GOTY

[juv3nal]

In terms of raw time spent, I have to say Borderlands 2 even though it's not the game I'd say I respect or admire the most. A large part of that is due to being able to play most of it coop with RL friends I otherwise don't see that often. And after a day at work, I often am not in the mood for anything particularly challenging (either intellectually or gameplay difficulty-wise).

[TychoCelchuuu]

Not quite a GOTY list, but Brendon "Thirty Flights of Loving" "Blendo Games" Chung posted his thoughts on games he played this year.

[JonCole]

Game of the Year - Mass Effect 3

While not nearly as good as Mass Effect 2, this game practically wins on franchise power alone. Bioware still knows just how to tickle that sweet spot for me and it doesn't hurt that the actual gameplay mechanics got better this time around too.

Number 2 - The Walking Dead

Easily one of the best game stories ever. TWD executed just about perfectly on everything it attempted to accomplish. The only thing that held it back from that number one spot was lack of depth of mechanics (I understand that the dialogue is the game's primary mechanic, but it wasn't viscerally satisfying in the same sense as I'm referencing mechanics here) and general technical issues.

Number 3 - Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Yeah, I'm that asshole. Call of Duty continues to have the most finely tuned, satisfying multiplayer around and it certainly benefited from having the best campaign since COD4. I'd like to have my head in the clouds and knock this down a few notches, but ignoring a game that I've already put 75+ hours in ~one short month would be stupid.

Number 4 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown

My girlfriend thought I didn't like XCOM because I didn't put nearly as much time into it as other games I've played this year. Honestly, I enjoyed XCOM immensely but my only issue with it is that strategy games are far from my comfort zone so it's difficult to strike a balance between enjoyment and challenge. On the normal difficulty, I essentially steamrolled the game; I don't think I'd be comfortable upping the difficulty too much further due to what I've heard from other players' stories, and ironman doesn't seem too appealing since I only loaded an earlier save once in my original playthrough. It's a weird conundrum that's kept me from revisiting the game sine it originally came out, though I'm sure I'll pick it back up and ravenously burn through it again sometime in the future.

Number 5 - Far Cry 3

This almost seems like an honorary pick because I've put a fairly nominal amount of time into FC3 thus far. That said, I can already see that the gunplay will keep me going for a while and the open world aspects of the game are like Assassin's Creed 2 collecting crack plus Skyrim exploration crack rolled into one. I may revisit this down the road, but for now I'm fairly comfortable jamming this into my top five.

Honorable Mentions - Halo 4, FTL, Borderlands 2, Tribes: Ascend, Spelunky

2012's 2011 Game of the Year - Terraria

Man, this game consumed about two weeks of my life this year. Simple exploratory fun that goes great with a podcast going in the background, plus appeals to that OCD "gotta build the perfect, symmetrical structure out of LEGO blocks" part of my brain that games don't often access.

2012's 2011 GOTY Runner-up - Rayman Origins

Delightful game that really reactivates platformers as a genre I'm interested in. The art is absolutely beautiful, the platforming is challenging yet fluid, and the general tone makes me feel good while I play it. Not to mention that all I've played of the game thus far has been co-op multiplayer, which is really the way this game is meant to be played.

Backlog Games of the Year - Bioshock 2, Metro 2033, Zeno Clash

[elmuerte]

As mentioned earlier, for me there is no game that is head and shoulders above the others. So I'm just going to list my top 3.

Journey

Labelled as experience rather than game, and what a wonderful experience it is. I had some really memorable playthroughs with others, who I don't know.

Legend of Grimrock

Classic dungeon crawling with a modern paintjob (read: graphics). It didn't have a great story, but the gameplay was so awesome. If it was more like Stonekeep this would have been my GOTY, but such a task is almost out of reach for a 4 man team.

Dishonored

A stealth game where I actually had do think about my approach once in a while. I should have played on a higher difficulty level with my play style.

Non-2012 games that deserve special mentioning:

Saints Row The Third

Over the top GTA like action. Should have picked this up when it was released in 2011, but somehow it didn't grab my attention back then. I really would like more of this nonsense. Maybe not as ridiculous as this game, but not as "serious" as GTA4 was.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Giant Bomb has ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER'S top 10 games.

[Badfinger]

I have now played a good chunk of Mark of the Ninja (4-5 hours or so?). It's a good game! If you are ranking the stealth games of this year, Dishonored is still better so it doesn't shake up my personal list. On the other hand, it does some pretty cool things in a $15 package and that's neat. I have to say, sometimes my ninja man is distinctly NOT doing some of the things I want him to, and that's a bit of a let down. It's not the Super Meat Boy precision people have built it up to be, although I fault the hype more than the game here.

Mass Effect 3 now gets an honorable mention for its multiplayer alone. I got sucked into that HARD in the last week or so. Best PC Horde mode! It reminds me so much of a UT 2k4 mutator that was an RPG mode where you fought 25 progressively harder waves on a map, but also leveled up your character and gained experience based on damage done. It. Was. Awesome. This scratches that same itch.

[brkl]

I forget whether I already posted in this thread. Crusader Kings II gets the grand prize because it's the first historical strategy game that creates stories like the ones I learned about when studying English history (esp. ~800-1066).

[Sno]

I forgot that Akai Katana came out in 2012 for North America and Europe, I should have had that on my list.

I know that literally nobody else cares about that game, but i loved the shit out of it.

[Tundra]

My top 10 of 2012:

1) Walking Dead Telltale

2) TF2 Mann Vs. Machine mode Valve

3) Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai Creative Assembly

4) Dishonored Arkane Studios

5) Kingdom Rush Ironhide Game Studio

6) Dear Esther Chinese Room/Robert Briscoe

7) Thirty Flights of Loving Blendo Games

8) FTL: Faster Than Light Subset Games

9) Perspective Digipen

10) Hotline Miami Dennaton Games

[SiN]

Late (as I tend to be) but my GOTY 2012 write-up: http://mobeenfikree....1/09/goty-2012/

Abridged version:

Game of the Year

Fez

Runners Up

XCOM

Dishonoured

Spelunky

The Walking Dead

Hotline Miami

Mobile

Waking Mars

Super Hexagon

Short, But Sweet

Little Inferno

Journey

Sound Shapes

Death Ray Manta

A thing that I noticed after publishing: I love how many challenging but accessible games there are on the list. Fez, all the runners up, and Super Hexagon are really hard games, but not in the "this UI stinks" or "these controls don't work" or even the "I have no idea what I'm doing" sense. Difficult, but fair, games. I like this trend.

[Tundra]

Short, But Sweet

Little Inferno

Journey

Sound Shapes

Death Ray Manta

How short is Journey, regardless of the experience with other players, content how short is it? could i complete the main narrative in 5 hours saturday morning before i have to do stuff.

[SiN]

Yep, quite likely. I finished it in two sittings, and I tend to not play for more than 2hrs at a time.

So I'm guessing four hours, give or take.

[Squid Division]

I beat Journey in about an hour and a half/two hours, so you should be able to fit in. It's great.

[tegan]

Your Journey playtime will vary a bit depending on your companion. The longest session I've ever gotten out of Journey was three hours, and that was mostly alone and on my first run. I had a whitecloak player guide me on my most recent run and we did everything there is to do in about two hours.

[miffy495]

I did the first level in about a 15 minute sitting, and then later sat down to play a bit more and stood up about an hour and a half later having finished the game. I'd say if you have a 5 hour block of time, you could easily beat it twice. And actually, I may recommend doing that.