Dec 29, 2012

Kotaku

Running Out, With Steam Steam and Amazon are back to finish off your bank account, or whatever's left of it after the holidays, anyway. There are 12 deals on Steam right now, six of which expire in three hours, among them the Left 4 Dead series, FTL and L.A. Noire. Amazon is running its "Better Than Steam Sale, involving some of the same titles at the same prices. Green Man Gaming, Best Buy and others have gotten into the act, and if you're looking to sneak in a hardware purchase in time to write it off of next year's taxes, as yours truly just did, there are some savings to be found there too. Nearly 100 deals await in this week's Moneysaver!

Software

Steam Holiday Sale began last Thursday with up to 75% off many titles through January 5th, 2013. Here are some of the best current deals that have been featured on the sale's front page, including a THQ bundle with 22 decent titles like Darksiders 2, Warhammer 40k, and Saints Row the Third.
• THQ Collection 22 games for $24.99 (separately $207.28)
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion $13.59 (normally $40)
• Left 4 Dead Bundle: Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2 $7.49 (separately $30)
• Miner Wars 2081 $12.49 (next best is $20)
• FTL: Faster Than Light $4.99 until 1pm EST (next best is $7.49)

Better-than-Steam-Sale deals are plentiful this winter. Below are several games that are cheaper from Green Man Gaming. Others are the same price at Amazon, and you get a bonus $5 credit towards 2012 Editor's Choice games.
• Assassin's Creed 3 is $37.49 + $5 Amazon credit
• Prototype 2 is $17.49 (Steam is $19.99)
• ArmA 2: Combined Operations is $12.60 (Steam is $17.99)
• L.A. Noire is $4.99
• Prototype is $4.99 + $5 Amazon Credit
• Just Cause 2 is $3.74 + $5 Amazon Credit

Best Buy has strong discounts on console games, including the biggest price drops we've seen on Wii U titles (a few $20 off). The games below are at new lowest-ever prices or tied with their previous lows. All with free shipping or in-store pickup.
• Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 with Gun (Xbox 360, PS3) is $59.99
• NBA 2K13 (Wii U) is $49.99
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (Xbox 360, PS3) is $39.99
• Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse (Xbox 360, PS3) is $39.99
• NASCAR The Game: Inside Line (Xbox 360, PS3) is $39.99
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (Wii U, PS3) is $39.99
• James Bond 007: Legends (Xbox 360) is $39.99
• Ben 10: Omniverse (Wii U) is $29.99
• Just Dance 4 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii) is $29.99
• Angry Birds Trilogy (Xbox 360) is $29.99
• Amazing Spider-Man (Xbox 360, PS3) is $29.99
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (PS Vita) is $29.99
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (Wii) is $29.99
• Soul Calibur V (Xbox 360, PS3) is $19.99
• Angry Birds Trilogy (Nintendo 3DS) is $19.99

Green Man Gaming has more games at lowest-ever prices thanks to savings stacking with the 30% coupon: GMG30-DPLIM-DN831. Most titles below are activated on Steam.
• King's Bounty: Warriors of the North is $10.50
• SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny is $8.75
• Port Royale 3 is $7
• J.U.L.I.A is $7
• Lucius is $7
• Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is $7
• Gemini Wars is $7
• Jagged Alliance: Crossfire is $5.25
• Homefront Ultimate Edition (PC) is $5.25
• LEGO Batman is $4.75
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is $4.48
• Starpoint Gemini is $4.37
• Awesomenauts is $3.50
• Nuclear Dawn is $3.15
• Oil Rush is $2.80
• Stellar Impact is $1.75
• Skydrift (PC Download) is $1.75
• Dead Block is $1.75
• Grotesque Tactics 2: Dungeons and Donuts is $1.75
• Bang Bang Racing is $1.75
• Cell HD: Emergence is $1.57

