With summer being officially over, it means that the winter is coming and eventually the new year. Before you lock yourself in your basement to prepare yourself for 2012′s end of days, you should probably upgrade your PC first and get familiar with one of the following games.

MMO games have gained an unbelievable amount of popularity in the last few years. World of Warcraft was a huge money maker and brought the genre to the mainstream with millions of subscribers. World of Warcraft still has a large subscriber base but is having some competitors challenge it’s dominance. Games such as Rift, Eve Online, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy XI have tried to challange World of Warcraft’s dominance, and for the most part did a decent job but never surpassed its player base. World of Warcraft has to worry though moving forward, with the existing competition along side with the new competitors that will be released, World of Warcraft will no longer be the iPhone of the MMO world. Here is a look of some upcoming competition

Final Fantasy XIV

Ok. So, yeah. This game has been out for just over a year now. When this game launched, the reviews were terrible. Accompanied by a terrible user interface and horrible bugs, players were not enjoying this game. A year later, quite a few things have happened. The team over at Square Enix announced back in December of 2010, a new team that will be focusing on this game. On top of that Square Enix officially apologized for the game, stating that it has “damaged” the franchise. Final Fantasy XIV did not start off well and has a long battle ahead of itself. Recently, a patch was released (Patch 1.18), this patch made changes to the graphics as well as several bug fixed towards class balances and battles. The developers are on the right track. Moving forward, with the right team, and right mentality, they will have the potential to increase the quality of this game inviting many players to the world of an online Final Fantasy Game.

Marvel Universe Online

One of the most anticipated online games EVER. Until, Marvel decided to cancel the series. Marvel made a statement back in 2008, it would not be able to compete in the MMO world. The statement was issued, after the project being tossed into the hands of several different companies. As of now, the Marvel MMO has been scrapped due to competition reasons. This is funny since D.C. Comics went ahead to release D.C. Online. Although, Marvel decided to call it quits with a Marvel MMO, Marvel signed a company called Gazillion Entertainment to create about ten Marvel based titles. One of the games created is an online game geared to children called Super Hero Squad Online. This easily can be the start to something large, and lets hope so, because I always wanted to create a Spider-Man macro.

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars was a fun game. Not only was it fun, it was successful. By April 2009, Guild Wars sold six million copies. A player could just purchase the game, and then it was FREE to play. No subscription like World of Warcraft required! Guild Wars also focused on cooperative and team play. Guilds and factions were key aspects to the game. Guild Wars 2 was announced back in 2007 and although there has been no release date yet, some professions have been announced and closed beta is being conducted as I write this. This is a direct sequel to Guild Wars, taking place 250 years after the first one. Players can even keep their original achievements. With the game in development for about four years or so, we are all hoping for the same great gameplay as Guild Wars with some hidden surprises to make this truly a memorable gaming experience.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The grand master of them all. This one will be a huge hit. Everyone knows it. Take a series like Star Wars, a company like Bioware, the mistakes learned from Star Wars Galaxies and blend it all together. You get yourself the Old Republic. The game shares similarities to the Knights of the Old Republic game series but does differ quite a bit. Players will take a role as either a member of the Sith or Republic. You choose yourself a class based on your faction and can eventually advance to an advanced class. The best part of the game’s class system, is that each class has multiple roles it can do. It’s up to the player to decide what skills they want their character to use which will be the fact that creates your role. On top of that, Bioware has announced the game will have raid content and dungeon content called Flashpoints. Each player will also have their own ship they can use for player versus player encounters. Stunning graphics, a huge univerise, a deep storyline and an impressive battle system leaves be to believe that pre-ordering this bad boy was an excellent idea.

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