set by the original DS, I might not even be able to get my hands on one for the next 2 years. I'm sure Nintendo KNOWS this thing'll sell like hotcakes, so why do they always release such small batches of their consoles!?
Anyhoo, february still sees Catherine, Atlus's bizarre erotic psychological socializing platform horror game, which I'm totally pumped for. I recently had the fortune of having to translate some parts of the manual, and it's sounding really really unique and interesting.

March brings us the new Dissidia, I'll be damned if I know the full title, but I'm greatly looking forward to it. I spent over 120 hours with the first game, loving every single second of it, and I want to sink my teeth in some more. I have no idea why we have to pay 6,000 yen in Japan when the US gets it for 30 bucks though

The rest of the year is gonna be a bitch on the wallet, that's for sure: Mass Effect 3, Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, TES V, Skyward Sword to name but a few, although some of those might not make it this year, I guess.
I'm even cautiously excited about Final Fantasy XIII-2 and other titles related to that universe.

Man, this is gonna be one awesome year, yet again.

Sadly that's the only game that is related to that universe.  Agito no longer even has the XIII branding and Versus' only connection is apparently some vague similar mythology, as I understand it.  I kind of liked the FABULA NOVA CRYSTALIS concept when I thought it was a bunch of games taking place in the same world and sharing history and whatnot (kind of like the Crystal Chronicles games...), but it seems not to be the case. 

Really?

I wasn't aware of that.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm still looking forward to Agito (or Type-0 or whatever) and Versus is looking effing AMAZING.

I wouldn't count on this, as I think Capcom's NA division has become very comfortable with putting its quirky adventure titles into the post-Christmas winter slot on the schedule. I heard nothing about technical difficulties causing Ghost Trick's delay from November to January, so I'm guessing it was already finished and just held back for a less-competitive window.

Anyway, most of what I'm looking forward to has already come up, but I'll add some others.

Child of Eden - Rez was great, and I actually have my own little HD screen now, so this should be wild.
de Blob 2 - I was a big fan of the first, but THQ's attitude toward merchandising the little guy (complete with a proposed TV show) has me concerned whether they'll be expanding the gameplay effectively or just introducing More Friends For Toys.
Megaman Legends 3 - Duh. I'm pretty disappointed with the things we've recently learned about the 3DS, but the dye is cast. When they put this out, I'm picking the system up.
No More Heroes Paradise - Apparently all that's holding up Konami from bringing over the uncensored 360 version is an inability to implement satisfactory Kinect controls, which seems stupid. Couldn't they patch them in afterward?
Radiant Historia - does anyone know more about this one? It's apparently a time-travel RPG with Shimomura doing the music, which is a good foundation for my interest, but that's about all I know.

There's another interesting action game I heard about that I can't remember the name of - the concept is that you play a seemingly-immortal guy who works to protect his partner by putting himself in harm's way and dismembering himself tactically and then reanimating T-2000 style. If they do clever things with the concept, it could be great - anyone know what I'm talking about? Also keeping an eye on the Neptunia game, as the idea of humanized console wars against a totally-not-XBox-we-swear oppressor sounds like the dumb kind of funny I like.

I'm also holding out hope that when Inti Creates is done with that Gal Gun nonsense that they'll announce that they're finally returning to finish the ZX story.

That'd be NeverDead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSr6cEom … re=channel

This is the only new release I plan on picking up in 2011, even if I don't get the system right away. I've been waiting for a resolution the second game's ending for 10 years. The Legends series usually delivers on the story front – it has so far.

I can't say there's a lot I'm really exicted about this year, but the stuff I'm most excited about is:

Ghost Trick (DS)
-Just started this yesterday and loving it so far

Okamiden (DS)
-A bit leery about another DS game that mixes stylus and d-pad controls, but otherwise very much looking forward to it

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
-Obviously

Team Ico Collection (PS3)
-I never got into these on PS2 due to the sluggish controls, but I'm willing to give them another chance in HD

The Last Guardian (PS3)
-Trailers make me drool

Portal 2 (PS3)
-Probably won't be getting it at launch, but looking forward to it nonetheless

Journey (PS3)
-Enjoyed Flow and loved Flower, so I'm pretty hyped for this one.  Hopefully it will be $10 instead of the increasingly common $15 for digital titles

Question for ya, do the PSP versions of Ys I&II include the option to attack using a button like the DS versions, or are you stuck having to bump into your foes?

