Our Personal Games of the Year

[Ce'Nedra]

Game of the year: Well that's a good one, I haven't bought much games this year and even if I do I don't think they have a 2012 release day. So if I go by a game I bought this year but isn't from 2012 per se I would have to go with Records of War Agarest. The combat might get very repetive if you move from orb to orb on the world map but the event and bosses make up for it, the story is good and I like the soulmate system. I also got a total weak for Fyuria somehow (I even recreated her on PSO2).

Dissapointment of the Year: Records of War Agarest 2, As you can read above I totally love part 1, but this game is somehow more boring, the characters arent as intresting, only 2 generations instead of 5 as well. The only thing that kept me going so far is the Digest Mode which lets me use some characters from the first game so I instantly brought Fyuria back. I still want to beat it for the story and try Agarest 2 though.

Suprise of the year: Pandora's Tower. Its challenging for me (can't beat the 5th tower boss, frigging regenerate light) and the gameplay itself is quite fun. It reminds me a bit of Castlevania meets God of War something. The whole game is one big Time Attack though as you are limited on time and have to go back every time to feed that girl.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

Game of the Year: Journey. It piques your curiosity. It makes you feel attached to your partner in a co-op game like I've never seen before. It has a wonderful story conveyed with no text. It has an incredible aesthetic. It controls like a dream.

Surprise of the Year: Nintendo Land. I didn't expect this to be bad, but I did expect it to be forgettable. Instead, I got 6 fun, albeit very simple, party games. Some of them actually show ways in which the gamepad can be used to create non-gimmicky asymmetric games. Even though the single player games I've tried seem to be pretty terrible, I've had; and continue to have; a lot of fun with Nintendo Land.

Disappointment of the year: The Last Story. Levels that feel artificial. The characters are either cliche or just uninteresting. Graphics that look muddy and inconsistent with terrible textures but (I think) high polygon counts (for a Wii game). A story that I'm not interested in. An arbitrary leveling/equipment system. This game was a mess (though, I didn't complete it at all, I only played it for 5 or so hours, but then I quit).

[Ce'Nedra]

Disappointment of the year: The Last Story. Levels that feel artificial. The characters are either cliche or just uninteresting. Graphics that look muddy and inconsistent with terrible textures but (I think) high polygon counts (for a Wii game). A story that I'm not interested in. An arbitrary leveling/equipment system. This game was a mess (though, I didn't complete it at all, I only played it for 5 or so hours, but then I quit).

Be glad you didn't try online mode then. All you get there is either a up to 6 people Death-match where you have to kill each other or CO-OP where you can fight 5 different bosses with 6 people. That's all. No dungeons, no communication aside throwing out some quotes of the characters during the story mode. It's very hard to kill the bosses unless you already beat the game once and get some good gear which unlocks in a New Game plus. Also the horrible amount of random disconnects is very annoying, trying to party with your friends means only friends can join your game and no randoms. If you wanna play with a friend and randoms you have to be lucky to join the same game...

I however loved the story mode, more in terms of the stealth stuff and the combat system, it has so much potential and I for one love the characters. The game is very short though, you can beat it in 20-30 hours with ease and online mode gets boring very fast. I did enjoy the game though when I played it for a good 2 months online and offline, I beat it about 4 times and gotten to the point I could kill the toughest online boss with 1 friend in less then 5 mins (which is in fact 2 level 99 bosses).

[NoiseHERO]

Surprise of the Year: Nintendo Land. I didn't expect this to be bad, but I did expect it to be forgettable. Instead, I got 6 fun, albeit very simple, party games. Some of them actually show ways in which the gamepad can be used to create non-gimmicky asymmetric games. Even though the single player games I've tried seem to be pretty terrible, I've had; and continue to have; a lot of fun with Nintendo Land.

Yeah I thought this looked "meh" too untill I saw game grumps playing it, reminds me of all the DS wi-fi games back when people actually played DS games online, but all packed into 1 HD game. Which I'd call ultra fun, and something I can dick around in a lot with my friends.

[CelestialBlade]

Game of the year: Ys Origin. Shattered all my super-high expectations and I'd totally play it again.

