Game(s) of the Year 2012?

[BloatedGuppy]

XCOM, Walking Dead, Dishonored, GW2, FTL are looking like the top 5. If I somehow get Far Cry 3 before the year is up and love it, it might weasel in over GW2 or FTL, but given how much cash I blew through during the fall sale and my rather sizable backlog as a result, I rather doubt it.

 

[bemusement]

Final Fantasy 13-2 was really good so that, I haven't really played much 2012 games.

 

[DanielBrown]

Hm, think the only games I've bought released this year is Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3, Dragons Dogma and Diablo III. Except for the last one they have all blown me away.
Borderlands 2 takes the lead. Dragons Dogma has been amazing so far, but I haven't finished it yet. Must've played for 30-40 hours the past two days.

Edit: Remembered I have bought GW2 and FFXIII-2 as well. Both pretty meh.

 

[spartandude]

in all honesty id say that the best game this year is The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition

but if that doesnt count then either Borderlands 2 or Dishonoured

 

[JEBWrench]

No love for Crusader Kings 2? Nobody?

That's my number 1. Followed closely by X-Com: Enemy Unknown, FTL, The Walking Dead (which could go higher once I get around to actually buying the rest of the sodding thing), and Mass Effect 3.

 

[The Great JT]

I'd agree with the original poster on Mass Effect 3 and Kerbal Space Program. I would like to nominate World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria though for "Best Expansion". Fantastic music, improved storyline, really loved questing around the Valley of Four Winds with Chen Stormstout, and let's not forget the Grummles.

 

[Contradiction]

I'd say either Dragons Dogma or X com

If I had to pick it'd be dogma because it was a sleeper (hit?) title that just came off as genuine (albeit lacking polish) as well as having quite the daring ending (I can't recall another that has done it)

Spoiler: END GAME PLOT TWIST ALLUDED

Wherein the final act, the last button and player action before completion and victory over the campaign is suicide (Who wants immortality anyway?)

Also it was insanely fun to play with a good balance of streamlining and hardcore aspects for example its character creation not only has depth allowing you to decide their gait and posture if you so choose but also has consequences for decisions such as weight and height. No short cuts like exploitable quick travel, fun party mechanics even if the AI was lacking, decent end game/end game plot even if the new game plus needed more drastic difficulty scaling.

Oh and lets not forget a cross console mega boss.

Dragons Dogma has been amazing so far, but I haven't finished it yet. Must've played for 30-40 hours the past two days.

You're in for a treat, trust me

 

[Cat of Doom]

5. The Walking Dead
4. Spec ops: The Line
3. Dishonored
2. Mass Effct 3
1. Halo 4

Would have been Mass effcet 3, if not for the ending, and being an EA game with EAs batshit DLC practice's(having a key squad member show up only If you buy the collectors edition or DLC). Would have been Dishonored, but nothing takes me out of immersion quicker than a silent protagonist ( the whole plot would have fell apart if corvo had just spoke up, and said what really happened). Spec ops and the walking dead had amazing story's, but not good enough gameplay.

Have to go with halo. Halo is a free shooter with little restriction, fun custom games, and whereas in most modern shooters you just clear one corridor of bad guys and move on, in halo, each time you replay a mission its different, you can run in guns blazing, or an grunt may through a plasma grenade at you, which misses, hits a banshee which fly's into a fusion coil, which exploads causing a ghost to spin out of control and hit your warthog midair, flipping it into a hoard of elites, killing them... Just as your own mariens fire a rocket launcher at them which blows you off the map.

Its the randomness of the game I love

 

[charge52]

While I can't choose concretely(still have a few to play/complete), these are my nominations.
Borderlands 2
Dragons Dogma
FTL
Mark of the Ninja
(if it counts and stays as good/better than the original) Baldur's Gate Enhanced edition.
The Walking Dead
Spec Ops the Line
Assassin's Creed 3
Games yet to come out/get that could be added:
Far Cry 3
Halo 4
Hitman Absolution

 

[Excedrin]

The writing for Spec Ops the Line is really just incredible if you ask me. I was genuinely disgusted, saddened and horrified by it. It portrayed the brutal nature of war in an era of video games where there's a lot of romanticism about the military. However, the combat just felt really repetitive and dull. I'm not a huge FPS fan so I may not be equipped to criticize, but it just didn't suit me.

