Here it is, my Game of the year list for 2012.
As I thought about my list I concluded one thing, I didn't play enough games during 2012.. Games I didn't play during 2012 that received awards and top 10 places all over were, Mark of the Ninja, Dishonored and X-Com: Enemy Unkown, and games that I played after the year shift that would've gotten a place on this list Dust: An Elysian Tail, Journey and Halo 4 (Ok, maybe not this one). Nr. 9 and 10 wouldn't be on this list if I had played some of these games.
Finally, as a family member of one of the developers on Hotline Miami I could not find a fitting place for it on this list. Instead I here by give Hotline Miami my award for Best Unlisted Game of 2012.
Enough talk, let's move on to the good stuff! (For the most dramatic effect, please scroll to the bottom of the page and read from place 10 and up.)
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If someone had told me that my Game of the Year would be a JRPG, I would've told them that they are idiots that didn't know anything about my genre preferences. But here we are, 2012 have passed and my GOTY is a JRPG, and it's an amazing one too. I had played some of Persona 4 on the PS2 (around 20 hours perhaps) so I knew it would be good, but I had no idea it would be this good. The story is amazing, being a perfect mix of humor & drama, the gameplay is simple but with enough depth to feel interesting and the characters so well written you can't wait to see what they will say next. All I wanted to do as game ended was to spend another year in Inaba, going to school and hang out with my friends. Persona 4: Golden isn't only my GOTY for 2012, it's also one of the best games I've played.
Yeah I know, the ending isn't perfect, mini-quests and some choices from 1 and 2 are handled awkwardly and it suffers from multiple DLC's that should have been on the disc. But my god, it's still an amazing game. The controls feel tight, it looks great, the story is well written and it has some of the most touching moments in video game history (Mordin's parts and the London scene especially). Shepard's last adventure may not be his best, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game.
Few games made me feel the way The Walking Dead did. The characters and the story has some of the best writing in the industry, and what Telltale does with those characters is fantastic/awful, they make you care so much for them and then take them away (most times very violently). I both love and hate this game at the same time and it's the best adaptation of Kirkman's comic book.
Sleepy Dawgs! Man, this game took me by surprise. I bought it quite cheap on a Steam sale, expecting a descent open world game and what I got was on of the best game in the genre. It's equal parts seriousness and silliness, creating a world and characters that you care and still delivers those crazy things you only get from a crazy video game that don't take it self too serious. Playing on a PC, the game looks amazing and runs even better, with tight controls and a combat system taken directly out of the Arkham series. I got so much out of this game, and I recommend everyone to play it.
As I wrote in the introduction, had I played more games this year this wouldn't be here. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, better than Revelations, but there is still some things that just doesn't feel right. Connor is nowhere the character Ezio was, there are too many "Don't get detected and follow that guy" missions and to be honest, the ending may have made me check out from the series forever. The homestead story is great, but beyond the well written characters it feels unnecessary. Running around in the trees in the frontier is really fun, and air assassinating bears and other animals takes hunting to a new level. AC3 is a good game, but with games like 2 and Brotherhood preceding it, it's more of a miss than a hit.
