Personal Perspectives: The Top Ten of 2012

The GameSpot editors reveal their personal top 10 lists for 2012.

Last year, I asked some members of the editorial team to write about their favorite games of the year. It gave a chance for us to speak from our hearts, and allowed the games that meant the most to us take the stage. This year, even more of the GameSpot staff participated, and we are excited to share our individual thoughts with you. Each day this week, we will unveil top ten lists from the GameSpot staff so that we might celebrate our favorite games of 2012.

Mind you, there is a difference between "favorite" and "best," and it's an important distinction to make. I don't believe that a few of my entries represent the best of 2012, but they nonetheless mean something to me, and sparked a part of me that made that game remain in my consciousness well after I had moved on to others.

Of course, such personal lists are always a reminder of all the wonderful games that I haven't played this year. I am still only halfway through The Walking Dead: Episode 1 - A New Day and Halo 4; I have only dabbled in Sound Shapes and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward; and I haven't even touched FTL: Faster Than Light and Lone Survivor. (And those are only a few examples of my 2012 pile of shame.) If only I had unlimited hours! But of the games I have played that came out this year, these are the ones that made the biggest impact. Please note: there are minor spoilers within.

I liked but didn't love the original Planetside, which at its launch, made it difficult to actually get to the action. Planetside 2 has its downtime, but you need moments of respite in this game, which makes it easy to participate in its massive battles no matter where you are. Obviously, this massively multiplayer shooter deserves attention for its thrilling battles, but Planetside 2's structural successes deserve nods too. You don't need to wait for vehicles to spawn or to invade chat to find a group to buddy up with, and you can jump quickly to major battles--but not so often that you can exploit the system. Planetside 2 has the right mix of risk and reward, which in turn keeps you firing on the opposing faction.

Darksiders II might be the least original game on my list, but this is one of those times where I don't really mind. This game mixed Diablo looting, God of War slashing, Prince of Persia wallrunning, and Zelda exploration into a moody journey through a dark fantasy world. It may have looked to other sources of inspiration, but Darksiders II feels like one cohesive vision. Developer Vigil Games knew what tone they wished to strike, and understood what they wanted to convey with their world, their combat, and their characters. This consistency made the disparate elements come together wonderfully, and the overall result was fun and absorbing.

It's important not to confuse unnecessary obstacles in games with depth--just as it's important not to confuse the removal of such obstacles with a "dumbing down." XCOM: Enemy Unknown strikes a great balance: easy to get into, but still complex enough to inspire thoughtful decisions. What I loved most about the game was how I felt at war with percentages. How do I position myself to increase my chances of hitting while reducing my chances of being hit? Is it worth taking a shot when I have a 48% chance to hit, or should I get behind cover and activate overwatch? The resulting rhythm of tension-and-release made XCOM a real winner in my book.

From a gameplay perspective, Spec Ops is just a regular old cover shooter. And if its narrative were to work, it absolutely had to be. In most military shooters, those big moments where you kill legions of bad guys or hop behind a turret and mow dudes down are supposed to make you feel like a badass. In Spec Ops, you are supposed to feel shame. The game takes the expected recipe and turns it inside out, forcing you to reconsider all the power trips you've had in shooters before and look into the soul of a man who loses his soul in a power trip of his own. Spec Ops subverts the very expectations it originally expresses, initially passing itself off as just another military shooter, and ultimately condemning you, itself, and the entire genre. This kind of self-awareness is decidedly rare in games--and all but unheard of in shooters.

I admire developer Funcom. They have made three major MMOGs (not counting expansions), and each one is different from the last. Anarchy Online's sci-fi universe, complex character progression, and palatable mission structure make it my favorite MMO to date. Age of Conan's dark fantasy universe was so thick with atmosphere you could practically smell the fertile land. And then came The Secret World, a modern-day mythical adventure that mixes adventure-game elements with open-world exploration and intense storytelling. It has its problems, but The Secret World is one of several games that proved to naysayers in 2012 that modern MMOGs aren't just World of Warcraft clones anymore. This is an online RPG with the gall to actually make you think, and along with Guild Wars 2 and Tera, represents a trifecta that should influence developers of future games.

