Top 10 games in 2012

Nameless one

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I am interested what is your list of 10 best games in 2012 and why?Here is mine:

1.Crusader kings II:It didn't grow on my heart as much as EU 3 or HoI 2/3 did but arguably best game developed by paradox.

2.Lone survivor:2D horror game with resolution of 160X90(it stretched to fit screen).I recommend to give this indie masterpiece a chance.

3.Dark souls: Superb combat, good level design,good atmosphere,well written lore,good art style bad port but good game in every aspect.

4.FTL:I didn't back this on kickstarter and I wasn't all that excited about it but this game exceeded all my expectations.Very addictive game.

5.King's bounty WotN:Also expansion that is why I didn't put it higher on list but so far best KB game imo.

6.Spec ops the line:Gameplay is mediocre but very good,dark and disturbing story and well written dialogs inspired by book Heart of darkness and movie Apocalypse now makes this 3rd person shooter one very memorable experience.

7.Miasmata:game I completed recently.Unique experience that one hate others love.I think it's more or less niche game but considering that price is 15 euros I would definitively recommend people to try it if you like it it fill be as I said unique and interesting experience if not it didn't cost that much anyway.

8.wargame european escalation: didn't get much media attention but this is quality RTS variety of units that where actually used during cold war that definitively deserves more attention than it got

9.Sins of solar empire rebellion:well it's stand alone expansion but this 4X/RTS hybrid is definitively one of my highlights this year.While game is good playing in large universe with AI opponents it excels in competitive multiplayer vs unpredictable human opponents.

10.Dishonored:Game is bit inferior to similar game DE:HR but good game nevertheless with one of better level and environment designing I seen too bad it stumbles on few places because it had potential to be classic.
 
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I have not played all that many "new" games this year (lack of money and ancient computer), but here is a list of some games that I think are worthy contenders to the top 10 spot:
Legend of Grimrock: An interesting take on a classic style of CRPG. Great puzzle design and fun enemies. And now that the modding community has got its hands on the editor, it looks like this will be a game with some lasting value

Crusader kings 2: A surprisingly easy to get into paradox title, with a whole lot of depth to it. The best part of it is the stories that the game creates as you play it.

Spec Ops: The Line: Gameplay was just average, but the way it used its average gameplay to get its point across was interesting. It also had some moments that made me feel really uncomfortable.

Avernum: Escape from the Pit I've heard some people say that this version of the game is worse than Avernum 1, but I really liked it (and I have not played Avernum 1). Good writing and great tactical gameplay.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane A great take on the old Master of Magic formula. Excellent when played with with friends.

Resonance Classic point & click adventure with puzzles that for the most part made sense and a story that was quite memorable.
 
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My top games of 2012 in order:
Crusader Kings 2.
Guild Wars 2.
Star Wars: The Old Republic (not sure if this one is 2011)
Kings Bounty: WotN
Might & Magic Heroes 6 (this is probably 2011 but I played it this year)
 
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SW: TOR and Skyrim were both released at the end of 2011, so while they're 2011 games, they were primarily played in 2012 for most people.

Other than that, I'm not really sure what I ended up playing for most of 2012. I think the two top titles of 2012 for me are ME3 and Risen 2. ME3 was a great game until the last 10 minutes, and Risen 2 was a great game after getting used to it.
 
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The only 2012 games I played were Grimrock, Sniper Elite V2, ME3, Dishonored and Far Cry 3, all of which I enjoyed.
 
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10.Dishonored:Game is bit inferior to similar game DE:HR but good game nevertheless with one of better level and environment designing I seen too bad it stumbles on few places because it had potential to be classic.

I just started playing Dishonored, and I'm still too early in to fully judge it yet, but right now I'm definitely enjoying it more than I enjoyed DE:HR. It might just end up being my GotY.
 
