Congratulations to Journey! 2012 was a fairly disappointing year for me overall compared to the greatness of the past couple of years, but at the very least it has been a great time for storytelling and atmosphere in games. Thanks again for including a link to the soundtrack topic in the OP, timetokill!
Instead of just dumping my affinity list here, I decided to go back and read the ballots of everybody that was included to see if they wrote anything that I wanted to comment on.
Nert
1. Snuggler (104)
2. O.DOGG (99)
3. evilhomer (98)
4. Miletius (94)
5. benny_a (93)
5. Remachinate (93)
5. Ventrue (93)
8. Clunker (90)
9. Berto (89)
10. Maccas (88)
Snuggler: FTL is a great top pick! Like many other people, you're making me want to try out Chivalry. Is it kind of sad that I'm already anticipating the Steam summer sale?
O.DOGG: Grimrock is another game that I need to get around to playing. I also considered listing Mass Effect 3 (the Tuchanka stuff was really well done), but I guess the ending dragged my experience down more.
evilhomer: I also went in to Spec Ops with a bit of knowledge ahead of time (having heard about the comparisons to Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness), but I didn't think that it hurt the experience at all for me. If anything, it enhanced it by pushing me to pick on the more subtle things that are done in the first half of the game.
Miletius: What were some of the major improvements made to Civ V in the Gods and Kings expansion that fixed the game for you? I ended up going back to Civ IV after barely playing Civ V, but I'm willing to give the game a second chance with some improvements.
benny_a: I enjoyed the presentation of your post. If you have more time next year, I'd love to see more write-ups.
Remachinate: That is probably the first time that I've seen someone point to the lack of positive outcomes as a weakness of The Walking Dead. If anything, I felt that their commitment to the world being a grim and terrible place was essential in convincing players of the importance of Lee and Clementine's relationship.
Ventrue: I still need to try X-COM on Ironman. To be perfectly honest, I ended up save abusing a bit on my normal campaign, and that undoubtedly lessened the tension.
Clunker: You made an interesting point about how The Walking Dead gives you real agency over character development and how the cast relates to each other (instead of agency over plot developments). And yeah, I loved Spec Ops: The Line's loading screens, too. Talk about shaming Call of Duty...
Berto: Yay! Botanicula! I would also love to see more descriptions from you next year.
Maccas You were late to the party on The Binding of Isaac too? That game is really incredible. I would love to see more descriptions from you next year.
