Deliberations for my 2012 game of the year! (not from games that came out in 2012, just from games I played in 2012)
Roughly in 'best game first' order.
(the Mass Effect series sits weirdly tho - I had already played all of 1 and 2 last year, so although I love the Mass Effect universe and really enjoyed 3, the concept and world were not as new or exciting to me as the games above it this year :)
Grimrock wins my game of the year for 2012! Having played a lot of Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes back etc. as a kid, I loved being able to re-visit a similar kind of game as an adult. And Grimrock doesn't just rip off anything that went before it either - it has its own identity. Sat and played this a lot together with the other half. We even broke out a notebook and pen at certain points! Not had so much nostalgic-but-also-new fun in ages :D
I love the world of Skyrim and played it for well over 100 hours this year. I think it falls down by being a bit too procedural with its area types and quests (too much fetch questing, too many similar areas, on the whole not enough uniqueness), however, even despite that, the game is second-to-none on world building - beautiful, interesting, and has compelling skill trees that always keep me coming back to learn more. I love Hearthfire as an addition too :)
Not so much to say about Journey - its Journey! I enjoyed the whole thing. Its like the fulfillingly philosophical short story of games (try saying that fast o.o; )
My first Deus Ex experience didn't disappoint! Really enjoyed it (though preferred the open-world town sections to the 'levels'). The bosses were a bitch though and made me pretty angry at the time unfortunately.
Lovely game that harnesses a lot of the unique abilities of the iPad in a fun way. Great music and art too. I think its a must-play if you own a tablet.
Playing this as on old-school LAN co-op game with the other half and loving it! Fantastic traditional hack-n-slash romp so far. I think it would be something truly special with a much stronger plot though.
Played the main game plus Leviathan and the Prothean DLC. A great game with a lot of excellent Mass Effect moments. Didn't touch the multiplayer and kind of resent it being shoved in my face all the time. Also, I'm not big on overblown patriotic war stories, so all-in-all they did a good job making that setup appealing enough to keep me going right up to the end.
I had already played Mass Effect 1 + 2 in previous years, but added on Shadow Broker, Overlord and Arrival this time too. Enjoyed Overlord & Shadow Broker most, less impressed by Arrival.
I'm really glad this game exists and (though I'm not generally into block-puzzle type games) I enjoyed playing it for quite a while. I like the premise, visual design, chatting to characters in the bar etc. much more than the bit where you actually play the block puzzles though.
A fun game that, unfortunately, I had to drop for a bit due to back/shoulder pain and haven't picked back up yet. Although its fun in general (and very pretty), I'm not a big fan of the skill system (I like to put points into things!), and I don't like the way that you seem to need to play it multiple times to get the 'true' experience. I only intend to play it once (probably), and I want to feel like I'm getting epic loot etc. by the end of my playthrough. Part of the reason I haven't picked it back up to finish is that completing just one playthrough seems kind of futile (as you won't really get any of the good stuff). This makes the game seem broken to me :S
Enjoyable point'n'click that harks back to Beneath a Steel Sky. Was a bit weird getting it to run on Windows 7 64 bit as its a 16-bit game (even though I don't feel like its old enough to have to have been made in 16-bit?). Admirable amount of work put in by one guy on this one - I think the writer also did practically everything else bar the music/VO.
Just loaded P4 up to complete the last dungeon and ending sequence this year so that's why its at the bottom (I absolutely love this game though :)
A re-play of a game I loved as a kid! Still love it - there are things modern RPGs could still learn from this.
A re-play so its at the bottom. One of my all-time favourite games tho.
Another re-play, to try out the iPad version. Works pretty well.
