Best Game of 2012

Well, since everyone else is doing it, I think it's time for me to take a look at this past year and give out my Best Game of 2012 award. I will admit that it's been a pretty tame year for me as far as game purchases go. At my count, I've only played 10 games that were released this year. So, I will rank all 10 of them in order and why they are where they are. Actually, it's kind of convenient, because that allows me to make a top 10 list again. That worked out well the last couple of times."

10. Battleship (Xbox 360)

Y'know, I would go into great detail about my thoughts on this game... oh wait, I already did that. Atrociously bad, one of the worst examples of a budget FPS I've ever seen, and I lived through the early 2000s when everyone and their mother was making awful First Person games.

9. Diablo III (PC)

I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get as much out of Diablo III as I feel like I should. The new level up system is okay... though it does take away the feeling that you are a specialized character. Also, equipment is pretty much strictly for appearances now, as it all feels very bland (especially since you never just attack with your weapons, you're always using a special skill of some kind.) I get why they made the decisions they did, but I just don't feel like the game is the same level of awesome that Diablo II was, though some of that could be just my tastes in gaming changing. Although, other games still prove that being loot-driven can be tons of fun, which I will get back to later.

8. Mark of the Ninja (Xbox 360 Arcade)

Two-dimensional stealth is actually a lot of fun. This game brings its share of frustrations, but at its core this game hits the key notes that make 2D gaming great. The levels are mostly static, meaning that your performance is based 95% on your skill (with 5% being up to if the game decides it doesn't want to do something you told it to.) Also, the controls are very simple and easy to get used to. All in all, a good game, but it does fall short in having some repetative level design, incrediably dumb enemies, and an overreliance on QTEs (especially for takedowns).

7. Madden 13 (Xbox 360)

Yeah, I'm a Madden whore and I end up buying the new game every year. I do this for two reasons: one, because I love football. Two, because I like watching games evolve. Madden is one of the few games that can get me to buy it every year it releases, and it does so by promising new features that I've been wanting. This year, for example, the game added an actual physics engine, a more robust season/career mode, and a much stronger passing game. It executes all three of these very well, but there are some issues holding it back. One is that the physics engine is hilariously wonky at times, and you will often see your own players tripping over each other, especially after plays. Also, the running game hasn't really been balanced to reflect the new physics engine yet and needs some work, since running back performance will range between Barry Sanders and... well, Me in Football Pads. Good game, and I'll see how next year's game expands on this one.

6. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (3DS)

I was a big fan of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, so I'm no stranger to rhythm based games. However, I've never played one without the aid of an instrument (minigames notwithstanding). For example, I know some people love Patapon, which is heavily rhythm based, but I didn't have that frame of reference going into this game. However, this is absolutely phenomenal. It probably helps that they've put in some of the most iconic music of my childhood on here to play along with, but Theatrhythm also has some RPG elements that provide a bit more strategy. You can set up your character so they can perform better in the "Battle" style songs, or so that they can keep going even if you make more mistakes than usual, or you can even set yourself up with no aids, allowing you to get the best scores in the game with the added challenge. The game is really solid and offers a lot of great additional songs as DLC to expand the 70-some song main game to a maximum of around 120. If you like the music from Final Fantasy and you enjoy rhythm based games, you shouldn't miss out on this.

5. Minecraft (Xbox 360 Arcade)

Also known as Digital Legos: The Time Devourer. Yeah, I don't even want to start trying to figure out how many hours I've put into this game. What I love about Minecraft is that it doesn't look all that great (though it is stylized, and it captures the target look very well), has some bugs in it, and can be brutally and unfairly difficult at times, yet you just want to keep playing it. They've done a lot of work to the game since it's release in May to bring it up to where the original PC version is currently at, and we're at a state now that the game is an absolute blast. If I had to give it one major knock it would be that the combat is very unfulfilling and basic, but despite that minor gripe, it's hard to find another game that allows you to do what this game does, as well as this game does it. If you've never experienced Minecraft, I heavily recommend checking it out. I really can't sum it up any better than that.

4. Mass Effect 3 (Xbox 360)

Ah, the first smell of controversy, I'd imagine. Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect 3 is good. Damn good, in fact. The gameplay is very solid and the graphics are absolutely beautiful. The story even does a great job of evolving the game world from the last two Mass Effects and it really it's cool to see how some of your decisions have helped to shape the universe as you prepare for the final conflict. The obvious place this game fell short is the conclusion. I will admit that the Extended Cut did help provide a lot more closure, but I think my biggest frustration was that I had to spend so much time defending this game to people, when it should have stood on its own. Despite that, the game is still great (though not as great as Mass Effect 2 was), and the multiplayer is quite engaging and enjoyable, and doesn't feel tacked on at all. Plus, you can tell how much they care about the multiplayer, considering how much free content they've pumped into it (six new maps, several new enemies, new mission objectives, new characters, new weapons, the list goes on.)

