What Games Should I Play Before GOTY Discussions?

I've been really busy this year with things that are not games, so I haven't played a ton of stuff that came out this year. I'll be graduating from school on Saturday, though, so I'll have a little bit of time and hopefully a decent amount of graduation money to catch up on this year's titles before the Game of the Year features start rolling out after Christmas. What 2012 games are essential to finish before getting into all of that stuff? Looking back, I think the only major releases that I finished were Mass Effect 3 and Spec Ops: The Line. I definitely plan to spend some time with Journey and The Walking Dead. Other than those, what would you consider must-play in an effort to not have the year's best stories or individual moments spoiled for me?

• Journey
• Walking Dead
• Sleeping Dogs
• Far Cry 3
• Halo 4

I'm sure others will fill in gaps thats a good start though all games almost guaranteed to come up at some point.

Syndicate

• Xcom
• Halo 4
• Far Cry 3
• Fez?

Man, I really need to play ME3.

I listened to the podcast but payed little enough attention to the first hour for nothing to be spoiled.

There's no way I can pull that off with the end-of-year stuff...

All of them, All the games.

Bur for real:

• FTL
• Hotline MIami
• Dishonored

Walking Dead and the Mark of the Ninja...

Is getting Far Cry 3's story spoiled really going to negatively affect my experience with it? I know someone got Far Cry 3 for me for Christmas, so I can't play it until then, but I don't want to wait on the listening to the GOTY podcasts.

Starting with The Walking Dead and Journey is a pretty good plan, so you're on the right track.

If you're purely interested in minimizing spoiler damage, the endings of Far Cry 3 and Halo 4 seem like possible points of discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if a certain aspect of Fez is discussed in a semi-spoilery way as well.

XCOM, Dishonored, Mark of the Ninja and Sleeping Dogs are games I've played that bears mentioning in a top 10.

I don't feel like I've played enough (or played at all in some cases) Walking Dead, Fez, Mass Effect or Max Payne 3 yet to really render a final opinion, so I'll try to play.

If you want to get out in front of the goty bombcast, then maybe play the story games first(I like Dishonored and Mark of the Ninja, but they don't have much in the way of story). At the same time, I guess puzzles in Fez can also get spoiled for you.

The story of Far Cry 3 is the worst part. I wish someone spoiled it for me so I didn't get my hopes so high!

fez

Binary domain and Asuras Wrath may get spoiled. I think as long as you play Walking Dead you should be mostly fin. They don't get super into spoilers for most games but I see Walking Dead getting everything spoiled about it.