Wordsasbombs Top 10 Video Games of 2012

The more I thought about it, no game this year quite stacked up to what Mark of the ninja offered. 10-12 hours of gorgeous graphics and perfect game play that arguably reinvented the stealth genre by turning it 2d (who knew that would be an improvement?), not to mention considerable replay value with several unlockables, challenges and a new game plus. The only real weakness was the story, and that was mostly made up for by the amazing ending. It's worth noting that this was the first game in a long time over three hours that I couldn't stop playing until I finished.

What hasn't already been said? One of the most unique, innovative, beautiful and emotionally affecting games of all time. It's only faults are it's short length and the fact that, honestly, it barely qualifies as a game in the traditional sense.

I didn't realize just how much I loved this game until I had a dream that consisted of nothing more than me playing it and having a great time. Peg highly destructible envionments and high end graphics on a top notch tactical shooter/RPG, throw in tons of simulation elements, permadeath (of characters you can name after your friends), aliens and conspiracy theories and color me sold.

The best JRPG in years, plain in simple. Considering JRPGs are my favorite genre, that's a big deal on this list. It says something that I was drawing up plans to make my dream RPG on RPG maker and decided there was no point, because for the most part it looked like a feature list from Xenoblade. Xenoblade takes nearly all the best elements of RPGs old and new, combines them with modern gaming sensibilities, a long main game, huge scope of areas and some creative new ideas to pretty much just nail the direction JRPGs should be going in.

Drive meets the original GTA, on acid. But more violent.I took a bit to play this, dismissing it as a GTA clone, but I wish I had sooner. Strangely familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, the game entrances you in an unstoppable murder rhythm that I've never found myself in before. I just hope recent school shootings don't kill it's much deserved momentum.

Packed with pretty pixel art, surprising amounts of emotion and one of the most clever mind f*ck mechanics I've seen in a game in quite some time, Fez may not live up to the huge hype, but it comes close.

Dishonored came out of nowhere to be my most hyped game of the year. A steampunk stealth/RPG hybrid from Bethesda seemed right up my alley, but in the end I must admit I was a touch dissapointed. It was a great game mind you, obviously it made this list, but I don't really feel it added anything new to gaming, and kind of felt a little dragged on in the later stretches. Still, feeding knocked out thugs to hordes of hungry plague rats to solve puzzles is undeniably awesome.

I don't care for hard sci-fi. Throw in some fantasy, be it star wars, shadowrun, or warhammer 40k and I'm sold. I just don't care about huge spaceships duking it out in space, maybe for the reason I can't get into mech anime, or racing. I need more human attachment. FTL is the exception. I've come to learn these last few years that I love rogue likes. And this rogue like is an excellent one. By the end of my first journey I had grown attached to my ship, the Dickwolf. I had poured tons of scrap into suping up it's engine and shields to keep it safe, admittedly at the expense of fuel and weaponry I needed to survive. A little over three fourths of the way into my mission to safety, I found myself out of fuel and cornered (in space...somehow) by an equally strong ship. With both of us out of missles, our shields and evasion were just too good to kill one another. It was a stalemate, and I didn't have the fuel to run, nor was he going to. As the battle raged in the background I scoured the internet only to find there was no way out. In one of my favorite moments in personal game history I moved my crew, consisting of me, my girlfriend, our dog Hero (personified as a human) and the mantis alien Giles who we had recruited in our journeys, to the farthest back empty room. We all said our goodbyes and turned off the ships shields, waiting in silence, hand in hand as the enemy ship destroyed us. IT WAS AWESOME.

Confession: I've only played the demo of this game. Based on that fact I lowered it to nine. If the whole game is as good as that demo, raise it to at least 7. This game is gorgeous, has excellent voice acting, and plays like a metroidvania/RPG mix with some top notch combat. And let me reiterate, when I say it's gorgeous, I mean like studio Ghibli gorgeous.

The most overlooked game of the year, me thinks. It's super meat boy, but with tons of Lovecraftian style, an excellent combat system, and you play as a school girl with claws massacring demons. Granted. the difficulty is insane, but the one of a kind checkpoint system is creative and awesome/