Grab Bag Wednesday: 2009’s GOTY gets ready to suck, hard

Instead of doing the usual slate of releases week by week, let me just say that May is going to suck you dry and leave you crying for your mama.

Wii:

Super Mario Galaxy 2. Need I say more? It's the sequel to my favourite game from this generation, and I can't possibly be more excited than I already am for this one. It might be very similar to Super Mario Galaxy, but that's not something all that unusual. It's just unusual for Nintendo (who are quite well known for basically changing everything from sequel to sequel).

Also, I'm almost equally excited for Bit.Trip RUNNER, which is coming out in a week on WiiWare. The Bit.Trip series is the best thing going on WiiWare, and RUNNER appears to be the best one of all. You should head over to my WiiWare Summer games preview to read more about this awesome looking game.

XBox 360/PS3

Alan Wake (X360 only): this game has been in development for FIVE YEARS, so no matter how good it is, it will never live up to that kind of development cycle. In any case, the game looks… good, I guess. I don't know, I can't get my hopes up for a game that lists 80s TV dramas and pulp mass-market novels as it's main influences, but I've been wrong before. We'll bring you a review of this one.

Red Dead Redemption: Oh fuck yes, this game looks pretty sweet. I hope it doesn't fall into the mission structure of most GTA games, but just riding around in the Old West should be pretty damned neat. I just hope the game isn't super racist, or at least isn't racist without a purpose. I played Gun back on the Gamecube, and I had to sell it because it seemed to take such glee in killing "the Injuns" and "the Chinks." Sigh.

Alpha Protocol: This might be my most anticipated game of the month on the XBox, simply because it's a Bourne-style spy thriller crossed with some pretty deep-looking RPG elements. It's being developed by Obsidian, which if you read Christian's post about Fallout: New Vegas, is a very, very good thing.

ModNation Racers (PS3): Super Mario Kart meets Little Big Planet. Hopefully it's as awesome as that sounds.

Uncharted to get fucked

Uncharted 2, pretty much everyone agreed, was the best game of 2009. I personally never played it (and would have given that award to either Retro Game Challenge or Little King's Story), but still, it had quite a high pedigree. I mean, it was penned by Jane Espenson, and she's a rad lady.

Well, today some early details about the script have leaked, and it turns out that the game is being adapted for the screen by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, who wrote the script for Sahara. Woo.

I don't know, Uncharted did always look a little Clive Cussler-y to me, but I could just be in an asshole mood this morning.

In any case, they're talking about bringing in David O. Russell to direct the film, which would be hilariously incongruous. Don't get me wrong, he's one of my favourite directors, but seeing him direct something so pulpy would just be delightful. Oh, and hopefully we can get another one of these:

One more month…

Till E3! Shit man, I'm going to be done work then, so if anyone wants to come over to my place in Regina for an E3 live viewing party (holy crap, that's the nerdiest sentence I've ever written…), you should do it. What's everyone most excited for? Personally, I can't wait to see Nintendo blow everyone's minds with: a) A new Zelda, b) the 3DS, c) new Pikmin, d) (maybe) new Star Fox, e) (shooting for the stars here) whatever Retro Studios and Project Sora have been working on. It's going to be a good one, folks.