Raven Software's second last FPS before becoming a Call of Duty outsourcing center is a solid linear experience marred by some egregious port issues when played on PC. Once I was able to modify and widen the FOV and entirely eliminate camera bob when moving, the play experience was a blast.
I can only imagine this would have been intolerable on console given I got motion sick with 15 minutes of play prior to modifying the game.
Set in an "open-world-lite" town that serves as a central hub for missions, Wolfenstein fully embraces the occult side of Nazi war-making as well as the ridiculousness of a one-man army named Blastkowitz.
Missions outside of the hub area are dreadfully linear, and having finished this just prior to starting Far Cry 3 I was struck by how tired and unexciting linear FPS's have become. However the weapons were fun and upgradable with decent variety and under mouse and keyboard control, extremely satisfying. Unfortunate and formulaic boss battles towards the end encouraged me to engage god mode just to blast through the game as fast as I could, which was disappointing.
Wolfenstein is worth a look if you are hankering for an old-school FPS.
2012's 2010 Game finished in 2012
Essentially a third person cover based shooter as shot on a cellphone and uploaded to youtube, the aesthetic is completely committed and never falters which is admirable. The characters are as gritty and despicable as the first game, with some truly disturbing acts of violence. The gunplay is somewhat loose and the story essentially a string of meaningless macguffins with a truly terrible ending, but it is not overly long. Those prone to motion sickness may have issues with the relentless jerkycam.
2012's Worst Game Story
Hitman:Absolution is the culmination of the industry move to using performance capture for character animation without any actual ability or knowledge of how to work with actors. Repugnant and a tired attempt at Rockstar style shock & awe, H:A is essentially a Hitman game with any Hitman gameplay. Ugly in tone and appearance, the story is utter nonsense littered with intended offense for its own sake.
As a Hitman fan I was deeply disappointed by this game, from its relentlessly linear maps to its horribly misogynistic portrayal of women. However This alone, despite that it is not fundamentally broken, so it cannot qualifies it in our next category.
2012 Worst Game
Hitman:Absolution's complete abandonment of the player agency that defined the franchise combined with ugly caricatures as characters, both in look and performance, allows it to blow away the competitive in a hail of gunfire as other games slink away into the night.
2012's 2011 Worst Game (updated)
Unfinished, unpolished, ugly and broken, X-Men Destiny is almost literally a crime against consumers. It may well mark the end of Silicon Knights, who have ridden the coattails of Eternal Darkness for far to long. An embarrassment that both the developer and publisher Activision share, it is a shining example of flushing money down the toilet, and more-so because the next game in our list.
Perhaps clinging to closely to the GTA formula of open-world building, Sleeping Dogs has a compelling story and a fantastic take on Arkham Asylum style melee combat. Gunplay comes late in the game, and is nearly unnecessary but perfectly serviceable.
Open world jank that seems inescapable to games with this many persistent system functioning near simultaneously is present but never less than entertaining. Looks great on console, looks insane on PC, highly recommended.
2012's Best Game Story That Saved A Broken Game
Spec Ops:The Line is heavily inspired by Heart of Darkness, telling the story of 3 man squad entering a Sandstorm destroyed Dubai to find out what happened to the rescue effort. A spiraling tale into the madness, confusion and depravity of war, SO:TL would have easily be this year' Game of the Year but for the nearly unplayable third person cover shooter mechanics.
Frustrating and rarely rewarding, the story is single thing propelling the game forward with a payoff that is worth the pain. Never get out of the boat and never play this game on anything but easy.
2012's Best Missed Opportunity
Far Cry 3 is a majestic open world shooter that draws one in instantly to its Fantasy Island gone mad world. Endlessly explorable it swallowed dozens of hours of gameplay before I even attempted the story. Borrowing heavily from Far Cry 2 and Skyrim mechanically, the island is a living breathing world where emergent gameplay is happening constantly. The flora and fauna are in constant combat with each other as well the human inhabitants, and an embarrassment of riches is found in the crafting and skill upgrade paths.
Systematically, Far Cry 3 is the easily the most ambitious game of the year and unfortunately completely undercut by the tone-deaf narrative. Unintentionally a satire on white privilege, rich white kids on rich white kid vacation are trapped on the island where only one rich white kid can rise above his beginnings to save the rest. Welcomed by the mystical Negros of the island, Jason, the whitest rich kid, quickly and inexplicably becomes a preternaturally skilled hunter and killer with little to no explanation. Only his whiteness can save this poor noble natives from the evil that befalls them, and only in absorbing their customs can he become a better killer.
Toying with duality as a theme even at the loading screen, Far Cry 3 completely misses the point by never coming close to the narrative clarity shown in Spec Ops:The Line. Without showing Jason's Rambo like descent into madness to become war so he can fight war, the story joins 2011's Dead Island as a great game with a pointless narrative.
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