Top 10: Most awaited video games in 2010

The biggest players in the video games industry have already announced the titles they will release this year. Their common goal? Besides the great graphics, video games that will thrill us in 2010 have very elaborate story lines – even if they are FPS, RPG, action, adventure or RTS – their producers invested a lot of money in the story, characters or close to the edge situations that is required in order to create a great gaming experience.

Secondly, looking at the video games that will be released in 2010, we noticed a lot of SF action.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Tom Clancy - Conviction

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal ( it also released Pop, Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2, Fary cry 2, the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series or James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game )

Producer: Ubisoft

Release date/ platform: April 2010 / PC Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360.

What it is ? it’s the fifth and probably the last game from the popular stealth saga in the video games industry – Splinter Cell.

Storyline: The story of the Splinter Cell: Conviction video game takes place 2 years after the Splinter Cell:Double Agent events. Special Agent Sam Fisher awol from the secret organization in which he took place, Third Echeln, after he discovered that the death of his daughter was not an accident and that the secret service in involved in the tragic event.

Third Echelon is searching for Fisher, but the ex agent starts an investigation on his own, and involves his ex colleagues and friends in order to find the truth about his daughters death. Sam identifies Sara’s killer, but while he was tracking him, he discovers a major plot – a serious threat to Washington.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction brings many innovations , from which we mention the ability of Sam to interrogate witnesses or suspect s in real time or the ability to get lost in the crowd when he is followed.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

Developer: EA Los Angeles ( C&C, Medal of Honor, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth ).

Producer: Electronic Arts

Release Date / Platform: March 19 / PC

What it is? Last chapter in the C&C Tiberium saga, a real time strategy with numerous elements of role-playing.

Storyline: The miraculous tiberium substance has gotten out of control and spread, in crystal shape, all over the Earth, our planet would be uninhabited by 2068. Men kind is near extinction, and in these hard times, the leader of the Brotherhood of Nod, Kane, makes a deal with Tacitus, the head of the rival organiation, Global Defense Initiative, to form a common institution, Tiberium Control Network , in order to allow them to stop the spread of tiberium and save the earth.

The campaign starts 15 years after this fragile alliance, when TCN’s mission is close to and end. Extremists and fanatics from the two organizations cause a lot of agitation and panic, but in the end, the coalition falls apart and the Forth War of Tiberium starts. The story in Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight will unveil, finally, the true identity of the mysterious Kane.

Halo: Reach

Halo - Reach

Creator: Bungie ( Myth I and II, Marathon and the initial Halo Trilogy )

Producer: Microsoft Game Studios

Release Date / Platform: Fall of 2010 / Xbox 360

What it is? It’s the 4th first person shooter placed in the Halo universe, the most successful video game for Xbox and ne of the most profitable FPSs in all time.

Storyline:Halo Reach will be the darkest game of all series – the events occur in year 2552, a few days before the story in Halo: Combat Evolved, the first chapter in this Science Fiction Saga. Men, united under the United Nations Spacial Commandment, are at war with a powerful race of aliens known as the Covenant.

This race manages to conquer almost all interstellar human colonies, and in the moment the story begins, Reach – the most powerful and precious planet in the UNSC is about to fall. The Halo: Reach game follows the actions of the Noble team, a special operations unit of the UNSC, formed by elite super soldiers known as The Spartans. The player is the lieutenant of the team, Noble 6.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Creator: Ubisoft Montreal

Producer: Ubisoft

Release date / Platform: May 11 / PC, Playstatin 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Portable playstation.

What it is? an action adventure who’s story is placed between Prince of Persia: Sands o Time and Price of Persia: The Two Thrones.

Storyline: With only 4 months left to release date, to increase the fans interest, Ubisoft offered only some details about this new game. We know that the game will continue the story from Sands of Time, and that visually the graphic will be replaced with a more photorealistic one – and that Elika won’t be in this story. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten sands begins with the visit of Dastan in his brother’s kingdom.

When he arrives there, he discovers that the royal palace is under siege and to stop it’s destruction Dastan has to use the Sands of Time. Ubisoft promised that they listened to the fans requests and that the new PoP will include the most successful elements from the previous series.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment  ( Warcraft, Diablo, the first Starcraft )

Producer: Activision Blizzard

Release date / Platform : 2010 / PC, Mac OS X

What it is? A real time stratejgy, Science Fiction, sequel of the 1998 classical game, Starcraft.