I think Guild Wars 2 was a good game even if you buy it just as a single player experience, and there's so much more to it. You'll find a lot of the stereotypical jaded MMO types, but it's not too difficult to steer clear of them and they're far less common than in other MMOs. And there's no subscription, so you can just drop it when you're bored and pick it right back up if you're so inclined. I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned more frequently so far, but I suspect that's due to it being an MMO and the stigma that is associated with such games.

I really did like Dishonored, but the game felt like so much wasted potential. It was so short and it left so much unexplained that I was really disappointed. The twist is predictable, the characters are underdeveloped, and they dangle some very fun toys in front of your face only to call you a bastard if you play with them. The game is just a giant cock tease if you ask me. But the actual gameplay was a lot of fun, I really can't wait to see what they do with the sequel.

I really need to play XCOM, from what I've heard the game is right up my alley.

But I really don't know what I'd say personally. It's been a pretty disappointing year for me. I was really let down by ME3 as a long time fan of the franchise to the point where I could only get about halfway through before being unable to pick it up again. I was really looking forward to Bioshock:Infinite, but it got pushed back. I guess of the games I've played I'd personally say GW2, but the communities MMOs (really, large online games in general) attract tend to repulse me. I haven't picked up the game in weeks now.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Mass Effect 3:

Yes the final 10 minutes was fucking weird and putting serious story elements in DLC is retarded (what about those without Xbox LIVE? Rare I know but I'm one of them!) what it did well it did really fucking well. The culmination of the Genophage story, my bromance with Garrus, my actual romance with Liara, saying a prayer for Thane, giving the rock to Tali and (my favourite character in the whole series) saying farewell to Legion. A lot of tear jerker moments. Though I'm aware these moment's were really only great because the previous games were so great so that my cloud my judgement a little.
While people complained about the combat I thought it flowed better than 2 and customising my weapons was fun and brought it back closer to it's RPG origins.

I'd agree with this assessment. While the fact that I waited 6 months to play the game meant I had both the extended ending AND the leviathan DLC to play, I actually didn't download either before playing to completion and found I enjoyed the entire game. The worst I can muster to say about the closing few minutes is that it seemed rushed. It didn't offer any particularly glaring plot holes and was thematically consistent with the rest of the series; what it mostly lacked was closure on key things. Playing through a second time remembering to actually install all of that DLC I found I was pleasantly surprised to get some clarification on the Catalyst that answered most questions I could muster about precisely what it was doing and why as well as having a degree of closure on the big points of the story.

That it took 2 pieces of DLC to achieve closure in the last ten minutes isn't damning but it certainly stinks. I've always said I was fine with DLC so long as the core game was fine without it. Thus far this has generally been true. ME3 is the first time I can truly say that the bits you need to add after you buy the game are actually important. That some of those bits came from DLC from the previous game is especially questionable. There is at least one quest I know of that only has a good ending if you played through Stolen Memories and a number of possible additions to your readiness could only be achieved if you played through the incredibly tedious Operation Overlord.

Personally, my games of the year are probably ME3 and Faster than Light. I was surprised by how much joy I got from a rather minimalist roguelike. One of my fondest gaming memories of the year was the first time I managed to actually make it to the end game and defeat the final boss. There were even stories of heroic sacrifice in those final battles. When my mantis boarding party was trapped inside the enemy ship and I couldn't wait for repairs to pull them out before winning a key battle was hard. I like to think they told the captain that it was okay to fire. What greater end can there be for a mantis soldier than standing knee deep in the corpses of your enemies fighting a hopeless battle to give others the chance for victory. That a character can have precisely zero lines and zero characterization and only an hour of screen time can worm it's way into my mind months later is a testament to the power of emergent storytelling.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

-double post-

 

[Assassin Xaero]

GOTY - Spec Ops: The Line. Haven't had a game blow me away like that in a long time.

I was probably most hyped about Borderlands 2, but it was mostly just more of the same (which wasn't bad, just not as amazing the second time around), and I didn't think the guns were as great as the first.

