There won't be a top 10 list of games or a GOTY from me. I think I maybe played 20 different games at most, and of those a whopping 8 were 2012 releases. Come to think of it, 2 of those releases were actually remakes of older games. At any rate I just decided to break down the bigger events, or at least what to me were the big events that ended up shaping my continually evolving view of this delightful (most of the time) hobby of ours.
1. The 3DS really doesn't seem to be for me.
By the start of the summer I was officially bored as hell with the 3DS. I went 2 months without the charge cord and didn't play it during that time, and eventually realized I wasn't missing it. I just never got that into the games on it. For a while I thought I just wasn't interested in handhelds anymore, but nope... after spending time with the PSP again I realized it was just the library. I sold it in June for some cash and about 5 PS3 games and I'm very comfortable with that decision.
I can see myself purchasing one again sometime in 2013 now that there are a few more games I'm interested in have been announced, released or getting closer to release (Layton, Devil Summoner, Layton v Wright, etc). But if Sony can find a few more games I'm interested in, I could just as easily end up with a Vita. Time will tell. Either way I'm in no hurry.
2. I will never give a shit about E3 again
E3 has officially become a non-event in my mind. This year I had to have surgery on my knee and I scheduled it so that I could watch E3 as I recouped. Dumb ass idea if there ever was one. All I did was sit there going, "SEEN IT... NEXT" and then drooled a little and started to giggle because of the pain meds.
No one announces games at it anymore in fear that they will get overshadowed. Instead they'll all announced in the prior weeks (and still get overshadowed by one another), and E3 just becomes the place where we all hear about these games again. That's fine. It's an industry event as it probably should be. But a a consumer I don't know why I'd really look forward to it anymore.
3. How I Met Your Mother is a surprisingly good tv show
Really this has nothing to do with gaming, but I thought I'd mentioned it. Despite the lame name and premise I've found it to be a very funny show through its firt 5 seasons (it starts to go downhill after that) Check it out on Netflix if you enjoy good sitcoms. Neil Patrick Harris is delightful.
4. I am introduced to Persona
After spending the second half of the year with Persona 3 FES and P3P I've now kicking myself for not checking out this series years earlier. I blame Final Fantasy X for steering me away from almost all jRPGs for almost a decade. Persona 3 is now one of my top 10 favorite games of all time. And I can pretty much thank you guys for that, as you all suggested I spend my Sony PSN points to get it. Prior to this I'd pretty much been oblivious to the series, aside from one of its sister-series, Devil Survivor. Now it's my crack, and I almost bought a Vita specifically to play Persona 4 despite there not being a single other game I want to play on the system.
5. GameStop has stopped being evil (or less so than they used to be)
They may still employ some of the bigget douchebags in the world, but their Power Up Rewards program make shopping there really worth it. By exchanging my points for coupons I've saved quite a bit of money with them. On a game-by-game basis I'm sure I'd be better off shopping around, but for doing a mindless transaction on something brand new or for something I want then and there I really feel like I've gotten a better value from them overall this past year thanks to their customer reward plan. Nothing like the impending threat of digital distribution to scare a company into taking better care of their customers.
6. The video game press has become a god damned joke
I've always taken the gaming press with a grain of salt. Years ago I read an article by a reviewer who explained how the gaming press was so reliant on game publishers for ad revenue that you could never get a really honest review because they didn't want to lose money by writing something too critical. But now we're seeing thing swing in the opposite direction with overly critical reviews that seem designed to drive outraged web traffic rather than deliver honest impressions (RE6 and Zombie U both say Hi). I'm officially sick of it now.
So now I'm back to buying games the same way I bought them when I was 12 years old - either a friend recommends it, it has cool cover art, or my insticts just say "BUY IT." I can't see this system being any worse than what's out there now.
7. Yet another reason to hate Sega
I finally got around to playing Valkyria Chronicles 2 this year. God that was a great game. It was like any good little brother. It's not as good as it big brother, but it overcompensates in so many other ways that it's just about as good. How this series didn't take off and become huge is beyond me. But I'll go ahead and just blame Sega. Seems easy enough.
At any rate they took the game from the PS3, then moved it to the cheaper PSP platform, then made another PSP game but didn't localize it for the West and ultimately this year... turned it into an online card game. Fuck everyone who didn't buy it, but mainly just Sega for not capitalizing on all the game's critical acclaim.
8. Wii U - the future of gaming?
No, probably not, but after 1 month of ownership I have enjoyed it. I mention it mainly because this was the first time I've ever bought a console at launch. So far it's a good bet. I've enjoyed tablet gaming since I bought my own Acer Tablet last year, and I'm looking foward to seeing what console game developers can do with the control scheme. Ubisoft's teams already look like they've got a good grasp on what can be done. A year from now after everyone else has figured it out (or stolen from the smart devs) the ideas could be amazing. And the social media aspect of it is pretty cool too.
9. I finally have someone to play co-op with
Granted he's 6 years old and still not real good, but my son is finally at an age where he's directable enough that I can play video games with him, and not be screaming at him in my head, "YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!! JUST STOP IT!!!" We still have to stick with entry-level games like Nintendo Land, but I'll give him credit. Thanks to him I got my best score on the F-Zero racing game. We still have a long way to go on the advanced games though. I watched him play Sonic Racing Transformed and when it got to the flying segment.... well it was a damned disaster.
Valkyria Chronicles died because there is no way to position a first-person tactical RPG with anime aesthetics to a great deal of people.
I'm just happy (for you and Mrs. Aspro) that the second one made it to the west at all.
I am thinking Persona 4 Golden will get you to consider a Vita, especially if a price drop comes (which it won't). Maybe after Xmas when Sony sees that they still have a gazillion on-hand they'll do a price drop, but they have been obstinate to their detriment in this scenario in the past.
Yeah I know the ugly truth about Valkyria Chronicles, but I thought at least it would live on in Japan a bit more. There's an anime video series that was started after the second game if I recall correctly, and it was received pretty well there. Plus the third game in the series actually sold better than the first two 2 so it suggested a growing fan base. I think if that third game would at least have been imported I'd feel less bitter. The storyline for it looks really good, and possibly the best of the series. There's a fan translation project in the works for it, but it's going really slowly, and if the early screens I've seen of it are an indicator of ithe translation quality it's pretty close to an abortion. It read like something a first year language student would come up with.
And ultimately I'm sure I'll get the Vita for P4 Golden. The current plan is once the Vita gets its price-cut I should be able to find a used system at around the $150 mark. At that point I can buy the system and just sit on it and wait for something else to come out on it, and not feel that I've wasted money.
The gaming press is getting messy IMO.
I don't really see the problem with them shitting on big games for hits. Things have been put in reverse, but it's the same level of crap. Either approach is equally stupid...and equally entertaining!
What I don't like is the move towards other forms of criticisms' content, without also striving for their level of writing. But this started a long time ago, and was inevitable. It's still mostly in editorial content, thankfully, but you can see it leaking into reviews without any logical reason or clever use of such ideas...usually it's just to help further whatever fashionable cause is being championed in the culture at the time.
This also applies to old content in editorials. If you're going to try and write a long, extensive history of a company like the New Yorker might, then you might want to study how they do it. I mean, it's a terrible idea to begin with, but at least do what you're trying with some effort rather than half arsing it, and trying to keep true to old video game writing styles at the same time when they're incompatible.
Nice blog.
I was talking to a friend who worked for IGN and he was telling me how many tickets they were giving away to baseball games and sporting events the publishers give to the media as gifts. The year the Lakers were in the finals publishers would hand the writers finals tickets for a good preview.