I am exhausted of hearing that "Far Cry 3 is like Skyrim with guns." That's silly. Far Cry 3 has similarities to other games, and is the product of a developer that employs some of the same themes from game to game. (Assassin's Creed was a clear inspiration, for instance.) But Far Cry 3 is above direct comparisons, instead standing out as an individual shooter in a genre crowded with copycats. While linear power-trip shooters will probably always have a role, I suspect that Far Cry 3, Natural Selection, and Planetside 2 pave the way to the future. If you still believe that games are just the same-ol' same-ol, I implore you to take a closer look. That is, if you can tear yourself away from Far Cry 3, which can get you easily hooked on freeing outposts, hunting tigers, and poking around in dark caves to see what secrets might be hidden there.

The final game in Commander Shephard's story greatly affected me. While some folks were up in arms over an ending that disappointed them, I was still mourning the losses of friends I'd grown close to. Bioware handled these moments of loss with great care, giving the characters the honor they deserved. I never saw Mass Effect as a franchise about plot: it was about people, places, and relationships. I will miss those things, which speaks to the power of this wonderful series. With its variety, its pacing, and the emotional investment it inspired, Mass Effect 3 made a mark on me.

Any MMOG made from here on out exists in a post-Guild Wars 2 world. Guild Wars 2 fixed problems with the genre-standard quest limit by eliminating the quest journal completely. It brought exploration back to the forefront by rewarding you for moving through its world and investigating every nook. It shipped with enticing, broad player-versus-player regions. ArenaNet reconsidered everything we take for granted in role-playing games, and crafted them in new ways that made so much sense, it was a wonder no one had done it before. Guild Wars didn't drastically rethink the online RPG. Instead, it rethought the individual elements and brought them together in a great game that is both fresh and familiar.

Dragon's Dogma won't get out of my head. It's uniquely flawed and a teensy bit broken, but if you were to ask me at any given time what game I wish I were most playing, this would probably be the answer. To walk out of Gran Soren, only for a shrieking griffon to land with a thud and engage you, is a thrill. Climbing upon it and stabbing it while your pawns fling magic at it is more thrilling still. And holding on for dear life should the griffon soar into the air is the greatest thrill of all. The frustrations in Dragon's Dogma are many, but the battles, the nighttime journeys, and that ending--oh, that ending--are what make this game so special.

Journey seems to be a game that either works for you or it doesn't. For some, Journey is too mechanically simple; it lacks challenge and complexity, relying on atmosphere to convey its meaning. Those players never establish a connection.

I feel fortunate that Journey spoke to me so profoundly. Each time I played it, I was moved to tears, yet the game features no spoken dialogue, no named characters, and no traditional storytelling. It's just you, perhaps a human companion, and the entities that inhabit the land.

Simplicity isn't always an asset, but Journey is transcendental precisely because it strips interaction down to the essentials, and perfects those essentials so that you never struggle with the mechanics. Instead, the struggle is felt in the slow steps through snowdrifts, the shining eye of a hovering beast, and the force of the wind blowing you backwards. The struggles, though, are outshined by the joys. There are moments in which the slope of the land carries you forward, and all you can do is steer yourself through this gorgeous world and take in the sights and sounds, the lonely desert no longer a vast and empty prison, but a sun-drenched oasis.

There comes a moment when all seems lost. And then: a glimmer of hope, followed by a rush of freedom and ecstasy. If you have played, you know the moment I speak of. The uplift of the moment, and the ones that follow, is overwhelming. My spirit is lifted higher and higher, and then I understand. I understand.

Journey is exquisitely crafted precisely so that it might speak to you in this way. To call it too basic is to miss its true power. Journey strips away the intellectual elements almost universally associated with games so that it can instead directly impact the heart. Yet it wouldn't work as a film. To love Journey, you must feel it, and interact with it, and understand the flow. You can't just watch it happen--it must happen to you.

If you haven't played Journey, I hope that you will, and I hope that it speaks to you in the same way it did to me. I want people to feel the joy that I did; it's a feeling so wondrous, so overwhelming, that I want to share it with everyone. Like any experience designed to elicit emotion, the experience I had with Journey isn't universal. But even if Journey doesn't carry you away as it does with so many, I hope you are glad that such a game can exist, and that there are developers seeking new ways to explore the human condition.

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