Time names Guild Wars II best game of 2012
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Magazine heralds ArenaNet's online role-playing game top title of year followed by Xenoblade Chronicles, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, and Dishonored.
Time magazine has listed its top 10 titles of 2012, heralding ArenaNet's pay-once massively multiplayer online role-playing game Guild Wars II the best of the past year. The magazine's game journalist, Matt Peckham, described the title as "one of those rare games that unexpectedly knocks your life off-kilter."
Other games to grace Time's top 10 list were Xenoblade Chronicles, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored, Assassin's Creed III, Papo & Yo, The Last Story, Little Big Planet (PlayStation Vita version), Halo 4, and Torchlight II.
Time's full top 10 list of 2012 games is below.
1. Guild Wars II
2. Xenoblade Chronicles
3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
4. Dishonored
5. Assassin's Creed III
6. Papo & Yo
7. The Last Story
8. Little Big Planet (PlayStation Vita)
9. Halo 4
10. Torchlight II
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
360 comments
Some pretty good games there. I'm surprised at the lack of Natural Selection 2 though. It's so much better than every other shooter I've played in recent years.
Seems to be a bit of Wii bias there.
Though honestly, both The Last Story and Xenoblade were freaking amazing.
Not a bad list, but why is Time so interested in video games all of a sudden? I don't remember them doing this last year.
1 Like While I have no problem with Guild Wars at the top of the list, I find it odd that an epic masterpiece like Mass Effect 3 was left off the list in favor of Papa & Yo. Come on now. That's just ridiculous.
@USAPATRIOT21 As much hate as it gets because of the ending, I have to agree with you, Mass Effect 3 was certainly one of the best games of 2012.
There are so many flaws to Gw2 it's not even funny... And these flaws hurt the game. A lot. Makes me wonder if this reviewer knows what he's talking about.
Here are a few:
The fact that ANet decided to make the level adjustment feature made things good/bad... Mostly bad imo. There's no reason to go into lower level areas (other than finishing achievements). If you want to grind in these areas, you'll be sorry to find that you get no good drops. They're drops specifically for that low level area. So it's really a waste. This forces everyone to end up in the same place anyway? which leaves a very populated map with barely any monsters to kill.
I have 2 lvl 80s, a Guardian and a warrior. I tried my best to keep playing the game, but I just couldn't. There's nothing more to do. Beat the main storyline, PVPed throughout my levelling process, and now I feel like I've gotten everything out of the game. Btw, I did this all in 2-3 weeks after release. Really, there's no point in the PVE because, if you want to PVP, you can go straight into it a lvl 1, and be as strong as other players (this is a pro and a con, as gear doesn't matter, neither does getting dungeon gear other than appearances sake..)
What ANet should've done was allow armor upgrading, making it like every other MMORPGs when it comes to PVE SPECIFICALLY. But when it comes down to PVP or world vs world, armor should get balanced. This gives much a needed sense of progression (at lvl 80 specifically and throughout the game) and allows more content to be delivered. This is how Vindictus and Dragon Nest does it, and it works wonders. It gives you an incentive to do PVE, to get better gear, upgrade into better gear, etc.
Plus, I'd like to point out that the boss fights are very very tedious. Spam all spells, dodge if you see a red circle, heal if you get hit. That's it. No real strategy into killing bosses. If you've played Vindictus, you'll quickly learn that if you don't know the boss's (and there are many bosses) attack patterns, you.will.not.survive.
An example would be a boss wielding a large axe. He'd swing it 3 times in a certain way that only a certain direction of dodging will actually DODGE the attack, (in Gw2, as long as you're in the dodge animation, you're invincible unlike Vindictus). If you dodge into the axe, you're hit. Next thing you know he's swinging it like a madman when you get him to a low enough HP. He's going panic-mode, and you have NO IDEA how to dodge his erratic movements. THAT'S how a boss fight should be like.
In Gw2, it's pretty safe to say there's no varied attack pattern that you have to learn to succeed in defeating a boss. Just spam spells and dodge. It's made for casual gamers. And I'm not using that lightly. Gw2 is MADE for casual gamers, which is why the market loves it so much. The market is FILLED with casual gamers nowadays (like League of Legends.. lmao that game cracks me up when they say they're better than HoN/DoTa), that the old, difficult games of the past are just that: A thing of the past.
Oh and I forgot to mention Gw2's false advertisement of "No more grinding!". If you're at lvl 80 and doing dungeons, you'll know what I mean when I say this... There's so much grinding that it makes other games look like shit. Gw2's grind is one of the hardest grinds I've ever played in any MMORPG. Sure it's not required to play the game, but it's what you will do when you run out of things to do at "end-game".
