Demiath's Top 10 Games 2012
3Note: This list only includes games which were released during 2012 and which I had time to actually finish by playing through the entire singleplayer campaign. Another list with all games I finished during 2012 (i.e. regardless of release date) will be released at a later date.
1. Dishonored (GOTY 2012)
For an old PC nerd like me, playing Dishonored feels like coming home. The game may not represent a historic reinvention or evolution of the first-person stealth action game, but it's great in exactly the same ways that Thief was great - i.e. by delivering a combination of player freedom, rewarding exploration, memorable art design and plenty of atmosphere - and that's certainly good enough for me...
2. Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect does not represent the future of RPG gaming per se, but it does provide a glimpse of what modern AAA gaming can be given enough time, resources and developer talent. When seen in the context of Bioware's unprecedented three-part sci-fi epic, it's almost magical to have come this far and still hear the echoes of choices made, alliances brokered and romances initiatied over the course of five long years.
3. Far Cry 3
While not nearly as memorable as its somber and delightfully contrarian predecessor, Far Cry 3 came out of nowhere and sharked its competitors (including Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed III) in all sorts of embarrassing ways by providing one of the most meaningfully content-packed open worlds ever as well as some very satisfying and emergent action/stealth gameplay. The top-notch motion capture, voice work and dialogue sadly wasn't matched by an equally great overall plot, but as a complete package there are few games in this notoriously uneven genre that delivers this much bang for your buck.
4. Halo 4
A graphical tour de force if there ever was one, Halo 4 shows there's still plenty of life left in those aging kiddieboxes we hook up to our television sets. Since the annualized Call of Duty juggernaught has such a profound influence on the genre, playing Halo 4 makes one realize just how important it is to have a series of relatively accessible FPS games focused on tactical awareness and intelligent crowd control as opposed to twitch-heavy shooting galleries. Halo is not the king of console shooters any longer, but in some ways the series has never been more relevant than now.
5. Binary Domain
Designed from the ground up to be the thoughtful gamer's guilty pleasure, Binary Domain is a very respectable third-person shooter wrapped in a juicy tale of Blade Runner-esque existentialism. Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi delivers colorful characters, shocking plot twists, decent romantic subplots and a whole lot of exploding mechs...and at the end of it all, it's hard not to feel that a heavy dose of Japanese narrative risk-taking is exactly what Western games are missing.
6. Assassin's Creed III
Ubisoft's latest time-bending action adventure is a brave and confident epic that is unfortunately weighed down by poor mission design and superfluous side activities (much like earlier AC games, to be honest). I applaud the improvements over previous installments when it comes to (the historical part of) the narrative, and can only hope that Ubisoft does not misinterpret the game's comparatively lukewarm reception.
7. Diablo III
Even when a combination of Blizzard's myopic traditionalism on the one hand and creepy desire for control and monetization on the other threatens to sink their latest release into an endless quagmire of controversy and player outrage, there's just something remarkably solid and professional about their core gameplay design which makes it very difficult to merely dismiss a game like Diablo III.
8. Spec Ops: The Line
An improbably audacious head trick (especially coming from a major publisher like 2K Games) that cleverly questions virtual violence using a surprisingly sophisticated, multi-layered approach. For all the talk of the plot's shocking revelations and heavy-handed references to Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now, this game is noteworthy primarily because of how far down the rabbit hole of meta-commentary it actually goes.
9. Journey
Journey is not exactly good art - there's still way too much crowd-pleasing kitsch in thatgamecompany's productions for them to qualify as such - but this is still a remarkable release for being tasteful and aesthetically pleasing in ways that video games so rarely are.
10. Dear Esther
Combined with Nigel Carrington's superb voice work and Jessica Curry's mesmerizing score, Dear Esther's melancholy tale of loss set in the windswept Hebrides is a memorable experience despite the lack of traditional gameplay mechanics.