Disappointment of the year: Final Fantasy XIII-2. Not necessarily a bad game, but, did I seriously pay $60 for a 20-something hour game with basically no replay value? Soulcalibur V is a close second because there's basically nothing to do outside of online play.

Surprise of the year: Guild Wars 2. Because it's not what I was expecting or really wanted, but I really like it for what it is. My experience here is just from the betas, but while it's not "the end of the WoW-clones as we know it" like I hoped it would be, it's pretty darn awesome regardless.

[Akaimizu]

Game of the Year: This is a real tough choice, also because I technically don't want to put down Borderlands 2. Why? Because Borderlands 1 already won one of my Game of the Years, and became a game (with expansions) for which I literally played to death. My issue with nominating this is that I like Borderlands 2 pretty much for the same reason I liked Borderlands 1. The addition of Mech Romancer, and my find of one of the most awesome guns in existence (Hint: This gun is based off of the Quake(BFG) gun. A real room clearer, but somewhat safer and a little less devastating than the BFG in one shot) But things like that come with disappointments. Why? Because when you find a fantastic gun not too far in your first playthrough, you feel you wasted your Luck which you'd need to get said gun at a higher level. But alas, I reluctantly put this down as a GOTY material due to the lack of *new* reasons to promote it. It's more of a *This still delivers, and yet it has new stuff, but it doesn't change my reason*.

Disappointment of the Year: If I bought War Z, that probably would've easily taken the belt, but I didn't. For me, this is a fairly hard choice, because my tastes either don't tend to be fickle, or that I tend to be more careful about picking stuff out with higher expectations than advertised. Thus the War Z comment. A case where advertised and properly researched really would've put on higher expectations. If anything, this is arguably gaming's biggest disappointment of the year, complete with business practices that totally make what Capcom and EA has done in the past few years seem like nothing.

If I were to pick one disappointment, it probably would be Mickey's Games this year. Power of Illusion and Epic Mickey 2 combined. More so Power of Illusion as EM2 isn't bad, just not great. I think the first Epic Mickey kept my expectations in check, but I still expected more. Power of Illusion instantly made me think of how great Castle of Illusion was, back in the day. Something about it kept me in awe and wonder back then. This, on the other hand, felt a bit like they were trying to simply cash in on the nostalgia, but didn't throw together a complete game (by today's standards)

I probably go against the grain and say that neither Diablo 3, nor Guild Wars 2 fit the bill. By now, they're serving up overall what I've expected. I actually like a lot of the features that GW2 delivers on and I actually feel a lot more involved with the community with it. Removing the requirement to form parties to have a good time as a party is one of the best ideas I've seen in MMOs. I literally can't wait until I'm ready to take on the stupidly large beasts in a small army. Diablo 3 doesn't belong here, for me, because it actually does one major thing right with all Dungeon Crawlers. Making a character fun as heck to play. I love how D3 allows you to have up to 6 skills ready at a single touch. While games like TL2 have a better offline component (Don't like the forced online for single player in D3), and didn't have silly RMAH affecting the implementation of said game; I've barely ever played a recent Dungeon Hacker with a more fun array of possible skills one can use at the same time as Demon Hunter, or a Witchdoctor, etc. Believe me, if they didn't have the gameplay of the classes up to bill, this might have been here, but it doesn't, and they've kept me with the game until it's great improvements through verion 1.5. As much as people may claim it doesn't live up to D2 standards, in my honest opinion, I could never go back to playing D2 characters as they played due to the combat mechanics being too archaic for me now. They just aren't as fun to play to me.


Surprise of the Year: Between 3 places.

NintendoLand - Frankly, as much as I wanted it as a pack-in, I mainly expected it to be a decent party game I can use at parties like Wii Sports was for the previous console. I actually ended up really loving the games for what they're worth. It's many times better as a game starter than Wii Sports ever was. The amount of content is also very high in the package requiring a good load of hours to meet all the challenges. Basically, it's been doing what the 2d Mario games have been doing lately. It gives you an indication of its length, then fools you when you complete anything by suddenly revealing a whole 'nother half of the game.

