Most anticipated of E3: Jamin

E3 is all but upon us, and the hype trains are running totally out of control. Remember that bit at the end of Back to the Future Part III? That’s what they’re like this year. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads… although we sort of do, actually, because Los Angeles is like one giant freeway with a few shops next to it.

In this series of articles, VideoGamer.com staff members single out some of the games they’re most eager to see at this year’s show. Today it’s Jamin’s turn.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

It’s all getting too much; my JRPG cravings have reached dangerous levels. After a slew of games a few years back (Lost Odyssey, The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope – the latter being my favourite JRPG this gen), there’s been jack all of late. Last year’s Final Fantasy XIII was great, and even though I genuinely love the game, it wasn’t quite what I had hoped from the first next-gen Final Fantasy offering. With any luck, XIII-2 will put those wrongs right.

Three things it needs:

1. An overworld

I want to explore, dammit. I want to be able to jaunt about Cocoon and Pulse without a corridor funnelling me to the next location. I want towns packed with NPCs and weapon shops and inns and random houses with drawers you can rifle through for a Phoenix Down.

2. A different battle system

Don’t get me wrong here, the FFXIII battle system is great, inspired even, but I want something different from the sequel. X-2 changed things up with the Dress Sphere system – which is up there with my favourite battle systems of all time – and I’d like something equally as bold here.

3. More Sazh Katzroy

Important, this one. Give him reams of dialogue. Give him a shiny new costume – why should it just be Lightning that gets cool new armour? Give him a Moogle for his ‘fro. Hell, make him the main character and centre the whole game around him. Cheers, SquareEnix.

SSX

I used to be s***-hot at SSX Tricky. S***-hot. Consequently, the revelation that the SSX reboot will feature Auto-log-esque social features has me giddy with excitement. I’ll take great pleasure in beating any chumps who clog up my leaderboard, and Autolog (or whatever the feature happens to be called) will then do me a service by rubbing it in their faces.

I became exponentially more excited about the game after the words “Deadly Descent” were dropped from the title. Snowboarding meets Modern Warfare? Pfffffffft. This was a sentiment echoed across the internet after the trailer was revealed, and EA was clearly aware of it. Kudos to them for having the balls to change it.

I also want to see Mac confirmed for the character roster. He’s a G..

Skyrim

I didn’t want to include Skyrim in this feature, I really didn’t. Emily mentioned it in her E3 anticipation article, and generally there’s just a lot of buzz about it amongst gamers. I wanted to choose something obscure and unheard of (like Martin) that would make me out to be really cool – Skyrim is too obvious a choice. But that would defeat the purpose of the article; this is not only my most anticipated game of E3, but of 2011 as a whole.

Fallout 3 didn’t click with me. I liked it, but didn’t get as involved with the world as I did in Oblivion. Fantasy settings suit me better, I figure. Skyrim’s world is fantastically fantastical. It’s teeming with swords and goblins and potions and dragons. Dragons. And you can talk to the them. Mr Lucky Bollocks Martin Gaston has already seen the game, and everything he tells me about it I find incredibly arousing.

I’m down to see it at E3, though. Boo-yah!

Other games I’m looking forward to: Hitman: Absolution, Dark Souls, Uncharted 3 and Mass Effect 3.