Have you seen the tentative release calender for 2010?! It’s crazy.

Thanks to heavy hitters such as Halo 3 ODST, Uncharted 2 & Modern Warfare 2, along with Activision’s devious plastic market saturation with Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, DJ Hero & Tony Hawk Ride; alot of publishers have chosen to take cover in the friendlier confides of early 2010. The only problem of course, predicting how many of their counter-parts would take the same action.

The large number of hold off’s into 2010 has created an almost end-of-year rush the second, mad season now being January through March. While I have no intention of matching my September through December efforts, thought this might be reason enough to outlay the same expectations for the coming release period.

Mind you, these titles & release dates are strictly based of those found in the Wikipedia entry at time of writing, any changes or inaccuracy’s with given dates are unfortunate but never the less, I continue:-

Jan.
Battlefield 1943 (PC), Mass Effect 2 (X360).
Feb.
Heavy Rain (PS3), Lost Planet 2 (X360), Splinter Cell Conviction (X360).
Mar.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 (x360), Final Fantasy XIII (Undecided*),

*warning – sure to cause fanboi explosion

OK so I only named 7, big deal right? Well the new year is meant to be a time to catch up on last year for the most part, the fact remains that the start of 2010 will likely be as chaotic. To prove my point, I’ll just do a quick recap of the games I’ve already decided I won’t be getting, at least on release.

Bayonetta, Darksiders, Army of Two – The Forthy Day, Dark Void, MAG, Dead to Rights Retribution, Star Trek Online, Napoleon Total War, Dantes Inferno, Bioshock 2, Supreme Commander 2, Command & Conquer 4, Just Cause 2.
And while not listed, I am sure the likes of God of War 2, The Last Guardian, Alan Wake & Aliens Vs Predator are destined to fit into this Q1 release window.

That’s 17 games?!?!

I use to both praise & curse the early month’s of a new year for their drought & inherent opportunity to play catchup. This seems unlikely to continue.

Now I’ll wear my fanboi badge on my sleeve and say hands down Mass Effect 2 is my most anticipated, and therefore fanboi logically follows will be the best game unequvically out of all those destined to release in Q1 2010.

Let’s revisit this come end of March to see how I did, what surprises lay in store.

And of course, as always, feel free to comment on what your anticipating.