2012, Not that great of a year for video games?

[bubblewhip]

I am a "video game enthusiast" and if you are too, I can't help but to think that this has been one of the worst years in general for video games in the past 15 years.

2012 the year of the disappointing squeals?

-Mass Effect 3: I'm not one of those people who totally hated the ending of ME3, but even then the internet totally ruined my enjoyment of this game. Still it has to be up there for a disappointing game of 2012.

-Max Payne 3: Fails to live up to the original 2 games

-Serious Sam 3: Fails to live up to the original 2 games

-Burnout Crash: A failed spin off of a beloved franchise

-Need For Speed Most Wanted: A failed spiritual successor to Burnout Paradise from Criterion (How the hell do you mess up Cops?)

-Street Fighter x Tekken: Totally broken online on launch

-Ninja Gaiden 3: A bad game proving Auteur Theory in games as this is the first game after the director left.

-Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City: A totally disastrous spin off that literally looks like it was made on a PS2 SDK.

-Diablo 3: Debatable but I don't think it's living up to Diablo 2: LOD at the moment in terms of player base or quality of game.

-Resident Evil 6: Oh dear... I can't remember a squeal to a AAA franchise failing this badly.

Any highlights this year?

-Forza Horizon: I love that this game is doing what sim games should be doing, which is fueling that driving fantasy that is not possible no matter how much money you have. It gives you the experience to realistically drive some really cool exotic cars on public roads with traffic and no consequence for going 150 miles over the speed limit.

-Dust an Elysian Tail: So this game was literally made by one guy Dean Dodrill and a small hired team of musicians and voice actors. All the programming, art, and story is all done by Dean. This game is beautiful with fantastic attention to detail, and great animation. What was surprising was that the story and voice acting is exceptional as well for an indie game. Unfortunately this game got hit hard for it's use of the Furry art style by the internet. That really sucks because when I finished it, I literally couldn't find fault in this game. This game has better talent and writing than games that have several magnitudes higher of budget and cost 4 times as much.



So Two games, I still have to get Halo 4 in the mail and play Assassins Creed 3 but this year seems pretty underwhelming overall. Any of you guys played anything impressive this year?

[George guy]

I would say... yeah, kind of.

There was the expansion pack to Civ V, but that's not quite a new game. I picked up several indie titles this year -- Kerbal Space Program, Gnomoria, Torchlight II.

[Kommander]

No mention of Dishonored or X-Com? Both are quite good. Also Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be great if your into that kind of thing but I have not played it. Lastly while the new Max payne certianly went in a different direction I think it was pretty good.

Edit: I forgot Borderlands 2 and Sleeping Dogs. I have not played Borderlands 2 but it's reviewing well while Sleeping Dogs was OK if not spectacular.

[George guy]

No mention of Dishonored or X-Com? Both are quite good. Also Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be great if your into that kind of thing but I have not played it. Lastly while the new Max payne certianly went in a different direction I think it was pretty good.

Well, Dishonored and X-Com look good, but I'm trying to budget for a new computer first.

[Kommander]

Hopefully Hitman: Subtitle will be good though that bondage nun trailer has me wondering.

[Jericho941]

I really enjoyed Spec Ops: The Line, although when it lost all subtlety in trying to guilt-trip me, I just took it as a challenge. How many Americans have I killed today? All the ones stupid enough to shoot at me.

Damn right I came here to be something I'm not.

I'm looking forward to AC3 and CoDBlOps 2, though it'll have to wait for my finances to catch up with my moving expenses.

Mass Effect 3 was case study in how not to handle a trilogy. Multiplayer's pretty fun, though I haven't been able to play it since before they added the Collectors for some damn reason.

So far I've enjoyed Borderlands 2. I've given up trying to run it on my laptop (causes the damn thing to shut itself off) though, and I'll have to wait for my household goods to arrive before I can try it on my gaming rig.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccon City was so terrible that to fully cover it would require a new thread. I didn't bother with RE6.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I gave this one a miss; it looks like Counter-Strike Source with slightly different models, aesthetic changes to the maps and absolutely nothing else.

Lollipop Chainsaw: If you can't appreciate cheesy hack-and-slash action featuring a cheerleader zombie hunter with a massive chainsaw, I can't help you.

Part of the problem in looking back on this year is that there were a lot of excellent games that came out in the summer and fall of 2011, so a lot of games I kept playing through 2012 like Battlefield 3, Bastion and Skyrim keep throwing me off.

All in all, it could've been better, but it wasn't terrible.

[Yogimus]

You guys are overly selective with your samples. This year has been the real birth of the indie model, and SOOO many great games have been released that you could play a new one every waking hour and not finish all the ones worth playing in the year. AAA studios have failed. This I agree with... but for every big name fail, you will see a commercial success.

[HTRN]

Case in point about the indie model: Minecraft.

[Highspeed]

What the fuck is Minecraft ? I can't visit YouTube without being bombarded with videos about this badly drawn retard-fest.

All I know about it is that the graphics look worse than the Atari ST I had in 1990, no way am I clicking on a video to find out more - I fear that just watching one could halve my IQ.

To try and get with the program I'm downloading Call of Duty 4 - I expect it'll go like it always does with me and shooting games :-

First Hour :- Everyone is killing me and I don't know what's happening
Second Hour :- I'm getting good at this, I'll do all the missions, it'll be brilliant
Fourth Hour :- Fuck, I'm really bored ( throws controller in corner, deletes game from HD )

[HTRN]

What the fuck is Minecraft ? I can't visit YouTube without being bombarded with videos about this badly drawn retard-fest.

Minecraft isn't a traditional game, it's a "Sandbox" - think legos, only you're manipulating the enviornment. The early "classic" version, which is far more limited than the current release, can be played here, to give you an idea of what it can do.
I go on when I get bored, and kill a few hours - my favorite is flooding dry canyons.

It's horribly addictive, and can easily eat up a tremendous amount of time if you let it.