Storyline: In the XXVI century, the milky way, in an area thousands of light years away of the old Earth, three species are in a hard competition with each other. Terrans, descendants of people who left Earth, Zerg, a race of creatures ( bugs ) and Protoss, a bizarre species with PSI powers and paranormal abilities.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the first episode of a trilogy and it focuses on the Terrans story, while it’s sequels, Heart of Swarm and Legacy of the Void focus on Zergs and Protoss. The Story of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty starts 4 years after the original game, with Jim Raynor’s rebellion who leads a group of insurgents against Dominion.

Because the revolutionary battle is deadlocked, fighters redraw and become mercenaries, looking for artifacts of a civilization lost a long time ago, Xel’Naga. Blizzard says that this StarCraft II will be a non-linear RTS, and every episode will have it’s unique story and gaming system.

Alan Wake

Alan Wake

Developer: Remedy Entertainment ( Max Payne ).

Producer: Microsoft Game Studios

Release date / Platform: May 2010/ Xbox 360

What it is? An action game, psychological thriller, inspired by the cult TV show from the 90′s Twin Peaks and by Stephen King’s novels.

Storyline: Writer Alan Wake is in a difficult situation, with no inspiration, incapable to write his next novel. To get him out of this state of mind, his wife,Alice, proposes a prolonged vacation in a small mountain town, Bright Falls.

However, once they arrive here, things get out of control. Alice disappears, and Wake wakes up captive in his own story’s nightmare – the story of the future novel he was supposed to write in Bright Falls becomes a reality, word by word.

The Alan Wake game was announced for the first time in 2005, and fans waited desperately for this A+ horror story. Most likely by the end of 2011, the PC version will be available too.

Aliens vs Predator

Aliens vs Predator

Developer: Rebellion Developments ( Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and Rogue Warrior ).

Producer: Saga

Release Date / Platform: February 19 / PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

What it is? A first person shooter placed in the Sci-Fi universe, divided in 3 campaigns: Aliens, Predators, Colonial Marines.

Storyline: On the BG-386 planet, a group of miners, human colonists, discover an ancient pyramid which has a dark secret. Light years away, the members of a warrior society, formed by fighters / hunters – Predators – are alerted by the discovery of the pyramid and send a death squad to ensure that the secret will remain a secret for all time.

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2

Developer: Bioware  ( Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nighjts, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins ).

Producer: Electronic Arts

Release date / Platform: Jan 29 / PC, Xbox 360

What it is? A role playin game, with action, sequel of the galactic adventures of Commander Shepard from the first Mass Effect, released at the end of 2007 and well received by the public.

Storyline: In the year 2183, during a geth searching mission, the space ship of Commander Shepard, Normandy, falls into an ambush and is attacked by an unknown enemy. Normandy is heavily affected, the crew is forced to evacuate, but Shepard, the last to leave the ship, falls to the ground and dies.

His body is taken by a Collectors Agent, but an intergalactic organization, pro-human, Cerberus, recovers his body. 2 years later, through a project known as Lazarus, Shepard comes back to life. Undisputed champions in RPG’s, Bioware guarantees a dynamic and complex story for Mass Effect 2.

BioShock 2

BioShock 2

Developer: 2k Marin & 2K Australia ( Freedom Force Vs the Third reich, Swat 4, Bioshock ).

Producer: 2k Games

Release Date / Platform: Feb 12 / PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360

What it is ? A first person shooter, a sequel to Bioshock ( 2007 ).

Storyline: The story begins 10 years after the events that were unfolded in the first game, in an alternate reality, on New Years party 1969/1970, in the underwater city Rapture, which is now under the control of Sophia Lamb.

Lamb’s vision about the mankind progress is very different than the one of Andrew Ryan, founder of the city: while he believed in the individual genius, Lamb sustained the collective effort of the masses and also a reborn  philosophy.

In BioShock 2, the player enters the character of Big Daddy, Delta Subject, a mutant-prototype, which reactivates  itself without remembering the events of past years. Searching for the Little Sister from which he is symbolically tied, Big Daddy discovers the damages that Lamb’s new vision made to Rapture and enters into conflict with her.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Developer: Bioware ( Mass Effect 2 )

Producer: LucasArts

Release Date / Platform : Fall of 2010 / PC

What it is ? A massively multiplayer online role playing game, placed in the Star Wars Knights of the Old republic Universe ( KOTOR )

Storyline: 300 years after the events in the first KOTOR, and almost 3.500 years before the transformation of the young Jedi Anakin Skywalker into Lord Darth Vader and the assembly of the Palpatine Galactic Empire, the peace between The Sith Empire and Galactic Republic is about to be broken. The Jedi knights leave the Coruscant city and return to Tythlon to meditate and find the path, while the Sith academy of Korriban becomes even more powerful.