Christmas Games to Look Forward To - Part One

What will fill your tray this Summer?

Our industry is a curious beast. There are exceptions but, as a rule, big releases trend towards the end of the year. This phenomenon is thanks, mainly, to the fact that it's the Christmas buying season, when all the soccer moms and rich Aunties (no, not that kind of Auntie) wander around K-Mart, looking for R18 games to buy for their young children.

It makes sense, when you think about it like that, but it also presents a serious challenge for those of us that buy games for ourselves. With all the good stuff coming out at once, how do you decide what to buy?

The 2012 version of gaming retail panic is not too far away now, with the season arguably kicking off when Borderlands 2 releases on September 20th. With that in mind, let's take a look at our picks of the top games that are currently announced (or otherwise expected) for release before the end of the year.

We're kicking things off by looking at multi-platform titles; look out for an article dedicated to exclusive games later this week. The list, below, is sorted by release date.

Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC - September 21st)

Sequel to the surprise hit of 2009, Gearbox has everyone's attention this time around. With billions of guns, including ones that you chuck at enemies when they run out of ammo (reloading is for scrubs), will this good-looking sequel recapture the magic of the original? We can't wait to blow stuff up and loot it to find out.

Dead or Alive 5 (360, PS3 - September 27th)

When the Dead or Alive series debuted, the feature most people were talking about was the fact that there was an option to disable / enable bouncing boobs. Time marches on, and now all boobs bounce, so the focus has moved to the actual fighting part of the franchise. Series creator Tomonobu Itagaki has moved on from developers Team Ninja, however, so a lot of fan attention will be on whether or not the game survives his departure.

Resident Evil 6 (360, PS3, PC - October 5th)

In development since 2010, this new, numbered sequel (the first since 2009) features three different characters, each of which have their own distinct play styles. The three characters have their own separate narratives, too, however they all meet up at some point and playing them all is the only way to get the full story. Oh, and you can move while shooting. That's enough to get us interested!

Dishonored (360, PS3, PC - October 11th)

Developed by Arkane Studios, Dishonored is interesting for more reasons than just the funky steampunk-ish aesthetic. Not only does it have a cool art style, thanks to Half-Life 2's art director Viktor Antonov, but it also has very open gameplay, with loads of ways to approach almost every goal in the game. We've seen it a few times now and, every time, we've come away very impressed. One to watch, for absolute certain.

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