TSA’s Top 100 of 2011 Recap: 85 – 81

Continuing our feature recapping TSA’s Top 100 of 2011 list, we come to a mixture of big names and less well known titles. Are there any hidden gems yet? Actually, no, as many of these titles have yet to even be released!

85 – Dust 514

Not much has been heard of from Dust 514, which is a shame as it’s still looking really rather exciting. Coming from Icelandic developers CCP, makers of Eve Online, the pedigree is certainly there and the idea of a MMOFPS amongst the stars of the popular space based MMORPG is a fascinating one. At the moment however, most details appear to be revolving around how players will be paying for the title. It was originally thought that Dust 514 would be a free to play game with some micro transactions involved to boost income. In recent weeks however, more details have emerged suggesting that it might not be quite as free as originally thought with some sort of pre-pay scheme being the standard.

It’s a shame then that we won’t be seeing it any time soon. At E3 it was confirmed that Dust 514 would be an exclusive release for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita but that the title won’t be released until Spring 2012. Still, hopefully we’ll get a chance with the beta that’s set for release at the end of the year.

We’ve also always got the latest trailer to fall back on which looks quite impressive.

84 – Conduit 2

The original The Conduit only achieved quite average reviews when it was released in mid 2009. That didn’t stop us anticipating Conduit 2’s release, however. Surely by removing the evil word ‘The’ in the title, Conduit 2 would become the solid Wii shooter that the system truly deserved.

Instead we were disappointed. Conduit 2 was as mixed as the previous title. The Metacritic flurry of scores sums it up the best, with a Metascore of 64 actually scoring 5 points lower than the original. It did admittedly offer improvements over its predecessor but the controls were still clumsy and the storyline just a little too derivative. On the plus side, at least the multiplayer functionality was pretty strong. Lack of strong competition on the system has to help there though.

83 – Tekken X Street Fighter

Another game that has some very important naming conventions behind its title, it’s immensely disappointing to see Tekken X Street Fighter’s release date stumble into 2012. It was probably wishful thinking to believe that Tekken X Street Fighter would actually reach our consoles by 2011 and this has been reinforced by the now rough release date of October 2012.

Unlike the very similarly titled Street Fighter X Tekken, this fighting game is set to feature 3D styled gameplay and art similar to Street Fighter IV’s. Not much else has been touted about the title, with Tekken’s head Katsuhiro Harada admitting in May this year that work hadn’t even started on it yet. Hopefully they’ve started by now. Fighting fans are understandably itching to get their hands on it already.

82 – Diablo III

When we covered Diablo III previously in the Top 100, we were waiting for news of a release date. We still are. Some excitement has been generated by the news that external beta testing should emerge this Autumn but that’s about all we’ve got to cling onto.

Still, Diablo III has been a long time coming so hopefully fans are used to waiting and anticipating. Even though it’s been over a decade since the previous Diablo title, at least loot fans can keep busy with the likes of Torchlight 1 and 2 and a whole array of iOS titles that have been heavily influenced by the majesty of the Diablo series. It also provides the ideal time to catch up on Diablo II, a game that sucked my life up for an entire summer a few years back. Be warned.

86 – Alive and Undead

Is it alive or is it undead? Regardless, last year when we devised this list, there was much controversy that a small indie game as obscure as Alive and Undead could beat Diablo to the number 81 slot. While it would have been great to see the bizarre horror side scrolling beat em up show its naysayers just how great it could be, it hasn’t. It’s, er, vanished instead. Developers, Shortfuse Games, still list it on their site but that’s still about all we’ve got to go on. The site itself doesn’t look to have been updated since the start of the year when new software engineers were being recruited.

Other than that, it’s baffling. The concept still sounds as fun and as original as before with players undertaking the role of Mr Smith, a vampire who’s also an Elvis impersonator, but without much more than the original trailer to gaze at, we’re not quite sure what else to say. Here’s hoping it magically reappears later this year!

Join us tomorrow for another look back at what became of another five titles we were looking forward to.