Gadgetory

welcome to a very special episode Yuletide episode of the 404 show covering all things gaming 2012 I'm Jeff Bakalar I'm Ross rustic and i'm richard peterson and today we're going to be taking a long look back on the gaming year that was 2012 it has become sort of a tradition for russ and myself to snuggle up get all cozy next to the fire how many years as a snore oh i don't think it's like three or four it's gotta be yeah that's true it's a it's a tradition that we I'm very happy to share with you yep it's a treat and it's time for you and I to really just let it all hang out and really be honest about what we thought the year in gaming said did how well it performed and to give our best and worst picks of the year that was 2012 we're doing worse too I mean I throw a few in here do not prepare us maybe some disappoint oh you'll see you'll see got some disappointments i can think of how quickly they all start popping up once you just give it a little thought indeed um so i guess to start lets you know maybe take it back to january and and sort of what the year had going for it yeah um for me the first big game that I was really psyched about was mass effect 3 oh yes that was back in March man I cannot read right does that feel like years and years and years ago it does um so I mean if you can sort of like transport yourself back to january 2012 have this whole branding this fresh clean slate of games ahead of you what were you most looking forward to uh well it's funny because at that point i don't think we had a really good sense is like what was coming out yeah like infinite had already been announced right certainly very excited about bioshock infinite but that eventually would get pushed to next year you know we knew that there was a call of duty game coming out we knew as houses great theory was going to come out at that point we didn't know what it was going to be so you know in January was still sort of up in the air but we did have a few of these early games Mass Effect 3 being one of them that you know we knew exactly like all the top level details and we knew what was coming out so you know we sort of had those initial ideas and but as it happens Mass Effect 3 was not the best game that I played the earliest best game that I played so what was journey sure now when was journey where was journey I don't remember the exact release date but I played journey about a week before I played mass effect 3 okay and journey because i have journey as as early march okay so may I mean I think release date wise yes factory came out first well mass effect was March as well as march six ebel ok so that German was the weekend right but I play a journey first and love that game holy crap fight it I did I I enjoyed it i think i'm sorry i don't want to take away the ways that you were gonna say i mean we talked about like and it's corny but we talked about like an emotional connection with games right and for a game with no dialogue and that's only about an hour and a half to two hours long to like put me through the ringer like journey did uh it is really damn hard and it really you know still sticks with me really uh it was the very first ten that polygon ever gave courtesy me but yeah i thought that game was tremendous I I enjoyed it i I just and don't get me wrong I I do I'll just full disclosure I do have it in my top 10 year I just think that's beaks of the year that maybe wasn't as that maybe didn't deliver as much as people thought it would but i-i-i don't take anything away from the game I enjoyed the game um I just I just failed to like understand why it was such a mind blowing at you we've had these indie sort of games before better three hours or whatever they are and they're very artsy I don't what was it about journey that made it stand out of other so then like their game flow or okay so flow and flower weren't really games I mean they were very interactive screen saver right essentially and they also weren't tremendously fun right um I think a better comparison would be journey to limbo because they're both really Miller in the same you think journey and limbo or similar and not in terms of the gameplay terms of like how you're feeling while you're playing them okay um but but journey looked like I don't know like in terms of the music and in terms of the graphics looked stunningly gorgeous to me and like schooling you and the stuff they did with co-op I thought was brilliant where you can talk to people that you met as you were playing right um the way I think of it is if i set a game into space and two to four people that had never played a video game before this is what i put on the i don't know a some magic satellite and aliens pick it up and what's so great about journey is that it requires no like video game prowess whatsoever to get through it right and still you have like a hardcore gamer like me has a really good time casual gamers have a real good time playing it it is one of those like great equalizer games and anyone with ps3 absolutely should play it because it's tremendous I i agree anyone with a ps3 should play it it's there's something very it's very whimsical yeah very Airy I mean obviously the games all sort about like fabrics and stuff like that I mean I I did enjoy I just failed to to be at that level where some people write that include yourself do not get me wrong this is a top 10 game yep 2012 for sure hey what I'm not saying it was my top right not saying it was mine is your top 10 easily that deficit op.10 will you know maybe top 50 cuz the list said that a little lower than he's a tough tough year there's a few really really good games um games you know we'll get to a lot more games in the show today games aren't the only big thing of 2012 hardware was a huge deal people don't realize there