Fave games of 2012

[Zetetic]

I'll echo
Spec Ops: The Line
as probably worth a play-through if you've got the time and can find it cheap. I bought it on Sunday and, playing it on the easiest difficulty, finished it in about 4h40m according to Steam. I did enjoy playing it, although by the last two chapters I just wanted to stop fighting. I don't think it's having its cake and eating it too.

Choice in the game is more interesting than I thought. With RPGs I have a horrible tendency to either save and replay different choices or look up the consequence (which I battle against) - there's an extent to which that's about wanting to max-out any interesting benefits and an extent to which it's just wanting to know how the game was put together.

Spoiler alert

Here, I don't believe the choices presented have much in the way of material, or any way lasting, consequence within the game, no extrinsic importance. Normally I think I'd dismiss them as irrelevant for that - a different cutscene you say?-  but the game succeeded in making care about the choices as moral actions, which is more rare than it should be.

I don't want to know what doing things differently in this game would have been like.

[close]

There are lots of criticisms still -

Spoiler alert

I didn't find the cover system infuriating but it wasn't far off - I really wouldn't ever bother replaying at a higher difficulty. It could've done with a bit more faith in the player towards the end: Fuck off echoey dream voices, fuck off flashbacks, fuck off "OMG the radio needed batteries" scene changes and comedy WTFs in those flashbacks.

[close]

Spoiler alert

In general there's a great deal of cutting that I think would have improved the ending, even if one insisted on having "you could've stopped" as a message (which I think pisses away some of what the game had achieved for me until that point).

[close]

[Still Not George]

I'd also like to add my own embarrassment at missing out Spec Ops: The Line. I finished it last night and FUCKING HELL LADS.

[vrailaine]

Yeah, loads of stuff came out; in Japan. There was also a couple of titles localised for Europe by Ghostlight that actually got physical releases in the UK. It's largely shovelware now though, just as the PS2 was at the end of it's life.

I think bought in the region of 10 PSP games this year, and there's still a couple of releases I've got my eye on coming out next year.

Have you played Final Fantasy Type-0?

Seems weird that they're not releasing it in some form or another outside of Japan, but I never really understood why Crisis Core didn't eventually get a PS2 release either. Both seem like relatively easy money to me, crisis core especially, what with the localisation already done and the final fantasy vii brand.

[Consignia]

Have you played Final Fantasy Type-0?

Seems weird that they're not releasing it in some form or another outside of Japan, but I never really understood why Crisis Core didn't eventually get a PS2 release either. Both seem like relatively easy money to me, crisis core especially, what with the localisation already done and the final fantasy vii brand.

I haven't yet, but I think it recently had a budget release, so I might it pick it up when I've got less on my plate.

I think the intention was that Type-0 was going to be an international release, but these days it's getting less and less worth localising something to the PSP with so much text, as well as almost essentially recording a new voice track. If they were forward thinking enough, they'd have made both those titles to be easily portable and release them as PSN/XBL games later on. I think if the Vita were to take off (which seems very unlikely now), we would see such games easily re-released on different devices.