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Top Picks of 2012
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on 2013-01-12 20:37:23 |
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Just wondering what everyone's top picks for 2012 were. I bought quite a few games, but there were a lot I didn't get around to finishing, as is usual for me. These are the ones I completed that I thought were the best however. Best: Gravity Rush (PSV) - The entire reason I bought a Vita and I was not disappointed. I completed everything there is in the game and I still want more. The gravity mechanics were great to mess with, even if the combat was a little iffy at times. I liked the story (although it ends on a sequel hook) and the world was fun to explore. Overall, it was a really solid game, which is kind of what makes it memorable to me. Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of Time (PSP) - I took a chance on this one since I had never even really heard of the Growlanser series before. I really enjoyed the characters and story of the game, but the combat was exceptionally frustrating quite often. The game almost constantly shoves you into story battles where you are outnumbered 3 to 1 and expected to finish the battle before some stupid arbitrary condition is met. I found myself pulling my hair out at least once in just about every story battle there was, but despite that, it felt really satisfying when I actually managed to win. So even though the game tended to turn me into a raging lunatic, it still gets on my best list for being a really fun RPG all around, as well as a big surprise for me. Tales of Graces F (PS3) - Despite the fact that everyone I talk to seems to dislike this game, I loved it. I would even go so far as to say that I enjoyed it more than Tales of Symphonia. Something about the story themes and some of the characters really struck a chord with me. Considering that this game was ported from the Wii (along with all of the complaints I heard from the Wii version to begin with), it was a big relief to see no signs of a lazy port (badly tuned controls, bad graphics, framerate issues). The additional epilogue was also much appreciated, even though the theme of the epilogue was kind of a downer. Pokemon Black 2 (DS) - Not much to say on this. I'm a big fan of Pokemon and although this one is a sequel instead of a brand new game, it provided just enough incentive to bring me back. It was a great way to get my Pokemon fix while I waited for an announcement of an entirely new game. Mediocre: Lollipop Chainsaw (PS3) - I didn't expect this game to blow me out of the water. I was pretty much expecting an average game when I went in, but with a Suda 51 brand of crazy to make it worth it. Overall, it was. The gameplay was a bit too stiff to really get a lot of enjoyment out of the game and the humor was almost entirely a hit-or-miss situation, but there was enough craziness in it to at least make it tolerable. I didn't regret my purchase, but it certainly isn't a game I would praise. The Last Story (Wii) - This was a pretty decent RPG, but I have no idea where all the praise for it is coming from. Fans kicked up a huge fuss about this game (as well as Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora's Tower) not coming over to North America and everyone kept saying how great this game was, but I just didn't get that. I will admit that the battle system was a nice change of pace, but everything else was either average or downright terrible. The framerate was downright disgusting whenever there were was anything major happening on screen. The characters were okay, but I only really gave a damn about a few of them. Other than that, the story was completely lacking any sort of surprises or twists and it was a by-the-numbers plot. There must be something that everyone else saw in this game that I just didn't. Worst/Most Disappointing: Ninja Gaiden 3 (PS3) - I would have been happy with this game if it had just been an average sequel to Ninja Gaiden 2, but it changed way too much and ended up falling apart. I can see the direction that they wanted to go in with the game, but they really dropped the ball on it. Now, I didn't think it was that bad, but it was a big disappointment and I was hoping for a bit more. I've got more to list, I just need to look back over my collection and check to see which ones actually came out in 2012. I've got a lot of stuff that I finished this year, but some of it was from earlier than last year. lol    |
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Re: Top Picks of 2012
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on 2013-01-23 19:49:20 |
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I didn't play any games I thought that were mediocre or bad, so here are just a couple of my favorite games from 2012 :P Soul Caliber V As a purchaser of a large variety of fighting games, I have to give the Soul Caliber series a nod of favoritism. Its simplicity has allowed my cousins (who’d rather play nothing at all than suffer through a match of Street Fighter or BlazBlue) to enjoy a bout of smart fighting mechanics and even occasionally find victory in the process. We’ve spent an uncomfortable number of hours in the character creation perfecting a legion of fabulous men (with such names as Fabulista, Fabulocity, Fabuloso, and Fabulicious) with which to scare our opponents. Our Voldo is particularly frightening, with his monstrous hips and outrageous uniform. Perhaps none of our characters are in good taste, but each of them is worth a laugh or two. My roommate, who had never before played a Soul Caliber game, has practiced for hours after I turn in many times and now his Patrokolos, Maxi, and Raphael are fearsome, and my Nightmare, Xiba, Siegfried, Natsu, Ezio and Voldo are struggling to keep up. Of course, I can always relax when our friends come over to the apartment, and Voldo’s “Floppy Fish†mode can destroy their hopes and dreams and send them wallowing in despair back to the chasms from whence they came. Nintendoland (Wii U) Nintendoland, as a local multiplayer title, is the crown king this year, and likely until the new Super Smash Bros is released. Mario Chase and Animal Crossing: Sweet Day are my family’s favorites, and we could play either for hours at a time (we have). I haven’t touched the single-player or co-operative modes (other than Donkey Kong Crash Course), and I honestly can’t see myself trying them out any time in the future. I’m just too busy playing Mario Chase and Animal Crossing: Sweet Day. Nintendoland is the Wii U’s Wii Sports, showing the possibilities of the game pad in local multiplayer, while entertaining for far longer at a time. Even