We took a lot of time thinking about which games of 2012 are our favorites. We went back and forth about whether or not we should classify it by console, genre, or an overall GOTY.  The more we looked over the games of 2012 the more it became apparent that 2012 wasn’t a great year for gaming in general. Many games we expected to be amazing were just alright, and when you really stop and think about it there just weren’t that many titles with a ‘whoa’ factor. That said, 2012 did have a few great games. That’s why we’ve decided to just name the one (or two) games we felt deserving of the title of the best games of 2012.
Keen
This was a hard decision for me because I played a lot of games released in late 2011, and a lot of games in betas that aren’t released yet. A ton of games came so very close for me. Mists of Pandaria was a lot of fun to level and do some raiding, but being more of the same definitely eliminated it from the running. I absolutely loved Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the only game to come from the tragic 38 Studios, because it was an action RPG that had several neat features, and Borderlands 2 was a really fun co-op experience to play with Graev, but ultimately neither scream GOTY.
I came so close tonight to settling on Guild Wars 2 for my favorite game of 2012, but I just couldn’t do it. That decision had nothing to do with GW2 — it is by far the best MMO I played all year, and one of the best games in general. GW2 advanced the industry down the Buy-to-play path, and innovated a bit with content delivery. In fact, I plan to return to GW2 and begin playing again. I just can’t award it my GOTY.
My favorite game this year has to be… wait for it… Dota 2.   Yes, Dota 2 — a game still, technically, in beta. My love-hate relationship with DotA continues. I hate the community, and I question whether or not the MOBA industry is a fad or here to stay, yet I can’t stop playing. Dota has been my go-to game when I’m in a slump, and occupied more hours played this year than any other game for me. Free to play, all heroes, competitive, and capable of killing an hour in the blink of an eye.
Graev
I put a lot of thought into my GOTY decision. Despite the year being a little lackluster, there were a handful of titles that made this a difficult decision. I really liked Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, and Paper Mario Sticker Star. Yet none of those were really my personal favorite game of the year.
To make my decision I looked at all the games that affected me the most this year — not necessarily the ones that were the most innovative or where I spent the most time playing.  The two that stood out to me the most are XCOM:Enemy Unknown and FTL: Faster Than Light. I tried to pick between the two, but both of these games were so good, and impacted me to much, that both caused me to (after done playing) seek out more games to provide similar experiences.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown and FTL: Faster Than Light both have a ton of replayability.  They are both difficult, and lately as I’ve been getting older I’m seeking out harder games to challenge myself.
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So there you have it! Those were our favorite games of 2012. We’d love to hear about the games you enjoyed most this year, and hear what you have to say about 2012’s gaming in general.
I hovered over the buy button for DOTA 2 early access but for as much as I want to play it, the community of other MoBA scares me from it. I have had too many bad groups within LoL, Smite and the whole lot. I love MoBA, One of my favorite games this year was Awesomenauts, but only against the bots and my daughter or someone else I know on CoOp.
I loved FTL even though I haven’t played it nearly enough. XCOM was nice too but I seemed to stall out on it rather quickly. There were a few bugs in it that just got on my nerves.
GW2 was great for the first two weeks until I got burnt out on it.
Right now I would say my favorites of the year were between CS: Global Offensive, FTL Fallen Enchantress, Torchlight 2 and Guildwars 2. I loved Reckoning as well and I had listed it among my top “looking forward to” games of last year, but with 38 Studios going belly up I never really finished playing because for as much as I say I hate sequels, honestly I rather play a game these days knowing that the IP will have a strong shelf life. That plus playing on the PC with KoA FoV kinda sucked.
Money most wasted on a game for me this year 100% has to be Legends of Pegasus. Talk about flushing good money down the toilet.
@Michael Whitt: What’s funny about Dota 2 is that despite it being my game of the year, I wouldn’t recommend it to the majority of people I know.
I’m the same way with IP’s. Like as soon as 38 Studios went under I didn’t want to go back and play through a second time because I know it’s over. It kills me knowing the lore in Amalur was designed to lead into the MMO and I won’t know what goes on.
XCOM I think wins for me though I have to mention GW2 as best MMORPG of the year and probably the best ever.
I’ve completed XCOM now so all my time is spent playing PlanetSide 2 which very much grew on me.
Xcom is a few DLC away from being really, really great. Sadly the first pack, 3 missions for $7, is a total miss. Hopefully they get rolling with that stuff in 2013.
[…] A couple of them still remain to be seen. My prediction that GW2 would be a 3-monther might be true since it turned out to be a ‘play to beat’ game, but the game is still going strong enough for me to want to return very soon. Predicting that the subscription model would survive is technically true, and F2P has seen a decline in the MMO space, but that’s because B2P (buy to play) is now on the rise. I also thought indie gaming wouldn’t do so hot… sheesh was I wrong. Indie games rocked 2012. […]
League of Legends has gotten me through a lot of this year, though I mostly just play with a group of real life friends. I’ll agree with FTL: Faster Than Light, it’s still on my “Favorites” tab on Steam even though I haven’t touched it in a while. I’m always hoping they’ll drop an expansion or a sequel to that game someday, but I don’t think that will happen, unfortunately.
Skyrim has also kept me busy, but as always I wish that it was a multiplayer game. The Elder Scrolls series has great potential to be a very D&D-like social experience if they’d just add some way to play with other people.
Other than that, the end of the year has me busy with KOTOR and possibly KOTOR2 because I watched a friend stream it for a while and got the itch to shoot lightning from my fingers. This next year I’ll probably pick up Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and an indie game called “Clairvoyance.” From the looks of things, my friends also want to attempt getting their feet wet in Ranked LoL games since we’ve done nothing but normals for a year, so that might add some more time spent in LoL this year as well.