Best of 2012
2012 is pretty much over and we're still here! Which is good because there's all these GOTYs to recognize! Nice try, Mayans!
List items
-
After having played through it about 7 times, I have to concede that Journey has had more impact on me than any other game. In terms of emotion, Journey has no equal; this is due in large part to Austin Wintory's wondefully moving score. In fact it feels as if Journey the game was composed to the score rather than the score composed to the game.
-
Now that the internet has basically cracked Fez, the reason I loved it so much is a thing of the past. The entire internet was totally baffled for over a week by this crazy game which seemed at first to be a simple platformer with a unique 3D mechanic, but turned out to hide a Myst-like series of complex puzzles within its strange world. Once that magic of discovery is gone and all the codes have been deciphered, Fez loses something. However, it is a nice place to go, even if a little of that magic is gone.
-
I don't think I have ever felt worse about myself playing a game. So many decisions gone wrong, so many people dead, and I made all of it happen. Even if the conclusion is foregone, I experienced what felt like a story all my own and all the decisions I made felt like they mattered. In the end, that feeling of being in the moment is more important than knowing what's behind the curtain.
-
XCOM hits a similar part of my brain as Fire Emblem does: a tough as nails turn based strategy game where death is permanent. Battles can be intensely harrowing, despite the fact that theoretically infinite time can pass between turns. It is that constant string of make-or-break moments that make me love this game.
-
Bullshit ending notwithstanding, Mass Effect 3 is a great game. I have issues with some mechanical things (how side quests are handled, scanning planets, etc) but overall I enjoyed it a lot. And I'm STILL playing the multiplayer, somehow, all this time later.
-
Borderlands 2 is an improvement on the first in a ton of ways: the writing is sharper, the shooting feels tighter, the loot is more varied, the environments are more diverse, the music is better. I played more of this than any other new game this year and actually had fun for most of it, which was definitely not the case with Diablo III or even the first Borderlands.
-
With over 1000 deaths on the PC original and about 200 on this new version, I've played the heck out of some dang Spelunky. And I'll probably keep coming back to it. The XBLA version is a great improvement on an already great game.
-
If there's one thing I like, it's space. If there's two things I like, it's a good roguelike. If there's three things I like, it's FTL, which is a space-themed roguelike. Fast-paced battles, a merciless but fair RNG, complex systems, and a constant feeling of running out of time make FTL one of the most intense and original experiences this year. I'm very excited for what this developer does next.
-
I knew this game's secret going in, but I was still genuinely surprised at many things in Spec Ops: The Line. I'm still in awe that the game was even allowed to be released in this form. I'm thankful that it was, because while not every war game should be Apocalypse Now, we were long overdue for one of them to at least try.
-
In terms of time spent, Diablo III should really be on this list instead of Torchlight II. I played about 60 hours of Diablo and much less of Torchlight. However, I eventually realized that I was playing Diablo purely out of some kind of habit, and that the actual game itself was pretty boring and slapdash in a lot of ways. My time with Torchlight II was much more "fun", although because of my time in Diablo I simply couldn't play that kind of game as much as this particular one deserved.
Load Comments