2012, a look back...

2012, two-thousand-and-midgetfrickin'-twelve! Yeah, this year was awesome game-wise. This year let me see the end of an amazing trilogy, some of the biggest triple-A games of this generation of consoles and some of the greatest underdog indie games ever. But first things first, at the end of my 2011 look back I mentioned a lot of games released 2011 that I didn't have the time to play in 2011 and therefore would do in 2012. Here's that list:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution                                Started playing, but never got through it
Gears of War 3                                                         Started playing, found it kind of boring
L.A. Noire                                                              Played through it, loved it
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword                     Started playing, loved it and will get back to it
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception                          Started playing, loved it and will get back to it
Portal 2                                                                   Played through it, loved it
Rayman: Origins                                                   Played through it, one of the best games of 2011
Xenoblades: Chronicles                                           Started playing, will get back to it
Pokémon Black/White                                           Haven't played yet

So there, I kept most of them anyway, even though I didn't play through many of them. But what games did I play in 2012 then? Of the ones I was looking forward to most, actually many. Let's start with Catherine. This was a lot of fun, the script it like nothing I've seen in a game before, really great and backed by great voice actors. The game itself is just as great, and divided into two parts, one where you have to deal with your relationships, and one where you move blocks to get up a tower (the dream stages). Both is equally good I think, so I never find myself longing for either when I'm not there. All in all, one of 2012's greatest with one of the greatest scripts of 2012, beaten by only one, but I'll get to that.
9/10

Then we get to the game that got a real beating from the fans, Mass Effect 3. Why? Well, mostly because the ending is an unsatisfactory piece of shit. Well, kind of, I liked it fine, it was okay, but then again, 'okay' is not good enough when the rest of the game, and the other games, are amazing. So we are left with a really really great game, with a crappy ending. That is still great and emotional game, that had me welling up at least once. Another game did more, but again, I'll get to that.
9/10

This weekend I had some (seven) friends over to play Diablo III, again, a great triple-A game that took a lot of heat due to overloaded servers and errors. I played it once the heat on the servers where down and I think this is a great game, definitely a worthy successor to the second game, even though I prefer the old one. But still a great game and done with great care.
9/10

Of the other five games I mentioned looking forward to, four was not released and one I have only begun playing. But DMC: Devil May Cry will be released tomorrow, Bioshock Infinite and South Park: The Stick of Truth later this spring. I feel like I have given up hope on The Last Guardian ever being released though, but I hope, although probably not this year. As for Resident Evil 6, well, you might get a review in time. All I can say after playing roughly two hours is, well.... it's not a great game but I'm having fun enough.

So what other games of 2012 is worth mentioning. How about Lollipop Chainsaw. This is in my opinion one of the best games this year, I game that I actually played through no more than 4 times, to get all the collectables and achievements. And I was not once bored, it has a simple gameplay with enough variation to keep one occupied. And then the story, the jokes and the voice-actors, just great fun. I long thought this would be my game of the year, until... I'll get to that later.
9/10

Dust: An Elysian Tale is one of those games you play and have a lot of fun with when you play it, but as soon as you're done with the game, you don't feel like playing it again. Ever. And yeah, it got a bit monotone, towards the end, but I would still say that it's worth a look, because I still had a lot of fun with it, and it looks amazing, just like... I'll get to it later.
8/10

Fez is brilliant in the way it takes the game out of the TV. I sat with a plain sheet of paper, completely  gray with scribbles of clues and patterns that I needed to get all of the cubes. I loved that about Fez. But despite all of that, then the game is done it has close to no value in terms of replay other than to get the last cubes that you can't get until then. But it's still a really really great game.
8/10

Okay, so before I get to... what I'll get to later (I'm guessing most of you can guess it) I have to talk a little about the beginning of the next generation of consoles, namely the Wii U. Oh yeah, I've already done that!

http://gamerbloggz.blogspot.se/2012/12/wiiu-thoughts.html

Okay, I'll address the elephant in the blog The Walking Dead... what can I say, I truly believe this game changed, and will continue to change, games as we know them. I mean, Holy God-blessed shit, is there anything this game does wrong. The script can't even be compared to any other game on the market, The way it makes you care about characters that isn't even real, you really feel for every character in this game, and of course especially for little Clementine. This game makes me want to be a parent, have a little daughter, although not in a zombie apocalypse. I'll probably talk more about what makes it so ground breaking, but for now, lets just leave it at this: Game of the year, the game that makes grown men cry their eyes out.