3. WWE 13 (Xbox 360)

Bear with me here. Yes, I know being a fan of wrestling skews my views and opinions, but I've had just a stupid amount of fun with this game. Not only have I greatly enjoyed the amount of work (and nostalgia) that was injected into the single player, but I haven't had this much fun in a multiplayer game in quite a while. The gameplay is exciting and fun, and you never really feel like you're being screwed over by the controls or engine. Your performance is completely controlled by your skills and your character's abilities. That hasn't been the case in a wrestling game in a LONG time. Hell, the online even works really well, which is something that has never happened with this franchise. All in all, the more I play this, the more I truly think this is the best wrestling game I've played. I know some of you might call BS on this one, but hey, this is my list, and these are my rules. If you want a more detailed look at this one, I've got you covered.

2. Halo 4 (Xbox 360)

Hard to knock this one. Halo 4 is great. This is coming from a guy who really isn't a Halo fan. Hell, sometime soon I'm going to be putting up a post talking about Halo, since I have a lot of thoughts on the games, but that's not the point of this list. The story in this game was gripping, intense, and a hell of a lot of fun (at least on Normal, something else I want to talk about in another post... holy crap am I rambling a lot.) The multiplayer is even a lot more fun and balanced, although I'm actually kind of pissed that they took out Firefight from this year's game. Spartan Ops simply is not the same thing, and doesn't have the same level of enjoyment that Firefight provided in Halo Reach and Halo ODST. I would heavily recommend this game, even if just for the the campaign, though. I also must say that the idea of how AI Rampancy works... is just phenomenal. It's damn near Lovecraftian, which means I am obligated to love it.

1. Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360)

Cream of the damn crop here. Borderlands 2 has proven that loot based games still have a place in our gaming culture. This literally wasn't even on my list of games for the year to purchase, but somehow, here it is. The first Borderlands game tended to be excruciatingly boring, especially if you were playing it by yourself, and the story can be broken down to "You hero, open door, kill bad things." There were a couple of interesting characters on the way, but the game ultimately took itself way too seriously the entire way through. Borderlands 2, however, is completely different. The gameplay is a lot more fun with the vastly varying weapons and enemies, the unique skill trees of each character, and the story. Holy crap, the story is so good. It starts off with a literal bang, and just keeps growing into a bigger and bigger snowball of awesome. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say this: Handsome Jack is the greatest video game villain of the year, bar none, and deserves to be high up on a Top 10 list of all time greatest villains. The guy is everything a bad guy should be. The game is great, the multiplayer makes it better, and the story actually makes you care about the world. Great job all around to Gearbox on this one.

Do you agree with this list? Disagree? Want to call me names? Feel free to do any/all of the following in the comments section.

WWE 13 Review

Well, the time has come for THQ to once again present us with the newest iteration of their wrestling game franchise. WWE 13 came in with a whole lot of fanfare this year, mainly due to the involvement of Paul Heyman and the return of the Attitude Era in a WWE game. This decision ended up being one of the best decisions they could have made.

Let's start out with a precursor, if you played WWE 12, you can probably just skip ahead a couple paragraphs, because I'm going to talk about the controls and gameplay, which remain largely unchanged from last years game. So, just go ahead and meet me up ahead. It's cool, I don't mind.

Now, if you haven't played a wrestling game in a while, the controls will seem a bit different to you, most likely. How long it's been since you last played a wrestling game will really affect how long it takes to adjust to the new controls. You strike with X/Square (Xbox/PS3), Grapple with A/X, Irish Whip and Pin with B/O, run by holding LT/L2, counter with RT/R1, get in and out of the ring/climb/pick up things with LB/L1, and perform special moves with Y/Triangle. Everything else is a combination of those buttons. After playing a few matches, it will start to feel very intuitive.

Along with the controls is a much heavier impact on realistic situations. That means you can no longer go from facing away from your opponent to running straight at them, you will have to turn around. All weapons have physics applied to them, meaning moves can be done on top of them, and they will move around (semi-)realistically in the ring. Also, one of the biggest (and most welcome) changes from previous games is the pin system. You no longer mash buttons and hope the game feels bad for you, you will get a meter that you fill up by holding the A button. If you stop it in the target area, you kick out. This is harder the more beat up you are, and actually gives you some level of involvement in kicking out of a big move.

Now, welcome back people from earlier. Let's talk about what changed from WWE 12 to WWE 13. For starters, let's talk about what is undoubtedly the coolest change: catch finishers. In one of my first multiplayer games, I was playing against my brother-in-law, who was playing as Randy Orton. I was playing as John Cena. I went to go for my top-rope Fameasser, like you do, and he instead hit me with his RKO as I dove at him. He finished me right there, and it was gloriously awesome to watch. Catch finishers can completely change a match in unbelievably cool ways and really bring a whole new element to the game. All you have to do is hit Y/Triangle when you have a finisher as the opponent is doing a springboard/top rope move and you will nail them as they fly in. Just keep in mind that not every move can do this (for obvious reasons).

