[Question] The Gamingforce Game of the Year 2012: Results now in!

I hardly played any games that were released this year but those I did play were great!

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - 25 points

I really didn't understand all the nerd rage over FFXIII. Yes, they replaced towns with a menu and made most of the game linear but one nerd's lack of exploration and open-world is another man's (mine) cutting out of the boring bullshit and keeping the game focussed. With the sequel they sort of listened to the ranting of sweaty neckbeards and added a bit more exploration back into it but despite this, the game is still good fun. The story is retarded but then this is a FF game we're talking about, if you're going into any of them expecting a decent story then you need to stop reading kids books and up your expectations as to what is a good story. Also there's a lot of cutscenan in this but it's all relelvant to the silly story and the voice acting isn't as painful as some recent games.

Where the game excells though is the new addition, Pokemon! Now you can capture the monsters and make them your bitches and there are a fuckton of them. Plus you level them up and combine their powers and shit and it leads to hours of happy fun-times. Of course, it's all fucking pointless because this is far and away the easiest rpg I've ever played. I beat all the post-game bosses available before the end of the game during chapter 3 (Of 6) and you can over-level without trying but there is some satifsfaction in abusing the game mechanics to see just how easily you can blow through the supposedly tough fights. It does make me laugh looking at FAQs to build the ultimate team of monsters though because people are seriously suggesting spending hundreds of hours farming and levelling to do it with literally nothing to fight once you've got there.

Anyway, it's fun, it's silly and a great time sink. Stop being gay for memories of FF6 (Honestly, it wasn't that good) and play some modern stuff, especially as if you're paying more than a tenner for this then you're doing it wrong.

Xcom, Enemy Unknown - 35 points

Fuck yeah, X-com. If you played the PC original you'll know how great this game could have been. If you never poayed the PC original then you're a terrible person and you should play it. Now. Run.

And the good news is that the Xbox remake totally lives up to the original. Fun, intelligent and hard as iron bollocks (On the manly "Classic" difficulty, anything less is for kids and women), Xcom takes all the good stuff from the original, drops the pointless buying ammo micro-management and lets you take the fight to the alien scum in a beautiful way. It's not perfect of course, there are technical bugs such as the one that wouldn't let half my team in the last room of the game and for some reason, no matter what nationality your soldiers, they have a choice of 6, identical American accents but that's kinda life when it comes to vidya. If you like strategy games or those tactical rpg things then you have no excuse not to play this.

Halo 4 - 5 points

I'm nominating this because miraculously, 343 didn;t manage to completely balls it up. Sure there's no firefight and sure they took away the King of the Hill playlist for NO REASON AT ALL and the plot is a bit gay and all the new spartans look like Michael Bay Transformers but it's still Halo and Spartan Ops is ok when the lag lets you play it and they managed to add CoD unlocks without unbalancing the game too much so kudos for that.

Wreckateers - 15 points

Free download Kinect game that's basically Angry Birds but Angry Birds where you have to wave your arms around like a twat is hilarious. Sometimes the simple games are the most fun and Wreckateers is very simple and lots of fun. Best use for the Kinect yet.

Tokyo Jungle - 20 points

The only game I actually played on my PS3 this year I think. Tokyo Jungle is hilarious, both in it's subject matter and because of how completely unfair it is. Some people like using guides to get through easy games and some people like tough games that rip off your head and shit down your neck every time for a laugh. If you're the former then you need to take a good, long look at your life and join the latter group, then buy Tokyo Jungle.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Don't be disheartened by the lower turnout mate, it's still something worth doing. You only have to look at how the perceived industry A+ games are absent from here (CoD, Halo) to see that this is still a diverse community in terms of taste and this event gives people a chance to see what more obscure things other people dig, especially useful for someone like me who tends to buy games a year or more after they come out. It's not the results that matter, it's the posts with nominations in that are the important bit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.