2012 Year in Review

[KingPK]

I thought about doing the ballot thing, but I'd rather just talk about some of the games we liked this year and which ones didn't cut it. Besides, I ordered Far Cry 3 so it may end up on my top list in a few weeks.

Game of the Year: The Walking Dead

Some games looked better. Some games played better. This one was the only game I played that was able to weave together a great personal story from start to finish. Clementine may be one of the best written characters of this generation.

Most Dissapointing: Assassin's Creed 3

On the flipside, one of the games I was looking most forward to this year ended up being a boring, uninteresting, at times tedious experience. Connor is no Ezio; he's barely an Altair and he's shoehorned into all of these situations that really have nothing to do with him. The game boasted about interacting with people like George Washington, but it barely amounted to anything. Leonardo da Vinci was a much bigger help to Ezio than anyone is to Connor in this game.

And FUCK that ending.

 

[Exslade ZX]

Ditto.

If I were to create this post I would have pretty much said the exact same thing. Even down to having just ordered Far Cry 3 yesterday. (From Amazon for 39.99) So I'm looking forward to that. I actually rather enjoyed Far Cry 2, even though I actually never finished it and at times missions became tedious, but it seems they've improved on everything that was wrong. Finally including fast travel, better stealth/melee options. I don't know what it is, I just can't enjoy an action game that doesn't have 'melee events' I guess you'd call them. I hate when I punch/slice somebody and it interacts the same as you hitting a brick wall and their character model just falls.

One game that surprised me that I really enjoyed was Forza:Horizon. I bought this cheap on BF for $15 just to resell, and decided to play it and got probably the best racing game I've ever played. I HATE racing games with a passion too, just something I don't enjoy. But this one did everything right. Down with the whole Festival setting. Amazing visuals. Varying types of races. Street/Circuit/Event etc. Goes without saying Forza has probably the best physics engine. I just didn't like the previous track only settings. But they went the right route with the open world. Being able to challenge any cars on the go. And I love the design settings, and how I can go online right now and download a Superman, Batman, Deadpool, Star Wars, AC, pretty much anything you can name car just because I feel like it. Definite 2nd or 3rd place GotY for me.

ACIII angers me, because while playing I enjoyed it...but as I sit back and reflect on it, my opinion gets worse and worse. Ruined by the fact that I can't even open up my save and play any point of the game I want to like in previous games. I mean seriously? I would like to be able to go back and replay the missions that I did enjoy, or try to get full synch on some of them, but apparently I can't because I finished the game? And I have to start a new one? Bogus.

 

[bps21]

Walking dead is my goty.

I too enjoy Forza Horizon wildly more than I expected too. It's such a fun game.

Other games I enjoyed this year:

Mass effect 3 (people can argue about the ending...I loved the game)
Mark of the ninja
Sleeping dogs
Fez
Kingdoms of amalur
Warp
Alan wakes American nightmare gets a shout out just because I love the games
What I've played of black ops 2 has been very good

I've got hitman absolution that I read is good waiting to go in. Far cry 3 is in my queue from gamefly. I've only played the first level of halo 4.

 

[KingPK]

You can replay previous missions in AC III. It's somewhere in the pause menu.

Forza Horizon is awesome. I played the demo for NFC: Most Wanted but I didn't like the drab city setting. Forza's wide open Colorado roads are beautiful. Plus, the while festival setting makes the game feel livelier.

 

[Angle-plex]

Mass effect 3 was great, but the ending was a mess and somewhat ruined it.

Reaident evil 6 started off ok, but I haven't finished it yet and have no desire to.

I can't even remember any other game I played this year. The walking dead, though, I put that in the same category as MGS, final fantasy vii, ect as a game ill remember years from now.

 

[KingPK]

I think my Top 10 would go something like this:

10. Frog Fractions (just play it)
9. MLB 2K12
8. Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition
7. Mass Effect 3
6. Sleeping Dogs
5. Borderlands 2
4. Forza Horizon
3. Trials Evolution
2. Rock Band Blitz
1. The Walking Dead

The order probably would change by the day but the top two are probably solid. I'm compulsively trying to gold star all my songs in Blitz.

 

[bps21]

I'm two missions in to Hitman Absolution and you can go ahead and add it to my list. I'd be farther but I kept replaying to do things as many ways as I could.

 

[AnonymousBroccoli]

Games I played a reasonable amount of this year. I'd say "reasonable" would be about 5+ hours:
Rock Band 3
Rock Band Blitz
Picross 3D
The Walking Dead
Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC version this time)
Portal 2
Mark of the Ninja
Torchlight II
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Borderlands 2
Civlization V
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception


Other games I played a bit this year:

Spoiler

Just Cause 2
Max Payne 3
Dota 2
Dead Island
Max Payne
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
God of War (PS3)
Team Fortress 2
Bastion
Braid
Picross DS
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Fieldrunners
Aquaria
World of Goo
Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony
Dust: An Elysian Tail
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

For a whole year, that's... not really a lot.

And the 2012 releases I played a "reasonable" time:
Mark of the Ninja
The Walking Dead
Rock Band Blitz
Torchlight II
Borderlands 2

I don't play multi-player, like, ever. While I can appreciate its appeal to a degree, loot whoring is just not fun to me after a while. And I'm not naturally enthralled by the gameplay of clickclickclickclick, nor FPS/third-person driving. That knocks out Torchlight II and Borderlands 2.