Right behind it would be Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. Almost tied with NintendoLand in terms of being that surprisingly good. Difference is that Sonic arguably takes the kart/arcade racing crown with this title. Though everybody may want another character or two in there (missing faves and stuff), it's an incredible improvement over the first and really hits amazing nostalgia strings for all kinds of classic titles. The tracks really steal the show and sometimes offer you a taste of flying through some of the best representations of classic game worlds. Enough to make you somehow wish they'd bring em back with today's resolutions. Skies of Arcadia, Jet Set Radio, Samba De Amigo trippiness, Sonic, Outrun 2 (with the crazy powerslides), AND Panzer Dragon in the same game? Yes, please! A cornicopia of awesome. The only reason this is even barely 2nd place for Biggest Surprise was that I had somewhat higher expectations for the title given the prequel and that SUMO Digital was on the job. They pretty much are every bit of what Soul is left at SEGA, when it comes to racing games.

3rd place goes to Rayman Origins. Ubisoft did have the magic of Rayman, before. Rayman 2 was awesome. But after that, it never seemed to hit that apex again. Origins knocked it out of the park, though. They also, at the same time, brought back the argument on whether 2D handcrafted-style artwork just plain kills 3D anything in looks. It's been a while that the 2D of a game's graphics showed-up any attempts to put too much weight on 3D polys and repeated textures. For a while, 3D was taking over everything. Then you have 2D games go to this degree of high def while containing insane animation frames, and you simply say, "What's this 3D stuff? This game is rivaling Crysis for most beautiful graphics at a fraction of the hardware cost."

All in all, a pretty good year for games despite a few you'd wish were better, and some with lukewarm releases. The bigger problem is getting too many of these games to divide your time between. Probably should be a little more selective so I can spend more quality time with the ones I have. I guess I can afford a game-buying freeze for the next few months.

[CupOfCoffee]

I might have some weird choices since this is personal games and surprises and disappointments of the year, and I haven't really played that many modern games this year, but:

Game of the year: Uhhhh... uhhhhhhhhh... eep. I don't think I have one. I didn't put a lot of time into gaming this year, and nothing in particular stands out.

Surprise of the year: Like I said, I haven't played a ton of 2012 games, but I was really surprised by Lili. It's an iPhone/iPad game that uses the Unreal engine and has you running around this unbelievably charming island world, ripping flowers off of these weird mask-wearing spirit monsters and using them to buy character upgrades. The controls are surprisingly good for an entirely touch-based game, the writing is hysterical, and it was only three bucks for the iPad version when I bought it.

Disappointment of the year: This is a tough call between Diablo 3 and Pokemon Black & White 2, but I think I'm going to give it to Pokemon. I never played the original Diablos, so 3 basically had no shoes to fill for me. I did quit playing it before even hitting level cap on my Demon Hunter, but it basically delivered what I expected it to, and it was fun for a little while. With the new Pokemon games, something just felt off. B&W2 didn't feel like an adventure so much as a longwinded tutorial sequence designed to spit you into an increasingly bloated Battle Tower style metagame that simply isn't that fun. I didn't want to keep progressing through the rehashed towns and same dull, still-not-as-endearing-as-anything-from-generations-one-or-two monsters. The magic is just completely gone for me at this point. I realize I've got my nostalgia glasses on pretty tight, but that's the whole point of Pokemon, man. It's not like the RPGs themselves are staggeringly playable or innovative or deep in this day and age, and it basically got Diablo 3 Auction House'd by letting you browse a catalogue of online tradables from strangers that you can snag at any time of the day or night. The atmosphere of the old 8-bit games is all that counts for me. Back then, all the Pokemon were cute but the world had creepy undertones of genetic experimentation gone wrong. The rival was a real rival; he was a smug little asshole that belittled you at every turn and eventually became the League Champion before you did, not some halfwit best friend that's totally on your side and only wants his shitty Purloin back or whatever. Even the world map itself felt more real and more explorable back in the Gameboy days—the routes and paths were more unique and memorable, and there were a lot more interesting puzzles to solve in getting from point A to point B. The modern games feel like me-too cash ins with none of the adventure or mystery of the originals. They need to change the formula, but not just by filling it up with stupid as fuck pageant contest minigames and a million uninspired Pokemon that nobody wants because they're all still dominated by a few obvious best ones. I guess I'm just over the series. Release Red and Blue and Yellow on the 3DS e-store already, damn it.