as our local favorites find new releases (SSB, and hopefully Custom Robo and Mario Strikers), I know we’ll be popping Nintendoland in every time we’ve got the players. Awesomenauts (PS3) Awesomenauts has my favorite soundtrack of the year, without a doubt, and the game is up to par with its music. The 3v3 2D Moba style game is easy to pick-up but requires time and practice to master. Unfortunately for PS3 owners, Romino has only been releasing new characters on the PC, leaving us in the cold, likely thanks to update charges. It’s too bad, because I gladly would have paid for DLC to support one of my favorite games of the year. Awesomenauts provides good local fun, as the majority of my favorites do, letting three of us play per PS3 (for 6 total at my house). And, luckily, as it’s easier to pick up than LoL or Dota 2, and the community isn’t filled with overly competitive and socially bankrupt ne’er-do-wells, it was much easier to get my cousins in on the action. If I did have to pick a single GotY, Awesomenauts would be a strong contender, thanks to its personality, aesthetics, music, and addicting gameplay. Chasing Aurora (Wii U) The Miiverse community especially seems let down by Chasing Aurora, but for anyone who has been following the development and developer’s commentary about the game, Chasing Aurora delivers exactly what it promised, “a unique multiplayer action game†about the “dream of flight.†Multiplayer being the key word; single-player aficionados hoping for a Journey-like experience need not apply. This game excels as a local couch title, and playing the Freeze Tag mode with five people is fun unlike anything on other consoles. If you’ve got $7.50 and a handful of friends, you can’t go wrong with Chasing Aurora.  |
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Re: Top Picks of 2012
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on 2013-01-29 19:51:26 (edited 2013-01-29 20:00:08)
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2012 was a pretty interesting year in games I guess. Best: X-Com: Enemy Unknown (PC) - Honestly the RTS genre of games has gone to hell in the past 3-4 years. It's my favorite genre and I was utterly sad to see games like this die out. As i braced myself for yet another year without a good RTS, X-Com came out and blew me away. X-Com did not just revitalize the genre, it blew almost all of the competition away to become one of the Top 3 best games of 2012 hands down. Dishonored (PC) - Something different from the makers of Fallout and the Elder Scrolls, Bethesda Softworks new stand alone game Dishonored lived up to its hype. With a setting in a steampunk style England and a wonderful storyline that would make movie goers drool, this game rocks. It has echoes of Deus Ex and BioShock, with a heavy emphasis on stealth. You play as Corvo, once a bodyguard for the Empress, and a man with supernatural powers - and its up to you to combine those powers in imaginative ways in order to negotiate the open game-world. I especially liked the chaos system. It allows you go g around being an angel of death to all in your sight but with severe repercussions for the following missions. Being like a ninja and unseen makes subsequent missions easier while killing everyone makes security more tougher later. Mass Effect 3 (Various Systems) - Like the Return of the Jedi, Mass Effect 3 came to end its series with a bang. If you've never played a Mass Effect game, there's no hope for you. As those who played Mass Effect 2 may have guessed, Mass Effect 3 starts with the Reaper invasion that Shepard has been banging on about for ages - and those pesky, unstoppable machine life-forms start off by laying waste to Earth. Gameplay-wise, it's familiar stuff - thankfully, given how superb it already is. But it looks even more stunning than before. Honestly the game's only weakness was its utterly horrible ending but its developers listened to its fans and released a special free to dl patch that changed the ending to make it more satisfactory. DmC: Devil May Cry (PS3) - Honestly when I heard that Capcom was rebooting the series and outsourcing it, I joined the voice of protests. However, new developers Ninja Theory managed to deliver a game that is utterly worthy of being called a Devil May Cry game. Featuring familiar characters with a completely new look and style, DmC set itself out to stand alone from its predecessors and it did just that perfectly. Worst: Diablo III (PC) - Any game that forces you to go online just to play its story mode already gets a black mark in my book. Other games are opening their doors for their respective communities, with advanced world editors, and mod packages that ship with their games. What Blizzard is doing with Diablo 3 is the exact opposite. They are tightening the noose. Narrowing the content. And forcing their customers to pay more and more for less and less. And don't get me wrong, Blizzard has every right to maximize their profits. But with D3, they have finally jumped the shark by giving us less than what we are paying for. Diablo 3 is a fun game to play through a couple times, but it is short, and its design motivation is based more on greed than fun. I am calling bullshit. Blizzard's model with D3 has effectively transformed from Make Game That is Fun Enough to Attract Maximum Customers = Profit to Profit from Current Customers = Make Sure Game is Just Fun Enough to Retain Them Resident Evil 6 (PS3) - Sigh this one. Resident Evil 6 is NOT a bad game. It's actually one of the best action games in 2012 and therein lies the problem. Its more of an action game then a RESIDENT EVIL game. Resident Evil 1 was one of the games along with Silent Hill which created and defined the survival horror genre. The problem with Resident Evil 6 lies from the point where Capcom tried to crap too much into it. The QTE (Quick Time Events) introduced into gaming by RE4 was wayy wayy over used in RE6. At times I was wondering if this was a shooter or a button masher game. What does using a fighter jet to go toe to toe with an aircraft carrier have to do with survival horror? You have to look at this game from 2 angles: The Action game and The Survival Horror. If I was judging it as an action game I would give it 92/100. The problem is that it is a series of Survival horror and re6 fails there with a score of 74/100 from me. I find it to be the MOST disappointing RE game to date BUT one of the best action games of 2012. 2013 Most Anticipated- Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dragonborn (PC Ver.), Aliens: Colonial Marines, BioShock Infinite, The Elder Scrolls Online, Watch Dogs, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 , Crysis 3, The Last of Us, GTA V,   |