The New Year has arrived, and with it, the possibility of new releases lay shining before us likes fields of dew laden flowers, sparkling in the morning sun.
As exciting as the prospect of new games is, I’m more entertained by the crushing disappointment brought on by our most anticipated games not being released. For the record—I don’t like puppies either. While every year brings surprise delays, come January there are always a handful of games that have the whiff of delay upon them, like ripe cheese. I now present these games to you, in no particular order. No, I didn’t mention Duke Nukem Forever as at this point, I figured its delay is just assumed, like the sunrise.
Final Fantasy XIII - PS3
Maybe Square Enix just wants to tease fans as much as possible by only leaking out bits and pieces. Maybe they’re trying to keep expectations in check, or don’t want the surprise to be ruined. Or maybe extending the gambit system to the point where the player need only put the game in the tray and then sit back and watch for 40 hours while the PS3 makes all your decisions for you are taking longer than they thought.
It's never a good sign when a publisher releases a statement that says, "Although information regarding the release date of FINAL FANTASY XIII has been reported by certain videogame websites, Square Enix itself has yet to make an official statement on this topic. Any reports of a confirmed release date are erroneous and should be disregarded. Square Enix will make an official announcement in the future concerning the release date when it has been determined. Whatever the case, you ain’t playing this in ’08.
Fallout 3 - PS3, 360, PC
Ah, the nebulous “Q4” release date. Is there anything more indicative of a game’s inability to be released in the current year? I’m as excited as the rest of you to walk in the path of the new vault dweller, or, more importantly, play a drug addicted sniper with so many points in the “Gruesome death” perk that pulling the trigger causes an avalanche of wild dingoes to devour my opponent, but that don’t mean it’s gonna happen this year. When a company says that they are "trying to hit the 2008 holiday date" you know it's a sign of a 2009 release.
Alan Wake – 360, PC
This game has been delayed for over a year now. PS3 owners need not be upset with the recent announcement that Alan Wake will only be running on machines with Vista because by the time this game comes out, someone will have figured out how to hack the PS3 so that it can run Vista. Mr. Wake may be losing sleep, but you shouldn’t, worrying about when in 2008 you’ll be playing this game. That’s because you won’t. Try and keep up.
Too Human – 360
