25 Most anticipated games of 2012 - Part Four: Handheld Games

2011 was certainly a topflight year for games. We had a multitude of quality triple-AAA games to choose from, bolstered by an excellent selection of second tier releases as well. If you weren’t able to find at least one games last year that blew you away, then you have no business calling yourself a gamer.

 But it’s a new year, with new games. And it looks like we’ll have our hands incredibly full again in 2012. To make a things a little bit easier for you, the MWEB Gamezone team has compiled a list of upcoming games to look out for - broadly divided into five arbitrary categories – that we’ll reveal over the coming week. And even though we have 25 nominees, its not lost on us that there are a bunch of games not on our list that are more than worthy of salivating over. This is just like… our opinion man. So if we didn’t include your must-buy game of 2012 on list drop it in the comments. Chances are we want to play that just as badly.

Five most anticipated handhelds games of 2012

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Nathan Drake’s latest adventure is coming to the small screen, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means its any less epic. Ole Drake just doesn’t role that way. With the technical backing of the PS Vita, this prequel adventure seems determined to equal the original trilogy in terms of scope and surpass them in terms of playability - thanks to all the PSP’s unique input interfaces.

Uncharted will be a key game for the PS Vita, given the games high profile and will be expected to be the systems killer app. Under development by SCE Bend Studio - the same guys that put out the fantastic, yet under-appreciated PSP shooter Resistance: Retribution - Nathan Drake looks set for another fantastic adventure.

Dragon’s Crown

Dragon’s Crown has been described as a “Frank Frazetta painting by way of Japan”. Visually, that's not a wholly incorrect description as the game a has a unique aesthetic quality to it that makes it seem as if the games actual concept art has been animated. 

A hybird multiplayer scrolling beat-em-up RPG (trying saying that quickly), old time arcade residents might recognize the gameplay as similar to the CAPCOM classic D&D: Tower of Doom and its sequel Shadow over Mystara. Players may choose between one of six characters - a Fighter, Amazon, Elf, Sorceress, Wizard, and Dwarf - who must travel though a number of environments using standard attacks as well as magic spells to defeat enemies. All the character have unique abilities and can be customised to the players preferences.

The games other unique feature is that it will be able to be played across both the PS3 and the PS Vita.

Kid Icarus: Uprising

For a company that whose entire business model is centered on whoring its classic IP into every genre imaginable, it is a bit of a surprise to find the NES icon Kid Icarus only now headlining a game. Well what ever the reason, long time Nintendo fans will happy to know that Pit the Cherub is back.

The game looks to blend ground and air based combat and given that its being made by the same crew that put together the Super Smash Bros. game, its safe bet that the game will achieve that goal.

Heroes of Ruin

At first glance, Heroes of Ruin looks to be Diablo 3DS. And thats no bad thing as we’ve always maintained that the isometric dungeon crawler is a pretty good fit for portable gaming. Heroes will feature four unique player classes designed to accommodate different playing stiles.

The games signature hook is its intent to make full use of the 3DS’s social networking features. So the game will make use of both Streetpass and Spotpass to offer players special challenges and multi-player opportunities unavailable on other gaming platforms.

Escape Plan

Where Uncharted is likely to be the centerpiece game for the Vita’s launch, it looks like Escape Plan is the game that’s going to really try and take advantage of the all the Vita’s special inputs.

From the same guys that creat Fat Princess, Escape Plan is a puzzler that has you trying to escape (duh!) from a series of increasingly difficult and complex traps. Black and white in its visuals and very black in its humour, Escape Plan could well be a sleeper hit for Sony’s new portable.