were two consoles released in 2012 yeah uh most recently the wii u then back in February the world got introduced to the PlayStation Vita yep which feels like it was three years ago yeah know what that's about um so I think PlayStation Vita februari 2012 and PlayStation Vita December 2012 our night and freaking day I think don't get me wrong I I don't say I drank the kool-aid yeah but I was in to this system when it's a great piece of hardware it's a great piece of hardware it provides it can do some unbelievable visuals on a very small screen yep a small screen that is super responsive awesome to play it where it also touches responsive in terms of what you know look if you when you play around in that and that OS on board it's just as smooth as I that's a lie that's what I'm going to say well you're going to be wrong come on it's on the on the OS it's pretty good it's pretty responsive it's good it's not iOS good yeah because nothing can touch that it's richer nothing can touch um but you know I'm impressed with that and when when that touching functionality is inserted into games I don't think it really now did what they may be were envisioning now it still feels like a gimmick there's I've not played a touch game on Vita where it doesn't feel like jammed in there right just as soon use the buttons the only good thing is a lot of get that game developers realize this and make the touch controls optional right which is fine like that's the way to handle it that is the way to handle it um so that PlayStation Vita launches with 25 games which I thought were awesome I thought I mean a lot of those were awesome i thought along is a very very good one yeah even games that like weren't even uh major titles franchises that people are familiar even stuff like tales from space that mutant blau that game was tremendous really good way to it they're a good five or six like really really good vita games oiii I won't argue more Raymond Super Stardust Delta uncharted I mean that's just for the first four right off the bat okay okay you had the new wipeout ask a plan I thought game wasn't good you didn't think escape plan was good I enjoyed it and I was a little let down but I enjoyed it yeah um I think you also had a great port Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom yep Mortal Kombat was rather good poor I mean I winded they were good ports but we'd played this game sure it was not on when necessary fair enough a handful of good titles worth getting no one bought this thing was like oh there's nothing to play right like what happened with the 3ds sir odd last year for the Wii U or the or the wii u couple months ago arm so i mean i think coming out of the gate it was it looked like okay there's a lot of promise here the store seem to work really well yep that whole ecosystem they set up around the console seem to work and perform really well all that stuff still is the case but that hasn't changed the only thing that has changed is the amount of software and that is where we are we are right now uh it's just falling off it's it's a freakin desert yeah on it's bad Assassin's Creed was forgettable yeah call of duty the classified is one of the worst things I've ever played out an entire life abysmal and that easily makes the worst of prefer this year yeah for that list I mean what happened essentially that is the challenge of launching a console you have all these deals that you make to get like a bunch of games out at launch and then there's a year or a year and a half where you know you're developing new games for the console and all those people that worked with you before are working on those new games or they're waiting to see how well does and maybe not make a new gaming right so that's I mean we're in that I've every nuke at the console suffers that like the xbox 360 the first year was awful yeah every new consoles like that the question is is that going to turn around based on Sony's talking about it it doesn't sound like they have grand plans for the veto it's all coming next year it's a little upsetting that they seem to have left it out even from massive presentations like III 2012 which was completely void of any view to talk or significant view to talk that I can remember save for saying that there's going to be assassins creed and call of duty you know they've sold more than two and a half million copies of this thing if you nuh to this thing what are all those two and a half million people going to do a year from now yeah it's a good question I hope they what I like to see is more of this buy it on ps3 and you get a digital copy on Vita right which they're starting to do with some of these games I think that's a really smart idea and I know that they're putting on a focus on sony Mobile which will allow any developers to develop for Sony right I station Vita and sell on the foot vita store which is a good idea but it's you know not a solution it's sort of a male middle ground yeah and hoping like Indies take that responsibility away from you which could happen but probably not it's it's a it's a difficult sort of thing to to navigate I feel like a lot of people do not realize how difficult it is to sort of get momentum building behind a freshly launched console it's very very hard for sure um so let's take a break from the hardware and we'll get back to that with we you in a little bit let's talk about some of the great games that did get released in 2012 I have a little list that I always like to consult that I'm constantly making throughout the entire year I think one of the biggest surprises in my opinion was the walking debt oh absolutely i think the walking dead you know you have telltale games behind that a company that is is known for you know stuff like Sam and Max um they're known for taking franchises