The Walking Dead was another good one. I didn't think it was as moving as Spec Ops though. I was never attached to the main character or Clem much, and well, actually, all the characters I even slightly liked were dead or gone by the end of Episode 4, so Episode 5 was pretty much just finishing off the story for me and nothing more.

 

[Iwata]

So far, I'd say:

- The Walking Dead
- X-Com: Enemy Unknown
- Dishonored

 

[WoW Killer]

Borderlands 2 for me. It's been an interesting year for loot-em-ups after being a stagnant genre for longer than it should have. The main thing to take from the year is that itemisation is key. BL2 is the more satisfying and rewarding of the 2012 loot-em-ups because it has the better itemisation. Not that I think it is perfect in that regard (I think the original had slightly better itemisation actually, though other areas like balance and difficulty make the sequel the better game overall). But if you read through any of the topics on the game you'll see everyone has a slightly different opinion of the various manufacturers and weapon types. I'm a massive fan of the Vladof Sniper Rifles, while other people like the Dahls or Jakobs or Maliwans (some people even like the Hyperion SRs; whatever floats your boat I guess ). It's about taste and playstyle rather than a purely mathematical question of what does the most dps. When you get a new weapon, there's that sense that you can't tell exactly what it does from its stats alone; you need to give it a spin to see how it feels. That's the key. I think maybe there was a bit too much emphasis on wacky effects so that what you were begging for through most of the game was a more ordinary feeling work-horse gun, and there were some examples of a disconnect between rarity and power, like with this:

Spoiler: One of these is super rare, the other is... not...

Maybe I just got a really bad one, I don't know. Anyway, that's the most fun I've had with a 2012 release so far. Still need to play XCOM.

 

[Naeras]

My current candidates are Faster Than Light and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. I suspect XCOM - Enemy Unknown and The Walking Dead also will enter the list when I get a chance to play them after my exams. I still think FTL will take the top spot, though. Good god that game is a bucketload of fun.

 

[hermes]

X-Com, Spec Ops and Mass Effect 3 are on my list for top contenders. Journey also deserves a special mention in the indie front...

I have Dishonored and Walking Dead in my backlog, and probably will play them before the end of the year.

 

[thejackyl]

1. Walking Dead - Great story, even though it didn't have much "gameplay". It felt like and Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain type game where you actually got attached to most of the cast. Also, that ending. I saw it coming a mile away, but DAMN! I nearly cried, and that's something I haven't done in a LONG time.

2. Dishonored - Fun, if a bit broken stealth game. Interesting setting, and multiple ways to play. Can't really say much more.

3. Spec Ops: The Line - This one is an interesting choice for me, but it's pretty much my contender for best story. The gameplay felt dated, and honestly the game wasn't much fun. But those spoilers. It felt like I was experiencing the nuke scene from CoD4 for the first time again. And that ending... made the game a bit of a mind fuck. The most recent game to make me put the controller down and just say: "Wow..."

 

[shrekfan246]

I got this:
[ul]Winner of "Most Shocking Ending":
[li]The Walking Dead[/li]
Runner-up: Mass Effect 3 (That's a joke.)[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Most Exquisite Adventure":
[li]Journey[/li]
Runner-up: The Walking Dead[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Best Expansion":
[li]World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria[/li]
Not that it has much competition.[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Best Improvement Over a Past Title's Gameplay":
[li]The Darkness II[/li]
Runner-up: Mass Effect 3[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Most Surprisingly Good Overall":
[li]Sleeping Dogs[/li]
Runner-up: Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition (PC) (After the DSFix mod...)[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Best Stealth Game":
[li]Mark of the Ninja[/li]
Runner-up: Dishonored[/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Best HD Re-release":
[li]Okami HD[/li][/ul]

[ul]Winner of "Best Value For Money":
[li]Persona 4 Golden[/li]
Runner-ups: World of Warcraft, Darksiders II, Torchlight II, Okami HD.[/ul]

And last but not least:
[ul]Winner of "Most Fun Had While Playing":
[li]The Walking Dead[/li]
Runner-ups: Mass Effect 3, Persona 4 Golden, Dishonored.[/ul]