Mark of the Ninja is pretty good, but I think I enjoyed the promise of it when I finished its demo more than actually playing through the game. I'd still say it's a good 4 out of 5.

Rock Band Blitz is a good way for Rock Band fans to get extra value out of their libraries. For anyone else... kinda hard to say. Getting 25 songs for $15 is a decent enough value—but if you're inclined to buy more, I don't know that you're getting your dollar or two's worth if you're only going to play them in Blitz. I played the game quite a bit during its first few weeks, but not so much since then. All of the functionality that is only available via a separate Facebook app is kind of bogus.

The Walking Dead: From a technical standpoint, I want to give it a 2/5—releasing the episodes simultaneously on two consoles, two families of desktop OSes, and one mobile OS with however many devices... it may have been too much for what I believe is a smaller developer in Telltale. As a game, it's probably about a 3/5. But as a story-telling experience that wouldn't have had nearly the same impact in a different medium... it's an easy 5/5. Don't know that it's the best game I played this year—if I omit the obvious (for me) Rock Band 3, it'd probably be Portal 2. But it's definitely the best one that came out this year.

 

[FLAM]

I don't have a clear cut favorite as I haven't played too many games from 2012, but Binary Domain is a game that should get more love. I had a lot of fun with that one. The talking into the mic gimmick was flawed, and I turned that off after two levels, but everything else was very well done. Definitely my favorite shooter since Vanquish.

 

[Mik]

Darksiders 2 was a pretty good game that came out this year. If you like a Zelda clone... it's pretty damn good.

Borderlands 2 and ME3 were my favorite and most played games. I'd have joined everyone who ordered Far Cry 3 if I had a working Xbox at the moment.

The only game I played and didn't care for was Dishonored.

 

[jimmy no nose]

I don't know if it was a down year or if just nothing really grabbed me and I missed out, but I really spent the bulk of 2012 catching up on games I had lying around from previous years and never got to finish. I still didn't even finish that, as I have a little more to go in Red Dead Redemption, a lot more to go in Portal 2, then Dead Island, Uncharted 2, and Uncharted 3 which I really haven't even started.

Of the new games I did get a chance to spend a little time on, my favorites were probably Borderlands 2 and Sleeping Dogs. I also enjoyed Max Payne 3 quite a bit. Resident Evil 6 alternated between really good and just terrible.

The one that I want to give a shot is The Walking Dead, which I'll probably pick up on the Xbox Live deal this week, but hold off on playing for a while.

 

[fazzle]

Man, just looked at a list of all 2012 releases, and I haven't played shit that's come out this year. I only have 7 games that I've played enough of and liked enough to put them on a top list so..my top 7 games of the year!

1) Trials Evolution
2) The Walking Dead
3) Asura's Wrath
4) Sleeping Dogs
5) Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
6) Spelunky
7) Cook, Serve, Delicious!

 

[KingPK]

The summer was an absolute wasteland this year. After my top 10 I can probably think of only a handful of 2012 releases I played. Really my 10-7 choices probably wouldn't even be on the list in a better year (I put 100+ hours into MLB after hating the previous games so it deserves some attention).

 

[Smues]

I'll have to rack my brain to figure out what I played that came out this year, but off the top of my head I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy Xiii-2 and loved the shit out of Pinball Arcade.

For old games I finally started Mass Effect this year. I'm half way through Mass Effect 2 and wondering why it took me so long to start these.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

The most-played game of the year for me came out in 2011. Skyrim. I didn't pick this up until late June of this year, when I found the Dragon Statue Edition at Best Buy for $39.99. Between the day I bought it, and mid-October, I logged about 160 hours which is insane by my standards. I ended up getting all trophies except Oblivion Walker (a design flaw in the game fucked me over on this) and Level 50.

My top 2012 release is Final Fantasy XIII-2 by a long shot. One of the most shocking endings of all time, even though it pissed off many.

 

[KingPK]

Yeah I played the bulk of Skyrim myself this year, but if I put all the games I played this year on my list I'd have to put Super Metroid on there since I finished it for the first time this year.

 

[Edwin]

Ending notwithstanding, it's gotta be Mass Effect 3. The game itself was incredible except for those last three hours, and I played its multiplayer mode nearly every day for 6 months. Looking forward to going back through the single player with another of my save imports early next year.

Walking Dead would be my #2, XCOM probably my #3.

 

[Kageho]

What wasn't a disappointment this year? Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed 3, Diablo III, etc. It just seemed like a lot of games that came out this year coasted to their totals they needed and that was that. Now it doesn't mean the whole game itself was a disappointment, but the game ends up being because it doesn't handle something right, it doesn't play right or it just decides to do something for the sake of doing it and failing miserably.

Basically, the stuff we thought would be sure fire hits... Well, they weren't.

 

[KingPK]

Started Far Cry 3. This may easily slide into my top 5 if my initial impression holds up. That's probably one of the strongest openings to a game I've played in some time.

 

[Angle-plex]

Mass effect 3s gameplay was awesome. It was just the ending and choices not mattering that killed it.