and maybe car tuning up a little bit worse like they're essentially known as a seven company that seven I mean for years and years they put out seven games yeah i'm at a ten yeah and with walking dead I don't know what happened but they got the right the right writers for that they got a really good like gameplay style that like felt active will also like looking cool and fitting with like classic adventure games but feeling more modern it was really like a perfect storm and I don't think anyone expected it I don't think anyone expected it and you know the Walking Dead is easily one of my best games of the year yeah um I think people who would really won me over and I know you are the same way we're both pretty regimented readers of The Walking Dead comic book yeah and I think the reason that book works so well is because it doesn't really focus on the gore as much as you think it would it's a black and white book so obviously things like gore don't come across as effectively as maybe they wouldn't color their arm it's more about the people and their human reaction than it is the actual zombie outbreak the video game is able to convey that sentiment with such precision I would say more so than episodes 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead although I think season 3 happens to be pretty pretty damn good and at the time when it first came out when that first episode of the video game came out I was like you know this is better than the TV show yeah and I don't know what it is there's not a lot of game play in this game but if there's something about it's sort of point and click adventure yeah with a couple of shooting elements may be tucked in here and there it Sam it really is amazing well the thing is I mean when you think about adventure games you've never really played too many adventure games that are essentially choose your own adventure right and that's what this is every decision that you're making granted they hide some of these decisions where it's going to end up the same matter what but for the most part you're having a major impact on how the story plays out so your mind sort of shifts into this mode of how would I me myself literally handle this situation right and we've seen stuff like this and games like from bioshock have bio air and stuff like that but we've never seen this sort of impact on a story like you might get a different cut scene at the end or green explosions or the right effects a red exposure right oh yeah like moments a moment you know you're deciding who lives who dies yeah who gets food who doesn't get food and those decisions play out in the game and it makes experience whether it was walking dead weather was any franchise it makes the experience so much more investing relatable and so I think they're doing a fantastic job I wouldn't be surprised of a lot of companies follow suit with different franchises doing this sort of style of game for sure I'm actually personally surprised that there stay sort of stopped it after episode 5 what done it's not done done but there this is like season one yeah so it does make sense that they would have a season two and that sort of thing yeah I don't think they would necessarily just keep going every month or two months whatever they were doing forever I think it's a good idea to take a whatever six-month break or so for sure that and it's a great platform I mean they started in April yep the last episode episode 54 season one came out uh you know like a week ago yeah it really is a brilliant way to get a game out that's not expensive at all it's really the first time I've seen the episodic nature of a game release really work and in that it did it just really work so i think that's awesome and don't forget it's a downloadable game so it's not one of those $60 disk games I think you had a lot of success with games like that this year you had trials evolution which was awesome breaking you had mark of the ninja yep was on game awesome my name I top five easily uh you talk to uh we talked about journey earlier before I thought Fez was okay I thought Fez was bad at the feds was you know I did not have high hopes for that game okay well a lot of people do not I didn't a lot of people did but other people did and I was I'm like a little bit of a technical snob sure and technically just in terms of creativity and like the game design is a very cool game but technically it's a mess like slow down crashes all sorts of stuff like that and if you watch indie game the movie yeah you you you don't you don't have any true compassion for but you are you like know where it's all coming out so apparently that fish guy just might hope it just a disaster with with the with the back into this game even something like sound shapes of sound shapes oh it was okay to Evita and ps3 yep a sort of thing obviously we have to talk about one downloadable game yeah but I'm sure then this is the game that I said it's doubly on your list okay I thought you're talking about call of duty say it spelunky spelunky tremendous game you I've never seen real freak out about a game more than spelunky so much so that it's even on the television in your freaking oh yeah this is my host sort of thing in your polygon feature that they ran a couple weeks ago yep so explain to us why and I definitely agreed is in some okay for everyone it's not absolutely admit it's not for everyone spunky is essentially like if you think of super mario brothers but every time you play it is randomized but you know how to handle so essentially it's training you to handle situations like oh I know what a Goomba does he just walks from right to left and I jump on him right but in sluggy the levels are completely randomized so essentially you're just every time you play it's a new experience but you're constantly