Game and Watch: March 09 ‘Out of Orders’ Edition

For the first I can think of in quite some time I have absolutely no games on pre-order. Zero. Nadda. None. I literally can not think of a time in recent memory when that was the case, and it’s a slightly odd feeling, though a welcome one. I’m hoping this break in new titles might give me some time to catch up on recent additions to my gaming catalogue, though given how much time both Street Fighter IV and, most recently, Resident Evil 5 have been consuming, who can say.

I certainly don’t see myself ordering anything soon, but any which ways, this lull in pre-orders had me thinking about what games are coming up in the year ahead that I’m actually looking forward to. As always, many of these might not pan out as expected, or could end up being rubbish, but here’s what I have an eye on at the moment.

- Alpha Protocol
- Batman: Arkam Asylum
- Battlefield 1943
- Bionic Commando
- Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams
- BlazBlue
- Brutal Legend
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Dirt 2
- Formula 1
- Fuel
- God of War III
- Heavy Rain
- Infamous
- Need For Speed: Shift
- Professor Layton and The Devil’s Box
- Prototype
- Split/Second
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- Velvet Assassin
- Virtual On Oratorio Tangram
- Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Of all those Wanted: Weapons of Fate is the nearest to release, hitting shelves here in a couple of weeks, but I remain to be full convinced of a purchase (I believe there’s a demo this week so I’ll probably check that out). Aside from that things look a little further off, and some of the games don’t even have tentative release dates yet; Professor Layton being one such game, and the one I’m most eager to see rectify that situation (seriously Level 5, why are you torturing us English speakers so?). But all in all it looks like it could be a reasonably quiet summer period, ramping up more towards autumn and then no doubt another Q4 flood.

This time round though there’s a lot more games I’m unsure about, which is probably why I don’t have any pre-orders down. There’s only a few titles I’d call almost dead certs (Professor Layton 2 and Uncharted 2 at the very least), most are titles that have grabbed my attention and/or look to have potential (such as Split/Second, Black Rock’s Burnout-a-like). Still, new games I just have to have will probably be here before I know it, so I’d best get tackling that backlog whilst I can.

So, what games are you lot keeping tabs on? Any planned purchases?