Let's finish of this with what I feel is the games released in 2012 I want to play in 2013, that I didn't have a chance to play in 2012. They are:

Dishonored
Journey
Hotline Miami
Gravity Rush (If I get a Vita)
Halo 4
Assassins Creed III
Botanicula
Far Cry 3
Thomas Was Alone
Dear Esther

See you in 2013... wait, we're already there aren't we? Darn.....

2012 I long the most for....

Okay, another year is upon us, and it seems to be a great year indeed. These are my thoughts (a bit late, I know) about the dreading year of 2012!

First of all, yes, my most anticipated game of 2012 is still Catherine (which did not get a release in Europe in 2011). As I'm writing this, the game have actually been released and I plan to buy it as soon as I get the money to, and will probably follow it up with a review. It still looks insanely good with it's adult story and quickly paced puzzles. I look forward to play it soon.

In the genre "games that I thought would be released in 2011 but didn't" we find four games that I hope to sink my teeth in at some point of 2012. The first will be released in mars, the insanely anticipated Mass Effect 3. After having played the second game no more than three time in the cause of 2010 and 2011, I can't stress how hyped I am for this game. Honestly, scratch the "my most anticipated game of 2012 is still Catherine" statement from before, this is going to be the most amazing experience this year. I realize that I want to play the first two games again before this is released, I kind of need to hurry up... For all the right reasons (you who've played the games know what I mean) this is going to be AMAZAAAAHH!

Second it's DMC, the game everyone loves to hate on, but still looks as amazing as I though it did when they showed it at TGS in 2010. We have even gotten some gameplay footage and it seems to be an even better game from that point of view. As I have already said in my DMC discussion from February 2011, the new Dante looks ridiculously nicely designed and I can't wait to see what Ninja Theory can do story and script-wise with the Devil May Cry universe. All we can do is to wait and see. I hope for the world that I get to be the one to say I told you so, not you haters!

Third is another third. I hope it gets a release in 2012 but it should... I am of course talking about Diablo III, another huge sequel to a game more than a decade old. But I still find myself playing the second game from time to time, it's a great game, and I have no doubt that the third will be as well. I do find it dissturbing that the senior game designer (Steve Parker) left the company and that Blizzard later announced that they will be stripping the game down a lot. The only problem I see other than that is that I need to upgrade my PC... Nag dangit!

The last actually belongs to the category "Games I probably won't see in 2012" and is the spiritual sequel to The Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian. Now Ueda has quit and works on the project only as a freelancer, and the series is not exactly known for having huge selling records, but despite that and that we know nothing of the game and my hype it only based on the previous games, I still think this will be a great game, if it is ever released...

Now on to some newcomers, I will tell of the three games I look forward to the most this year that I haven't mentioned! First up, The South Park Game, seriously, you can play a jew... as a class... !! Hopefully, with Stone and Parker in charge and Obsidian doing the game itself, it will be a awesome and funny game!
Then we have Resident Evil 6, the game that I hope will be everything the fifth game wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with RE5, me and a friend, and solo. But still, I did not get the atmosphere from the other games. With this I hope that it will be a perfect mix of action and survival horror.
Last but not least, we have Bioshock: Infinite. The first game blew me away. The second was not as good but still told a compelling story. Now we are mature enough to move on from Rapture to the airborne city of Columbia. What I feel is compelling about Infinite is the characters, I'm really interested in Elizabeth and your now talking main character. And the probably awesome story. Nice!

Then again, I look forward a lot to the Wii U, despite the ugly name. But I hope it will be a hit, and not come out too late in the year. Still, there are a lot of games I long for and hope to hear more from like The Last of Us, I am Alive, Prototype 2, Tekken Tag 2, Tomb Raider, Lollipop Chainsaw, The Last Story, Dishonored, Syndicate, Ni No Kuni, X-com, Gravity Rush, Dragon's Dogma, Max Payne 3, Journey, GTA V and Halo 4 that I hope to talk a little more about soon.