Title Wave 

As a gamer, boredom is the worst feeling ever. You scan your titles, look at your console and sigh. You plop in a disc in the system, sit in your favorite chair and begin yet another NFL season'this time as the San Francisco 49ers, because you’ve already won the Super Bowl with every other NFL team in the past 12 months. You turn off the consoles, look at the games again, sigh again, and'for the first time in five years'you’re actually considering going outside to ride your bike.

A case of summer doldrums is common for gamers but not a month before summer actually begins. I admit it; I’m bored. I always thought the next-generation console would be the answer to my video-game prayers, but it just doesn’t seem that game companies are doing their part to supply new and exciting content.

Maybe I’m picky. Maybe I’m just old. Maybe I need to look toward the future instead of wallowing in today’s crap. The truth is I have looked into the future and there are some titles to look forward to this year. Let’s hope they’re enough to get us by while the PlayStation3, Wii and Xbox 360 get their legs under them and start getting us more quality content rather than just re-releases of old games for new systems.

I hope I like Halo 3 (Sept. 25) better than Halo 2. And I hope that if I say that I hate Halo 3, I won’t be hunted down and murdered by the psycho disciples of the Master Chief. Will it be all that fans crave from the series? There’s a rumor that thousands of 20-year-old college sophomores wearing X-Files T-shirts wet themselves simultaneously when the Beta-test version was released earlier this month. Wrap a Ziploc around those 360s, boys.

It’s funny that when Halo 2 came out, it was within weeks of Grand Theft Auto. The same is true this year when Grand Theft Auto IV appears on Oct. 14. Little is known about this title right now, but I’m guessing there will be guns, violence, pimps and ’hos, and'thanks to next-gen consoles'you’ll get them all in high definition.

My editor told me that if I pontificate too much on the virtues of Madden 2008 (Aug. 14), he would pelt me with balled-up copies of all the stories I’ve written on how Madden 2006 and 2007 were the best Maddens ever. So I won’t do that. I’ll just say that Madden 2008 … will be the best Madden ever.

As great as other football titles are, NCAA Football 2008 is always a favorite (July 17). And while we’re on sports games, 2K Sports has a promising baseball title called The Bigs (June 25) that features major league teams as well as power-ups and special effects that will make it more than an everyday game simulator. From sports to blood sports, every action-game player should mark July 9 on his or her calendar. Manhunt 2 will follow up its extremely violent predecessor; a new character is hunted for sport in all-new games. It should be crazy good, which means I’ll schedule the soapbox delivery to Washington, D.C.

This year’s prized vintage-movie game will be Dirty Harry (TBA 2007). It offers the voices of Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Laurence Fishburne. Who knows whether or not this will be another Godfather, or another Catwoman. Only time and $60 will tell. The first installments of Guitar Hero were raving successes; the third installment coming in November should be no different. In a nonmusical coming attraction, John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat bring Stranglehold, which should be a great cop actioner, on Sept. 7.

Finally, the game I’m most anticipating (other than Madden, of course): Clive Barker’s Jericho in September. Monsters, unseen evil, Special Forces teams and a lost city in the desert'who can ask for more? I guess looking back at looking forward, the boredom might not last forever.