Renamed the Coming Soon section of the frontpage to Most Wanted, and updated it. The original idea behind this section (and also the Out Now section, soon to be updated too and renamed to Now Playing) was to provide a list, in a prominent place on the site, of 30 cool-looking games available either immediately, or in the near future. The idea was to counter all the OMG GAMES ARE DIEYING! pseudo-intellectual fagotry, so that, whoever was confronted with the list but nevertheless
kept whining, could at least be classified as a pseudo-intellectual fagot who doesn't like games anyway, and his whining could be duly ignored. Now that the News forum is so active, however, there's a second use for the list: to highlight which I think are the most interesting upcoming games, so that they don't get lost in the sea of updates about less interesting-looking ones. This is by no means to discourage anyone from opening threads about new games: one
needs to be aware of ALL (if possible) the half-decent and even barely decent upcoming games in order to compile the list of the best of them in the first place. Now obviously the best games will sooner or later rise to the surface, either because we keep posting more updates about them than about other, less interesting-looking games, or eventually when they get moved to the Games forum and people start posting impressions, linking reviews, etc. But it doesn't hurt to also have a thread dedicated to pointing these games out as early as possible, both for our own use (pre-orders, hardware purchases, shopping lists) and also for the benefit of people who only check in once or twice a week and don't have the time to shift through several pages' worth of news threads on their rare visits.
So, without further ado, here's my list of most wanted upcoming games at the moment:
1. Unclaimed World
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=40762. Cyberpunk 2077
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=41023. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=38934. Age of Wonders III
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=42405. SimCity (2013)
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=40906. Watch Dogs
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=38757. Planetary Annihilation
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=39718. Wasteland 2
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=42629. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=328210. The Wonderful 101
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=387611. Bayonetta 2
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=390212. Hitokui no Oowashi Trico
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=282613. Fuse
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=410914. Gears of War: Judgment
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=395615. Aliens: Colonial Marines
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=4032I arrived at this list in the following manner. First, I asked myself which 15 upcoming games I'd most like to have on my desk right now, if I could have any of them I wanted. This gave me the 15 games. Then, I asked myself which of these 15 games I'd like to
keep on my desk, if I could only keep one. This gave me my number 1 title. Then, I asked myself which of the
other 14 games I'd like to keep on my desk if my first choice were cancelled and I could only keep one of the remaining 14, which gave me my number 2 title, and so on and so forth until all 15 titles were ranked. And then I posted the list on the frontpage.
Some observations on the list: Unclaimed World sounds amazing from the latest details posted in the thread, but I remain sceptical of whether 2 dudes can deliver. Still, I definitely want to believe, which is why the game is number 1. Then all 3 upcoming Platinum games are up there (an amazing accomplishment for a developer), plus 3 4-player co-op shooters (which apart from the 4-player feature do not seem exactly inspired, which is why they are at the bottom of the lot), plus 2 kickstarted games, plus several free-roaming titles near the top (though unfortunately none at the
very top, because none of them appear world-beating -- except perhaps for Cyberpunk, but I'd need to see more details before I became more hyped), and a couple grand-strategy and city-building games that look really cool. Trico is also there because, once more, I really want to believe, but in general I'd like to avoid vaporware (Devil's Third!), wishful-thinking titles (Master of Magic 2!), or stuff that's just been announced and is too far off or has had no solid media released about it yet (e.g. Deus Ex 4, Destiny, Halo 5, etc.)
So that's my list accounted for. If you want to post your own lists, you can do so here, but please follow my format and make sure that all the games on your list have threads. If some of them don't, make the threads before you post your list. And don't pad your list with games you don't care about just to reach 15. If you are only looking forward to one game, just post that one. You can also post new lists as many times as you like, as long your new list is significantly different from your previous one. So don't post a new list just for a single new game -- wait until at least half of your list has changed before posting the new one. And don't edit previous lists. I mean obviously edit it if you've made some kind of error or typo, but don't go back a week later to change one or two games. Let the list be a snapshot of what you were looking forward to at one point in time, so that you can look back on it in the years to come and see how well your instincts fared.
You can also post comments on your list or anyone else's here, if you'd like, but keep them brief like mine and save the longer ones for the individual threads. And for those who don't know how to use the forum's Search feature to locate all the threads, here's detailed instructions on how to do it. Go here:
http://culture.vg/forum/searchIf you are looking for, say, a Devil May Cry game, type devil, then select "Topic titles only" and hit Search. Then click on the title of the game you're looking for, and you'll be sent to a url that looks something like this:
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=1&t=333 ... vil#p13604You now need to find the thread's number. This is the very first number in the url. Copy-paste that into the following url:
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=XXXX... and you are done. This is how to make your list as nice and neat as mine. And double-check all your urls after you post to make sure they work.