Gamersgate has several PC bundles worth mentioning, including popular indie titles like Machinarium in the Amanita collection.
• Europa Universalis Collection (14 Downloads) is $40
• Just Cause Collection (10 Downloads) is $20
• Amanita Collection (7 Downloads) is $12.50
• Dead Space Complete (2 Downloads) is $11.99

Amazon continues their Digital Holiday Deals, and we've picked out a few interesting titles if you haven't emptied your wallet just yet. These below also get you a $5 credit for 2012 Editor's Choice games, redeemable in January 2013.
• Desert to Sea Bundle - BioShock, BioShock 2 and Spec Ops: The Line is $9.99
• Faery: Legends of Avalon is $3.74
• Sine Mora is $3.39

More games at their cheapest ever from various retailers:
• DJ Hero Renegade Edition Turntable Bundle featuring Jay-Z and Eminem (Wii) is $42.99 from Buy.com
• Bit.Trip Complete (Wii) is $14.29 with $2.98 shipping from Target
• Capcom Digital Collection (Xbox 360) is $12.99 from NewEgg
• Ravaged (PC Download) is $4.99 from Origin

Hardware

• Wii U Console 8GB Basic Set with Nintendo Land is $299.99, free shipping from Best Buy. Separately $340. [Dealzon]

• Logitech G35 Surround Sound Gaming Headset (Refurbished) is $59.99, free shipping from NewEgg. New low by $5. Next best is $95. [Dealzon]

• PlayStation Vita Memory Cards are 20% off, free shipping from Sony Store. [Dealzon]

• Asus 24-inch VE248H 2ms LED Monitor is $154.99 after rebate, free shipping from NewEgg. Next best is $186. [Dealzon]

• HP Envy dv7t-7200 17-inch 1080p laptop with Quad Core i7-3630QM, GeForce GT 650M 2GB, 8GB RAM, Blu-ray, Windows 8 is $1,043.99, free shipping from HP. New low by $31. List price is $1,305. [Dealzon]

• Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 laptop (config 59360241) with 1080p 15.6-inch display, Core i7-3632QM, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 16GB SSD, GeForce GT650M, Windows 8 is $879, free shipping from Lenovo. New low by $200. List price is $1,349. [Dealzon]

Digital Distribution

The following listing of digital download bargains are grouped by distributor. For more, see Deals4Downloads' roundup.

Amazon
• Civilization IV and V - Pack is $9.99, save 83 percent.
• Prototype is $4.99, save 83 percent.
• Bulletstorm is $3.95, save 80 percent.
• L.A. Noire is $4.99, save 75 percent.
• Sid Meiers Civilization V is $9.99, save 67 percent.
• Spec Ops: The Line is $10.19, save 66 percent.
• Darksiders II is $24.99, save 50 percent.
• Dungeon Siege III is $9.99, save 50 percent.

DLGamer
• Football Manager 2013™ is $19.99, save 50 percent.

GamersGate
• Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition is $4.99, save 75 percent.
• Deus Ex Collection is $15.28, save 66 percent.
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas is $6.47, save 57 percent.
• Tomb Raider: Legend is $6.48, save 50 percent.

Get Games
• Cryostasis is $2.70, save 79 percent.
• Just Cause is $2.70, save 79 percent.
• Hitman: Codename 47 is $2.70, save 73 percent.

GMG
• Tropico 3 is $2.49, save 75 percent.
• Metro 2033 is $6.00, save 70 percent.
• Darksiders is $6.00, save 70 percent.
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is $9.00, save 70 percent.
• LEGO Batman™: The Videogame is $6.78, save 60 percent.

iTunes Store
• Machinarium (iPad) is $1.99, save 60 percent.

Mac Game Store
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (Mac) is $24.99, save 50 percent.
• Botanicula (Mac) is $4.99, save 50 percent.

Steam
• L.A. Noire is $4.99, save 75 percent.
• Sid Meier's Civilization V is $7.49, save 75 percent.
• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is $4.99, save 75 percent.
• Prototype is $4.99, save 75 percent.
• Prince of Persia Complete Pack is $12.24, save 75 percent.
• Resident Evil 5 is $9.99, save 50 percent.
• Spec Ops: The Line is $14.99, save 50 percent.
• Dead Island is $9.99, save 50 percent.

