GregHorrorShow: Game Awards 2012

So another fantastic year of gaming draws to a close and it’s time to look back to see what’s impressed in 2012:

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BEST GAME INNOVATION

WINNER: Spec Ops ‘Degradation Of Characters’

It’s crazy to think that this has never been done before. In Spec Ops: The Line as well as physical changes, you and your squad also take a psychological beating. Later in the game as your character starts screaming his orders instead of calmly giving them it makes a huge difference. Even reloading calls are shouted through gritted teeth. It just makes the game feel incredibly visceral. Big shout outs to both Dishonored and Hitman: Absolution for bringing some new, inventive mechanics to the stealth genre. I expect both Blink and Instinct will turn up in other games at some stage.

RUNNERS UP:

• Dishonored – Blink
• Max Payne 3 – Bullet Time in Online Matches
• Hitman: Absolution – Instinct

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BEST DLC (CONTENT)

WINNER: Battlefield 3 – Close Quarters

While Borderlands 2 gave us a substantial chunk of gameplay with Captain Scarlett’s Booty and Uncharted 3 delivered some clever, new maps, for sheer awesomeness this award has to go to Battlefield 3 for Close Quarters. This map pack with two new game modes was a brilliant addition to the Battlefield package. The maps in here are some of my favourite in the entire game’s roster – Operation 925 and Ziba Tower are so well designed it hurts. Sure these maps slightly favour a shotgun but when has that ever been a problem 🙂

RUNNERS UP:

• Uncharted 3 – Map Pack
• Mass Effect 3 – From Ashes
• Borderlands 2 – Captain Scarlett’s Booty

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BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME

WINNER: Journey

Journey is unlike anything I’ve ever played – it truly is a game that needs to be experienced rather than discussed but if you’d like to read more, check out my review from earlier in the year. A truly stunning game. Also have to congratulate the guys at Evolution on Motorstorm RC – when I first saw the reveal I wasn’t hugely impressed but the game turned out to be fantastic.

RUNNERS UP:

• Motorstorm RC
• Sound Shapes
• When Vikings Attack!

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MOST ANTICIPATED GAME OF 2013

WINNER: Grand Theft Auto V

Rockstar continue to deliver top quality games – since the last GTA we’ve had L.A Noire, Max Payne 3 and the superlative Red Dead Redemption. Grand Theft Auto V looks set to continue that (check out the trailer in the next section) and I can’t wait to see what advances have been made since the last game back in 2008.

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BEST GAME TRAILER

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WINNER: Borderlands 2

I love this trailer. It completely sums up the game and when Claptrap… well I won’t spoil it but check it out.

I’ve also included the runners up below so you can check them out as well.

RUNNERS UP:

• Grand Theft Auto V

• Beyond: Two Souls

• Bioshock Infinite

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BEST PS VITA GAME

WINNER: Motorstorm RC

There have been some fantastic games for the Vita in it’s first year and I certainly don’t think the console is lacking in titles. Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation came close to making this list but was edged out by the excellent Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Sony Bend Studios delivered a great Uncharted game and Gravity Rush was a blast, despite some frustrating combat issues. However the award in 2012 goes to Motorstorm RC, a completely addictive racer that took up far too much of my time. Beating friend’s scores on the tracks gave everything a competitive edge and I enjoyed it so much I bought all the DLC to get more tracks. In my opinion a perfect title for the Vita.

RUNNERS UP:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Need For Speed: Most Wanted
• Gravity Rush

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BEST GRAPHICS

WINNER: Max Payne 3

Usually best graphics is one of those categories where you can immediately arrive at a shortlist and the tough part is narrowing that down to a winner. But this year we’ve had a number of games that shone in various different styles. It’s been extremely difficult and titles like The Darkness II, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Hitman Absolution and Gravity Rush have all failed to make the cut. For me, although it was a linear experience, Max Payne 3 really delivered a mix of great technical work and graphical style to create a fairly unique and stunning looking game.

RUNNERS UP:

• Journey
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Borderlands II

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BEST STORYLINE

WINNER: Spec Ops: The Line

I had been keeping an eye on Spec Ops: The Line ever since it’s first reveal back at the Video Game Awards in 2009, so I was most pleased to see it finally get released in the summer. Promising tough moral choices, an interesting story and some good use of desert sand to trap enemies it looked like Spec Ops might dominate the barren Summer release schedule. It didn’t quite work out that way but Spec Ops: The Line tells one of the more engrossing stories in games of the last few years. The way things unfold is well choreographed and having seen some of the conversations with the writers of the game it seems almost everything in the game was planned that way from the beginning. It’s a slow start but well worth sticking with – one of the best storylines for a while.

