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Was NOT expecting the story in Spec ops: the line. I knew it was supposed to be rough, but I had no idea what I was in for.


Also, was pleasantly surprised by the new XCOM. It's just barely below the original, but I gotta say, they captured the feel PERFECTLY. I've been playing it on classic difficulty on ironman and holy crap does it not pull any punches. Assaulted the alien base far before I was ready and had a (what I thought) elite team of troopers get absolutely butchered like they were a bunch of rookies.

That game gives you the heebie jeebies far more than any horror game. It's all the little things they did, like the thin man "interrogation" (the way it looks at you as the shield closes was really well done) to the sounds, to how you're just ridiculously outclassed in the beginning. I think it's a pretty worthy installment to the series. I hope they do a "terror from the deep" style sequel, because I would love to play that game without a million game breaking bugs and it would look awesome with today's graphics.

EDIT: Had to add in a ridiculous moment, even for XCOM. Today switched to medium difficulty so I could better learn what all the gear does without half the world dying 2 months in. 1st friggin terror mission. Step off the skylander, have a bad feeling. Immediately put all 6 of my elite team into overwatch. THREE CHRYSALIDS JUMP OUT OF A DOOR RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! *Insert gratuitous language* Literally the only thing that saved me was that I had two Colonel level snipers unloading at literally point blank range with double tap. "Ok, now I'm safe" I think. THREE MORE POP OUT NEXT TURN! I barely kill them and a zombie spawned from an idiot civilian. Those chrysallids are followed by TWO MORE. I have never freaked out that badly in a video game. Literally every shot counted. They nailed that XCOM feel to a tee.

Dammit XCOM, I hate you so much. Best game of 2012

Though I'll probably catch flak for this, I honestly thought Pokemon Black/White and Pokemon Black 2/ White 2 rose above my expectations (being total flops).

Sure, some of the Pokemon were rather lame (lookand at you, Swoobat, the Zubat with a birth defect), but the plot was surprisingly good, with Team Plasma having a good core idea that's been corrupted, unlike Team Magma's MOAR Land! ideas, Team Aqua's MOAR Water! ideas, and Team Galactics MOAR Galaxies! movement.

FTL was my favourite game so far. Its so addictive because things go wrong in it. You are just teetering on the edge of your pants, and BOOM.

Guild Wars 2. Oh my goodness. I thought this was going to be another WOW, how wrong I was. I'm loving the free play, but purchasing the services and so forth.

Diablo 3 surprised me, but in a bad way. A poor plot hindered fairly good graphics, and the Paid auction site really ended up hurting the franchise. Loved the secret level in it though.

Oh, I had one surprise. I now love starcraft, not so much playing it, but watching eSports.

As for Xcom, I like it but I'm not gonna look at it untill it gets some major bug fixes. It's a giant mess.

The first (and biggest surprise) was Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. It was an amazing sequel, and I still can't believe High Moon managed to completely improve on the first game.

Halo 4 was also way better than I thought it was going to be. The campaign left me aching for more, and the multiplayer is tons of fun. I haven't had a chance to play Spartan Ops yet, however