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1. Dark Souls
best action/RPG combat system ever, great level design, unique atmosphere, rewarding exploration

2. Mass Effect 3
best minute-to-minute combat in the series, superb resolutions to two of the series´ major story arcs, some nice character moments and, while certainly not flawless in execution, a unique experience of import save-driven customized narrative

3. Legend of Grimrock
a well executed homage to tile based first person dungeon crawlers, the amount of puzzles and secrets may be a bit too high given a somewhat limited variety but since this type of gameplay has been almost entirely missing in RPGs lately I totally didn´t mind having an overabundance of it in this game

4. The Walking Dead
since puzzles are as easy as they can get, as is majority of the QTEs, the game pretty much boils down to "TV" miniseries using interactive element as an immersion tool, and since the story and characters are mostly well presented I´ve found customizing the narrative and pc via dialogue and other choices to be a fun and sometimes quite intense experience overall, even though the quality is not consistent throughout and especially in the last two chapters there are some unconvincing story developments

5. Risen 2
after Risen PB seemed to be on a good way to return to the good old G1/G2 times, but since Risen 2 ended up as a two-steps-back-one-step-forward sequel it´s a title that disappointed me the most this year, however I´ve enjoyed it nevertheless, largely due to fresh setting and some aspects of unique PB flavour still being present

I´ve found the other 2012 games I´ve played to be mediocre and as such I don´t feel they´re worth being put on a top list. These would be Dishonored, Torchlight 2 and Kingdoms of Amalur, listed in order of preference.

I´d also mention The Witcher 2: EE which comes with some nice additions over the vanilla edition (in particular, I really liked the quest added to the Iorveth branch), but since I´ve played the bulk of it (aka the vanilla edition) in 2011 already I´m not putting it on the top list for 2012. If I would it would probably be right under Dark Souls.
 
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I just started playing Dishonored, and I'm still too early in to fully judge it yet, but right now I'm definitely enjoying it more than I enjoyed DE:HR. It might just end up being my GotY.

In dishonored impressions thread Gaxkang sums up pretty well why is DE:HR better.I would also like to add that Corvo doesn't say a word whole game and for game that uses pretty personal things like betrayal and revenge main character without personality is big minus to me.
 
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DE:HR is MILES ahead of Dishonored in my opinion - no competition. It probably doesn't help that I don't like the art direction of Dishonored, and I'm none too fond of the setting either. It's the opposite for DE:HR - as I loved what they did with the atmosphere and especially the music.

Hmm, best of 2012. This is a hard one - not a lot of great games this year.

I'd say Secret World is probably the one that impressed me the most. It has an incredibly powerful atmosphere and fantastic storytelling. It also has a pretty cool character development system.

Borderlands 2 is also a fantastic game, and a strong sequel. It has improved pretty much everything - but left the core completely intact. Very good game.

For all its issues, I also think Diablo 3 might have been the best "short-term" (for this genre) experience of 2012. As in, I had a great time until I figured out its weaknesses. But I think I got a good 60-70 hours of strong entertainment before that happened.

Sleeping Dogs was also really, really good. The best GTA style game I've played since Red Dead Redemption - and it's better than both Saint's Row 3 and GTA 4.

Risen 2 was very good, but not truly great. Well, it's great compared to most other RPGs - but as a Piranha Bytes game, it's not good enough to warrant much excitement. It was as much a disappointment as it was a good experience.

Runners up would be Dishonored, X-Com, Fallen Enchantress and Far Cry 3. They all qualify as good games, but too far from greatness.

Biggest disappointment of 2012?

Probably Guild Wars 2 (though I was never that interested) - which is just a pathetic joke compared to the level of hype. Diablo 3 as a long-term contender for best in the genre also disappointed massively. I would add Mass Effect 3 - but it was par for the course for the new Bioware.
 
My list:


1. LoG

2. Avernum

3. The Walking Dead

4. Baldur's Gate Extended

5. Eq2, the most recent expansion is really decent. Still the only mmo worth playing.


KoTC is still my favorite game of, I'd say, the past 5 yrs. Hands down.


-Carn
 
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In dishonored impressions thread Gaxkang sums up pretty well why is DE:HR better.

I think what you meant to say is that he gave his subjective opinion why he liked DX:HR better. :)

Suffice to say, I don't agree, and many others wouldn't either. That's a discussion for a different thread though…
 
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Borderlands 2 is also a fantastic game, and a strong sequel. It has improved pretty much everything - but left the core completely intact. Very good game.