learning how things interact with one another how enemies interact with one another and using items and you know different equipment to survive through the game and if you don't survive you start from scratch which is the point of contention that a lot of people have it's very I mean it's one of the most hardcore games ever played and i'm pleased to admit as say that i beat it and it was it's probably my proudest gaming at you not only did you beat it yeah you you did like the crazy yeah crazy chief village it ending yeah this is like a crazy super hidden ending that requires like another extra four levels at the end of the game and uh but it is I've not played a game that was like that rewarding in terms of just my skill level increasing every time i played comparing compare comparing it to mario brothers is almost unfair it's the only way people can understand that it's a platform that it's a platformer that's randomly generated yeah it's sort of like a way to ground it because it really does not feel like any other game you've played yeah but it's terrific I think it might be on sale now if you haven't picked it up definitely worth checking out other games that we sort of dug over I guess we can sort of get away from the the downloadable games right is there any other downloadable game that sort of stood out for you and one second i'm pretty sure that's everything there was a there was a you know that's pretty much it you gotta respect the fact that they they're still pushing that sort of stuff and I think you know it's almost it's the thing is is that you give you know independent developers it's like you can hit it you can really hit it big if you have a game that Microsoft is psyched about and they'll put it in your summer of arcade thing you can really stand to make a lot of money yeah of something like that for sure oh I do want to mention an iOS game that i really like yeah its punch quest punch quest tell me it does i have and tell me about punch quest so punch quest is sort of like canabalt you know the game where you jump from rooftop through yeah yeah totally Cannibal but you're punching enemies and surviving for as long as you can but instead of it just being like temple run where it's like the grind and it's the same every time there are roguelike elements which is like spelunky where there's a lot of randomness and you know you're learning how to deal with the enemies and you're buying upgrades and you're buying new hats which give you different powers and stuff like that uh it was originally launched as a free game I think they increased it to add our okay but it's I mean I put in dozens and dozens of hours into that game so I think it's safe to say the random generated stuff ask anna is a theme that might be sticking around yeah for sure I mean people like you're essentially designing a game to be played and replayed over and over again for only like five minutes fans right which is great for mobile um and if you know even for like Vita it's really good so I yeah I think it's here to stay almost anything like what is spelunky on iowa's spunky is not on iowa like why well I think I i think the control limitations would be the big problem there oh right playing those games on iphone suck um we want to go into pc games real quick yeah this one downloadable pc game that I really is it the one seen one that I'm gonna say possible let's see this is started with a city it does not okay I was ok go ahead five more years in FTL FTL did you buy this game no oh my god FTL yep what does that stand for faster than light what kind of nerd are you FTL yeah I'm writing it down litora on steam is a once again randomly generated your commanding a spaceship okay and you're essentially ordering your little sort of guys on the spaceship to like man guns and man like the shields and stuff like that and you come up against encounters where your power ring up shields and powering down guns and trying to like take out other ships and you're exploring the GAO it's really tough to explain but you're exploring the galaxy and you'll get a random encounter where it's like oh you've arrived at a planet with wasn't horse shaped creatures yeah you go and pet them or do you steal them on your ship interest and it's random so depending on what you do you might get you know a bonus where new crew member joins you might get a bunch of money or the horse creatures might go insane and kill two of your crew members it's really pretty cool all right I'll check it out I was talking about Miami haha oh ya allah Miami is that it is a holla Miami right I have a dyslexic sorta thing I deal with yeah I really play it you didn't play it's I've only played a little of it yet but there was something there that I that I just really I've dug the whole retro sort of thing a lot of people sort of chalk it up as like Miami as like vice city right um but it's definitely something worth checking out if you don't have too much of a budget and you're looking for something that could provide a good amount of replay value yeah FTL's the same way check it out yeah so definitely those two games um I'm just looking on a few sites that sort of you know they they they ranked all the top rated games i'm looking at gamerankings calm right now for the top game of 2012 yeah they have at 93.7 is persona 4 golden you play this game no I've never played any persona games yeah we've one of my fellow staff members griffin mcelroy is a huge persona fan and recently tried to explain to me why like what is going on in a persona game feels weird that we don't know yeah and I feel a little guilty and I I do I'm gonna download this one because people seem to love it but it's it's a weird like universally loved game that I guess I just need to experience I I just I'm is on paper it sounds