Top 10 PC Games of 2012
Red
5 Studios' Firefall is
one of the most exciting shooters in development. A free-to-play online game,
Firefall lets you switch between several classes that fulfill roles like
long-ranged damage, healing and turret fire support to engage in player versus
player and player versus environment battles. It'll feature persistent elements
and plenty of ways to customize your fighter, and based on what's been shown
off so far, could wind up in contention for best shooter of the year when it
launches. The Borderlands-style visuals and jetpacks certainly don't hurt
Firefall's appeal. Though the emphasis is on shooting things, story isn't being
ignored, as Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card is working on the fiction.
9
Human Head Studios leaves behind the squishy
alien corridors and gravity flipping of the original Prey, along with quite a
bit more. Prey 2 is still a first-person shooter, but original's protagonist
Tommy is no longer the playable character. Instead you play as U.S. Marshall
Killian Samuels, who gets ripped from Earth and dropped on an alien planet
called Exodus. This is not a linear shooter; Samuels will roam Blade
Runner-esque futuristic cityscapes as an intergalactic bounty hunter, amassing
powerful weapons and gadgets to take on quests and capture targets in an
open-world format. It's quite a shift from the original, and based on what
Human Head has so far shown off, looks like it's a move in the right direction.
In an interesting twist, Human Head also completely scrapped the multiplayer
mode to focus on producing a lengthy single-player component instead.
8
Tired of clicking on a target in MMOs and watching while your
character's auto-attack whittles down the enemy's health bar? You should be
looking forward to Tera.
Bluehole Studio's game is structured like a standard MMO with dungeon content,
quests and progression structures, but it plays like a third-person action
game. Positioning and movement are of critical importance, as you can simply
dodge out of the way of enemy attacks. Just because an enemy has targeted you
doesn't mean it can magically start hitting you. If its axe doesn't make
contact with your character model, you don't take damage. It makes for
especially challenging dungeon content, and should hopefully make standard
fights against common monsters a lot more interesting than hitting 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 over and over again. It's also a visually striking game, which hopefully runs
smoothly when it's finally ready for launch in North America.
7
Loot games are going to be a big deal in 2012, and Borderlands
2 is
part of the reason why. Gearbox's shooter franchise blends the obsessive item
hunting of Diablo with fast-paced first-person shooting. Every time you fire at
enemies damage numbers explode then guns and equipment shower out of their
corpses. You equip the gear, power up your character, then head into battle to
do it all again, only more efficiently. Borderlands 2 will feature four
character classes, including a dual-wielding Gunzerker and a reworked version
of the Siren class from the first Borderlands. With a greater emphasis on
story, humor and better co-operative play, chances are Borderlands 2 could wind
up being one of the year's most entertaining experiences.
6
2012 started off strong with a surprise announcement of a new XCOM
game fromFiraxis. Titled Enemy Unknown, this version of XCOM is built in the style
of the 1994 original. This isn't so much a remake as it is a reworking of the
original formula. Combat still takes place in a turn-based format, but the
gameplay systems will be altered somewhat along with the interface to make the
title playable on consoles as well as PCs. Between sessions of turn-based
combat the gameplay shifts to real-time as you manage research, upgrade your
soldiers and send out craft after invading UFOs. Firaxis is a great fit, and
we're all hoping for a glorious return to form for a franchise that has been
out of the spotlight for far too long. Keep in mind there are actually two XCOM
games in development at the moment, the other being the XCOM shooter 2K Marin
is working on. Firaxis' XCOM:
Enemy Unknown is scheduled to be released this fall.
5
This is it, the finale to BioWare's stellar science-fiction
role-playing series, which focuses on Commander Shepard's defense of Earth in
the fight against the Reapers. Expect a heavy emphasis on character interaction
and storytelling – the signature strengths of Mass Effect – alongside a few
things new. While Mass Effect 2 cut out some of the combat and character
customization present in the first game, Mass
Effect 3 is putting more back in, as well as a simple melee system
for close encounters. In a controversial move, BioWare also decided to
add a multiplayer element, an odd addition to a franchise that had previously
been exclusively single-player. The multiplayer will be kept separate from the
single-player, though playing with others can affect your single-player game.
Thankfully you're not forced to play online, so if you really dislike the idea
of Mass Effect multiplayer, you can avoid it. Barring some kind of disaster,
Mass Effect 3 is a likely candidate for role-playing game of the year at the
end of 2012.
4
With the next BioShock title, Irrational
Games leaves behind the watery halls of Rapture in favor of a new
setting in the sky. You play as Booker DeWitt, tasked with finding a
mysteriously gifted woman named Elizabeth in the floating city of Columbia.
Doing so is no simple task, as you need to navigate between gangs of angry
locals, bizarre temporal anomalies and an overly sensitive giant bird that
never wants Elizabeth to leave its sight. You'll fight with guns and magical
powers, though the combat and upgrade system won't be exactly same as the
original BioShock's. The story delivery will likely also be quite a bit
different, as Booker DeWitt isn't the silent type. He talks to Elizabeth and
others, and he won't be picking through a dead world playing the role of
archeologist / warrior; the fight for Columbia is all around him. Given
Irrational's incredible track record, it's hard to image Infinite being
anything but amazing.
3
Since
the release of Wings of Liberty, StarCraft II has spread across gaming circuits
worldwide, helping to spur interest in spectating professional matches in a
major way. Its traditional real-time strategy mechanics of base building and
resource collecting along with its three diverse, meticulously balanced armies
represent make for thrilling online contests. Heart of the Swarm, the second of
three planned StarCraft II installments, should change things up in a major
way. Zerg, Protoss and Terran armies will each be heavily modified, with some
units stripped out entirely and many new units added in, which are sure to
dramatically alter how each side plays. An all-new single-player campaign
rounds out Heart of the Swarm, focusing on the Zerg faction and continuing the
story of Kerrigan. If the missions in Heart of the Swarm match the incredible
variety found in Wings of Liberty, StarCraft II should have no problem holding
on to its title of best modern RTS.
2
It's been such a long time since Eye of the North. The last
expansion to the original Guild Wars came out in 2007, and even back then ArenaNet teased the
tie-ins to Guild Wars 2. Years went by without any information, until the studio finally
revealed its plans for the sequel. Since then we've seen demos, we've played
it, we've interviewed the development team, and every time we walk away with
the same impression: Guild Wars 2 is absolutely brilliant. It's beautiful and
packed with creative takes on MMO standards, and will offer plenty for PvPers.
Combining an open world, clever ways to encourage social questing and an
amazingly flexible customization and combat system, Guild Wars 2 may very well
wind up being the best MMO, well, ever.
1
It's difficult to say any more about this game. We've been
covering Diablo III at IGN for almost four years. We've played the beta, which
shows off only a small portion of the game's beginning, and had an opportunity
to pulverize zombies and shatter skeletons with all five of the game's classes.
The skill design is amazingly varied, the sheer amount of things to find and
customize irresistible to any drawn to loot games. There are a mind boggling
number of progression systems in Diablo III that we hope will help keep us
entertained all the way through the Inferno difficulty setting. The cinematics
released so far are breathtaking, the gameplay polished and satisfying, and the
possibility of making real dollars from item sales through the auction house
intriguing. It's been over a decade since Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.
Finally, in 2012, we'll find out if the wait has been worth it.
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