10. Fez (Xbox 360)
Polytron’s Fez is a multifaceted delight - everything about it feels perfectly pitched. The platforming is elegant, tricky but rarely annoying; the puzzles fiendishly difficult at times but a delight to solve; the graphics and music gorgeous; and the core idea innovative and delightfully executed. Gomez, the cute and cheerful fez-wearing character at the heart of the game, picks up the ability to rotate his 2D world in three dimensions, and in doing so open doors to gather cube segments, save the world and unlock secrets about the world he lives in – deciphering coded languages and complex puzzles as he goes.
9. Super Hexagon (iOS, PC)
Simple, astoundingly addictive and brutally difficult, Super Hexagon is a beautiful game with a gorgeous chiptune soundtrack. With just two controls – left and right – you pilot a tiny triangle trying to avoid incoming walls of light in elegant, repeating patterns. As with creator Terry Cavanagh’s other work, the game unabashedly appeals to hardcore perfectionists and challenge lovers, and there’s a genuine, visceral thrill in beating your own high scores – even by a couple of seconds. The first time you survive for a whole minute makes you feel like a god.
8. Guild Wars 2 (PC)
Guild Wars 2 lets players play together without having to talk to each other. Dynamic events throughout the online fantasy world sees teams of warriors spontaneously forming to deal with enemy threats, and a removal of the standard class roles (big chap, sneaky chap, magic chap, medic) makes groups both easy and fun to be a part of. Up until now, World of Warcraft has been the benchmark for MMOs; it’s suddenly looking very old fashioned next to this.
7. Walking Dead (iOS, PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
So this is how it ends – humanity scrabbling for existence against the undead hordes, but mostly against each other. Walking Dead is a stark survival adventure following an escaped convict and the little girl he somehow chooses to protect. The two drift into dangerously fragile relationships with other people; they lurch from one disaster to the next. The player is forced to make impossible decisions that always involve death and regret. Walking Dead is so many times more grim and terrifying than Resident Evil 6 it’s almost laughable. True, some have questioned how much choice you really have in the game – but then, that’s the whole point. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
6. Spelunky (PC, Xbox 360)
Derek Yu’s Spelunky, which evolved from PC freeware to XBLA download this year (and therefore had its first commercial release in 2012, qualifying it for this list), is a dungeon crawling 2D Rogue-like in which you explore randomly generated mines in the hope of finding great treasures and rescuing distressed damsels. More often than not, though, what you actually find is sudden death, thanks to spikes, traps, angry shopkeepers and a range of unpleasant animals. The fun of the game is as much in the stories it generates as the pleasure of the platforming, and playing is an exercise in overcoming failure – repeated, grinding, permanent failure – to find great glee in the occasions when everything just happens to go right.
5. Far Cry 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
From the very first moments it grabs you and pulls you in; you are on the island – and there you stay. Far Cry 3 is the rarest of games: an open-world adventure that also works as a compelling narrative thrill-ride. The descent of Jason Brody, from party guy to vengeful killer, is brutal and convincing – it is the story arc of the slasher flick, grafted into a Joseph Conrad novel. But beyond the violent action is the island itself, a lush paradise, teeming with wildlife. It is a place you want to explore, not just because of the bonus items, but because you want to see what’s out there. And usually what’s out there is danger. It calls you from the darkness. You always answer.
4. Borderlands 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Pandora is a planet where subtlety is extinct; it has been hounded out of existence by roaming bands of maniacs and midgets with machine guns. What remains is violence and really idiotic humour. Borderlands 2 retains the blueprint of the first game – shooting, looting and leveling up – but adds a more coherent mission structure and a skill tree the size of a giant sequoia. It is a game that lavishes rewards on very capable players; a game with a brilliant antagonist in the form of corporate madman, Handsome Jack; a game that runs and runs but never runs out of breath. And the co-op is so good it could save marriages.
3. Journey (PS3)
What is Journey about? Is it an allegory for life, death and rebirth? Or something more elusive? Whatever you think, for many players, thatgamecompany’s three-hour adventure provided some of the most profound and emotional gaming experiences they have ever had. It’s not just the beautiful surroundings, the wistful lead character, the well constructed puzzles; it is the genius of the anonymous online co-op, the fact that strangers can help or hinder each other, communicating only through movement and sound. In a world of symbol and sense, everything has to be interpreted, and players must be prepared to give themselves to it. But whatever you give, you get back. What is Journey about? That’s easy. It is about how you feel when it ends.
And so the top two … We argued, we thought, we argued some more, but we couldn’t separate them. So for the first time, we have a joint number one.
-1. XCom: Enemy Unknown (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Countless alien invasions later and still we are drawn to save the world. Our stories reflect our collective fears: the fear of not being alone in space; the fear of being alone in space. XCom is an evergreen cliche then not least in terms of its aesthetic, which chooses the unfashionable get-up and colouring of 90s sci-fi b-movies. But in play never has the strategy game seemed so vibrant, malleable, resolute. It’s Advance Wars, in essence, but where line of sight, weapon choice and human fallibility all play their disruptive part. And in the opportunity to name each soldier, we have have the opportunity to name the ways our hearts break when the worst happens on the battlefield – at least till the next conscript turns up back at the base.
-1. Dishonored (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
The art team behind Dishonored spent almost four years devising and concepting Dunwall – it seems that not a moment was wasted. This is one of the most fully realised fictitious environments that gaming has ever seen, a plague-ridden Victorian hellhole of warring artistocrats, moustached gangsters and blood-vomiting paupers. Into this Dickensian nightmare strides Corvo, and assassin who is not an assassin, who doesn’t need to kill; who can slink silently along the steaming pipes and slated rooftops of this festering city. The effect is Batman re-housed in industrial Britain – a game of cat-and-mouse plotting, patience, deviousness and occasional bursts of sword-swirling violence. It is an engrossing, consuming game, beautifully made, deeply cared for and swaggeringly confident. It is a joy.The Guardian
