Wii Music (releases Fall 2008)
Nintendo has come up with many phenomenal ideas but Wii Music is not one of them. It'll probably sell millions, but that doesn't mean it'll be fun. In the game, you take the Wii remote and nunchuk and move them like one of the game's 50 instruments, pretending to strum guitar, bang drums or tickle the piano keys. But aside from recreating songs, there's no reason to play. Forget about high scores and downloading new music. All you do is flail your arms around like an idiot in the hopes of recreating Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Really, Nintendo? Someone needs to tell Mario and Co. that kids are smarter than they look.
LittleBigPlanet (releases Fall 2008)
To hear some journalists talk, Sony's LittleBigPlanet will become the reason to purchase the system. We say, "Hold on to your cash." Despite the cute characters, this is nothing more than a glorified version of PowerPoint fueled by gamers hoping to make their own "presentations". Talented players will create interesting and perhaps fun designs. Everyone else will make horrible levels. If you could design several stages, string them together and make your own platform game, that'd be cool, but for now, all we foresee is tons of crap content.
Sonic Unleashed
Part of us wants to embrace Sonic's latest adventure because we still cling to the Sonic's beginnings on the Genesis, but we know better. Despite its flashy graphics, we refuse to believe that Sega can make a good Sonic game on a current generation console. We dig the on-rails action as well as the 2.5-D segments that hark back to Sonic's glory days, but considering his recent track record and the bizarre moments where he transforms into a werewolf, this one could get ugly.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (releases 9/23/08)
We gave ourselves a dishonorable discharge after wading through the last game in the series, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood. It's not that we hate World War II, but we're sick of playing the same, cookie cutter formula. Hell's Highway is, thus far, no different, as it thrusts you behind enemy lines and allows you to give orders to a small band of soldiers. We played it a couple of weeks ago and think it's just another bland first person shooter with Nazis. How much it sucks depends on how tired you are of this overused concept.
Silent Hill Homecoming (releases 9/30/08)
Silent Hill 2 is the best game in Konami's horror series and that's the problem; it came out in 2001. Since then, the company released the decent Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room before shipping the average PSP adventure, Origins. Now Konami is working on Homecoming, a game that probably involves a town called Silent Hill, lots of fog, a radio and shoddy controls. Seriously, how many times do we need to visit the same damn place? At least Resident Evil takes us to different countries. We're tired of bludgeoning the same looking monsters with pipes and struggling with mediocre controls while Konami says that the reason they suck is because the character is "inexperienced." On top of that, we don't recall anything worthwhile from Konami this year, aside from Metal Gear Solid 4, and we have plenty of issues with that.
Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood (releases 9/30/08)
We know that in some circles, BioWare (makers of Mass Effect) can do no wrong, but hear us out. Despite Sega hiring a respected developer to work on Sonic Chronicles, that doesn't mean it'll be good. Sega can't even release a triple A Sonic adventure, let alone a role-playing game. Even if both companies pull this off, there's still the issue of Sonic and his pals sucking so bad that we'd rather play a stale DS RPG than put up with Tails, Amy and Shadow.
Rock Revolution (10/14/08)
Konami, once the big dog of music video games, sat back and watched as Activision and Electronic Arts revolutionized the genre with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, respectively. Now it wants to compete with its own instrument game, and Rock Revolution fails in every respect. Its drums look horrible compared to the aforementioned games' and none of the songs are master tracks. Unless Konami turns things around, skip it this gig.
Damnation (releases 12/9/08)
Damnation probably won't suck because of glitches, but rather boring game design. Here we have a hero with a cowboy hat running around and shooting faceless dudes in a game that looks like an obvious Gears of War knock-off. Maybe it has some cool stuff we haven't seen, or maybe its most notable features are the ability to see through walls and scale buildings. At this point, it's the latter.
This is Vegas (Early 2009)
Midway hopes to bring Las Vegas to your living room with This is Vegas, which looks like a disaster. It's an open world game that lets you visit casinos, gamble, beat people up and even work in a nightclub, but it seems like the developers spread themselves thin. Besides, it's not even an accurate recreation of Vegas. Midway couldn't use real hotel and casino names. If we can't stay at the Wynn, we're not buying.
Anything that begins with Imagine
Women love video games, but we're not sure about Ubisoft's "Imagine" franchise that throws them into stereotypical scenarios. There's Imagine: Teacher, Imagine: Babyz and the upcoming Imagine: Babysitters. What's next, Imagine: Take Him For All He's Got?