There can be little doubt in many peoples eyes that 2009 was an incredibly strong year for games. Well known gaming franchises such as Halo, Uncharted, Assassins Creed, Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty had very successful and high quality follow-ups and we also saw some very good new IP’s make a presence in the gaming world such as Borderlands, DJ Hero and Batman: Arkham Asylum, all of which have done well and offered something new. Overall 2010 was a very, very expensive gaming year.

The problem now is that 2010 is set to have an even bigger hole burning in your wallet with some games that look truly wonderful. So below I have listed what my 2010 must have games list looks like:

1. Alan Wake (Xbox360)

Alan Wake is my most anticipated game of all time. Anyone who has known me, or followed this blog for an extended period of time will know that both Max Payne 1 and 2 are up there in my favourite games list of all time, both of which were developed by the same studio as Alan Wake, Remedy.

The plot of Alan Wake is as follows:
Alan Wake, a bestselling writer, hasn’t managed to write anything in over two years. Now his wife, Alice, brings him to the idyllic small town of Bright Falls to recover his creative flow. But when she vanishes without a trace, Wake finds himself trapped in a nightmare. Word by word, his latest work, a thriller he can’t even remember writing, is coming true before his eyes. He somehow knows it’s his story without any memory of writing it.

2. Heavy Rain (Playstation 3)

Heavy Rain, from the developers of the fantastic (and massively under-rated) Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, Quantic Dream, originally stemmed from what many people assumed to be a tech demo for the Playstation 3.

Details about the plot of Heavy Rain remain scarce. Director David Cage has stated that Heavy Rain would be “a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes”, without any supernatural elements, and that “the real message [of the game] is about how far you’re willing to go to save someone you love.”

Heavy Rain is one game that is looking to change the way we see and play games and that, if anything, should get you excited about the potential of gaming.

3. Halo: Reach (Xbox360)

Halo 3: ODST was a surprising game of the year for me back in 2009, finally delivering a more high quality narrative than those we saw in Halo 3 and delivered a rock solid game throughout with Bungie proving that there is still a lot that the Halo franchise can offer.

Halo: Reach is a prequel to Halo that takes place during the Battle of Reach, featured in Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: First Strike, near the end of the Human-Covenant War. The game follows the actions of Noble Team, a United Nations Space Command (UNSC) special operations unit composed of six SPARTAN supersoldiers. Players assume the role of the Lieutenant, a replacement for a presumably deceased member of the Noble squad, who is identified by the call sign Noble Six. The announcement trailer shows the colony world of Reach, one of the UNSC’s most important manufacturing and military centers outside of the Solar System, under attack by a Covenant invasion force referred to as “them” by an unknown radio operator.

4. BioShock 2 (Xbox360/PS3/PC)

BioShock was, bar none, the best game of 2007 and one of the greatest games of the last decade, from start to finish the game just had a certain class about it that other games just hadn’t (and probably still haven’t) matched before.

With BioShock 2 the player take the role of ‘Subject Delta’, the first Big Daddy. Subject Delta has superior speed, strength and most importantly, free will, when compared to other Big Daddies.

BioShock 2 was a masterpiece, and with the same studio behind the sequel, it seems obvious that they will want to meet, and if at all possible, better the standards they set with the first game. The only possible problem is that they may have set the bar too high first time around, but we can forgive them that because a game only 50% of the first is still much, much better than most.

5. Fallout: New Vegas (Xbox360/PS3/PC)

Currently there is next to nothing known about the new Fallout game other than it’s being developed by Obsidian, not Bethesda like Fallout 3, however, the experience will be very much along the same lines as we’ve seen in Fallout 3 in terms of experience, but in another Fallout universe.

Despite facts being thin on the ground in regards to this game, it must be here. Fallout 3 was the best game of 2008 by a street, and if this gives me the 100+ hours of joy I gained from the last game, then there’s nothing that could better this in 2010.

Those are the games I most anticipate heading into the next 12 months, but on any given day they could swap (bar the top 2) for any others, but in 2010 there is so much upcoming quality that I could just as easy list 20 games, so you may also want to keep an eye on:

The Last Guardian (Playstation 3), God of War 3 (Playstation 3), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Xbox360/PS3/PC), Mass Effect 2 (Xbox360/PC), Gran Turismo 5 (Playstation 3), Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox360/PC), Fable III (Xbox360), Bayonetta (Xbox360/PS3), Demon’s Souls (Playstation 3), Red Dead Redemption (Xbox360/PS3), Metro 2033 (Xbox360/PC), Max Payne 3 (Xbox360/PS3/PC), Blur (Xbox360/PS3), Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox360/PS3), MAG (Playstation 3), APB (Xbox360/PC), Aliens vs Predator (Xbox360/PS3/PC), Split/Second (Xbox360/PS3), Dead Rising 2 (Xbox360/PS3), Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Xbox360/PS3), Mafia 2 (Xbox360/PS3/PC), EA Sports MMA (Xbox360/PS3), Crackdown 2 (Xbox360), LEGO Harry Potter (Xbox360/PS3/Wii).

Then of course there are all the games that are sure to get sequels, Fifa, Madden, NBA, Need for Speed, UFC, Call of Duty.

As I said, 2010 is set to be expensive. Expensive, but amazing.