Kotaku thanks our coupon partners for providing these and other great deals. As always, smart gamers can find values any day of the week, so if you've run across a deal, share it with us in the comments.

For more savings, follow Dealzon and Deals4Downloads on Twitter.

Dec 28, 2012

The Best Of Kotaku, This Week

Kotaku

The Best Of Kotaku, This Week Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week's best content.

Above is proof that if there's anything to do with Portal and cats, you know I'm going to post it. And I have the creator, JustynaDorsz, to thank for supplying me with one.

Moving on to our Best Of content this week, we kick things off as usual with a comment from the community.

The Best Comment From The Community

Our favorite comment of this week comes to you from naru-joe93 on our Talk Amongst Yourselves forum:

After writing this in an almost fugue state of tiredness, it probably came out incoherent, but fuck it! I put the god damn work in so here it is!

I see a lot of people on gaming forums say "this was a bad year for gaming". It was, but only for AAA games. It was rife with disappointment from, previously, great series' (I'm looking at you Resident Evil 6, Ass Creed 3, and Mass Effect 3!!!); things got increasingly sleazy as it became common practice to have online passes, and dlc that should have been in the main game (leviathan, being—according to Brad Shoemaker, who didn't beat the game until a week ago—a revelation for ME3s ending); and the constant stream of uninspired games reached an all new level of staleness. Through all this, I found myself defending AAA games, most likely trying to rationalize plucking down 60 bucks on things that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Knowing my sister was going to get me Far Cry 3 for xmas got me excited, as it was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2012. But once I popped in the disc, I felt myself yearning to play FTL; a game I spent 5 bucks on, but will spend 100s of hours getting lost in. But wait, I also have They Bleed Pixels, Snapshot, Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja, and a pile of other indie games I'm aching to play, and will, because its not the same old bullshit, the bullshit being grand, yet HUGELY unfocused projects from AAA developers. Eventually I will play Far Cry 3, but, sadly, not for quite some time

This is where casual and AAA vs indie and hardcore come in. Before I started writing this, my idea of casual vs. hardcore was a game like wii sports vs a game like call of duty. In reality, call of duty is the most casual gaming series ever conceived. It's made specifically for the highly sought after 18-35 demo, which mostly consists of bros who buy 2 games a year. It's sad to see AAA publisher try so hard to appeal to a group of people who could give less of a shit; it's diluting the diversity of games out there. Even ambitious games like Spec Ops get bogged down by the publishers need to include competitive multiplayer in every game with shooting (an example coming out next year is the last of us)

In one sense, the AAA games industry is very similar to the Hollywood system of spewing out explosion after explosion, the important difference is that movies cost 10 bucks, and AAA games cost $60 dollars (you could say movies also have money to make from both theaters and the home market). So while movies movies will profit, games will not because the people the games are being made far aren't going to buy them.....

And its killing the industry......

More studios closed in 2012 than ever before, and looks like that trend will continue. (that's all I have to say on that subject, because this will become much longer than it already is).

As a life long gamer, someone who considers it a great passion, I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of mindlessly killing wave after wave of mindless clones, not because I think its immoral, or causes violence, but because it's become so fucking boring. Every game is morphing towards the COD ideal, and will never mimic the success. In an industry like games, risk reward is key to making a profit, and AAA publishers feel a large risk will yield a large reward, and it almost never does.

In the end, I just don't see myself buying a next gen console if the trend of sameness continues. I think steam big picture, a decent computer, and a gamepad will do me just fine, and the same will probably yield true for a lot of other passion gamers

My Gaming Year

Stephen Totilo takes a look back at 2012 through the lens of his gaming experiences. More »

The Year in Cosplay

Brian Ashcraft recalls all of this year's best cosplay. More »

Avatar 2 Could Look Even More Like A Video Game Than The Hobbit Does. But That Might Not Be A Bad Thing.