2 Like @CriticalGamer92 If you feel like playing the game is a grind, then the game isn't for you.
3 Like LOL GW2 a hard grind. You never played UO, EQ, EQ2 even WOW has more grind than GW2. Are you kidding me? If the Grind is that hard may I suggest you go play Hello Kitty Online is up to your speed.
1 Like Wasn't mass effect 3 this year, 2012. Because I easily feel it beats all of the above top ten.
@jenovaschilld borderlands 2 , yes . ME3 ? no , top 15 maybe , but the game was worse then you might have realized (not counting the ending cause we all know that) , care to notice how all the side quests were unbelievably simplified fetch quests that ended up being numbers? how besides primary missions there didnt seem as much side places to explore? ppl have pointed this out awhile ago during the whole outcry of the ending rather then just focusing on the ending , if were counting just the main storyline then yes top 15 , but not top 10.
1 Like GW 2 is NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRR game of 2012!!! Come on, anyone claiming that is embarrassing themselves by failing to differentiate between base and disgusting addiction and a product that's ACTUALLY worthy of nomination let alone the award!
Did Makuch just list off the list twice? Right after each other? Anyway, decent list, GW2 wouldn't have been my top pick, but it would have been pretty height up there.
2 Like I'm glad all the games here deserved an honourable mention in a top 10 list, though I would prefer some other games to be on the list as well but hey you are only limited to 10.
1 Like I agree guild wars 2 is awesome, the only thing i wish was different is if the PVE content was more like rift/swtor. But thats my opinion. Im glad CoD is nowhere to be found...
@Leeric420 I was an early SWTOR player and I am glad PVE is nothing like TOR.
For starts the maps are better in every way, TOR was too empty and soulless.
Level adjustment makes it challenging (more or less), I'm lvl 80 in full exotic and if I park near an enemy on a lvl 50 map he'll kill me before I can grab a beer.
PoI, vistas and WP make it rewarding when it comes to exploration.
Task (hearts/side quests) are a lot more fun and varied never taking more time than it should.
And on top of all this, dynamic events that give a living organic feel to the game.
In SWTOR 80% of the time I was either overpower or underpowered, often the game got genuinely boring and I never even got to lvl 40.
Don't get me wrong, I like SWTOR and I wish I could like it more, but they'll have to add a lot to it before that.
@Kane04 @Leeric420 ToR was really nothing more than a watered down Mass Effect with optional multiplayer. Which is a shame, Star Wars has a mountain of potential as an MMO. Galaxies was leagues ahead in almost every area compared to ToR.
The fact that ANet decided to make the level adjustment feature made things good/bad... Mostly bad imo. There's no reason to go into lower level areas (other than finishing achievements). If you want to grind in these areas, you'll be sorry to find that you get no good drops. They're drops specifically for that low level area. So it's really a waste. This forces everyone to end up in the same place anyway? which leaves a very populated map with barely any monsters to kill.
I have 2 lvl 80s, a Guardian and a warrior. I tried my best to keep playing the game, but I just couldn't. There's nothing more to do. Beat the main storyline, PVPed throughout my levelling process, and now I feel like I've gotten everything out of the game. Btw, I did this all in 2-3 weeks after release. Really, there's no point in the PVE because, if you want to PVP, you can go straight into it a lvl 1, and be as strong as other players (this is a pro and a con, as gear doesn't matter, neither does getting dungeon gear other than appearances sake..)
What ANet should've done was allow armor upgrading, making it like other MMORPGs for PVE SPECIFICALLY. But when it comes down to PVP or world vs world, armor should get balanced. This gives much needed a sense of progression (at lvl 80 specifically) throughout the game and allows more content to be delivered. This is how Vindictus and Dragon Nest does it, and it works wonders. It gives you an incentive to do PVE, to get better gear, upgrade into better gear, etc.
Plus, I'd like to point out that the boss fights are very very tedious. Spam all spells, dodge if you see a red circle, heal if you get hit. That's it. No real strategy into killing bosses. If you've played Vindictus, you'll quickly learn that if you don't know the boss's (and there are many bosses) attack patterns, you.will.not.survive.
An example would be a boss wielding a large axe. He'd swing it 3 times in a certain way that only a certain direction of dodging will actually DODGE the attack, (in Gw2, as long as you're in the dodge animation, you're invincible unlike Vindictus). If you dodge into the axe, you're hit. Next thing you know he's swinging it like a madman when you get him to a low enough HP. He's going panic-mode, and you have NO IDEA how to dodge his erratic movements. THAT'S how a boss fight should be like.
In Gw2, it's pretty safe to say there's no varied attack pattern that you have to learn to succeed in defeating a boss. Just spam spells and dodge. It's made for casual gamers. And I'm not using that lightly. Gw2 is MADE for casual gamers, which is why the market loves it so much. The market is FILLED with casual gamers nowadays (like League of Legends.. lmao that game cracks me up when they say they're better than HoN/DoTa), that the old, difficult games of the past are just that: A thing of the past.
