Downside

@szlifier: thanks so much!

Have not visited the site in awhile because the filters I was using didn't seem like they were being updated but seeing the East and West sidebars let's me know work is clearly being done. Any chance we could use an East/West filter?

Please play Life is Strange

@WolfHazard: No Witcher 2 was last year. It came out on 360 this year, but the core game came out on PC last year. The 360 version introduced some additional content that was free to PC users. I don't think you can call Wither 2 a 2012 release when the core game was released in all territories on a major platform in mid 2011.

Trials HD, Fez, Journey, Mark of the Ninja, and Dust, are all possible contenders from the downloadable realm which you seemed to completely omit. I haven't played Xcom, Sleeping Dogs, or any of the downloadable stuff I mentioned yet, but with that in mind I would rate my 4 favorite games of last year, Portal 2, Witcher 2, Skyrim, and Batman Arkham City all decidedly above every game I have played this year.

Games I have played so far: Dishonored, Xenoblade Chronicles(US localization), Tales of Graces F, Mass Effect 3, Darkness 2, Q.U.B.E., Kingdoms of Amalur, Max Payne 3, Syndicate, The Walking Dead episodes 1-4, Darksiders 2, Borderlands 2, Pokemon White 2, Yesterday, Counterstrike Go

I still intend to play Journey, Mark of the Ninja, Trials, and Fez, Xcom, and Sleeping Dogs.

With that said of all the games I mentioned playing this year if I were to rate them Giant Bomb style none of those games would score higher than a 4 out of 5. Dishonored and Walking Dead are my current favorites so far, but no game has blown me away this year.

Edit: I totally forgot about Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3. Haven't played either of those yet either.

I can't wait to see Champ squash Chris G

So can I apply this to a game already in progress? If I'm halfway through I a playthrough it doesn't need to be restarted does it?

Played through it in one sitting. It was fun, if you don't mind putting $10 down on a 2ish hour experience definitely recommend it.

I hear it was running on some of the best hardware out there, but just how high end? 680/7970 range or 690/Dual 680/Dual 7970 range? Remember you saying it was barely keeping 30 FPS on the podcast, wondering just how demanding this next gen stuff might be on PC's.

edited for grammar

Yeah, that means you don't have a graphics card. I think Intel 3000 is the Sandy Bridge integrated graphics, maybe other generations used 3000 as well I'm not sure. Anyways, Integrated graphics are highly limited you will also be using your systems RAM rather than dedicated VRAM from a discrete graphics card, so your RAM will be strained in two different areas where systems with a graphics card would only be strained in one. So I would check how much ram you have as well cause if you only have the minimum requirements for system ram that fact that you have no VRAM will basically mean you are RAM deficient. Really ought to just buy a cheaper graphics card if the system you are running is a desktop, though I bet it is a laptop.