Mike Rougeau explains how a higher frame rate could actually work well in a film like Avatar 2. More »

The Best Surprises Of 2012

Kirk rounds up the best surprises from the past year. More »

Little Inferno Is A Delightfully Grim Tale. But Its Best Story Is A Hidden One.

Mike tells us about the hidden, apocalyptic story in Little Inferno. More »

The Sports Video Games of the Year

Owen Good decides that, spoilers, there's no sports game of the year. More »

What The Hell Is Up With The New Black Isle? [Update]

Mike wonders what's going on with the ressurected Black Isle studio. More »

Here's What The Developers Of Dark Souls II Can Do To Make It Better

Mike has a few ideas for the sequel to Dark Souls. More »

Lying, Stealing And Masturbation: Gamers Confess Secrets Before 'The End Of The World'

Patricia Hernandez rounds up a bunch of alarmingly odd end-of-the-world confessions. More »

After Sandy Hook, This Guy Says He Got 50,000 People To Stop Playing Violent Video Games. But One Gamer Refused.

Mike tells us about the online shooter ceasefire, and the one gamer who is completely against it. More »

The 5 Best Board Games of 2012

Quintin Smith shares fives awesome board games people are playing in 2012. More »

One Assassin's Creed III Debate To Rule Them All

Stephen Totilo, Luke Plunkett and Kirk Hamilton get into the most epic of debates on Assassin's Creed III. More »

As An Artist, I Hope Video Games Really Do Affect People

Sarah Elmaleh wants people to be affected by games, and the art in them. More »

There Are Reasons I Don't Talk About Video Game Violence Much

Patricia shares deeply personal stories of her memories with violence, both real and virtual. More »

2012: The Year The PC Showed Everyone Who's Boss

Kirk rounds up a bunch of our articles that show how strong a year 2012 was for PC gaming. More »

The Year in Controversy

Owen rounds up the year's most heated controveries. More »

The Status Of Microsoft and Sony's Next Consoles. Plus: A Whole Bunch Of This Year's Gaming Secrets.

Superannuation covers this year's meaty rumors of Durango and Orbis, as well as some other newly uncovered information. More »

The Year In Zombies

Tina Amini rounds up this year's games, comics, shows and movies with zombies in them. More »

The Year in Sports Video Games

Owen rounds up the year in sports video games. More »

Learning To Love Easy Mode

Patricia learns to value the easy difficulty mode in video games. More »

The Year In Kotaku

Tina rounds up all of Kotaku's best stories in 2012. More »

The Game Savers: How A Tiny Company Gives Neglected Japanese Games New Life In America

Jason visits the Xseed office to share with us how the company brings Japanese games over to the U.S. More »

The Perfect Game Follows These Eight Rules

Sam Sattin tries to find the rules for the perfect video game, and it ends up being a lot like finding love. More »

Ten Crazy JRPG Predictions For 2013

Jason has some ridiculous, some not so ridiculous predictions for JRPGs next year. More »

Dec 28, 2012

When Is Cheating In A Game Okay?

Kotaku

I can tell you exactly when I ruined Pokemon for myself. It was when I enlisted the help of an Action Replay and an obscure program that let me do just about anything in the game. It was like playing god. Pokemon god. And having this powerful ability completely changed how I see cheating.

I wasn't interested in breaking the game. Not exactly. The world of competitive Pokemon—at the time—was a strange beast. You had your group of people who stuck to online battles using programs like Shoddy Battle, which let you make up whatever team you'd like with whatever moveset and attributes you desired.

When you consider the amount of work that something like that would require in real life, what Shoddy Battle offered is amazing. Normally making one Pokemon—breeding it, then raising it to properly have the right skills and attributes—can take an absurd amount of time. Most people might catch whatever is available and go from there, or go with whatever looks cool. But Shoddy Battle let you make your dream team come true immediately.