RUNNERS UP:

• Max Payne 3
• The Darkness II
• Dishonored

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BEST SOUNDTRACK (SCORE)

WINNER: Max Payne 3 – Health

There have been some fantastic scores this year, from the usual military bombast of Call Of Duty: Black Ops II through to the quirky and lovable Sound Shapes on Vita. But most would be hard pressed to match Health‘s score for Max Payne 3, which fitted the game so well it was pretty much another aspect of Max’s character. Journey probably ran it closest, the sweeping joy and sorrow of Austin Wintory’s music really bringing a depth of emotion to the game. Big shout out as well to Hotline Miami, I haven’t even played that game but the soundtrack is fantastic in it’s own right.

RUNNERS UP:

• Journey – Austin Wintory
• Gravity Rush (Vita) – Kohei Tanaka
• Sound Shapes (Vita) – Various

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BEST SOUNDTRACK (LICENSED)

WINNER: The Darkness II

It’s also been a great year for licensed music uses in games – in fact it’s the first year I’ve truly struggled to get a shortlist, never mind a winner. FIFA continues to impress by delving into indie territory and Sleeping Dogs ‘Grand Theft Auto-esque’ radio station approach threw up some great tunes to cause carnage to. Eventually it was a two horse race for this award and despite a few excellent choices (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas – “Nowhere to Run” and Deep Purple – “Hush” in particular) by Spec Ops: The Line, The Darkness II steals it with tracks like Ram Jam – “Black Betty”, Metallica “Some Kind Of Monster”, Stereo MCs – “Connected”, The Flamingos – “I Only Have Eyes for You”, Dean Martin – “In the Chapel in the Moonlight”, The Offspring – “Self-Esteem” and of course, Tone Loc – “Wild Thing”. Fantastic stuff.

RUNNERS UP:

• FIFA 13
• Sleeping Dogs
• Spec Ops: The Line

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BEST VOICE ACTING

WINNER: Sleeping Dogs

Square Enix assembled an all star cast including Hong Kong actor Will Yun Lee, Tom Wilkinson, Lucy Liu and Emma Stone to bring the characters of Sleeping Dogs to life. They do a great job and really help to pull you into the world the game creates. Nolan North again pulls a Nate Drake performance out of the bag, this time on the small(er) screen of the Vita. He also took on the main role of Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line – you can see why he’s one of the most in demand, and best, voice actors in gaming.

RUNNERS UP:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Max Payne 3
• Spec Ops: The Line

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SINGLE PLAYER GAME OF THE YEAR

WINNER: Journey

Journey is a gaming experience like no other. As you make your way across desolate, sandy dunes the game will run you through a gamut of emotions. It’s such a wonderful game, play it online and in one sitting (it’s 2-3 hours long) – you won’t regret it. While in some respects Mass Effect 3 was disappointing, overall I thought it was a solid, enjoyable game. There were some interesting missions and choices you could make that meant, while the ending might not have been different, how you got to the conclusion of the story varied depending on your actions. Sleeping Dogs was so much fun I think I played almost the entire thing with a smile on my face but the dark horse in this race, sneaking up on the others with a fibre wire, is Hitman: Absolution. After a mis-step with Kane and Lynch 2, IO Interactive really delivered with Hitman. Accessible and challenging – definitely one of the best single player games out there this year.

RUNNERS UP:

• Hitman: Absolution
• Mass Effect 3
• Sleeping Dogs

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MULTIPLAYER GAME OF THE YEAR

WINNER: Borderlands 2

It hasn’t really been a great year for online multiplayer in my opinion – too few new games grabbed our attention and it was far too easy to jump back into titles like Battlefield 3 or Uncharted 3. However Borderlands 2 would be a worthy winner any year. Getting online with 3 of your friends and blasting through madcap missions was insane fun and the dash for spilled loot only added to the comedy. Mass Effect 3 successfully introduced multiplayer, it was only a horde mode of sorts but most enjoyable and the added depth of different character races gives it some longevity. Call Of Duty: Black Ops II was the most accessible and flexible yet, with some really great maps to boot. Max Payne 3 adds something different with modes like ‘Payne Killer’ and ‘Gang Wars’ but stands up as a third person action shooter in standard modes like Team Deathmatch as well. I was quite impressed with Max Payne’s online, especially the way the developer factored in bullet time but it didn’t seem like that many people were playing it beyond the first couple of weeks of release.

RUNNERS UP:

• Mass Effect 3
• Max Payne 3
• Call Of Duty: Black Ops II

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GAME OF THE YEAR

WINNER: Borderlands 2

If you’ve been keeping up with the blog or following me on Twitter it’s probably not too hard to guess this year’s winner. For Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software ramped up the game and refined it to such an extent that it is genuinely hard to find fault with it. It’s fun on your own but truly comes to life in online co-op. Memorable characters compliment the game’s wicked sense of humour and an outrageous amount of classes, guns, shields, mods and relics just add to the chaos. Borderlands 2 is a huge game that you will love playing through.

