The Top Ten Video Game Sequels for E3 2012

Each year as another Electronic Entertainment Expo wraps up the burden falls upon us to pick the best of the best and share that with you -- and this year the burden of making those choices was expanded due to the large number of very good games.

Regular members here will be expecting a Top Ten list and details for each, but we must confess that providing that directly is simply impossible this year, due to the neat division that separates the games into two distinct categories: the Old and the New.

What is meant by that is simple enough -- there were so many new titles and so many sequels presented at E3 2012 that trying to casually pick out a Top Ten List culled from that complete listing is simply impossible -- so this year we are taking the easy and expedient path at least initially, and dividing the list into the Old and the New, and will follow that with a definitive Top Ten List later once we have had the opportunity to properly reflect upon all of the games, their strengths, and their weaknesses.

So to begin our annual Top Ten we will start with the sequels and then the new titles in two pieces, offering them to you in reverse order, as a countdown to the best for last! You should also bear in mind that the position of the games in the list is purely subjective, being ranked where we thought that they should be rather than using a scientific method (or really any logical method whatsoever save for the magical and all powerful parental spell, Buddhist Mantra, and Gregorian Chant: "Because I Said So" that automatically takes upon it the force of Law when it is properly evoked by a parent (which it has been here).

Don't like the order that we ranked them in? Are you convinced that they should be ranked in a different order? Do you feel strongly that we should have included different games in the list? Well that is what the official comment section is for, so please feel invited to comment!

At the top of the list for most gamers will be the sequels and returning games that best utilized the excitement of E3 to showcase what is coming, with plenty to choose from in this category, making it rather difficult to choose the best from the rest. For our purposes however, and having been provided with ample opportunity to see and play with each, the Top Ten in this category are:

10 -- Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2

Publisher: City Interactive

Developer: City Interactive

Platform: Xbox 360 / PC / PS3

Release Date: 21 August 2012

One of the surprises of E3 2012, having played the previous title in the series Ghost Warrior quite extensively (in spite of the obvious bugs and single-dimensional aspects of it I liked it), as we approached the hand's-on demo for this sequel I was, in all honesty, expecting to see a game world similar to that of the previous game...

So imagine if you can my jaw flopping open and my heart jumping into my throat as I interfaced with a world that was so realistic and smooth that I could almost smell the flowers on the bush that I slowly pushed my way through that, thanks to the entirely new game engine, made for as realistic a world as I could imagine.

It is more though than just a new game engine (though kudo's for that!) but also the complete re-thinking of the game and its game play. In spite of liking the previous game there were aspects to it that I never could completely understand -- like the running-and-gunning sections that had you using an assault rifle and heavy MG to fight off waves of enemy... After all it was a game called Sniper: Ghost Warrior, so we might be forgiven for thinking that it was about you know, being a Sniper? After all if we wanted to play traditional war games that have a mixture of gun play we would be picking games like COD or Black Ops, right? Right!