Back in real life, Action Replay make what Shoddy Battle made possible—only right in your handheld, not in some offshoot program. That seemed more appealing to me, more... legitimate, somehow.

I couldn't help but pull the curtain back even further.

But the idea of legitimacy is turned on its head when you're using a special tool to achieve something in a game. It wasn't just using the Action Replay to see the hidden values. Unless you're willing to wade through a bunch of tedium, it's kind of necessary to use what is known as ‘EV training.' Basically, when you level up, what stats your Pokemon gains depend on what EVs they've accrued. Every Pokemon has specific EVs that they give you after defeating them, and these are added up every time you level.

When you need a particular Pokemon that only appears 20% of the time in a particular patch of grass to make sure your Charizard has a lot of special attack, suddenly the ability to make sure that specific wild Pokemon appears via Action Replay becomes appealing. I initially bought the device just to take a look behind the curtain, but when it gave me the ability to do more, I couldn't help but pull the curtain back even further.

I figured: I could just leave it all up to chance. Or, I can help myself... but just a little. Whatever I thought about cheating beforehand—that it wasn't okay, that I shouldn't do it—faded away.

I remember talking to competitive community members at the time and the way we would discuss it was kind of bewildering. Pokemon you made from scratch using a cheating device? Like say a shiny legendary Pokemon with an absurd moveset? No good, get that crap away from me.

It was like it was cheating, but it wasn't cheating at the same time.

If the Pokemon isn't normally possible in the game, then your methods are looked down upon. As if all that other stuff isn't also normally impossible in the game.

But if you if you actually had to put in some work in conjunction to whatever you did with your Action Replay? Well, that was different. That Pokemon was okay. You earned it.

Sure you made that Pokemon appear endlessly somewhere in a way it wasn't supposed to naturally. Sure you looked at stuff you weren't supposed to with hidden stats. But, you still battled through all those Pokemon to gain their EVs. You still went through the process of hatching your Pokemon, too.

It was like it was cheating, but it wasn't cheating at the same time.

What people will do to make cheating okay, to justify cheating, is fascinating to me. On a completely technical level, what I did with my Pokemon is ‘cheating.' I went outside the normal game, I altered the experience I was supposed to have. But it didn't ‘feel' like cheating, because there was work involved.

It seems different than, say, paying to win against other players, even though I'm sure someone like that has their reasons for playing the way they do. Even if it's just "I wanted to have fun" or "I wanted to be a dick."

So maybe it's just me trying to feel better about what I did, to make distinctions where there aren't any. It's like saying "yes, this is cheating, but not as much as this other thing is!" Hah, okay, buddy.

And maybe the distinction doesn't matter when talking about contained experiences that don't affect anyone else. It's one thing to cheat on a single player game, it's another thing entirely to cheat when other people are playing clean. You can sully your morals as much as you want: privately, though. It's your business.

It's like saying "yes, this is cheating, but not as much as this other thing is!" Hah, okay, buddy.

The trick here is that with the Pokemon thing, there were other people involved. The entire point of raising a Pokemon with special tools isn't to use them in-game. You don't need to put so much effort into that. Most people try to make 'perfect' Pokemon because they want to use them in battle or want to trade them. Which is to say, cheating exists in this wider social sphere where it's socially acceptable to cheat.

If that's the case, then trying to have this noble, moral and universal idea of what cheating is—" act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage"—doesn't quite work. I technically cheated when I played Pokemon...but it was accepted, and widely-done. Can that still be considered cheating? Would stuff like aim-botting still be cheating if everyone did it? But why does it only matter when other people are involved if cheating is a moral thing? I don't think this stuff is as clear-cut as it might seem.

Regardless, the joke was on me: I toyed with what I shouldn't have, and then Pokemon without the power, without the competitive edge, without the extra minutia, became boring. The price of cheating is not always one of integrity.

Dec 28, 2012

The Best Surprises Of 2012

Kotaku

Sure, 2012 was a year rife with disappointments. But it was also filled with surprises of the best sort. Since we brought everyone down last week with our list of the biggest disappointments of the year, we thought it only proper to also share the best, most welcome surprises.

