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Best of the Rest: Alexander's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Far Cry 3Far Cry 3's story is racially insensitive, a Bechdel Test nightmare, and is criminally close to being homophobic. Despite all the cringe-worthy narrative elements that are handled with the deftness of a surgeon with a hacksaw, Far Cry 3 immersed me in its world and didn't let go until I finished. It speaks to the brilliance of the game's design team that players are compelled to push on after realizing they are one of the Rich Kids of Instagram and are tasked with saving others of their ilk.Oh my gawd, and don't even get me started on the mental self-flagellation I experienced after saving Oliver.
Best of the Rest: Jordan's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Tekken Tag Tournament 2With as old of a genre as fighting games are, it seems reasonable to assume the gaming development world would have their creation down to a fine science, but that's not the case. As I discovered over the course of several reviews this year, many studios still get the basic fundamentals of a fighter wrong, shipping games with lackluster arcade modes, poor online architecture and/or a lack of expanded single-player content.Tekken Tag Tournament 2, however, succeeded where most others failed by offering a full-featured smörgåsbord of single-player content, bolstered by a delightfully robust selection of local multiplayer modes and one of the best, most refined fighting engines ever developed. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is easily the best Tekken game there's ever been, of this there can be no doubt, but it's more than that. It also happens to be the very best fighting game that 2012 had to offer.
Best of the Rest: Mike Schramm's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Puzzle CraftFirst, I'd like to take a quick bow. Last year at this time (while lauding the great Jetpack Joyride), I pointed out that we'd never chosen a first-released-on-mobile game for our top 10 list, and that 2012 might be the year it would finally happen. And as you've seen on our final list, we did finally pick a game that fits that definition in 2012.But it wasn't my pick: For my money, Puzzle Craft is the best mobile game of the year, and definitely in my top five overall. Right now it's free on iOS, and offers a gorgeous and polished mix of casual puzzle gameplay that slowly gets more and more rewarding and complex as you level up and stockpile farm-based goodies. I love the "days of the year" time mechanic, I love the way that the rules change as you grow your town, and I just plain love this game. Hopefully we'll see new content in the new year, because I've been at max level for a while now. Max level, that is, on all three devices I've installed it on.
Best of the Rest: JC's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Kid Icarus UprisingI tried not to push Kid Icarus Uprising on my coworkers, despite enjoying it more than anything else I played this year. It's ... not the friendliest game, and requires an investment to enjoy that maybe I wouldn't have put in, had I not reviewed the game. I hated it until I loved it.The insane, uncomfortable control scheme is a massive turnoff for the first few hours of gameplay, though I swear it clicks later (and is deeply customizable). The script is goofy to the point of being embarrassing, though it also swung to "hilarious" as the game went on. And the multiplayer takes a lot of "training," being based on the same weird control scheme as the ground battles from the single-player game – and it became the only online multiplayer game I cared to put hours of my own time into in 2012.Kid Icarus Uprising's high barrier to entry makes it very un-Nintendo-like, and the kind of game I usually wouldn't deem worthy of a second look. I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to play a game if I have to wait for it to get fun. But Uprising's payoff is so worth it.
Best of the Rest: Xav's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. SyndicateIs it wise to reboot a strategy game, remembered for being one of the best in its genre, in a completely different style? Developer Starbreeze did that with Syndicate this year turning the franchise into something almost all their own. Sadly, publisher EA didn't feel the game sold well enough and Starbreeze didn't support it post launch (perhaps A equals B, in this case). Syndicate's once high-profile reboot quietly came and went.And yet Syndicate was an excellent experience. Once mastered by the end of the game's campaign, you unleashed cyberpunk-fueled death at clans of enemies in record time. You could hack into an enemy's head and make him kill himself for you! That's crazy.Syndicate's co-op mode was the real winner as a side-story that visited great locations and offered plenty of challenge. Banging my head against a wall for an hour attempting to complete the final mission with a handful of other reviewers during the game's launch, and finally walking away successful, is still one of the best experiences I've had all year. It's a pity the game has so much promise and potential for a sequel, while Starbreeze will likely never have the chance to make it.
Best of the Rest: Dave's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Borderlands 2The first Borderlands quickly established itself as one of the best co-op experiences back in 2009, and succeeded despite being forgettable in the realm of story. Not so with Borderlands 2, which not only builds on the RPG systems and excellent shooting of its predecessor in practical ways, but tells a compelling story full of memorable, endearing characters. There are few arguments for a better time with friends in 2012.
Best of the Rest: Jess' picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. FTL: Faster Than LightI find tremendous pleasure in games that allow me to name my characters, humanize them and create their unique, intricate backstories, for the sole purpose of making me watch those beloved little guys burn to death on a cramped space ship. No game does this better, or more often, than FTL: Faster Than Light.Another alluring aspect of FTL is that it's an indie game that looks indie. The game's strength lies in the incredible interstellar journey the player takes with her crew, and the graphics do everything they can to stay out of the way of these space battles and indiscriminate deaths. It's a mental game, high-energy in synapse rather than the screen – much as I've heard the original X-COM described. And like X-COM, playing FTL isn't just a wonderful experience today, but it promises greater, better things to come from Subset Games.
Best of the Rest: Sinan's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Dragon's DogmaThere are so many things wrong with Dragon's Dogma, as noted in Joystiq's scathing review. For starters, its unwillingness to offer guidance makes the Souls games look helpful, its dialogue repetition is nothing short of maddening – yes I freaking know wolves hunt in packs – and no game has ever made fast travel more of a chore. But when it's good, oh how good it is. Combining in harmony with my troupe of automated pawns to take down giant foes in simplistic yet epic, challenging combat is just too delectable to exclude Dragon's Dogma from mention, flaws or no.
Best of the Rest: Richard's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. Asura's WrathAsura's Wrath is one of the strangest, grandest, most wonderful games I have ever played. It's not the sort of game you'll play for months on end. In fact, you might only ever play it once. The point, however, is that you should play it. The amount of pure, unbridled insanity on display is worth the price of admission alone, with more improbable and impossible things happening than I could catalog here: death duels on the moon, enemies the size of planets, enemies larger than planets, you name it.It's also responsible for the single best bit of critical hyperbole I've ever come up with, and I stand by it. As I said in my review, "Asura's Wrath is a glittering, golden starchild of incredulity, and I love it."
Best of the Rest: Mike Suszek's picks of 2012
Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2012 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. FIFA Soccer 13I'd argue that sports games haven't quite accomplished what EA Canada managed to do this year with FIFA 13: Mix in a subtle sense of unpredictability that you'd expect from the sport the game represents. FIFA 13's first touch controls forces players to calculate their decisions on the field more carefully than ever before, as one bad bounce can create an opening for your opponent. Layered with that unpredictability and an always-improving AI is the EA Sports Football Club Catalogue, which builds on the XP system pervasive throughout the game by offering players in-game rewards for their efforts. FIFA 13 is a complete game, and is unquestionably my favorite sports game of 2012.
