VT's GOTY 2012 Awards

Binary Domain doesn't just hone the mechanics introduced in games like Gears of War to an enjoyable whole, it also introduces a storyline beyond impressive that, possibly for the first time in gaming, truly provides some psychological and philosophical insight into the ethics behind the Blade Runner-dilemma of robots with souls. You really get involved in the conflict and the cutscenes have production values coming out the wazoo. Also, the game has a french robot and a huge black man named Big Bo.


BIG BOOOO

Honorable Mentions: Dear Esther, Asura's Wrath, Rhythm Heaven Fever

Battlefield 3 not only shined with easier access to the MP and DLC (both of which cost money unfortunately) but the player base also seemed to grow even further during 2012. You can always find a game and the fine-tuned game mechanics no longer seem to have any particular balance issues. Battlefield 3 has sorta grown into the best choice you can have in the open terrain online FPS.



Honorable Mentions: Honestly, I played most of last year's notable games when they came out. Can't think of any in particular.

Playstation Vita has NO GAMES

Assassin's Creed Liberation, Persona 4 Golden, Gravity Rush, Uncharted Golden Abyss... Name what connects three of those four games? They're ports or inferior versions of their bigger console counterparts. The Vita fell into the same sinkhole as the PSP did, where developers make the B-grade handheld port of their game just because the tech allows for it instead of putting time and effort in to making a game that uses all the features available. The bigger problem though is that those games I listed are pretty much the only games on the platform. The PSP had volume, but based on the small number of games to come out for the Vita, developers just don't seem to go all-out for Vita-support, resulting in an absurdly slow launch year.



Honorable Mentions: Saint's Row The Third DLC, Resident Evil 6

So how do you make a sequel to Resident Evil 5, a game that effectively wraps up the plot of the entire series and honed the mechanics introduced in 4 to the sharpest they could get? Capcom says you slap on a lot more quick-time events, boss battles that can go on for an hour, even more mechanics most of which aren't explained to you or are just plain unfinished, and also, you make it about three times longer than five. This game is an abomination and should probably be used as a textbook example of how not to design a game.


Thanks, Brad

Honorable Mentions: Nothing comes close to this.

I've mostly played FTL on easy, and I have never finished it during 15 hours of play. That should say something. The difficulty and dying is part of the fun though. Much like in games such as Dark Souls, FTL teaches you more with every death. So your crew suffocated in the engine room after people boarded and took out your oxygen supply while you tried to suffocate them into the oxygen generating room, draining all the air out from there in the process. Maybe in the future be a bit more careful about that stuff. And you will be. That's what's fun here, the difficulty is used to sort of elevate the experience rather than hinder or lengthen it. FTL rarely feels unfair, rather than a direct result of something stupid you did.



Honorable Mentions: X-Com, Trials: Evolution, Fez

Dear Esther is an impressive esoteric experiment for our generation much like Myst was for it's own. It's a visual novel embroiled in a 3D enviroment, free for you to explore, filled with interesting sights and the occasional shadowy figure, allowing you to unravel a slightly randomized story with an interesting thematical core of the existentialist variety.



Honorable Mentions: The Walking Dead, Spec Ops: The Line

This is a given. The disco-inspired nightmare that is the Hotline Miami soundtrack is guaranteed to make you nod your head in approval to some sick-ass (b)ass-beats while shooting people in the head or executing them with knives.



Honorable Mentions: Asura's Wrath, Max Payne 3

This game be mad grit yo, it has sands in it! Seriously though, Spec Ops: The Line walks a fine line of sand between being a pretty mediocre shooter and a great story. The end twist may be a bit silly, but everything leading up to it is innovative and experimental in a way that no games prior have dared (or bothered) to be. And it works! This game will make you feel like shit for playing it and making the decisions you do, and I've heard some folks walked away from it because of this. Guess they got the grit in their teeth, ka-blow!



Honorable Mentions: Max Payne 3, Dear Esther

There is a manic energy to the experience that is Asura's Wrath. It seems like the closest thing to a peak that we'll get out of games like Heavy Rain, where the gameplay takes a back seat to the storyline. But instead of telling some dull serial killer plot, Asura's Wrath is all about building grandiose characters in an epic story of epic-ness filled with moments so insane they will permanently boggle the brain. You fight a man on the moon, and as he stabs you, his sword becomes so long that it plummets you back to the earth, and as he charges from the god damn moon towards you, his sword ends up piercing the entirety of our planet, but managing to bash that B-button at the last second to punch that sword to smithereens, then take those remains into your mouth and kill that man with them, is one of the most satisfying things you will do all year long, period. In life.

There will be many arguments against naming this a GOTY, which is why it won't show up on many other lists, at least as the game of the year. I'd argue for it's sake, obviously, but that goes down with how I roll with games. I don't do it for the performance, I do it to become a part of something. A part of an experience. There is a transcendental quality to Asura's Wrath that I've not yet experienced as this potent, ever. This entire game is as intense as that moment in MGS4 where you have to tap the X-button to make Snake crawl through that radiation vent. Here you want to tap it for all holy hell from the first scene of Asura being betrayed to the moment his rage is finally qualled by the end. I did not have a single moment, while playing this game, thinking about how crap it is that I'm really just tapping buttons or playing Panzer Dragoon. I was enjoying the experience too much to care. And even in hindsight, I still don't. I could play this again whenever and enjoy it just as much. And that's an amazing feat for a story-driven experience like this, and that's why I'm giving this the GOTY-award.


This is so great

Honorable Mentions: X-Com, Dear Esther, Binary Domain, Far Cry 3, Sleeping Dogs, Tokyo Jungle