I've been seized by some odd ponderings lately. My minds net has been cast wide into my fevered and often perverted imagination and drawn in some fishy wishes for gaming in 2011. Do I think any of these things will actually happen? Probably not a hope in hell. But here's the top five wishes I had for gaming this morning while eating toast.

5. Why the hell can't we get the names fixed in Street Fighter yet?

This is a simple one but it's been bugging me lately.

It was a pretty exciting afternoon in the local bowling alley when my 12 year old body, composed almost entirely of joints and huge bones, reached the unplayable boss character in Street FIghter II (playing as Ken). Out of the four menacing bosses Sagat was the only one I recognised from the original Street Fighter. Boxer Balrog, Matador Vega and psycho crushing M. Bison were an exciting challenge to top off the original, great fighting game.

When I watched the Street Fighter movie (the Manga one with that memorable Chun Li shower scene) I was confused that the characters names were mixed up, M. Bison occasionally getting called Vega. I learned that in the Japanese version this was his correct name, the clawed matador being Balrog and the boxer being M. Bison. The story goes that Capcom US bitched out big time at the idea of a game character who was an evil, corrupt, flinty eyed boxer named M. Bison. Sounds a little like M. Tyson you see, as it was supposed to. So to avoid any legal battles as a result of the name they changed around the bosses names. Yes, very lame.

But now, well, it's been freaking twenty years. The name Mike Tyson wouldn't be recognised by most of the juniors picking up Super Street FIghter IV. And Tyson is far financially removed from the legal means to take Capcom to court over a tenous link; ironically Balrog's fighting career has outlasted Tysons. Isn't it about time we fixed the names, everyone knows it should be the other way around. I'd like to imagine this is something they'd slip into that Arcade Mode DLC they're planning for Super Street Fighter IV that drops in the unlockable characters from the arcade version. But I'm not expecting it.

4. A Kinect Halo Game

I loved the pants off Halo Reach and it loved my pants right back off. Now 343 studios has a Halo game or two on the cards, mayhaps a HD remake of Halo CE. I think it's unlikely they'll be able to top Halo: Reach, at least in this Hardware cycle, and I don't want them too. As a fan boy I'd like to see 343 go in other directions, try new things.

On that note I've been pretty blown away by Kinect. The hacks appearing online never fail to amaze and just using it at home is amazing, I've used it almost as much as the kids. A Kinect Halo game has the potential to be awesome, 343 just need to think outside of the FPS genre, which is automatically what everyone things off when they think about Halo and Kinect. It could be a strategy game, a war game, a vehicle shooter perhaps, just think how easy you could gesture control the Longsword from Reach. I'm not saying it's a recipe that can't fail, quite the contrary, it's not so much a flirt but a drunken snog with disaster. But you know, some times those drunken snogs are the best things that ever happened. I'd love to see 343 Industries down the Bacardi and have a go and see what happens.

3. Try and RTS on Consoles, go on, just one more time.

Real Time Strategy games on consoles have almost universally sucked. And not just a little bit, they've sucked really bad or been such pale imitators of their source that it's embarrassing to even admit they exist. The one possible exception being Halo Wars which I maintain is a pretty damn good, albeit pretty simple, RTS war game. But is that any reason to quit making them? Well fiscally and business wise probably... but in my twisted mind right now HELL NO!

I love RTS games a whole helluva a lot and where possible I play them on my Mac desktop at home. Not many are available, as you can imagine (really need to get Bootcamp sometime soon). But I hate desktop gaming, I haaaaate it. I spend all day sitting in front of a computer, then time spent writing with a laptop and my feet up somewhere. When I game I lie down, I need to lie down. So during my ten minute window of down time each day consoles win out easily. But RTS games are basically unrepresented on consoles in any meaningful way. I'd love to see a Civ V on Xbox. I know it would be dumbed down, but I'd buy it. Maybe a special controller for RTS's with a touchpad, or a combination of controller and Kinect gesture controls to map manage units and resources. Come on developer people, you're all so clever. Lets try RTS's on consoles again.

2. Firefall on Xbox Live

If there was one game above others I'm  super excited to get my hands on this year it's Firefall. The thing just looks amazing. And the developers free to play model is pretty exciting industry wise as well. It would be great if they pull it off and set a new precedent, although I can't help but think they've got an uphill battle ahead of them.

But the game looks and feels as if it would do the business on Xbox Live superbly. I'd love to see it announced for an Xbox release. But I think the chances are some where between zero and nothing. Here's the gameplay trailer if you missed it before to see why I'm so damn excited for this title.

1. The New Xcom Game To Be Even Slightly Like the Original Xcom

*Deep sigh* Growing up Xcom was my game, I played the hell out of it. Then came Xcom Terror of the Deep and I played the hell out of that too. Then there were some other games we won't talk about. Because they were too crap for words. Then many years pass and people stop using mouses for games and it's all rumble packs and FPS's. Then someone says they're going to make a new Xcom game and I get so excited I need to breath into a paper bag. But then *deeper sigh* we get screenshots and videos that show an FPS game with 1950's streets and cars and early era FBI guys fighting lumps of tar and the obelisk from 2001 that can turn into a star gate for something. Yeah it looks interesting and all, it could be a terrific game. But I want my team manage, research based, random event, turn based action game. Or barring that I want at least some element of the original Xcom to appear in the new one, because currently the only comparison is that both have aliens.

I have very fond, very attached memories of Xcom being a game I could happily play for endless hours and the new Xcom game has, very sadly, failed to feet even the very basic comparison tests with the original. Maybe that'll change as more details emerge, but it's not looking so good so far.