Happy New Year everyone! See 2012’s biggest videogames in the Top 100 overview below. I love making this list every year. Mainly because 2012 is looking to be yet another awesome year for us gamers!
Anticipation without means, is half the fun or so it seems. While you are now looking forward to a great many games, at the end of 2012 we believe the listed 100 titles are the games you will fondly remember playing. Both logical and indeterminable factors taken into account are: Hype, developer potential, nostalgia, recent critical successes, a series’ past sales and average review scores, all counted towards this unbiased Top 100 of big games you can expect to see in 2012.
Table of Contents
No doubt one of your favorite games is missing*. We want to emphasize this is not our personal opinion, we’ve had to cut about 50+ games from the original overview in editing the past 20 hours. But we’re really happy with how the Top 100 turned out and hope to play all of them this year (all of us at VGB own all systems). If your favorites aren’t high enough in the list we look forward to seeing what your Top 5 looks like in the comments. Release date are listed behind each game’s systems overview. If you’re looking for more info from a certain game, click on its preview link. With that said…
* The long disclaimer about why certain games are/aren’t included:
The following games don’t have a clear launch window yet, are on hold, or aren’t expected to arrive until 2013: Devil’s Third, Command & Conquer: Generals 2, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Patriots, Guillermo del Toro’s InSane, Fortnite, Duke Begins, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Beyond Good & Evil 2, Dragon Age III, next Prince of Persia game, Resident Evil 6, Tekken X Street Fighter, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, Pikmin 3, Fable 4, Fallout Online, Dragon Quest X, Thief 4, and The Agency. — Then there’s all the awesome downloadable content releases that I didn’t know where to place. Remakes & Ports were excluded (unless they were HD collections), but the focus is mainly on new releases. We wished to included more iPhone/iPad/handheld titles and games from Indie developers, but they are often not announced until nearly complete. E3 2012 will also hold surprise announcements we don’t know about yet. What remained is what you see above and while all these games are wildly different, we truly believe these games will all be on par with each other with 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 scores.
Runners Up:
Yakuza: Dead Souls, Torchlight II, Tera, Star Trek: The Game, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Pandora’s Tower, Anarchy Reigns, Binary Domain, Inversion, MLB 12: The Show, Ridge Racer Unbounded, Test Drive: Ferrari Legends, Transformers Universe, Lumines Electronic Symphony, WipEout 2048, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, Star Trek: The Game, Rhythm Heaven Fever AKA Rhythm Paradise Wii, Men in Black III: The Videogame, MechWarrior Online, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, DJ Hero 3D, Game of Thrones: The Game, South Park: The Game, James Bond 007: Skyfall – The Game, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – The Game, The Avengers: The Movie – The Game, Firefall, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition, Touch My Katamari, Risen 2: Dark Waters, Little Deviants, Armored Core V, Tales of the Abyss, Cave Story 3D, Shank 2, Quantum Conundrum, FIFA Street 2012, Monster Hunter 4, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, Project Draco, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Dragon’s Crown, and Ride to Hell.
Let’s take a look at the Top 100 videogames of 2012:
#100. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Info: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Announcement
Release Date: Early 2012
System: PS3
Developer: Studio Ghibli, Level-5
Genre: Role-playing Game
Note: Don’t look at me like that… every top list needs an underdog! Any fan of Studio Ghibli’s animated movies will eat this up! 🙂
#99. Zone of the Enders HD Collection
Info: Zone of the Enders HD Collection Announcement
Release Date: February 3, 2012 in Europe
System: PS3, PS Vita, Xbox 360
Developer: Konami
Genre: Action
#98. Jak and Daxter Collection
Info: Jak and Daxter Collection Announcement
Release Date: February 7, 2012
System: PS3, PS Vita
Developer: Naughty Dog, Mass Media Inc.
Genre: Platformer
#97. Xenoblade Chronicles
Info: Xenoblade Chronicles Details
Release Date: April 2, 2012 in America; already out in Europe, Australia & Japan
System: Wii
Developer: Monolith Soft
Genre: Role-playing Game
#96. Silent Hill HD Collection
Info: Silent Hill HD Collection Announcement
Release Date: January 24, 2012
System: PS3, Xbox 360
Developer: Konami
Genre: Survival Horror
#95. PokePark 2: Wonders Beyond
Info: PokePark 2: Wonders Beyond Announcement
Release Date: February 27, 2012
System: Wii
Developer: Creatures
Genre: Action-Adventure
#94. Devil May Cry HD Collection
Info: Devil May Cry HD Collection Announcement
Release Date: April 3, 2012
System: PS3, Xbox 360
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Action, Hack ‘n Slash
#93. Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
Info: Metal Gear Solid HD Collection Announcement
Release Date: February 3, 2012 in Europe & Australia; already released in America & Japan
System: PS3, PS Vita, Xbox 360
Developer: Konami, Bluepoint Games
Genre: Stealth, Action
#92. The Last Story
Info: The Last Story Preview
Release Date: February 24, 2012 in Europe
System: Wii
Developer: Mistwalker, AQ Interactive
Genre: Action-RPG
Note: If The Last Story’s name & logo look similar to that of the Final Fantasy games to you, that’s no coincidence! The Last Story is being made by the creator of the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi.
#91. Final Fantasy Type-0
Info: Final Fantasy Type-0 Preview
Release Date: 2012
System: PSP
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Action-RPG