Here now, the best surprises of 2012.

You Don't Know Jack Hits Facebook, Rules

After years out of the spotlight, the YDKJ franchise returned to consoles and PC a couple of years ago. It was a lot of fun, and a good reminder that we still liked Jellyvision's brand of peppy, off-kilter trivia. But it was hard not to get the sense that each question brought you closer to the end of the finite number of challenges, and we missed the gibberish question. This year, seemingly out of nowhere, Jellyvision put the game on Facebook, and it was excellent. Turns out the game lends itself to asynchronous social play more than just about anything else on the platform. The more recent mobile version is just as good. You Don't Know Jack isn't just a welcome return of a classic series, it's easily one of the best social games of all time.

Sleeping Dogs

One could be forgiven for not expecting too much from Sleeping Dogs. Originally slated to be another entry the Activision-published True Crime series, it was dropped by the publisher, picked up by Square Enix, finished and published with its current out-there name. It seemed like it'd be another Grand Theft Auto clone. And it is, to a point; but it's also fantastic. It's got a great story, strong acting, and a really fun combat system that, thank the gods, largely ditches gunplay in favor of Arkham City-like martial arts. And perhaps best of all, its wonderful Hong Kong setting gives it a real sense of place. A standout game for 2012, and easily one of the best true surprises of the year.

PlayStation Plus Becomes Worthwhile

The Best Surprises Of 2012 Show of hands for everyone who saw this one coming. For a long time, one of the big selling points (so to speak) of Sony's PlayStation Network was that it offered the same services as Microsoft's Xbox LIVE, but for free. (Insert joke about PlayStation Home here.) So when Sony unveiled Playstation "Plus," it didn't quite compute. Why would anyone pay for something they've been getting for free for so long? The early rewards didn't seem worth it—an early download of a demo, early access to a game, or some light exclusive content. But suddenly, Sony went hog-wild and started offering loads of free games to subscribers, and the service got a lot more appealing. As Stephen put it, suddenly PlayStation Plus was making a mockery of Xbox LIVE; later offers like the one that made almost every good Vita game free only sweetened the deal. Good show, Sony; we didn't think you had it in you.

The Walking Dead

It seems strange to call Telltale's The Walking Dead a surprise, but there was a time just this year when none of us saw it coming. We'd known Telltale as the studio responsible for some hit-or-miss licensed adventure games. There was some promising buzz surrounding The Walking Dead if you were paying attention, but all the same, it wasn't until that first episode came out and we played it that it became clear just how special this series could be. By the time they hit that astonishing third episode, Lee, Clementine and company were full steam ahead to Game Of The Year town.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown could have gone wrong in so, so many ways. From the moment it was revealed, it almost felt like an apology for 2K's other take on the series, the gaudy, long-delayed first-person shooter. It sure looked like an update of the classic, tactical PC game so many of us fell in love with back in the 90s. But could anyone really pull that off? Yep, turns out Firaxis could. Easily one of the most absorbing, white-knuckle games of the year, XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a resounding success in almost every way.

Sony's Downloadable Indie Lineup

While the PC will likely always have the lion's share of quality indie games, a gamer in 2012 could find all manner of lovely, weird, interesting downloadable games on Sony's console. Papo y Yo, The Unfinished Swan, Tokyo Jungle, Mutant Blobs Attack!, Sound Shapes and of course, Journey. The PS3 might not have gotten many blockbuster system-sellers this year, but the PSN spent most of 2012 as a hotbed of smart, beautiful games. Cheers, Sony.

DayZ

We've seen so many zombie games. So, so many. And yet in 2012, Dean Hall's Arma II mod DayZ quickly became arguably the greatest zombie game ever made. Harrowing and immensely difficult, it was a "game" like no other, a lawless online hellscape that regularly cranked out unbelievable stories. DayZ was also the first zombie game to reinforce that long-held trope of zombie fiction: Sure, the undead are terrifying, but other survivors are far more dangerous.