make a lame it sounds beyond lame right it's just something I just can't I can't hang with ya I don't know I don't get it but nevertheless it is it's like the highest review game of 2012 so if you're going just by the numbers that's the game yep all right we got we got to make some headway here in a couple of these lists I'm just going to start rolling through them 44 good stuff diablo 3 yeah pretty good yeah not smiling not amazing not amazing I don't think yeah I think some people were a little disappointed but i liked it i had fun with it but it wasn't a game change with the diablo 2 you think it's a top 10 may not be a top 10 I kinda I'm kind of waiting I haven't figured out my exact top 10 but yeah I have seven on my list then Diablo is not in that seven agreed max payne 3 good game good game i really enjoyed it um you know again uh i don't know i think it was better than i was expecting it to me um and I really liked it a lot but I don't know that it necessarily stands out like right now as like a year ending game okay III think I know I feel like it it was better for me as an overall experience in LA noir oh yeah for sure I liked it a lot more and i thought the gump i felt really good I think there's something about those games that they they're able to do something with that all the time effect i was just let down by the story like i thought the gameplay was good but this story just didn't really go story was a little lacking i'll definitely agree with you there we talked about walking dead we talked about trials uh uh here's one for you oh boy we're on your list is borderlands 2 it's not on my leg it's not on your list really yeah Wow because polar ends to is personally yeah one of my top four of the year I like Borderlands 2 i'm obsessed with that game yeah i think the issue that i have with borderlands 2 and the writing is tremendous and i have fun playing it especially in coop it's one of the best co-op games around uh it's so mindless like so in love with how mindless it is mmm that when i play that and then i play a game like well we haven't gotten to it yet but far cry 3 or dishonored even mark of the ninja like games with that like are so deep in with like really cool gameplay mechanics whereas this essentially just doesn't have that level of depth to it it's so service but don't you think there's something to be said for having such an unbelievable formula that is that resonates with everyone is so addictive and so yes it's very its inception formula sure right but I'm just saying they've / fav Dave and even coming from the first Borderlands that this is in my opinion such an improvement to also i don't think that it was that much of a jumble okay obviously there were improvements sure but i was expecting more uh more character development options more variety uh you know the guns continue to be cool but in the end it just it felt like a lot more of four lines one I thought it was written better this time really write a really really likable character yet the writing was excellent um yeah it's just there's something about borderlands they just did it for me this yeah um obviously dishonored yeah needs to be talked about that's definitely my top five dishonored is good for me the sounds going to have a tough time being beat for number one I'll be honest it's it's a it's a definite possibility for me as you know this honor is an amazing game I a perfect game for people that like are so so on stealth games this is like a great game till I get you into the donger yeah awesome world really cool like look of the game the story like just like the story of this world that you're in I just found fascinating yeah yeah they did an amazing job did you think that it was necessarily a better you know sort of uh like what bioshock two because these are the guys that that designed some of the sufferer bioshock two arkane studios is that true yeah another we talked about this when Scott Stein was on remember oh NOS gustan Scott Jones I don't remember when you in schedule haze you remember him being here you remember that that hold that whole week of your life was a blur I don't yeah it's all it's dark you got you got to admit there are similarities there yeah no I mean I see similarities with because I know the art director is the same from half-life right I definitely see similarities there um yeah sure but I mean what ideas wholly original I don't mind I some similarities I thought that the city itself really stood out as like a new place right that feel like anything I'd ever agreed agreed for sure I think people are going to be surprised to see how highly receive they may be placed on top 10 lists halo 4 will be I can't really comment because I haven't really played it okay in my opinion yeah halo 4 provides one of the best single player campaigns this year which is great because I'm that's what I play those games for not a huge halo multiplayer guy right and I really like to reach for its campaign even three I thought was good for the kids three was okay yeah um yeah so I'm really looking forward to that uh but yeah I everybody okay fair enough um let's get to what about Darksiders 2 yeah pretty good you think that's up there I don't know if it's my top 10 but it was a very good game like a lot of fun I i liked the advancement like that was the sort of expansion on the idea that i was hoping for the Lanston right which was you know the original game was essentially Zelda but this game added you know a bunch of cool loot stuff added like a lot of more a lot more character customization right a lot more exploration stuff so yeah I mean that's a sequel for you but definitely I agree definitely added definitely was a more complete sequel yep then perhaps any other game this year including Borderlands 2 they totally RPG eyes a lot