Playing this now, fun game but its showing me how bad I've gotten at fast paced shooters.

I've played a bunch of games this year for a little bit so I don't have enough time with 10 separate games to make an educated opinion on them.

Most of my time this year went to skyrim 300 hrs and still haven't beaten it.

Only game I beat this year was legend of grimrock. So I guess that would be on the list.

Played XCOM, dishonored, farcry 3, of orcs and men and quite a few others but not substantial time with any of them. Maybe when I get done with skyrim one of those can be my favorite game of 2013.:)

So many games, so little time.

Oh we'll, hope you all have a great holiday I'm off to the in-laws.
 
Lots of time and STILL so many games! Gorram Steam sales! Plus I can't even remember now what games came out in 2012 and what didn't so I'm just going to ignore release dates completely.

1. Skyrim. I really love this game! So many mods to try out!

2. Thief Gold. I've been playing this a lot lately and it's still fun.

3. Saints Row: The Third. Me? Oh no, you won't catch ME playing a game like that! I mean, come on, a game that gives you an achievement called "Ow My Balls"?? The only reason Steam says I played it for 60+ hours and got said achievement is… uhh… because I bought it for a friend and Steam got confused. Yeah, that's the ticket.

4. The Last Remnant (again). The combat system is terribly fun for me. Square never even bothered to port it to PS3 because it wasn't selling well so I guess I'm one of the few that like it but I keep coming back to this game.

5. XCOM: Enemy Unknown. This could have been a lot higher but it had some nasty bugs when I was playing it. Still, it was good stuff.

6. Tropico 4. I didn't finish the main campaign but I still got 74 hours of fun out of the game.

7. Dungeon Keeper 2: Another retro game I enjoyed for quite a bit!

Noticably abscent - X: Rebirth. Where's my game Egosoft!?
 
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I'm certainly slowing down as a gamer these days; didn't get to play as many as I'd like in 2012. My list would probably resemble something like:

1. Knights of the Chalice (Just the wonderful turn based combat alone made it the most infectious to play and fully appreciate. A real gem.)

2. Legend of Grimrock (Have to agree with others' sentiments in this thread on this great game. Seeing this genre come alive once more in this way was very gratifying to experience.)

3. Avernum: Escape from the Pit (My first Spiderweb game and a very lengthy and satisfying one at that. A party based open world with turn based combat? Yes please!)

4. Risen 2. I was never as immersed as I was with the first game; illustrated by the fact that I took a break from the game earlier in the year after finding the combat so different from what I loved about Risen. Still, when I had the time to devote to it, I found those familiar PB touches that I love liberally scattered throughout and still managed to enjoy the game.

5. Skyrim. It's TES. It's big, open yet not particularly fulfilling. Just not quite enough player agency to affect change in the world for my taste. I played two characters, none of them achieving especially high levels due to the overall lack of role-playing opportunities content wise. Still, I'm yet to build a mage, which will warrant a final DLC oriented playthrough.

6. Eschalon: Book I. When work was most heavy, I was playing this in very small doses and despite the repetitious nature of the combat, really liked the exploration and distinct gameplay style. I finished it and immediately installed the demo for Book II.

Disappointment of the year: Rage. Still playing: Dark Souls, Devil Whiskey...I can't even get to 10! :)
 
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It seems it has been a dry year for rpgs. Last year we had witcher 2, skyrim and DX: hr plus other great games. I haven't yet played dishonored so I cannot comment it. Same goes for Mass effect 3 which I'm sure is a fun game to play through.

The best games I've played this year

1. Legend of grimrock is likely the best rpg this year for me atleast. Its old fashioned, but not akward to play. I found this little gem quite entertaining to play. This kind of gameplay has been absent for many years, hopefully the success of grimrock shows the light for other devs. Old school dungeon crawler can succeed.

2. LA Noire: Great old fashioned detective story, great atmosphere and surprisingly innovative gameplay. Not perfect by any means and some technological aspects leave a lot to be desired (its an obvious console port), but definitely a game which surprised me in a good way.

