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I went on a splurge of viewing game trailers the other night. It turns out that there are a bunch of games in development that were completely off my radar. Were they off yours?

I'll start with the least startling: Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra should be totally expected as being in development, considering the success of the first two in the epic five part space odyssey RPG. Xenosaga has become my RPG series de facto, after the downfall of Final Fantasy with FFX-2 (I still have a bad taste in my mouth). This is the game I am anticipating the most, but I'm willing to wait if that makes it as good as the first two.

BLACK is a totally new FPS for the XBox by EA. Now, I think EA is pretty much evil, and their more recent games have mostly been just awful, especially in the FPS genre (007: Nightfire, anyone?), but if you take a look at the BLACK trailers, it looks really promising. There are destructive environments, pretty lighting, and cool slow motion special effects. Now, like a lot of FPS's, all this one needs is a story. Nothing will be able to top the original Halo, but I still want to give this one a try when it comes out in February.

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is really surprising to me because I was sure that the main line of Onimusha games was done with after Jean Reno crashed Onimusha 3. (Just like I was sure Metal Gear Solid was done after the second installment. Oh Hideo Kojima, how you love to play with my head, and how I love you for it. Check out the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots trailer if you haven't already.) However, this title is essentially Onimusha 4, and if Capcom can return to the roots of what made the series good in Onimusha 1 and 2, then I'll be very happy for another chance to enter feudal Japan as Jubei.

Finally, and I have no clue as to how I missed this one, Valve is making an expansion to Half-Life 2 called Aftermath. I'm sure forums somewhere are bounding with guesses as to where the story is going to go, but I'll content myself with my own ideas based on the trailer and available screenshots. I'm really excited for another chance to step into the shoes of Gordon Freeman and get my high dynamic range lighting on.

So, it's a new year with many new games to look forward to. Let's hope that there are some originals that end up shining (check out Rockstar's newest project, Bully), and a couple sequels that are better than their predecessors (Kingdom Hearts 2 comes to mind).

Comments

says

I'm sorry, what was that again? Xenosaga Episode III: ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA? ... have the Japanese gone completely nuts with their naming? I'm so confused - they better have _some_ kind of reason for naming a game that. But it'd be even better if they didn't.

(post author) says

So, Namco likes to use German subtitles for the Xenosaga series. I thought the first two were pretty cool: Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power) and Jenseits von Gut und Bose (Beyond Good and Evil). Also Sprach Zarathustra translates to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," but unlike the others, I'm really unsure as to what that means or implies, conisdering that I don't know/remember who Zarathustra is if they are actually a part of the Xenosaga universe. Well, upon further investigation, there may in fact be some sense to this title. According to the Wikipedia article, Also Sprach Zarathustra is a book by Nietzsche (and that German is the original title, considering Nietzsche wrote it in German) that details the fictional Zarathustra doing the Nietzsche thing and eventually rejecting God and embracing nihilism. Both the first two titles made sense when placed in the context of the stories of the episodes they represented, so, hopefully this one will to. Besides, it just sounds cool. EDIT: Ok, I'm just dumb. Had I done this research earlier I would have found that Der Wille zur Macht is the name of another book by Nietzsche, along with Jenseits von Gut und Bose, and although it may not be referenced in Wikipedia (that I could find), you can buy it on Amazon. So, it's not that Namco just likes using German, they like using things Nietzsche has written, which is very interesting considering the apocalyptic themes and religious imagery that appear throughout the series. His other books include titles such as "On the Genealogy of Morality," "The Anti-Christ," and "The Birth of Tragedy." Bets as to which ones get used for episodes 4 and 5?

says

Yeah, I definitely knew it was the book by Nietzsche - guess I should have asked why they were naming it that :P It's also the title of the piece by Strauss who wrote it in honor of Nietzsche's book. The overture to Also Sprach Zarathustra is the opening theme that everyone's heard from 2001: A Space Odyssey.