of the elements that weren't really there the first time around yep and I thought was really good I thought Sleeping Dogs was good I didn't play it you didn't play it now Sleeping Dogs was sort of you know it was a GTA clone there's no getting around that but there with with an excellent fighting system the opinion so another game to check out really the best games of the year we're kind of like in the middle of the year this year yep you know if you don't include Darksiders uh I'm sorry if you don't include far cry 3 and and dishonored and halo yeah and halo far cry 3 men we're playing it now oh boy awesome right tremendously good this might be my number one no whoa really it might be it's up there it's definitely not five okay I'm with you it's a great game as a top right for me but but aren't you a little bummed out as to how there's certain things that are just a little annoying I think there's I don't think the menu system should be laid out better no I think the menus it's really smart you don't think it's it's it's takes one too many button pushes it snappy it works fast I don't like the fact that I have to like go through nine different layers to craft something is that something I'm doing all the time I think that's only because it's the beginning of the game in your constant like crafting like base level things no but I think no I mean I've been playing it for a really long time okay i think you know like i like I you know in the beginning when you make your you're bigger rucksacks and all your stuff like that I just think it takes too long to get to all that stuff I think it might be because I'm coming off of Assassin's Creed 3 we're managing those men you even talk about them again we threw need to measure imagining those menus is honestly the most torturous experience I've had this year it's almost like they were designed to be deliberately confusing yeah right it's so vexing the funniest thing is that far cry 3 has so many of the components that this house is creed 3 heads on paper right off like crafting power rating client on the time well there weren't really are there oh yeah there were surely right okay but a far cry 3 does it so much better yeah and it's just funny because they're both ubisoft game yeah i mean different totally different studios the only different teams yeah that's what you get that's what you get is so bizarre right yeah very strange I'm trying to think of we've left any out for the good games I mean I would say that black ops 2 is the best multiplayer black ops multiplayer call duty game ever played it's funny I'm very good at this multiplayer for like I we got better at it to that I've ever been it well yeah I know why is it because we've been playing that serious for so long I think it also cause it ain't it is more of encouragement to not necessarily be like running and gunning yeah which I'm terrible at right you can just shoot down UAVs and get points right I am I think I really do think and we're going to nerd out a little bit i think the whole score streak yeah is really the smartest thing they've done with his franchise in a decade I mean they to incentivize teamwork right and incentivize doing things for the better the team and not your stupid kill death writing is really really solid pick 10 stuff is very cool pic 10 is great whites customization stuff like that I really do like it and you know let's hope these new maps that come along or are good but I always feel like by the third by the second map pack I'm done you know yeah I like treyarch games because they mix it up with multiplayer maps and zombies maps yeah so it's sort of you know by the time multiplayer zombies comes around again you're sort of ready for it I one complaint I think the the I don't know what a 12 maps that came at the game I think some of them just look too much alike magic I just think yeah I think like there are a couple other couple that just sort of feel like the same thing something you've seen before broken down city yeah broken and city yet up there's a bunch of paper flying everywhere yeah up what a plane crash the middle of the bore okay that's great that's what's gonna happen there yeah so maybe too much of that all right it's time to really get pissed at some of the games that really did doc says here that's great three okay week and you know I'm with you man I'm with you thanks peso an assassin's creed 3 to me as a as a games journalist I've I'm more perplexed with the high praise that this game has gotten seemingly universally it not totally universally but it is more than your cross the board yet it's more than you know uh even from you know I mean we we didn't review it because that was during sandy uh you guys gave it a pretty high school um i think is an eight point right that's that's high that's hot yep i just don't see it I just don't see it I don't understand why this game continually and this franchise well sad agree to was better yeah ok so the Jeff as a person that hates Assassin's Creed games can't really comment on this no all right I've liked pretty much every is that I even like Assassin's Creed one I didn't love it but I liked it this is the worst Assassin's Creed game that's ever been made agreed it is a slow-paced it removes a lot of the like fun climbing stuff that made as has this great games assess the crew game ship it takes about eight to nine hours to get into the main story it's a very long and then once you're in the main story none of the story missions are all that interesting so when you go to do side missions you get even less interesting wish like it's it's just bad game design piled on bad game design yeah definitely a bummer is very pretty sure i'll give it that and very pretty and look if if if a high school kids skipping class and going to play assassin's creed 