2012: THE YEAR OF THE VIDEO GAME

As part of BJ-C's personal list of resolutions for the New Year, I am going to be updating every single day for 2012.  You heard me right. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. You may be saying to yourself "but, BJ-C, it's the 2nd, and you missed yesterday." Well, I spent my first of the year the same way the rest of you did, hungover.  As far as I'm concerned, the new year doesn't start until the 2nd because we're all too dead to the world to function the day of the first.  ANNNNNYWAY.  

As a college student, I'm not ashamed to admit that I surely know my way around a video came controller.  As much as I love horror films, I have gone on record before saying that horror video games scare me more than movies ever could.  There's just something about the interaction that just makes my mind lose all sense of control.  If 2011 was the year of the horror TV show, 2012 is destined to be the year of the video game.

If I ever needed another reason to invest in a 3DS, this is just putting the nail in the coffin.  Ladies and Germs, the eighth installment of the Resident Evil franchise is coming to our fingertips...in 3-D.  I don't know if you've had a chance to play a 3DS, but the visuals are brilliant and the graphics are clear as a whistle.  I've been creeping on the previews for this game, and I'm mighty impressed. The game is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. The game play looks very reminiscent of the fifth game and the creators have promised that Resident Evil: Revelations will have a return to the fear and puzzles of games past. I'm down. Also coming out this year is Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City which doesn't seem to have been generating nearly the same buzz as Revelations.  This one will be released for XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and Windows, meaning it's not going to require an investment into a ridiculously expensive gameboy. The plot is from the perspective of a security service member of Umbrella corp and your job is to destroy evidence. A bit of a different play on the usual perspectives of the game, but I won't be waiting outside Gamestop at midnight for this one.

Resident Evil might be bringing us two game, but Silent Hill is bringing  the bitch slappery by delivering THREE games. We'll figure out what the world would be like in a multiplayer setting with Book of Memories.  A lot of people are really hesitant about it being a multiplayer game, but I'm weirdly excited about it. Horror games don't really work that well in a multiplayer setting, but I'm not going to write them off.  Silent Hill is notorious for blowing my mind, so we shall see.  Konami is finally giving Silent Hill 2 & 3 the HD treatment and they're given a hell of a facelift with The Remastered Collection.  The one I'm really excited for is Silent Hill: Downpour.  Goodbye fog, hello rain. Yes, please.  I've gotten so used to the fog that I can predict where the monsters are coming from and it takes the fear factor out.   It'll be a nice change of pace and the gameplay looks BEAUTIFUL. 

Alright, Alan Wake is the shit. There, I said it. Alan Wake was beautiful, interesting, eerie, and a hell of a lot of fun.  The game was seriously the Arrested Development of horror games.  Don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone.  Anyway, the creator obviously knows that despite sales, he's got a gem and we are lucky to have Alan Wake's American Nightmare.  The game seems to take place in the nightmare version of Pee Wee's Playhouse.  I say that in the sense where as Pee Wee's Playhouse was filled with talking and laughing objects, Alan Wake is overrun with objects of EEEEEVIIILLL. Birds, satellites, and even your own soul is an evil entity hell bent on destroying you.  Grab your flannel, it's go time.

Have you ever seen a film that you thought to yourself "Yep. I could totally make sweet, sweet love to a video game".  Well, that's how I feel about Lollipop Chainsaw.  This game is seriously a giant wet dream for any fanboy or fangirl.  You play Juliet Starling, a bad ass cheerleader from Sam Romero High school armed with a chainsaw and gymnastics skills.  The game is filled with bright lights and giggling laughter to contrast the groaning zombies and blood splatters.  Zombie jocks and undead faculty, and a bigger challenge, zombie rock lords. ZOMBIE. ROCK. LORDS. This game looks perfect.

Two other games I'm pretty stoked about are AMY and The Secret World.  Amy is a survival-horror game where players escort a strange 8-year old autistic girl named Amy as they try to get her out of a city overrun with wild creatures and enemies. The player can control Lana, the woman escorting Amy, and protecting her.  In the attempt to escape, they have to fight monsters, the military, and other crazed creatures.  Extra points for Amy having supernatural abilities.  The Secret World looks like what could very well be the start of the next franchise of horror video games.  This game has been in production for what seems like forever.  It's an MMO which means we could very well be looking at a game that could attempt to turn horror fans into the realm of WoW.  The game is set in modern times but incorporates history (both real and fake), urban legends, ancient mythology, and extinct civilizations.  I'm all for this game.  I don't care if I have to become a hermit addicted to the computer in order to pl-oh wait.