Coming Attractions: Fighting, Puzzle & Arcade
Scores, attacks.
Yesterday we walked you through what will likely be some of 2010's biggest games - in several senses - in our roundup of shooters and racing games. Today we bring you a scattershot selection of games from genres that might not command the same public profile they used to, but could still quite easily suck up as much of your 2010 as anything else: fighting games, puzzle games and old-school (or, for that matter, new-school) arcade games.
This is as good a place as any to mention that we were going to bring you a section on music games, as we did last year, but there just wasn't enough to get excited about. Green Day: Rock Band, Lips Party Classics and some minor tweaks in an inevitable Guitar Hero 6 do not a thriving genre make, while the one intriguing prospect, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's QJ on Wii, has disappeared into the same twilight zone as its publisher Atari. With piles of heavily discounted Beatles and DJ Hero boxes currently clogging aisles in the high street, has the bottom fallen out of the music market?
Fighting
There are scarcely any more one-on-one beat-'em-ups coming out in 2010 than music games, but this gladiatorial arena can usually only support one or two champions at a time in any case, so numbers don't matter as much as the punch they're packing. The end of 2009 saw former heavyweights Tekken and King of Fighters nursing their bruises as the mighty Street Fighter IV strutted around the ring. It will only be challenged by its own sequel in 2010, but there's a meaningful title bout brewing elsewhere...
Highlights
EA Sports MMA
On: PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: EA Tiburon / Publisher: EA / Release: 2010
EA Sports isn't used to playing the unlicensed underdog, but it badly wants a slice of the mixed martial arts pie while it's still piping hot, so it will have to make do. A stack of fat brown envelopes has ensured the support of some of the sport's biggest stars and freedom from UFC rules should ensure fittingly no-holds-barred variety. MMA also benefits from Fight Night Round 4's superb tech - but not necessarily its great design, with EA Canada handing off to Madden developer EA Tiburon, which has no fighting experience. Just a contender for now.
Super Street Fighter IV
On: PS3, Xbox 360 / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 2010
You don't get comebacks like last year's Street Fighter IV very often, although many might say Street Fighter had never really been away. Either way, Yoshinori Ono's gang of tireless iterators was hardly going to let the momentum slip away again, so we get this remix with rebalanced fighters, new Ultras, proper online lobbies, barrel-punching bonus stages, new tournament modes, a Replay channel with voice chat for frame-by-frame post mortems, plus Cody, Guy, Adon, T. Hawk, Dee Jay and new girl Juri (at least).
UFC 2010: Undisputed
On: PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Yuke's / Publisher: THQ / Release: 25th May 2010 (North America)
THQ found itself with a bona fide chart-topper on its hands last year when mixed martial arts' exploding popularity combined with a quiet spot in the release schedule and a genuinely excellent fighting game in a perfect storm of sweaty tussles. The real heroes were the developers at Yuke's, an Osaka-based wrestling factory who put years of WWE games to one side and turned out, according to our resident expert Matt Edwards, "not only the best UFC game ever, but perhaps the best fighting system ever for a (wait for it) 'real-life fighting simulation game'." So the latest instalment goes into the clash with EA Sports MMA fully deserving its subtitle, although one wonders what meaningful advances a year can bring.
Also in 2010
Not much else to report, beyond the only slightly belated release of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars at the end of this month, offering Wii owners a chance to join the 2D madhouse; PS3 and 360 owners can enjoy the European release of "outstanding achievement" and Edwards-certified 9/10, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.
Puzzle
Ellie writes: With the advent of the iPhone, PSN and Xbox Live Arcade, puzzle fans have never had it so good. Last year saw re-imaginings of old favourites such as Zuma and Bookworm along with sequels to contemporary classics like Boom Blox and Professor Layton. There were also some new arrivals in the shape of games like Scribblenauts and the excellent Plants vs. Zombies, which made it into our Games of 2009.
So what does 2010 hold? A whole host of new titles involving lateral thinking, strategic planning, intelligent problem-solving and matching coloured thingies up with other thingies of the same colour, no doubt. Here's our guide to the ones to watch, but bear in mind that there will certainly be more - we often don't hear about new puzzle games until they're almost upon us.
Highlights
Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel
On: DS / Developer: Level-5 / Publisher: Nintendo / Release: TBA 2010
This third instalment in the Professor Layton DS series is already out in Japan but there's no word on a European street date. It's likely a question of when rather than whether, however, considering how successful the original games have been here, and we're putting our picarats on a release in 2010. The game sees Luke and the Professor time-travelling to the city of London as it is 10 years from now (monorails, robot beefeaters, brain chips instead of Oyster cards, etc). Once again they're tasked with solving all manner of puzzles while unravelling an even greater mystery and trying not to die of whimsy. Another treat for those who like their brains not just taxed but sent to prison for defrauding the Inland Revenue.