3. Assasin creed brotherhoord & Assasin creed: revolutions. Nothing groundbreaking here, but ubisoft has honed assasin creed series gameplay to near perfect. And whats best, every game seems to be getting better. Instead of stripping down features, they actually build on great foundation and keep adding more stuff. I haven't yet played ACIII, so if it fails, I cannot say. In any case so far AC games have all been well worth of my money. I only wish the games were harder.

4. Dead Space 1: I'm late, but I truly recommand this game. I had some issues with controls, but a bit of tweaking everything turned alright. Thanks JDR for help! I already picked up the sequel, but haven't had time to play it yet.

5. Black mesa: isn't it amaizing what bunch of dedicated fans can do? The perfect recreation of half life 1. It also shows how great half-life 1 was back in the day.

6. Put kotor 2's restoration mod on kotor 2, and it is a game it was ment to be. Content was restored and bugs were fixed, now its a joy to play through. Not really a full game, but I had such a blast replaying kotor 2 that it ended on this list.

7. Tribes Ascend. I've always loved tribes series' fast pace, vivid space visuals and it's tactical team oriented gameplay. Tribes 1 and tribes 2 are considered as classic fps titles, maybe even ahead of their own time. Anyhow bad stuff happened and tribes series went downhill untill Hirez studios picked it up last year and released their new tribes game: Tribes ascend. It takes an advantage of f2p model, so anyone can pick it up and try it out. Don't be afraid new blood (lvl 1-10) have their own servers, so you won't be crushed immediately :D

8. Skyrim (Dawnguard). Heck the fact that a mere dlc makes my best 2012 list, tells how few great rpgs have been this year. If i had to name the rpg i've played most..well it would be SKYRIM. Dawnguard dlc (as fun as it was) was really just an excuse to put it on my list again :)

9. Lotr: war in the north. An action rpg that slipped under my radar. Maybe its because of all the hobbit hype and because I recently rewatched lotr films, but I really had fun time playing this title. A guilty pleasure indeed :)

10. Baldur's gate Extended.

11. Risen 2: While I actually had a lot fun playing it through this year, I can't help myself not thinking how it could have been so much better if piranha bytes had done some things differently.

-Poor combat system (both melee and ranged). This is a travesty when you think how fun combat risen 1 had.
-Removal of magic system without proper explanation and replacing it with voodoo. If this was pb's vision, I feel very sorry for them. Voodoo in risen 2 is a one trick pony at best.
-weak lore: gothic games made sense and even risen 1 to some extent, but risen 2 doesn't. Its illogical because it has very few things common with risen1. Like how firearms were suddently invented and how mages were banished. I could go on and on, but I spare you guys from my silly drivel about this subject.
-More linear gameworld design was quite a dissapointment from a studio whose trademark has been open gameworld.
-Horrible QTEs. There is no excuse for stuff like this. Just because modern games use qtes, it doesn't mean you have to use them. If someone jumps from a bridge, does it mean that you have to follow him?
 
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For the fun of waking up the dead, and with time allowing a colder point of view:

1 - XCom Enemy Unknown (Elite Edition): Ok some glitch but woo great and first turn based game that gave me the feeling to play a real time game.

2 - Legend of Grimrock: At every corner there's something interesting to do. Puzzles, action, exploration, tension, and more. Excellent gameplay.

3 - Endless Space: At least an alternative to Civ series bringing a fresh point of view on 4X games with an excellent merge of appeal, ease of use and depth.

4 - Mass Effect 3: Well very fun for me, I was even pleased by the ambiguous and not so clear end, at least some finesse… until I read all the whining that spoiled a bit my fun afterward. :)

5 - Torchlight 2: Nothing really new here and I regret the design shift from the first, from a lot of dodging to quite less and much more anticipation dodging. But an extreme polishing and a huge improvement vs T1. The series that made me a true fan of this genre and not D2 that I played at release.

6 - Baldur's Gate Extended: I still don't understand all the wining about this refresh, very fun and that update is very welcome.

7 - Borderland 2: The first with everything hugely improved. Very fun but some design choices doesn't fit me that well, like items re-spawning, stuff to find only when you get the cursor hint, and few more.

8 - Diablo 3: Hahem, ok, the disappearance of builds, the restricted number of skills at same time and the stupid focus on item grinding spoil significantly the fun, but a noteworthy and fun game anyway.