3 i'm okay with that because he might get a little bit of history i'll learn they might get a tiny tiny bit of history out of that and i think that's a win-win situation yeah um we talked about before call duty on vida oh god that was awful i just it just makes you just slap your forehead and and put your put your head in your hands based on what i've heard it was a bit of a deal with sony hmm essentially sony had to deal with activision which is why nihilistic instead of activision made that game right so you know it's a little it's it reeks a little bit of cash in sure which is shocking to me that activision would do that with their most beloved franchises right crap for that pahlavi doubt but yeah you know to you and to you and I that is okay and we sort of say okay you get a pass yeah but for the average gamer who does not know the politics behind any of this that's awful it's really gonna leave a bad taste and especially yeah because a lot of people were going to wake up on Christmas morning and their loved one is going to buy them call duty betta right because they love call in the bundle their pitching is a boil they're gonna be pissed yeah it's bad and and you can't even get around like oh it's I can I can play this now it's almost unplayable yeah um I guess you gotta you gotta talk about res needle 6 oh god you got to talk about Resident Evil 6 because resident evil 6 was straight up one of the disappointing games I played all year really yeah is you expected it to be so good ah there we knew that game there was a year ago look there was a little bit of hope what I played at at e3 the the leon level because that's the best part so even that level was so linear and dull there's been yeah it was definitely bad um you know it look I it's not as bad as operation Raccoon City that's okay give you that which which is shocking and I can't believe that there's going to be two resident evil games on my worst games 2012 list but there will be yeah um man oh man you gotta mention kinect star wars in that lavoie kinect Star Wars what I don't know that that the han solo song is pretty good I I just don't know yeah I just don't know what was going on but look a lot of people spend a lot of years of their lives working on these ready for more of them brought to you by Disney a medal of honor warfighter do you think that deserves to be a worst game of 2012 I don't think anyone had any expectations that that was going to be good hmm so I mean it's throwing out a disappointment it's just sort of you know it delivered that low bar for the course I think next year yeah we'll have another battlefield game and then the expectations will go up right and we'll see um I'm gonna feel about Ninja Gaiden oh I didn't play Sigma with every time ninja game 3 yeah um I I was really let down by that I there's something about those games in recent years the the level of difficulty I've really been able to respect couldn't get down with this third one yeah I near the the wii u 1 is actually an improvement i think i rid of a lot of the like no you disagree I I did not totally love what I played okay but hey it is what it is yeah um does anything stand out to you as some of the really big disappointments of 2012 we also didn't talk about um didn't talk about need for speed most wanted oh yeah I've I think that was a really good game okay I'm with you on that it takes a little bit of sort of get into yeah but uh really rewarding yeah at the end of that very cool um and want to talk about this to lollipop chainsaw oh I didn't you didn't play that now I I'm with I'm in that small sort of group that initiated it okay wanted it to be better wanted it to be a shadow of the damn that game was terrific terrific but unfortunately just kind of fell short you have that that's right all right I think we sort of got through everything man yeah you have a whirlwind a bit of a whirlwind I don't think we missed any forex com oh I loved exam ex-cons inner top ten rendus yeah that was great let me just check my make sure so consult your list I don't want anything to go you go on it we got all the ones that I was thinking about all right fantastic and your big iOS guy you only talked about punch quiz is that the only one you're happy with the job now there were a few good iOS games let's see much quest was a standout yeah say definitely uh you know it's sort of tough to sell iOS games the folks rights they're like know whatever punch quest I thought was really really good all right there you have it fantastic talking with you today sir pleasure as always always a pleasure you can check r us out on twitter at rus rustic all this editorial musings on polygon calm yep it's going well over there we're trying you're trying hey you're rockin and rollin rockin and rollin I'm loving it thank you thank you everyone for tuning in we hope you're enjoying your holiday season uh not too sure when we're going to air this one okay but I'm sure there's plenty more before the apocalypse it's well I think it's going to be on the day of they might find this tape yeah like under rubble right three hundred years from a call they were obsessed with talking about these things that aren't real anyway uh make sure you tune in to all of our yuletide episodes and again we're back on january second 2013 with the first live show of the new year thanks again to mr. Ross rush dick for joining us I'm Jeff Bakalar thanks to Richard Peterson you're welcome the ones and twos for us on this fine day keep enjoying the break man I always feel so because it's like people are working and like we're off it's like this weird juxtaposition I have I really feel bad about I know but no I don't go bad the show must go on we'll see you guys soon thanks again for tuning in to 44 show high tech lowbrow enjoy your holiday you