RUNNERS UP:

• Sleeping Dogs
• Hitman: Absolution
• Journey

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So there you have it, another great year for gaming and the above is only the tip of iceberg. There were some great titles that didn’t make the shortlists but are still worth checking out. Things like Syndicate, Binary Domain, X-Com: Enemy Unknown and Need For Speed: Most Wanted for a start. Or how about Unit 13, Everybody’s Golf and LittleBigPlanet for the Vita.

I never got around to playing a few of the big games from this year, most notably The Walking Dead and Resident Evil 6 but I’ll hopefully get a chance to experience those soon.

There’s been plenty to play this year and 2013 looks interesting, especially with new hardware on the horizon.

What is your game of the year? Let me know what you agree/disagree with in the above and what titles you would’ve had in there.

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Spec Ops: The Line – Review (PS3)

Once in a while a game will show up out of the blue and knock your socks off. Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games but maybe not for the reasons you might think.

Spec Ops: The Line tells the story of Captain Martin Walker, a soldier who is part of a squad sent into Dubai to investigate the failed evacuation of citizens by an army squad called ‘The 33rd.’ As things quickly unravel you find yourself under attack from all directions and hampered by the constant threat of sandstorms.

You see this isn’t present day Dubai but an alternate version in which the country has been decimated by sandstorms that have left thousands stranded and desperate behind the ‘Storm Wall’ – a huge permanent sandstorm that has disrupted communication and stopped travel in (or out) of the area.

I won’t spoil the story for you here as it is the best thing about the game – this isn’t a title you’ll come out of brimming with joy and with a smile on your face but it really is one of the best stories I’ve played through in the last few years. And while a couple of the twists were a touch obvious, for the most part I didn’t anticipate many of them.

The gameplay itself is solid but unspectacular and you’ll spend a lot of time in cover popping out to take down enemies. One thing I liked about the game was the feel of the weapons, with some of the more powerful ones genuinely delivering an appropriate sense of recoil and a real kick.

The setting is pretty stunning and the sand tech is well realised. I was personally more impressed with the way the game portrayed the intense heat of the environment, with harsh sunlight and a nice shimmer on surroundings.

Speaking of the sand, one of the game mechanics they showed off lots in pre-release media was the ability to shoot out windows/glass roofs to take out enemies. However in the final product that is all fairly scripted stuff and doesn’t factor in greatly.

A quick shout out is needed on the music front as I felt Spec Ops really delivered on that note. A great soundtrack and paced perfectly. Also the voice acting is superb. I thought it might be an issue having Nolan North (of Nathan Drake/Uncharted fame) in the lead role but after the first 20 minutes or so I completely forgot he was even voicing the character.

The game is fairly tough and isn’t afraid to throw a large number of difficult to deal with enemies at you all at once. My main gripe with the combat was the enemy grenades. They felt too overpowered and I didn’t think the game did enough to warn me when they were nearby, or maybe more accurately it didn’t warn me quickly enough. I died a lot of times unnecessarily because of that.

Spec Ops makes a comment on the shooter genre, taking several pot shots during loading screens and differentiates itself from games like Call Of Duty and Battlefield by giving you several ‘moral’ choices during the story. Unlike games such as Infamous, where the choice is simply good or bad, in Spec Ops you’re choosing between bad or bad. There is no right or wrong answer. So who do you punish? Who do you sacrifice? I would love to see more games give you this kind of choice as opposed to the more straight forward options we usually get.

Another great addition in this game is the degradation of your character and squad over the course of the game. This is something that I can’t believe hasn’t been done before in this genre. The Batman games attempted something similar in terms of Batman’s appearance changing during the game but here, as well as physical changes, you and your squad take a psychological battering as well.

Late in the game, when your character finally takes down a heavy enemy and screams an expletive he is echoing the cry of gamers across the globe when defeating a tough enemy. Even reloading calls are shouted through gritted teeth further on in the game. It just makes the game feel incredibly visceral.

I didn’t touch the multiplayer as even the developers have said it was forced upon them by the publisher and brings nothing to the table. This is a game that *definitely* didn’t need multiplayer.

Spec Ops: The Line might not be for everyone and the gameplay might not be anything special but it has a great, interesting story and makes a decent comment on today’s shooter genre.

Rating: 9/10

NB. If you do play and finish the game I’d strongly recommend checking out this interview with the writer of the game (contains massive spoilers): GAMESPOT INTERVIEW