I didn't played that much during 2012 so here some games that I still haven't played but I suspect they could get in my top 10: Hotline Miami, Dishonored, Risen 2, Faster Than Light.

So ok from what I played it's mixed, there isn't that many amazing releases. But my top 3 is three kicking ass Turn Based games in quite different genres, woo, that year is a date anyway for me. And moreover, even if late for Xcom, all the 3 was released on Mac. In fact 6 of the 8 I listed was released on Mac too and a day Torchlight 2 should be released on Mac too.

EDIT: Lol ok Grimlock isn't turn based, well a surprising and refreshing come back to an old school design. :)
 
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I don't think BG1:EE was horrible - it's just there's no wow factor. The fact that I can get the same result (or probably even better, considering the number of mods out there for Tutu) really doesn't help. And so far, the new NPCs (I'm carrying all 3 at once - not too keen on replaying this game 2 or 3 times in succession) aren't so interesting. Neera is getting really annoying quickly.

Now, please enlighten me, people. It seems like a lot of people enjoyed playing ME3. I want to know, why I can't enjoy this game. I really loved ME1 and 2 but this one I just can't get in to it. Ok, beside the horrible Origin (I've finally gotten over it), the quests so far have been go to different system and scan random place, hoping to find some artifect/war assets and get chased around by Reapers. That's not so fun. Is it because I'm still too early into the game? I LOVED ME2 the moment I started playing it, but considering that it took me a while to get into ME1, it could be a possible reason.
 
Well the point is with BG1 mods:
- I could be wrong and there's an option I didn't saw but they changed the walking speed and I hate it. If it works don't fix it, even modders can't understand that. ;)
- I never ever saw an option in the mods to have both big characters readable and higher resolution. The biggest I could have was far to be enough.
- I never seen a French version well managed by the mods there's always some crap.
- The pathfinding is the same than before.
- Install the mods is ridiculously complex with many little traps.

I don't care any wow factor for BG1EE BG1 is wow and BG1EE do the good job to manage well all the points above:
- Texts hugely well readable.
- Quick install.
- Normal walking speed (or am I wrong?)
- No French text problem, ok dialogs in English, but it's fine and clean (from what I have seen).
- Better pathfinding, ok still not perfect and some 3D bugs. :)

Sure in exchange I got a few new minor problems but the result is largely positive for me. Only the last point not spend 2 boring hours (in fact much more each time) to install the mod crap is worthing the price I paid.

Otherwise I finished XCOM Enemy Unknown, what a great game, even the end is cool.
 
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…Now, please enlighten me, people. It seems like a lot of people enjoyed playing ME3. I want to know, why I can't enjoy this game. I really loved ME1 and 2 but this one I just can't get in to it. Ok, beside the horrible Origin (I've finally gotten over it), the quests so far have been go to different system and scan random place, hoping to find some artifect/war assets and get chased around by Reapers. That's not so fun. Is it because I'm still too early into the game? I LOVED ME2 the moment I started playing it, but considering that it took me a while to get into ME1, it could be a possible reason.
Well that's the first game many people enjoy and you don't like? Wooo. Seriously I bet there's ton of very good RPG you don't like at all, ME3 is just another.

Myself it's M1 I tried so many time and failed enjoy so many time.

EDIT: That said ME1 is very different to ME2 and ME3, ME and ME3 are quite closer but different. For me they improved significantly the fights in ME3 and I got the feeling to explore more often in ME3, ok that's relative. At opposite ME2 has a hub design around the numerous companion NPC, and both number of NPC companions and that hub management gives a sort relative freedom feeling that hasn't ME3.
 
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Well that's the first game many people enjoy and you don't like? Wooo. Seriously I bet there's ton of very good RPG you don't like at all, ME3 is just another.

What do you mean by "the first game many people enjoy"? I don't understand what you are on about.

You bet there's tons of very good RPG I don't like at all? Everyone is definition on "good RPG" is different. Just because *you* like it, doesn't mean it's a very good RPG.

Funny how you think you know me so well and what RPGs I've played, when you probably don't even know which games I enjoyed/did not enjoy :)
 
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