Top 10: Wishes for E3 2008

E3 is fast approaching yet we know very little about what big announcements are going to be made. Although the event seems to have become even smaller than last year’s show we still expect a week of breaking news and major announcements. To get you in the mood we’ve put together our Top 10: Wishes for E3 2008. We haven’t gone too fanciful, but if even half of these come true we’ll be over the moon.

10. Alan Wake is shown

It’s perhaps odd that this game has made the list, considering it’s already been shown at previous E3s, but of all the Xbox 360 games in development Alan Wake is by far the most secretive. We just want to be shown what the game is going to be like and get confirmation that it still exists. The first trailer looked so interesting that we just hope the original game design hasn’t somehow been re-written to include bald space marines fighting off an alien race.

9. PC games blow us away

Current consoles have been on the market now for a few years so it’s time PC games started to offer graphics that surpass the best consoles can offer. If we leave E3 having seen even a handful of stunning exclusive PC games we’ll be over the moon. We know Crysis: Warhead will be there, but something new and unheard of would be great. A new batch of video cards are hitting the market soon and we’re going to need a new batch of games to test them out.

8. Sequel to Dead Rising and Lost Planet

Capcom has two secret games it plans to show at E3 next month and we know exactly what we want them to be. We want Dead Rising 2 to feature an even bigger game area to explore and to feature full co-op play. Lost Planet was a flawed gem but we’d love to see what Capcom does with the sequel. It’s still one of the best looking next-gen games on the market and it first hit the Xbox 360 in January 2007. Just imagine what Capcom will be able to get out of its game engine now. Oh, and please make them multiplatform Capcom.

7. Demos for everyone

Microsoft is usually pretty good when it comes to releasing content to coincide with big events. Do you remember the awesome Lost Planet Demo we got at E3 2005, months before the game hit stores? Well, this year we want all the platform holders to get in on the act. How about a LittleBigPlanet and Killzone demo on PSN, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Too Human on Xbox LIVE and a New Super Mario Bros. 2 demo for DS? If Nintendo wants to announce Wii demos that will round things off nicely.

6. New Super Mario Bros. 2

With Super Mario Galaxy not even a year old it’s a virtual impossibility that Nintendo will announce a brand new proper Mario game. Instead, we can hope for a sequel to the astonishingly good New Super Mario Bros on the DS. Taking handheld platforming to an even higher level, NSMB2 will, we hope, feature a cast of playable characters from across the Nintendo universe as well as wireless co-op play. Given how stupendously well the first game sold, this would be a massive Nintendo E3 announcement, and a guaranteed must buy for DS owners. Fingers crossed, eh Mario fans?

5. Halo side-scroller for XBLA

Microsoft revealed recently that it has an in-house studio dedicated to making Xbox LIVE Arcade titles. Wouldn’t it be great if one of those titles was an old-school side-scrolling shooter starring Master Chief? We want visuals on a par with those seen in LittleBigPlanet but with a ton of action going on at all times. Think Metal Slug, but with modern visuals and a dual analogue stick control system. If MS wants to throw in a level editor, even better.

4. God of War 3

Call us crazy fanboys but God of War is bloody brilliant and we can’t wait to see how Kratos looks on the PS3. At E3 2008 we want more than just a teaser trailer – we want a full on, violence-filled play through of a single level. Kratos better be seen stabbing at least one Cyclops in the eye or we won’t be happy. The scale will be immense and the visuals better than anything else we’ve seen on the PS3. Asking for 2008 release date is probably too much, so we’ll settle for it being the most exciting looking PS3 game for 2009.

3. A brand new unannounced Halo game

Rumours abound that the big MS is set to announce two completely new gaming surprises at this year’s E3, one of which, we hope, must have something to do with Halo. We doubt it’s the inevitable Halo 4, which you dear readers have already pumped tons of quality posts into our forum discussing. A more realistic wish is either a first-person or third-person Unreal Engine 3-based action game which sees you take control of a squad of soldiers from the UNSC in a battle against the Covenant taken from some point in the trilogy time line. While you won’t get to play as Master Chief in this new Halo title, he will make a cameo appearance as a non playable character, along with other famous faces from the FPS games. This game, we reckon, will have everyone gasping when it’s announced during MS’s pre-E3 conference on Monday 14 July. Think Ghost Recon with Needlers. You heard it here first.

2. A brand new Wii Legend of Zelda game

Long time Nintendo fans and hardcore gaming Wii owners still love Nintendo, but have to admit Miyamoto and co have been concentrating on the casual thing first and foremost in recent years. One of our biggest wishes for E3 2008 is for Nintendo to make a big splash on the core gaming market, and a brand new Zelda game would certainly go a long way to doing that. Just think how bonkers ace it would be for Miyamoto to stride on stage once again with a Master Sword and a Nintendo T-Shirt screaming from underneath his suit jacket. And then, just above his head a world exclusive trailer assaults our senses for a minute or two, showing a complete revolution of the series. Casting aside the somewhat disappointing Twilight Princess and pushing the Wii as far as it can possibly go in terms of graphical performance, this brand new Zelda game will have hardcore gamers scrambling under their beds and dusting off their Wiis in anticipation of what promises to be a return to Hyrule glory for Nintendo. Come on guys, we know you can do it.

1. Handheld from Microsoft

Microsoft has more than enough on its plate with the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows, but we’d love to see a new handheld announced from the company. We’d want it to at least be as powerful as the original Xbox, sport two analogue sticks and feature a large solid state hard drive for downloadable games. Obviously it would have support for Xbox LIVE, so how about Super 3G mobile broadband so you can play online wherever you are? We’re dreaming, but that’s what a wish list is all about.

That’s out top 10 wishes for E3 2008, but what do you want from the July event? Let us know in the comments section below.