Beyond that, a new type of special move called an OMG! moment has been added. I have so far found 3 different ones in the game. When you have a finisher, if the opponent is on the announce table, you can use an OMG! move to put them through in a big way. Alternatively, you can spear them through the barricades around the ring. Finally, if both people are using super heavyweight characters (Big Show, Mark Henry, Vader, etc.) then you can do a top-rope superplex that will break the goddamn ring. Note, that this will end the match in a no-contest, because broken ring.

So that's the control, let's talk about gameplay. The biggest thing I want to note about the gameplay is the enhanced AI intelligence... so long as you're playing on the highest difficulty setting. The AI is atrociously bad if you play on anything but the highest difficulty, just to give fair warning. But on the highest setting, the AI will actually be very methodical in how they fight you, based on the character they play. For example, when facing Shawn Michaels, they will do a lot of high-impact moves and taunting, trying to build up a finishing move as fast as possible. Ken Shamrock, meanwhile, will beat up your individual body parts, weakening you and making it easier to get you to submit to the Ankle Lock.

That's the AI, but how is the gameplay in multiplayer? Well, online is laggy is hell, but let's talk local multiplayer. How does it hold up? Amazingly.

So far I've played about 16 multiplayer matches. All of them have been very good and a couple have even given off a big-match feel with both people really trying to send the match home as finishers get countered and near-falls keep occurring. So far the game has been just unbelievably fun in each kind of multiplayer match... with the exception of tag team matches. I don't know the reasoning behind this, but in this years game, performing a ring-clearing hot-tag will no longer yield a finisher. My guess is that was done because most matches boiled down to "make the hot tag, hit finisher, ???, profit." However, this decision ends up slowing tag matches down quite a bit, which is disappointing. One other note about multiplayer, I would heavily recommend turning off the reversal indicators after the first few matches, once you're comfortable with the system, otherwise it becomes a game of "wait for the indicator, hit button." Varying your timing does no good if an indicator always pops up at the time to press it.

So, after that, let's talk Single Player. Specifically, let's talk the new campaign mode, Attitude Era. Attitude Era is how you unlock everything in the game, and you do it by playing through recreations of some of the biggest (and coolest) moments in the Attitude Era. From the Rise of D-X, to the Brothers of Destruction, each campaign feeds off the previous one and tells the story of what made the Attitude Era so great, featuring clips from that time period, commentary from that time period (which really adds a lot to the matches) and a list of bonus objectives for each match that involves recreating specific moments from those historical matches. All-in-all, it is pretty awesome stuff that is a HUGE improvement over last years "Road to Wrestlemania" campaign, which took all control away and presented incomprehensible storylines and character motivations that make no sense. Overall, a huge step in the right direction and one that should set the bar for future games.

The game also comes with the largest roster in wrestling game history (with the exception of WCW Nitro, but since most of the characters in that game weren't real wrestlers, that doesn't count). With no DLC, there are 72 wrestlers, 2 managers, and 8 divas. After all the DLC is released, there will be 88 wrestlers, 2 managers, and 10 divas, for 100 characters in the game. Also, even though there is multiple versions of the same character, the game does a great job of differing the movesets based on how the character has changed. For example, Hunter Hearst Helmsley has a very different moveset from the modern-era Triple H.

Also, the game includes over 20 championship belts that can be defended or challenged for. Some of these are iterations of the same title (the WWE title, for example, has the modern version, the Attitude-Era circle belt, the Smoking Skull belt, Edge's Rated-R spinner, Miz's inverted spinner, the Rock's Brahma Bull belt, the classic winged-eagle belt, and also (incredibly) the 1987 and the retro pre-87 versions of the belt (held by such legends as Hulk Hogan and Bruno Sammartino). Also, you have the option of over 30 arenas to compete in, which are all spot-on representations of both modern and classic-era Pay-Per-View events.

So, lots of customization, plenty of possible matches, competent AI (mostly), and a whole lot of variety on the stakes, so are there any problems? Well, of course. One thing that irritates me is that the online continues to be very laggy, something that has been the case since online was introduced. Also, there are come minor nuances with the Attitude-Era characters. For example, to get all the griping out of the way: Eddie Guerrero comes out in the low-rider (he didn't start doing this until 2002), Road Dogg's entrance is censored (yet Billy Gunn is still using his "Mr. Ass" music), Attitude-Era D-X Triple H looks WAY too buff (he didn't significantly bulk up until he adopted "The Game" moniker in mid-2000), no Dudley Boyz or Hardy Boyz (contractual limitations due to their involvement in TNA), no Nation of Domination entrance for Rock or Farooq (which is odd, since Mark Henry is in full-on Nation mode), and finally, Dude Love doesn't have the option to wrestle in a tux (like he did during his heel run as Vince's lap dog). Again, most of these are just minor gripes against an overall amazing game, but I figured I'd get them out there.

So, my final verdict? This the most fun I've had with a wrestling game since Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, which I felt was the last "great" wrestling game. The multiplayer is really enjoyable, the single player is engaging and fun (and informative, actually), and the content that you are given is massive. I wholly recommend if you've jumped off the wrestling game bandwagon to hop back on and give this one a try. And if you're not down with that, I've got two words for ya.