The Wii U Controller

The Best Surprises Of 2012 The surprising thing isn't that the Wii U's controller, which incorporates a large touch-screen, was cool. It was the way it was cool. I figured it'd be neat for all the reasons Nintendo kept hyping—I can hold it up and look around the game-world, I can use the touch-screen to interact with games differently. And it was neat in those ways. But what I didn't see coming was how nice it would be just to play games on it. I've been playing a lot of Little Inferno and New Super Mario Bros. U, and I always play both games on the controller, not on my TV. Sure, games like ZombiU require both the TV and the controller. And those are cool. But Nintendo seems to have anticipated a desire that none of us knew we had—to play games on handhelds and tablets, even in our living rooms.

Mutant Blobs Attack!

Who could've anticipated that the best launch title for the PS Vita wouldn't be Uncharted: Golden Abyss or even WipEout, but a little indie platformer called Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!? Certainly not me. And yet Mutant Blobs was indeed was a great game, a smart, challenging platformer that used the Vita's various touch capabilities in clever ways and was loaded with cheeky humor, funny meta-gags and brain-twisting puzzles. It remains one of the best games on the system, even all these months later.

Slender

Parsec Productions' wonderfully creepy, super low-budget game Slender was another out-of-left-field phenomenon in 2012. The free PC and Mac game spawned countless imitators, a newfound interest in Slenderman lore and the "Marble Hornets" video series, and a lot of goofy videos of people playing it and freaking out. It's even led Parsec to team up with Blue Isle to make a much more polished-looking sequel called Slender: The Arrival. Will lightning strike twice? We'll see. But it certainly struck once, making Slender one of 2012's most unexpected success stories.

Resident Evil: Revelations

It was quite a surprise that in 2012, when Resident Evil series took a serious beating for both Raccoon City and Resident Evil 6, Capcom would also release one of the best Resident Evil games in a long while. Revelations stripped things down for the 3DS and as a result was one of the most focused Resident Evil games in a long while. Sure, Chris Redfield's action chapters were still more Gears of War-lite than true survival horror, but they mainly served to break up Jill's tense, genuinely scary chapters on that abandoned ship.

The Friend Game

The Best Surprises Of 2012 It's surprising that it took someone this long to come up with The Friend Game, seeing as how it's kind of the perfect game for Facebook. In it, you have to answer questions about your friends to see how well you know them—guess the answer they gave, and you get points. It's sort of like OKCupid, only it's more of a literal game, rather than just a metaphorical one. It's a real blast, and along with You Don't Know Jack gives new hope for the future of Facebook gaming.

Rayman Jungle Run

One could be forgiven for thinking that Ubisoft is driving the Rayman franchise into the ground. Last year's Rayman: Origins wound up being one of the best 2D platformers in ages, and suddenly it seemed like we were seeing the little armless dude everywhere. He's not even that cool of a mascot, people! But then again, if every Rayman game can be as good as Jungle Run, I'm not complaining. The game perfectly translates the difficulty and goofy inertia of Origins to touch-screen devices, and looks gorgeous, too. It's one of the few iOS games I still whip out and play regularly, and the perfect-score challenges are just difficult enough to be challenging while remaining attainable. And of course, you get to listen to that amazing soundtrack all over again.

Super Hexagon

Super Hexagon, the other big iOS surprise of the year, goes from "enjoyable high-score challenge" to "insane addiction" in the space of about five minutes. The whole thing is deceptively simple (or should that be deceptively complex?). Keep your little triangle from hitting a line, and don't have a seizure. While Super Hexagon is a lot of fun on its own, some combination of the combination grinding chip soundtrack, the fast-paced die/retry/die rhythm, and announcer Jenn Frank's robot-like encouragement makes it almost impossible to put down.