This year, I'm looking forward to the hardware and what comes out of it. The 3DS, in spite of some really off-putting launch announcements that has somewhat soured the excitement, is still something I think will bring good things.

Hoping for Animal Crossing 3DS to be much more than the DS version. I think that hope may be misplaced but, still, I do love Animal Crossing. It really needs far more personalities and more events though. And I'd love to see a return of real holidays.

Hoping for good things to come from a PSP2 this year too. No idea what to expect but I'm hoping it will compliment the 3DS in the same way I found the PSP to compliment the DS, offering real power (that the 3DS Ridge Racer game doesn't seem to look as good as the 5+ year old PSP Ridge Racer speaks volumes) and the odd surprise (PSP had plenty, especially the likes of the Badman games).

In terms of games I know are coming out, I'm interested in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, which looks to be a lot of fun and looks better to me than SFIV.

Also Crysis 2. The more urban look doesn't yet look as interesting as the first but I was really impressed with the first - a fantastic fun game with great tricks and mechanics - so I hope the sequel just builds on that.

And, of course, Gears Of War 3. It's looking more inspired than the original than the sequel. I think that's a good thing. Really looking forward to it.

If the "Who's Gonna Be in Marvel vs Capcom 3" guessing game was my game of the year for 2010, hopefully "Who's Gonna Be on my team in Marvel vs Capcom 3" will be my game of the year for 2011. Despite lacking in Megamanliness (instead we get Tron, who was a one trick assist character in MvC 2 and a copy/paste of TvC Zero...bleh), there are about 10-15 strong looking characters I'm dying to play.

I'm curious about Megaman Universe. The chance to play as Bad Boxart Megaman ups the novelty value quite a bit.

Waiting for more info on Street Fighter 3:3rd Strike Online. It runs just fine on GGPO.

New Ace Combat is probably a good pickup. The series hasn't let me down since I started following at AC4.

Hard Corps Uprising...Guilty Gear meets Contra? Oh yes!

Still have the portable dilemma: A huge backlog and upcoming Falcom games I want to play on PSP and Megaman Legends 3/Kid Icarus on 3DS, yet a question of whether or not I want to buy another piece of gaming hardware for games I'm excited for now, yet am likely to stick on the shelf.

This is completely disappointing. Tron doesn't even have the raygun trick anymore and TvC Zero wasn't nearly as much fun as TvC Roll was (that, and I'm just tired of Zero's character, period). Megaman was a cheap sumbitch in MvC1 and 2 but there was nothing saying they couldn't retool him. I'm just really disappointed at this point.

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I won't be getting this for myself, but my brother-in-law loves both of these; I'll probably scoop it up for him so he has "a reason to dust off his PS3" - his words, not mine.

Tron does have the raygun...it and the Servebot launcher are much improved (faster), plus she can air combo directly after she plows into people with her drill. She's improved, but she's almost destined for lower/mid tier at best because of her play design. I don't see her getting through a wall of junk from MODOK or fending off the more pixy-ish characters (her sprite is really huge). The only reason people played her much in MvC 2 was that 40%+ damage on her assist.

I figure Zero will do pretty well. He seems to fit the Strider mold (huge combo/keepaway potential, but takes hits terribly). He was one of the more dominant TvC characters.

When I saw Phoenix unveiled a few weeks ago, that was when I really got hyped for the game. Easily the best design so far and I can't wait to try her. Go figure...MvC 3 would have Jeanne, but no Cyclops...And freaking MODOK's "KILL! KILL! KILL! HYPER PSIONIC BLASTER!!!!" line has been stuck in my head for months now.

Goddammit, for a moment I thought you were talking about Phoenix Wright and I got incredibly excited.

Hmmm.  How do you know how many hits you can get before getting attacked if you can't tell if you're attacking or simply touching the enemy?