Dr. Worm’s Top 5 Favorite (and 4 Least Favorite) Games of 2012

by Dr_Worm on Jan 11th, 2013

Another year, another look back at all the games that defined it, from a personal point of view. 2012 was a much more fulfilling year for me than some in the past (2010 was particularly stagnant), so I found it a bit easier to come up with a top 5 list this time round.

Honorable mentions: Games I enjoyed this year but not enough to put be on my to five. In no particular order, these include Quantum Conundrum, Mutant Mudds, Pokemon Black 2 & White 2, Zombi U, and my top honorable mentions, NFL Blitz. Blitz was released on January 4, making it barely eligible for GOTY consideration. Too bad I’m the only one who ever plays it anymore. I also want to bring up Portal 2’s Perpetual Testing Initiative, which breathed enough new life into the game that I tripled my Portal 2 playtime throughout 2012. Also please play my maps.

 

#5 – Twisted Metal

Like NFL Blitz, this was a reboot for a once beloved and glorious franchise from the 90s. For a while, I used to consider Head On the best Twisted Metal game, but the PS3 iteration met all my expectations. It’s still unique, the vehicles are just as cool as ever, the storylines were interesting (although I would have preferred to have seen more characters involved), and the multiplayer is the best it’s ever been. Now if they could just go back and get rid of those racing stages in the single player campaign, that would be swell.

 

#4 – Legend Of Grimrock

I don’t love all retro dungeon crawlers, but I always wished someone would come along and make a new, more refined game of its kind. And then Almost Human came along and did just that, and it was awesome. Grimrock has a feeling of isolation that no other game I played this year had matched. That combined with a wealthy assortment of RPG mechanics, exploration and puzzle solving, blended together into a wholesome, singular experience that is unlike anything else in 2012.

 

#3 – New Super Mario Bros 2

Say what you will, but I still, and always will, love the classic Mario games, and New Super Mario 2 is a throwback game that’s well worth your time. I appreciate Nintendo’s efforts to keep the side-scrolling Mario series alive, and somehow still good enough to be recommendable, let alone enjoyable. They kept it rather humble in terms of power-ups, as opposed to its more bombastic console counterparts. It’s classic Mario at its modern finest, and one of the best platformers on a portable system.

 

#2 – Borderlands 2

Gearbox took everything that was good about Borderlands 1 and made it bigger and better. The enemies are more varied, not to mention the environments and cast of characters. My favorite thing about it is how visceral the combat is. It takes that natural, fast paced action of first-person shooters and adds RPG elements to the mix, just like the original, but they’ve tweaked it a lot behind the scenes to make it all feel better. With a list of changes ranging from simple ones to more extravagant ones, it’s everything a sequel should be, just like…

 

#1 – Torchlight 2

I think I’ve said enough about Torchlight 2 in the review I oh-so-conveniently posted before the end of the year, but Torchlight 2 was my game of the year simply because I could play it with friends. My friends are either tight on cash or too stubborn to pay even half-price for Borderlands 2, so I never really had an opportunity to play it. With Torchlight 2 being only $20, when it went on a 50% off sale I was able to buy a whole 4-pack myself and gift it to my friends for less than I paid for my only copy of Borderlands 2. For all intents and purposes, Borderlands 2 was the best game I’ve played in 2012, but Torchlight 2 is my favorite thanks vicariously to its affordability.

 

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And now, my least favorite games of the year.

Diablo 3 wasn’t a bad game (I gave it a 4 out of 5), but it wasn’t true to its roots and failed almost entirely to meet my expectations. Don’t even get me started on the always-online requirements.

I feel like the only person in the world who disliked Kid Icarus Uprising. No one else seemed to have seen it for what I saw it as – not very good. I couldn’t stand the Saturday morning anime dialog constantly interjected into the gameplay, which itself was plagued with poor controls and hardly any variation throughout the entire campaign. Plus the multiplayer was just so rudimentary and dull.

And Uncharted: Golden Abyss… I don’t even want to talk about Golden Abyss. Just read my review.

But all of these games are only arguably bad. There was one game in particular I played this year that was so bad it legitimately pissed me off. So bad that I regretted ever playing it and wished I could get back the 40 minutes I wasted playing it while listening to an episode of Conan. I mean, I could have been watching that episode. So bad that it would be impossible to convince me any conceivable way that it’s good. Regular readers should know what I’m talking about: Dear Esther.

 

I don’t know how I even managed to write a full review for it, because I can sum it all up in one short sentence: All you do is walk around. Dear Esther’s biggest crime isn’t that you have to pay money to play it, or even that its developers insist that this purgatorious vestibule of gameplay is just that – a game. What really aggravates me is that somehow, there are people insane enough to give this game awards. Awards for being a good game. Awards for what boils down to a walking simulator being a good game. I honestly feel sorry for people who bought the huge indie pack on Steam in the holiday sale. It’s like finding a deer tick packaged in your Frosted Honey Chocolate Fruity Cheerios.

Edge Magazine gave it a score of 8 out of 10. Here’s a short list of (mostly recent) games they’ve reviewed that Dear Esther scored higher than:

Legend of Grimrock – 7, Twisted Metal 2012 – 6, New Super Mario Bros 2 – 7, Quantum Conundrum – 6, Fallout 3 – 7, Mirror’s Edge – 5, PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale – 7, Viva Pinata – 7, Left 4 Dead 2 – 6, Chrono Trigger – 7

You read that right, according to Edge’s scoring system, Dear Esther, a game where you do nothing but walk on a fixed path, is better than Chrono Trigger. I know, I’m nitpicking; if you know me well enough you know I dislike scoring systems in general. And I’m aware the person who reviewed Dear Esther for Edge may not be the same person who reviewed Chrono Trigger when they did it in 1995 (I’m assuming they’re not), but the point remains, Dear Esther is generally praised way higher than it should be.

The problem is that in every review I’ve seen of Dear Esther, including my own, they question whether or not it is a game and say it’s up to the user to decide. But the thing is, if it isn’t a game, why do game journalists treat it like one? Why even review it if it wasn’t? Why is it sold through a digital games retailer? And if it’s a game, then why do people keep giving a game with virtually no gameplay any score higher than a 4 out of 10? It blows my mind.

I’ve come to my conclusion: Dear Esther is most definitely a game. It is the worst game I’ve ever played, and could very likely be the worst game I ever play. It sets the bar so low for me, that it’s off the scale. I’m convinced I could play any game in the future and think “man, that was bad, but at least it wasn’t as bad as Dear Esther.”

Categories: Top 5 Lists