That said, the reason for my surprise was twofold. They think that both Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 are going to be out this year! Whoooooaaa there, Nelly. As much as I’d be in RPG heaven were this to happen, I just really can’t see it… though of course there’s that leaked release schedule document which was all over the interwebz last month suggesting 2011 might be the year after all. Perhaps a combination of waiting this long and being generally cynical about everything has made me over-patient.

Anyhow, as I switched my brain into “lurk” mode in work today, I got to thinking about what games I’d like to play – if elephants could fly – this year. Daydreaming is fun! Keep reading after the jump to find out what I came up with.

I already mentioned two of the big-name games I’m chomping my fingernails in expectation for, but there’s plenty more gaming goodness being prepared that I’m closely keeping my eyes on. I don’t expect to be shockingly controversial, but still – here’s my top 10 in awesometastic chart-stylee reverse order:

10. Elite 4
We’re entering the realms of complete fantasy already! Of course there’s no chance of seeing this game any time before 2013 at the absolute earliest, but I have faith in David Braben and Frontier. When this game is released, those X games will finally be shown who’s boss, oh yes indeed.

9. The Unfinished Swan
This game really took my interest when I first saw it mentioned as part of the IGF 2009′s Student Competition. An entirely black and white world where you can find a path only by firing balls of paint to identify your surroundings could lead to an intensely surreal and spooky experience. Looking forward to it.

8. Unreal Tournament 4
Teehee… it’s another pipe-dream, I know. The original UT was a masterpiece of deathmatch, better than any version of Quake, and UT200x was up there at the same lofty heights of success. UT3 was a big disappointment for me; Epic‘s next installment can’t come quickly enough to dull the pain, and for the love of toast, no hoverboards this time, okay?

7. Fez
Shame I don’t have an Xbox to play it on! Hopefully the PC release will grace our hard drives at some point this year. Gorgeous three-dimensionalised pixels form a kooky-feeling platform world. With the potential for secrets and fun a-plenty, here’s hoping that Polytron can finish things up to bring us those trixels these year!

6. Dungeon Siege 3
All of the previous Sieges were solid action-RPGs and proved themselves as enjoyable alternatives to the behemoths of the Diablo family. With Obsidian developing it and Square Enix‘s involvement as publisher, I have high hopes that this one could be the best yet. I mean, surely it must be better than Space Siege, right?

5. Mythos
Oooh, an MMO! Created by accident from Flagship Studios‘ networking test code for Hellgate: London, this was an online action-RPG whose life has been a rollercoaster ride. With a new closed beta imminent, hopefully Frogster can harness the great potential and prevent it from becoming “Koreanized” too heavily.

4. Subversion
Procedurally generated cities, Mission: Impossible-style gadgets, and daring heists with multiple solutions to each problem: Subversion has all this and more. Having been in development for over four years, Introversion are going for something on an epic scope beyond anything they’ve made so far. Could be seriously awesome.

3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Some people say that Oblivion wasn’t as good as it predecessor, Morrowind. Regardless of whether this is true or not, Oblivion was a fantastic game which could easily be described as the Elite of the fantasy RPG world. Skyrim has its work cut out to continue the legendary Elder Scrolls legacy but Bethesda have proved with their work on the Fallout series that they’re up to the task. This will be BIG.

2. Portal 2
“These next tests require co-operation…” GlaDOS is making a vengeful return and it sounds like the intervening years since Aperture Science’s computer overmistress first made us doubt the existence of cake have made her even nastier than before! With promises of significantly more content than the original game and a tantalising prospect of co-op gameplay where hilarious disaster rewards even the slightest mistake, I suggest you get your weighted companion cube ready… and bring a willing vict- uhm, I mean friend while you’re at it!

1. Torchlight 2
Runic Games astonished a lot of people with the quality of their underdog smash hit last year and they’re soon going to answer the only major criticism of Torchlight‘s superbly distilled click-kill-loot gameplay. With internet play for up to 4 adventurers at once, a new overworld, weather and day / night cycles, and several other refinements, the sequel seems destined to achieve something close to perfection. If Runic can work their magic again and steal the jump on… well, you-know-what, then the balance of power upon the action-RPG battlefield could be seriously upset. Watch yourself, Blizzard. These flickering shadows of Torchlight might scare your pet demons away…

Information more recent than that on the game’s blog, dated 2009, is hard to come by. The game has great potential to be a colourful arcade action-puzzler with a prominent focus on catchy music (just watch this gameplay video and enjoy the nifty audio!), but for the last 18 months, it seems to be dead in the water. An iPhone port was talked about but got dropped, then a hint was dropped that the game may get finished after all – but there’s been nothing since then.

Although it was nominated for an Excellence in Audio award in 2008′s IGF the game came away with nothing for its troubles of travelling to San Francisco.

To a humble outsider it looks like this is a game whose developer has suffered the cruel side of Lady Luck’s scales. I certainly think that it deserves a chance to succeed in the increasingly-competitive indie market. It has a cute main character and a rare amount of charm; y’know what? I reckon it’d do quite well – so spread the word! Let’s get this game the attention it deserves and bring it back from the brink of the void!

I’m hyped. It’s going to be an interesting couple of days!

So here it is:

Mmmmm. Nice pixels But I wonder what those strange icons that have appeared on the status bar mean? And how on earth did some crazy person manage to get a highscore of 995,000 points?? No, wait, that’s just a crazy side effect of some debugging…

Speculation and confusion is running riot through the forums for Hellgate London and Mythos at the moment, as you can see here and here. Many sites are reporting that software house Flagship Studios has seen major job losses and that the company no longer holds the rights to Hellgate (sources: HellgateGuru, Gamasutra).

Ping0, a subsidiary who is involved with the Mythos side of Flagship‘s work, are also said to have suffered layoffs.

At this stage it’s just a rumour as there hasn’t been any official word from the people who matter. Still, a site like Gamasutra is fairly reliable and, sadly, I doubt they’d post this news without checking it out thoroughly. It will probably be a couple of days before we hear what Flagship have to say about the story, and until then, nothing is set in stone.

This image got added as a splash page to www.blizzard.com, and indeed all the other Blizzard project websites, earlier today. As you might expect, the internet has exploded into rumours. The phrase “Hell has frozen over” was used on one previous occasion in Diablo history – are we seeing it again as a precursor to a proper Diablo 3 announcement later this week? Is the image something to do with the World Crystal, destroyed at the end of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction?

Only time will tell. Keep your eyes peeled for the next teaser – I know I will be!