“2009 Games I’m Looking Forward To” Follow-up

At the beginning of the year I wrote about some then-forthcoming games that I was looking forward to.  Most of the games on the list have now been released.  I’ve only played a couple of the games and won’t play the others until they’re much cheaper but here’s what the critics think of them (courtesy of aggregate scorer Gamerankings.com).  As you can see, some seem to have turned out quite nicely while some appear to be disappointments.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar)
DS: 93%

Street Fighter IV (Capcom)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3: 93%

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost & Damned (Rockstar) *downloadable expansion*
Xbox 360: 90%

Punch-Out!! (Nintendo)
Wii: 88%

Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Xbox 360 score: 86 (59 ratings)
PlayStation 3 score: 87 (52 ratings)

Madworld (SEGA)
Wii: 83%

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Atari)
Xbox 360/PlayStation/PC version: 78%
Wii/PlayStation 2 version: 72%
DS version: 56%

Bionic Commando (Capcom)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC: 73%

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (EA)
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC version: 55%
DS version: 53%

Conclusion: Well, LOTR, Ghostbusters and Bionic Commando look like stinkers, especially when you consider the nerd reviewers probably gave them free points for nostalgia or fanboy reasons.  I’m most intrigued by Madworld as the scores are really love-it or hate-it, much like God Hand, created by the same development team.  The End.