Halo Reach

Microsoft | 360 | September

The fifth mainline game in the Halo series is going to be more than a re-tread of FPS tropes that Halo itself helped make canon on the console; it may not have a number attached to its name, but this is still a big deal. For one thing, in addition to the added multiplayer options (including a revamped Firefight mode), Reach will also introduce space combat into the series. The mechanics aren’t too terribly different from piloting a Hornet, but Jeremy Parish points out in his preview, “You have a full sphere of motion, with no fixed horizon.” It’s a fitting end to what may be Bungie’s final Halo project. As Parish says, “It’s clear that Bungie is planning to say farewell to the franchise that’s dominated the studio for the past decade in style.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Activision | 360 / PS3 / PC | November

With CoD originator Infinity Ward out of the picture (for the time being, anyway), alternate developer Treyarch takes the mantle this year in Black Ops, and it looks like the company doesn’t want to be taken as just the B-team anymore. The result is a new, non-World War II CoD that deals with black ops missions in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan, with plenty of explosions, daring feats, and dudes yelling over gunfire. In all seriousness, there’s a lot of questionably similar plot elements in the campaign, but knowing the series, it’s going to be multiplayer that will keep Black Ops in the limelight until the next installment: Features include a four-player co-op campaign, revised Create-A-Class, tons more achievements, and we’ll bet on a new mode or two. As Thierry Nguyen writes in our original preview, “While Call of Duty: World at War did show that Treyarch is a damn fine developer that can get out of Infinity Ward’s shadow, it’s encouraging to see that the studio is putting its all into Black Ops, and that it has the capability of actually surprising us.”

Vanquish

Sega | 360 / PS3 | October

Vanquish looks like a sexy, shiny, future version of Gears of War, but calling it a knockoff would be unfair. This is, after all, the newest brainchild of Shinji Mikami, main man behind Resident Evil — who left the series after RE4, which Gears probably took a camera angle or two from, anyway. Taken on its own, Vanquish’s high-energy action (including but not limited to hero Sam Gideon’s rockstar knee-slide move) and politically-influenced plot (Russia steals a US space station that harnesses solar energy that can also be weaponized) make for one very different third-person shooter. Even if, as Matt Leone wrote, “It seems quite a bit less ridiculous than what we’ve seen from Platinum thus far, with games like MadWorld and Bayonetta, and what we last saw from Shinji Mikami in God Hand.”

Dead Rising 2

Capcom | 360 / PS3 / PC | September