2012, a Year of Games

Call of Duty Mario Warfare

Each year, we play many games, but only some can be the pinnacle of the industry. Some will be fun distractions, some will be utterly addictive and some will be terrible. Let's take a looks at the gaming landscape this year...

The first truly big game to come out this year was the much loved Mass Effect 3. It deliver more advanced shooting mechanics and moar RPG stuff from the previous two games that we loved and it further continued the story of Commander Shepard, a person who we'd all shaped the universe with. It had possibly the best story in all of video gaming and a fantastic setting with great characters and graphics. It also ended the most epic trilogy in gaming with...a pretty mediocre ending. Honesty, the ending itself was disappointing, but I don't think it deserved the hate it got. It was fixed with extended cut and although it wasn't perfect, it totally made it more forgivable. The sad thing is however, that people won't remember Mass Effect for it's great gameplay, story, setting, characters and pretty much everything else. The non players will only hear the rant: "Oh my GAWD, this gaem has, da wurst ending ever it must be worse than anything on the planet!" Although this ending may have tainted it's legacy, Mass Effect 3 is my personal Game of the Year for 2012.

Another game this year that I absolutely loved was Darksiders 2. Although I haven't finished it, I really enjoy being in the world, the design of the characters and just the gameplay in general. It isn't quite perfect as it has some issues, but I really do love this game. 

The actual game of the year was "The Walking Dead" These were episodic point and click choice based story games. Don't get me wrong, I think the show is one of the best ever made, right up there with The Slap, Sherlock and Rake, but for game of the year doesn't really grab me. I mean, this is a game where one of the puzzles involves putting batteries in a radio because a woman doesn't know how to. A small indie title simply cannot contend with a massive game with loads of content and heart such as Mass Effect 3. It just doesn't work.

Halo 4 took best graphics and best Xbox game while Journey (another small indie title that may be cool, but once again can't live up to scope of larger games) took it for PS3 and New Super Mario Bros U for Wii U and X-Com for PC. Boarderlands 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dishonored walked away with awards as well.

But now it's time for 4EVER's awards...