1 Like @CriticalGamer92 I liked SWTOR better too, even if I only played a smuggler and never finished.
I never played the game you mention, but dying 100 times to learn the attack pattern hardly sounds any fun.
You'd be kicked from the party over and over again the only chance would be looking up (on YouTube?) how to do it then do, and again, it's not what I'd call fun.
Personally I've been playing GW2 3 months, 245 hours got 1 and only 1 character lvl 80, full exotic haven't done half the dungeons not 1 PvP match and just a little of WvW, 81% of the map complete.
So you can say I still have a lot of game ahead, guess I'm playing it like whiskey and not beer.
Like this other user said, this is not a game to be rushed, exploration is rewarded, either because of beautiful scenery, chest, rich ore.
Combining pieces of armor and freely picking the color for a unic look is also something I enjoy.
i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x363/48273/gw962.jpg
Being able to use several kinds of weapons to break the routine is also God send compared with SWTOR.
Again, like I said, I like SWTOR but my experience with it was no where near as good or fun as GW2.
1 Like @CriticalGamer92@Kane04@Leeric420
You leveled 2 toons have done all the dungeons all paths, finished the map. Got your legendary weapon, done all the jumping puzzles all in 2-3 weeks. Not Likely. The Loot scales to your level. So WTF are your talking about? Boss battles are not what you claimed them to be. That is a lie. Some may be like that but, not all. Just because you RUSHED pathetically through the game in 2-3 weeks that?s not anyone?s fault but your own. GW2 was never designed to be rushed through like that. What?s even more pathetic about people like you that speed level through these games and then claim there is nothing to do. You may try some anger management classes your last couple of posts are just have anger written all over it.
This comment has been deleted
I think it's funny that Time rates video games. On a different note, GW2 is very good! I do agree with it being on par with being in the top 5.
1 Like It deserves the award imo, iv'e played the game for 110-120 hours and had a blast with it and theres still alot of stuff i didn't do in the game.
2 Like Thanks to its World vs World content and deep character customization, Guild Wars 2 is certainly among the best games I've played in years and the best MMO in more than a decade. I've sunk hundreds of hours into this game without paying any subscription fees. Due to finally tackling several postponed obligations, I haven't played in awhile -- but I will return soon enough. GW2 is my GOTY as well.
5 Like When non-gaming magazines publish GOTY lists, I look at it like a paleontologist trying to perform open heart surgery -- sure, you're educated, but in the wrong field.
This isn't a "best of 2012" list. It's a list of the games the writer remembers seeing the most online advertising for, with a few Google searches to find some indie games so it looks like he has cred.
Conversation powered by Livefyre
Content you might like…
-
Guild Wars 2 Review
Guild Wars 2 is a paradise for explorers and thrill-seekers alike, and the best online role-playing game in years.
- Sep 11, 2012
Users who looked at this article also looked at these content items.
Hot Stories
Newsmakers
-
Preowned games on Xbox One decided by publisher
Microsoft confirms that it won't charge any fees for any titles eligible for resale. Full Story
- Posted Jun 7, 2013 12:00 am GMT
-
Microsoft confirms required 24-hour check-in for Xbox One
Playing Xbox One games on somebody else's console will also require a check-in every hour. Full Story
- Posted Jun 6, 2013 11:41 pm GMT
Featured Stories
-
PlayStation 4 will cost $399
Sony confirms a $399/€399/£349 price for the PlayStation 4 hardware, $100 cheaper than Microsoft's Xbox One. Full Story
- Posted Jun 11, 2013 7:19 am GMT
-
New Halo coming to Xbox One; runs at 60fps
Will be coming in 2014. Full Story
- Posted Jun 10, 2013 7:11 pm GMT
-
Del Toro calls BioShock Infinite a 'mindf*ck'
Pan's Labyrinth director praises Ken Levine and Irrational Games for latest BioShock, says he would consider large-scale Pacific Rim game "God willing." Full Story
- Posted Jun 13, 2013 4:53 pm GMT
-
Microsoft: Xbox One will be leading product people love and embrace
Xbox boss Don Mattrick believes concerns over connectivity are overblown, recommends Xbox 360 for those without an Internet connection. Full Story
- Posted Jun 12, 2013 1:52 am GMT
-
New Mirror's Edge is open-world
EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau describes new project as "open-world action adventure game." Full Story
- Posted Jun 12, 2013 6:45 pm GMT
Submit News
Related Game
Halo 4
Not Following
- Publisher(s): Microsoft Game Studios
- Developer(s): 343 Industries
- Genre: Action
- Release:
- PEGI: 16+
Related Games
Recent News
-
Sony on why it won't hinder PS4 used games--flexibility creates value
PlayStation boss Jack Tretton says ability to freely resell games creates value in the initial purchase; PS4 won't require online check-in because many...
