X-Play will be airing some strange combination of interview and press release with the industry’s pre-eminent hype machine, Peter Molyneux. Apparently Crazy Uncle Pete will be unveiling exclusive details on two new games he’s “working” on, which means at least one probably exists solely in the realm of his largely unrealized dreams. The episode airs 8pm EST, or roughly fifteen minutes from now. Let the predictions commence:

Not wanting to overhype the upcoming titles as he has in the past (one bench monkey at E3 2005 told me they WEREN’T allowed to tell us anything that wasn’t already hard-coded after the Fable fiasco), Molyneux’s next schizophrenic stab at reclaiming his 80s gaming god status will be called Sandbox. This won’t denote the GTA-style of play he’s always worked with; the game will literally be confined to a sandbox. You’ll be able to toss dirt in your little brother’s hair and crap your pants (a staple of Molyneux games), but building sand castles and using the shovel and pail set aren’t confirmed… I mean, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, right?

The next one is completely up in the air, but hitting things or putting bullets in them is very likely. Gay sex is a possibility. It’s unknown if Molyneux will drop many exclusive tidbits or if the zeppelin he’s standing under will inflate and fly him away to Candyland, where he’s from.

Sequels have always been part of the industry, and always will be. People like to purchase familiar brand names no matter how badly they suck, which explains EGM’s success, and gaming critics are well known for rating sequels in an abnormally favorable manner, no matter what their personal opinion seems to be on paper. True, sometimes this is justified by a developer taking a strong engine and making it stronger, but just as often Bungie will stick on dual-wielding and shitty physics before patting you on the head and wandering off to the titty bar to count your money. But looking at the slated releases for 2009 and 2010, I think we’re really overdoing it. Here’s a brief list:

Assassin’s Creed 2, Beyond Good & Evil 2, Bionic Commando, BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, Bumpy Trot 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (not to be confused with Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy: Fucking Hell), Colin McRae: Dirt 2, Dark Cloud 3, Destroy All Humans 3 or maybe 4, nobody cares, Deus Ex 3, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin…

You’ll notice I stopped with the F section, and that’s already a hefty chunk of real estate up there. It doesn’t slow down, either. Some of them are welcome sequels to games we thought were dead and forgotten, and it got us thinking here at the RG.

See, we can smell a get rich quick scheme as fast as anybody in the gaming press. It’s the reason 96% is considered an awful score for anything published by Microsoft. And we thought we had the perfect plan to trump everybody, but we found out just how far this rabbit hole goes…

Mike was on the phone to Taiwan, demanding an overnight pressing of 50,000 BioShock 3 t-shirts when I found this report on what’s left of IGN. Apparently they’re not content with having our full attention, they want to bolt us into some Clockwork Orange-style apparatus and keep up there until 2012.

You win this time, Strauss Zelnick. But we’ll have the last laugh when you’re caught walking out of Electronics Boutique: GameStop 2 with a copy of BioShock 7: Desert of Lucid Thoughts clutched in your hot little hands.