Soul Calibur 5's incredible lack of content was also a bummer, but I didn't expect anything major from it so it wasn't really a disappointment.

[Randomness]

... It's not like the RPGs themselves are staggeringly playable or innovative or deep in this day and age, and it basically got Diablo 3 Auction House'd by letting you browse a catalogue ...

Um... no, I'm pretty sure Pokemon is still well above average in depth as far as the systems go. (Mostly because of breeding, etc.)

[NoiseHERO]

I might have some weird choices since this is personal games and surprises and disappointments of the year, and I haven't really played that many modern games this year, but:

Game of the year: Uhhhh... uhhhhhhhhh... eep. I don't think I have one. I didn't put a lot of time into gaming this year, and nothing in particular stands out.

Surprise of the year: Like I said, I haven't played a ton of 2012 games, but I was really surprised by Lili. It's an iPhone/iPad game that uses the Unreal engine and has you running around this unbelievably charming island world, ripping flowers off of these weird mask-wearing spirit monsters and using them to buy character upgrades. The controls are surprisingly good for an entirely touch-based game, the writing is hysterical, and it was only three bucks for the iPad version when I bought it.

Disappointment of the year: This is a tough call between Diablo 3 and Pokemon Black & White 2, but I think I'm going to give it to Pokemon. I never played the original Diablos, so 3 basically had no shoes to fill for me. I did quit playing it before even hitting level cap on my Demon Hunter, but it basically delivered what I expected it to, and it was fun for a little while. With the new Pokemon games, something just felt off. B&W2 didn't feel like an adventure so much as a longwinded tutorial sequence designed to spit you into an increasingly bloated Battle Tower style metagame that simply isn't that fun. I didn't want to keep progressing through the rehashed towns and same dull, still-not-as-endearing-as-anything-from-generations-one-or-two monsters. The magic is just completely gone for me at this point. I realize I've got my nostalgia glasses on pretty tight, but that's the whole point of Pokemon, man. It's not like the RPGs themselves are staggeringly playable or innovative or deep in this day and age, and it basically got Diablo 3 Auction House'd by letting you browse a catalogue of online tradables from strangers that you can snag at any time of the day or night. The atmosphere of the old 8-bit games is all that counts for me. Back then, all the Pokemon were cute but the world had creepy undertones of genetic experimentation gone wrong. The rival was a real rival; he was a smug little asshole that belittled you at every turn and eventually became the League Champion before you did, not some halfwit best friend that's totally on your side and only wants his shitty Purloin back or whatever. Even the world map itself felt more real and more explorable back in the Gameboy days—the routes and paths were more unique and memorable, and there were a lot more interesting puzzles to solve in getting from point A to point B. The modern games feel like me-too cash ins with none of the adventure or mystery of the originals. They need to change the formula, but not just by filling it up with stupid as fuck pageant contest minigames and a million uninspired Pokemon that nobody wants because they're all still dominated by a few obvious best ones. I guess I'm just over the series. Release Red and Blue and Yellow on the 3DS e-store already, damn it.

Soul Calibur 5's incredible lack of content was also a bummer, but I didn't expect anything major from it so it wasn't really a disappointment.

I thought B&W was nice...

But B&W2... something about it didn't exactly make me want the game. I guess they wanted to do that instead making "you wasted your money on the last two games" Pokemon gray. So instead they made "you wasted your money on the last two games but if you buy this one it's still technically a new game" Pokemon BW 2.

[Mega Ultra Chicken]

I haven't played much of 2012's games, so my post will be short.

Game of the Year: I would put Minecraft here because I bought it this year, but it was released in late 2011.

Disappointment of the Year: Forza Horizon. The premise of Forza on the open road seemed fun at first. But then after a month... it doesn't feel like it has the same longevity as the Forza Motorsport series.

(Anti) Surprise of the Year: That I didn't get Black 2/White 2. Normally I always get one of the games when it comes out, and I've been doing that since R/S/E. And unlike the Cup of Coffee, 5th Gen. gave me many new favorites like Cofagrigus and Jellicent. But in the end, I didn't really want to spend the money since I didn't end up playing B/W as long as I hoped to.

Worst Game of the Year: I haven't played anything especially bad this year.

And PSO2 is PSO2.