ZombiU

Sure, we technically knew about ZombiU before E3 2012, but it still came as something of a shock when we finally played it at the Los Angeles expo. Zombies? Sure. A token Ubisoft hardcore launch-game for the Wii U? Okay. But against all probability, ZombiU was actually an interesting game, with a mix of Dark Souls and Dead Island. The game turned out really well, arguably the best game on the Wii U at launch.

Spec Ops: The Line

The folks at Yager Interactive talked a big game with Spec Ops: The Line. Blah blah, adult story, blah, subversive take on video game violence, blah blah Heart of Darkness blah. And yet.. and yet… while the final game was something of a muddle, it was far more successful in achieving its goals than anyone was expecting. Once players got past the (debatably purposefully) boring third-person shooter opening chapters, the story went on a genuinely batshit descent into madness, all leading towards an audacious, ambiguous finale. It inspired Tom Bissell's fantastic essay "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Shooter", and even inspired Brendan Keogh to write an entire book called "Killing is Harmless," which actually I haven't read, but at the very least prompted more good conversation. For those interested in video game storytelling, Spec Ops: The Line is worth playing as much for its failures as its successes.

Little Inferno

Little Inferno, which was released both on Wii U and PC this November, seems like a simple enough little thing. Players burn stuff in a fireplace, and use the coins they get from burning stuff to buy more stuff, which they then burn. But beneath that casual-friendly exterior lies a surprisingly moving story. That the burning itself is fun should come as no surprise, given that the developers are the same folks who made wonderfully tactile World of Goo. But the dark, clever fable at the game's heart? That's one of the most welcome surprises of the year.

E3: Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313

E3 2012 was light on surprises this year. That may have heightened excitement around the few games that actually were surprises, though we think we'd have gotten pretty excited about both Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313 even amid a sea of other announcements. Ubisoft's Watch Dogs was one of the only true, jaw-on-the-floor surprises of the show, made all the better by a lengthy in-game demonstration so impressive that it made it difficult to believe Ubisoft's claims that the game was being developed for current-generation systems.

We'd already gathered some inkling of Star Wars 1313 through the rumor mill, but when it was finally revealed, it looked even better than we'd hoped. The game looks to be ditching Jedi and force powers (hooray) in favor of a more Uncharted-like adventure. It's a shame that game designer Clint Hocking departed LucasArts this year, since this is the exact sort of Star Wars game I was hoping he'd make. Here's hoping Lucasarts has got someone equally talented on 1313, and that they can finally come up with a worthwhile new singleplayer Star Wars game.

Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinski Keep On Truckin'

The Best Surprises Of 2012 Studio departures aren't usually the sorts of surprises we get too worked up about here, but these two stood out. In March, legendary developer Peter Molyneux left Lionhead Studios and Microsoft to start his own independent studio. Then in October, Cliff Bleszinski left Epic Games. While Fable and Gears of War games are all well and good, it's understandable that two developers who got their start in the fracas of pre-millennial PC gaming might start to chafe at their cushy lives pushing out mega-franchise sequels. Given the wild stuff going on in independent PC development right now, both men are almost surely excited to finally be freed of their past successes and starting something new. We're excited, too.

3DS XL

The Best Surprises Of 2012 The 3DS XL was a surprise partly just because Nintendo said it wasn't coming, then said it was. But the real surprise was that the super-sized version of the 3DS was a big improvement in almost every way.

Black Mesa

It seemed like there was no way—NO WAY—that Black Mesa could have been any good. A fan-made, group-sourced remake of/tribute to Half-Life, one of the greatest games ever made. A thrown-together team of programmers and amateur writers and voice-talent, regularly delaying the game, speaking in interviews about how thoroughly they'd underestimated the project. And yet… it was good. Really, really good. It was a smart, funny, fun tribute to a classic, and amazingly enough, even improved on the original game in some ways. An astonishing surprise, any way you slice it.

The Biggest Disappointments Of 2012

Too much positivity for ya? Last week, we rounded up the biggest disappointments of the year. Give them a read here. More »

Surely you had your own surprises this year; let us know your biggest surprises down below.