Games of December 2009

December may be the season to be jolly but us gamers have had our share of fun since the past two months with some of the best titles released this year. Even though game releases in December are relatively tame, there are still a few titles here worth checking out and they go something like this -

The Saboteur (Xbox360 PS3 PC)

The last game worked on by developer Pandemic before they were shut down by EA, The Saboteur, puts players in the boots of an Irish race car driver during World War II who’s out to avenge the death of a close friend. The game follows the same open world structure you’ve seen in Assassin’s Creed and Shaun. The protagonist is as skilled in the art of Parkour as Altair allowing him to leap and jump off roofs with reckless abandon.

Avatar: The Game (Xbox360 PS3 PC PSP)

Based on James Cameron’s upcoming 3D movie of the same name, Avatar the game will allow players to explore the magical planet of Pandora as both the Na’avi, its peace loving residents and the evil RDA corporation hell bent on sucking the life out of the planet. The game will play out like your conventional third person shooter with vehicle and on-rails section thrown in for good measure.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD (Xbox360 PC)

This is one of the shooters that redefined first person shooters as we know it is back in an all new HD avatar. Developer Croteam’s all set to unleash Serious Sam upon us PC gamers in December with improved textures and better character models courtesy of their new engine. The Xbox360 version of the game while iffy on a release date will ship with co-op.

DiRT 2 (PC)

While DiRT 2 may have been released a while back for consoles, the PC version of the game was pushed back so that Codemasters could implement DirectX 11 support into it. Complicated jargon aside, this basically means that the game will look really pretty as long as you have a DX11 card and Windows 7 running on your PC.

Rogue Warrior (Xbox360 PS3 PC)

Based on the real world exploits of Navy SEAL Richard "Demo Dick" Marcinko, Rogue Warrior is a stealth-based first person shooter where players will have to traverse the world annihilating evil terrorists who dared to mess with America (but of course). While most of the game will play out from a first person perspective, a third person camera will kick in as and when Marcinko gets up close and personal with his enemies to perform a brutal finisher.