Every year something comes around to surprise us. Sometimes it’s a game announcement we weren’t expecting, or games we didn’t think we’d like but ended up loving. OR games that we were just totally unsure on how they’d end up.

Read and see what surprised us this year! As per our other GotY posts, we have 5 things on here as well.

Batman Arkham Asylum actually being good

Yeah, I was surprised too. The demo made it seem pretty good, and the game looked great in screenshots and videos. But that kind of hype and such made me look at the game reluctantly, expecting the worse. But when I actually played it… Wow, I was honestly surprised. Not only is it a good licensed game, it’s also a good comic book game. Holy shit!

Team Ninja teaming up with Nintendo for a new Metroid

That was definitely unexpected. A new Metroid isn’t too unexpected considering the series has been gaining in popularity again, but the fact that Nintendo got Team Ninja to work on it? Now that’s a shocker. Will it be any good? Will Team Ninja actually respect Samus as a character? That remains to be seen, but there’s no question that this is one of the big surprises this year.

Golden Sun DS announced

This has been teased and rumored so many times before no one expected it to actually come out one day. But it was actually officially announced. No joke!

Lufia 2 remake on DS announced

Now THAT seriously came out of nowhere. Lufia, a series that only has a cult following, and one much smaller than games like Earthbound at that, is getting its best game in the series completely reworked? New gameplay action-RPG, slightly re-written story, new look, 3D graphics,  re-designed characters… I’m definitely excited, but I have to throw a few WTFs out there just because of how strange it is for this to have been announced at all. Now let’s just hope for a US release.

Duke Nukem Forever cancelled

I wanted to put this as a disappointment really, but it’s actually a surprise. Why? Because not TOO long before being cancelled, we had some new gameplay footage(the first in around 8 years I think) from a random web show in an interview with the team leaders, a ton of screenshots, and actual information about the game. That’s crazy! Cancelling the game when it’s actually close to completion for once instead of getting engine changes or just generally not showing any sign of progress. How did it happen? The leader of 3D Realms asked for a measly 6 million dollars from the publisher, and didn’t get it (despite the 3D realms owner already having spent over 20 millions dollars of his own money in the project), so he couldn’t finalize the game. So the team was laid off and the game canned. Actually, just READ THIS article by Wired. And here I thought DNF would really be in development forever. Sad.

jobocan Console, ds, Game of the Year, Games, Handheld, PC, ps3, xbox 360