2012, Not that great of a year for video games?

I agree, there haven't been any good squeals this year; sequels, on the other hand... :P

Anyway, it's too early to make a thread like this; I mean, it's not over until the Far(Cry) lady sings. So, let's wait another month (at least) before we start talking about the year in retrospect.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@CJduke said:

I have been disappointed in ME 3, Darksiders 2, Diablo 3, and so far AC 3 in being good games but not being as great as previous ones.

See that's just not right. You play as fucking death, what more do you want?

I could make any lame '90's comic book character and name him Death, but that doesn't make him much more than a tool until you give him some characterization or something, beyond a deep voice and barely concealed rage at whoever he's speaking to.

I've enjoyed the time I've had with Darksiders 2 but I keep finding myself wondering if it's ever going to get any more interesting or varied. You can only go so far on puzzles and same-y combat and less than stellar platforming. The story? Don't make me laugh. I know it's not high art, but it's a bit groan worthy at times. Fun in a really bad sort of way, but it doesn't seem to realize that.

Hotline Miami to all that shit.

I'd definitely agree that it hasn't been the best year for games. I've yet to pick up XCOM (although I did quite like the demo), but The Walking Dead is the only game this year I can say I am completely satisfied with.

Journey, Fez, Torchlight 2, Forza Horizons, Halo 4, AC3, Mark of the Ninja, Xcom, Borderlands 2, The Walking Dead, Trials Evolution, Hell Yeah!, Dust: An Elysian Tale, Spelunky, VF5: Final Showdown, Mass Effect 3.

Those were pretty good.

@believer258 said:

Mark of the Ninja? Dishonored? X-Com? And I don't really remember Max Payne 3 having a bad reception, though I didn't pay much attention to it. Also remember that Far Cry 3 isn't out yet and no one quite seems to know what to make of that boob-punching, shark-grabbing, hallucinogenic game full of insane people.

Yes, this year seems less than impressive, but look at the juggernauts we had last year. It seems like a lot of the usual AAA stuff is in development for next year or the next now.

FC3 could be a sneak GOTY contender. Far Cry 2 for all its foibles had some major guts and personality. FC3 seems to be ramping it up a notch and I hope it's as difficult and non hand-holdy as the previous game.

@Lydian_Sel said:

The Walking Dead....

...hasn't even finished being released yet.

While a good amount of sequels have been pretty rough/disappointing (Max Payne, Resident Evil, Serious Sam, and ME3 and D3 though I think those 2 are fine), there have been plenty of good stuff throughout the year. 

Dishonored, Persona 4 Arena, Tokyo Jungle, Asura's Wrath, Sleeping Dogs, XCOM, ACIII. I'd say it's still a good year for video games. Not quite on par as last year, but it's not a steep margin, I don't think.

Year of the downloadable title for me.

i've loved this year. i've just had so much to play it been great and every game i've play has just been great. its been my first year as am almost 100% PC gamer. don't think i've played anything on consoles, wish i had a 360 to play Forza and halo though

i feel some of you guys are just so desperate to find things to dislike about a game, your not happy unless you find that one little thing to complain and bitch about and pigoen whole games into those 2 extreems of SHIT or AMAZING.

Dishonored, Darksiders 2, X-COM, Mark of the Ninja, Journey, Sound Shapes, Hotline Miami, Dust: An Elysian Tale, Sleeping Dogs, Spec Ops, Torchlight 2, the list goes on. And that's just the ones I really like.

I think it's been generally a weak year. As in, there was a very low amount of games I was interested in. But the ones I did like, I REALLY LIKE! I had some good fun with X-Com, Mark of the Ninja and Asura's Wrath. Katawa Shoujo goes without saying for me, that was an unexpected experience! On top of that I have yet to play Dust, Sleeping Dogs and the Walking Dead. Who all seem great to me! I've been eyeing Binary Domain as well, but not too sure about that one. And to top it all off the PC-version of Dark Souls made me spend another 100+ hours on that game again!

2008 still the greatest year in gaming for me. GTA4, Lost Odyssey, Fallout 3, Mirrors Edge, Metal Gear Solid 4, Star Wars : Force Unleashed, Dead Space, No More Heroes, Left 4 Dead, Persona 4 and Burnout Paradise.

So many new IPs and amazing sequels, that was a expensive year.

Mass Effect and Diablo 3 were pretty disappointing, but there's been plenty of other games this year that were nothing short of amazing, especially on the indie front and Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, Pokemon Black/White 2 and Torchlight 2 will be keeping me busy well into next year

I'm very excited by a lot of what we'll be getting from Kickstarter too, even if most of that will be a couple of years off. The change in the way games are marketed and even made is great and there's been much less of a focus on the typical first person shooters (although the big names are obviously still around).

I think those who are noticing a lull are probably primarily console games and that's too be expected when the current set of consoles are more or less dead until their replacements arrive. Everyone will be saving the new and exciting stuff for the launch of the next-gen systems.

I'd say there were some pretty huge disappointments this year, but there have also been a ton of great games that have all readily been mentioned in this thread. People just tend to have a negative bias.

Although there have been some games I've really enjoyed, I think I'd agree it's been a year with too many disappointments and lost potential. ME3 I loved but it's obvious that that game got shoved out before it was really done. Diablo3 while a good game no doubt, was nowhere near as good and long lasting as I envisioned. And Max Payne 3 was a straight up disaster for me, and a very poor attempt to revisit one of my all-time fav franchises.

On the upside, Torchlight 2 is fantastic, Borderlands 2 didn't disappoint and has some serious legs with all the DLC. I enjoyed Spec-ops, and Syndicate as well. It seemed like the first two thirds of the year was just kinda sparse on good games. It's gotten better lately though and I still have to really get into Halo 4, Blops 2, Far Cry 3, Hit Man etc.. Oh and X-Com is really good and just a nice change of pace game for me. Overall, just a bit of a down year compared to some of the more incredible years like '07, '08, and '11.

BTW, it's all pretty easy to accept when you look at all that's coming early in '13. 0.0

I would say not good, not bad. We were pretty spoiled last year though.

End of the console life cycle of course you're not going to get a lot of the quality games from the big publishers to come out. But this console generation is far different from previous generation by just how popular indie and downloadable games were, I think Brad mentioned this on the Bombcast but some of his contenders for GOTY 2012 are downloadable games. Not sure how he would feel about these games if they were released at the beginning of the life cycle when a lot of these downloadable games would have to compete with the more well known games and their marketing push because of a new console release, but still that's pretty impressive thinking over a 7 year life span that games less than 2 gb could compete with a Mass Effect 3 for GOTY.

Both 2012 and 2011 can't compare to 2010, 2009 and 2008 before them, but I think this year's been alright. Though two of my favourite games this year are admittedly two games that I missed out when they were new during 2011, being Gears of War 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Besides those two, I've also enjoyed my time with:

• Borderlands 2 - with some fun DLC to boot.
• Sleeping Dogs
• The Walking Dead game
• Journey
• Silent Hill Downpour
• Darksiders 2, if only for the combat.
• Peace Walker HD, amongst the MGS HD collection, which still counts as a 2012 release over here.
• Max Payne 3
• Darkness II
• I Am Alive
• Dragon's Dogma - Dat ending, man.
• Mass Effect 3... it's no doubt the worst Mass Effect game with a whole host of problems even when discrediting the ending, but it's still a fun action RPG overall.
• Lego Batman 2
• Spelunky, though that has a very love/hate relationship with me as I'm sure many can relate.

And this is speaking purely as a dirty console gamer (who only has access to a PS3 & 360 at that). The PC and 3DS side of things have got even more quality stuff to make for a great year of games.