"We typically don’t provide details about pricing until the game is closer to release. We do view Heart of the Swarm as an expansion set, so for the regions that have a standard box business model such as North America and Europe, we will price accordingly. For other regions that have alternative business models, we’ll provide details at a later date."

There you go. :p
Innovation maybe not much in the gameplay and mechanics, but in the whole eSports world... They took it to a higher level with SC2. :)

Even then I'd say that's more of an evolution than an innovation. They already had eSports, they just made them better. SC1 could be considered innovative in that sense though, as I'm not sure if there were any competitive leagues before Star Craft 1 came around.

So is it a standalone and what is a reasonable price for a (standalone) expansion? At least it does suggest it will be something less than £40, like SC2 was. But there is still a question regarding 'how much less?'.
But with SC1 that was something that gamers created around the game. With SC2 that was built into the game and from what I know that portion of the game was designed around esports.

I don't think they've ever said it is a standalone. We'll have to wait and see... personally, I'd love it to be a classic expansion, requiring the previous game to play.

I would say Portal, but I'm not sure that qualifies as AAA, the same goes for Psychonauts. I'd be thinking Deus Ex as the last big innovative game, possibly also Rome Total War since the campaign map was markedly different to anything before in the series. Thief would definitely qualify, but that is going back a bit. I may also say Elite :)

Nah they want to charge full price it is after all 1 whole campaign!

...damn my cynicism
Portal came from another game and was a bonus to HL2... Psychonaughts was only innovative in that it treated us like adults
Can you call it AAA though it was developed by a single person in his bedroom.. i'd call it the last of the first gen of bedroom game makers...

Heavy Rain, imo. I haven't played enough LA Noire yet but maybe that as well.

Last AAA was metal gear solid 3.
But in pc, I think it was dragon age:origins. Also loved crysis 1.
but innovative you say? And some new games? There was that indigo prophecy/fahrenheit. That was different.
Also.. Castlevania: Symphony of the night was great. Awesome.
And deus ex.. Not quite new but sue me.
Mostly I don't think games in those termes. They are good or not.
Hopefully that new deus ex will be good. Hard to beat the original.
And when it's time to talk about gaming.. Only new game which I'm impressed (what I remember) is mass effect 2. I know that that game was collecting people but in my brain, I really was impressed with that. They could have made better game but hard to think how. =) I liked it more than one.

But last innotative aaa... I guess there isn't any.
Haven't felt really nothing ground breaking in a while with new games.

Far Cry 2?

Edit: Nevermind, I just realized that ME is newer. “Dishonored” might bring some fresh wind into the genre.

That would be my choice. But, I'm not sure what might have come since thing. FO:NV was pretty epic, but I don't think that it could reasonably be considered to be innovative, most of what they did there had been done in an earlier version, they just got it right.

Heavy Rain.
/end thread

Yeah I can't see why people hated it for its many defects on launch... including deleting your character/progress. SC2, really? What about it is so different from SC?
Maybe they should have said that when they first announced it. Expacs would have been well received (most folks liked Broodwar, for example). Are these "expacs" actually lower priced than the original?

And now that I've complained about half the thread, here's mine:

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (for its amazing story and acting)
and
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (for its combat mechanics)

Those were 2010. Honorable mention goes to Red Dead Redemption for packing an insane amount of single player and multiplayer fun into the same game.

For 2011, er, dunno yet. I'll give it another few months. So far I'll say Trenched managed a really cohesive and amazing atmosphere but I wouldn't call it AAA.

Either some folks in this thread have a lot of nostalgia or they are exceedingly difficult to please. Games from 1998 were not the last innovative games.

If by AAA title you mean big name developer, uber hyped game..

Spore was probably one of the most innovative games to actually come out of a bigshot developer in a while, and people flocked to it because it had so many new and awesome ideas in it.

Granted everything I've heard about it.. so much was put in to the creature creation and whatnot, that they didn't really put enough in to the game itself, leading to it not having enough game play to warrant paying $50 for it.

DarkSpore is somewhat innovative, though it draws heavily on the innovation of Spore, and once again feels a bit like they put more of their focus in the critters and customization than the actual game play.

Blizzard has been saying that they are seen as expansion packs and will be priced accordingly since before the release of Wings of Liberty. It's just the misinformation/mob mentality that causes people to not know that, as people keep spreading lies.

As for recent innovative games, well, I don't play all that many recent releases, but if I can dip into the future, I would imagine that the Last Guardian will be quite innovative.

I would go for Spore and maybe everything that has to do with Kinect/Wii (the user interaction aspect).