I just thought throwing this list together throughout the year would be a good way to not forget anything when the end of the year comes around. As I play games that I really enjoy, I will add them to the list. Then, I will use this list to put an actual GotY list together for 2012. And, of course, this list is in no particular order, other than whatever order I played the games in throughout the year.
Had a good time playing this one. Really like the game play and the overall look of it.
I think this game does have it's fair share of problems. It's pretty easy and the side quests can get repetitive, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Is a good portion of this game QTE's and cutscenes? Yes.
Does that stop it from being batshit insane and completely awesome? Hell no.
I played the demo of this game and was kinda not looking forward to playing it, but I did anyways. Which was a good thing, because I really liked it. For me the demo did not come anywhere near doing the game justice.
It's Mass Effect...I love Mass Effect. The last few minutes(the ending) did kinda disappoint me, but everything else before that was great.
I really enjoyed playing this. It's really short, but that kinda works in it's favor. I think it works best being played through in one sitting. Great visuals and a pretty unique experience.
I have a good time playing the "Tales of..." games. I don't think this one is as good as the others I have played, but I still liked it.
This game is awesome, and I hate it so much. I have to play it...I have to get through those extreme tracks...I have no choice...
Since this isn't really a 2012 release, it won't be on my GotY list, but my PC is crap so I just now am getting to play it thanks to the Xbox 360 release. I wanted to at least list it on here, because it is great and would have been on my GotY list for last year if I could have played it.
Yeah...this most likely has no chance of being on my final list(unless everything else that comes out this year inexplicably sucks), but I did have an enjoyable time playing it. Despite it being really easy, and the story not being all that great.
I am currently at about 25 hours of playtime in Xenoblade. Normally, I would wait until I was finished to add it to this list, but that's going to be awhile, so I figured I might as well go ahead and put it on here.
So far I am really loving pretty much everything about this game. I bought it without trying it first(I almost never do that) because of all the talk about it, and I have not been disappointed.
This game doesn't have much in terms of character development, or story. The story does turn out to be kind of interesting near the end, though. The reason it ends up on this for me is the combat. I greatly enjoyed the combat of the various classes you can play as. Playing the game and fighting enemies is just plain fun.
I hadn't played one of the Lego games in a long time. I believe the last one I played was the first Indiana Jones. I always had fun with them and decided to check out the second in the Batman series, mainly because of it being Batman. All that being said, I still have a lot of fun playing these games. I enjoyed exploring around the open world section, even though it was just a hub world full of collectables. The main story levels are standard game play for these games, but I thought the various suits for Batman and Robin were cool. As well as being able to fly around as an invincible Superman. I think the addition of actual spoken dialogue was a great decision. It helped with being able to tell a story, and helped with adding to the humor, which I felt was well done.
I am a huge Persona fan(not just Persona 4) but, I'm not a huge fan of fighting games. I don't dislike fighting games, and I do enjoy playing them from time to time. I just never get all that involved with them or get anywhere close to being good at them. That being said, I had to put this game on this list, because it being Persona related greatly overpowers my indifference towards fighting games, and makes it something I find really interesting and enjoyable.
I have enjoyed playing the Atelier games for PS3. They are not amazing, but I find them interesting and a nice change of pace from the standard "save the world" stuff that is in most RPGs(and a lot of games in general). I decided to put this game on here because, as I said, I have enjoyed this series and out of the three available on PS3 I think this was the best one.
I wouldn't say that I love open world games, but I do enjoy playing some of them. That being said, I really liked Sleeping Dogs. I liked the setting, I liked the characters, and I liked the focus on hand to hand combat instead of guns(although there are guns too).
I really enjoyed the first Darksiders. Darksiders 2 does a good job of improving on certain aspects of its predecessor, like the addition of equipment/loot. That being said, Darksiders 2 isn't without it's faults(I had to fight the camera a few times), but I still had a ton of fun playing through it.
I haven't exactly finished this game yet, but I'm right at the end, so I decided to go ahead and add it. Not much to say about it. As others have said, it's more Borderlands, but with some slight improvements. I think it looks a little better, controls better, and has way more unique weapon types. I'm really enjoying playing it, as I did the first.
I've always had a love of turn based strategy games. Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, etc. However, I had never played any of the Xcom games. I didn't even really know that this game was turn based until seeing videos about it. I loved playing this game. The difficulty can get rough at times and there isn't much of a story, but I found the game play extremely fun. I did run into some problems. Had a couple system lock-ups near the end, and I felt the last mission was vastly more difficult than anything before(which always kinda bugs me). None of that was enough to stop me from having a really good time with this game.
Took me awhile to finish this, because I tend to play through downloadable games slowly, or when I have nothing else to play. When I first heard of this game I wasn't all that interested because I didn't care for Shank or Shank 2 all that much. That being said, I love this game. Every moment of it was enjoyable. I'm not a huge fan of stealth games, but everything about this game feels right. I honestly can't think of one thing that I disliked. Proves that you should never judge a game based on the developer's past games, or you may miss out on something great.
These games are amazing. I find the story telling, writing and characters to be really interesting and enjoyable. I know that as of this writing the last episode isn't out yet, but there is nothing that could happen in it to make it not worth being on this list. The controls during the more action-oriented sequences need a little work and can be annoying, but I find those sections don't detract from my enjoyment of the rest of the game.
I don't have XBL anymore, so I was unable to play this online any, which probably makes it impossible for this to actually be on my GotY list. However, I felt it needed to be on here, because I had a lot of fun playing through the campaign and enjoyed the story.
I really had fun with the campaign in this game. I felt that the possibility of different endings was a nice addition. It helped give it more of a different feel than other Call of Duty games. The multi-player seems solid and well made, but I just don't enjoy it as much as I did in the first Modern Warfare.
I think this game is fantastic. I really enjoy everything about it, and feel confident it adding it to this list even though I haven't quite finished it yet.
