Last week I started this series where I am talking about the games that were particularly important to me during this decade. The end of the year generally makes me introspective about such things, and with this being the first “decade” I can really observe on this blog I figured it was a reasonable series to dive into. I’ve already covered 2010 and 2011, but today we are diving into 2012 which wound up being a pretty significant year for various reasons.

Diablo 3

At the time it released I would have had no idea that this game would become as important for me as it has. In fact I am not entirely certain if I actually managed to get a character all of the way to 70 before the end of 2012. The initial release of this game had some problems, namely when it came to any sort of loot drops that you actually needed. To make matters worse this initial release also had the real money auction house and it would not be until the release of Reaper of Souls in 2014 that a lot of this got sorted out. It was a game I dabbled with and I know that at the very least I had “beat” the story of the game within that initial month.

However in the years since its launch, I met my good friend Grace and with that I got indoctrinated into the tradition of running seasonal content… which also released significantly later. We’ve gotten into this cadence of every three months we return to Diablo 3 with excitement and spend a week or two of serious playtime before fading away again until the next seasonal launch. It mimics the behavior that we have towards any sort of a new MMORPG release and also manages to capture that same excitement every three months like clockwork. Due to all of these peripheral reasons… Diablo 3 has become one of my favorite games of all time, so it most definitely reserves a slot on this list.

The Secret World

Every so often there are games that mean an extreme amount to you on a personal level… but that you also just don’t really play anymore. Secret World is definitely in that camp and I cherish all of the moments we experienced during the launch of this game. It is firmly set in one of my favorite genres… occult fantasy, and saw me being able to mangle together a character I enjoyed that was not quite like any other standard character build. I ran around with a Sword and a Shotgun and had an immense amount of fun figuring out how to make penetration damage combos. It was a glorious time for many of the AggroChat crew as we each got to build our own very custom and tailored version of the character we wanted to play.

Then unfortunately all of that joy came crashing down around us as we entered what represented the end game… the Nightmare difficulty dungeons. We had an amazing time with the Story mode and the Elite mode… but when we moved up to that highest tier all of our fun and custom builds started to fall apart. At that level you needed very specific tank builds, healer builds and any sort of melee damage was punished to extreme levels and not really viable. It was around this time that the magic faded from the game and we all sorta went our separate ways. I would attempt to return periodically to gobble up the story content, but even that only lasted through episode 8. I have fond memories of Secret World but they are also deeply tinged with regret.

Guild Wars 2

My experience with Guild Wars 2 is deeply fraught. I’ve told the story a dozen times now, but this is the only game I have ever resigned from an alpha process for. I remember being extremely excited when through my connections I managed to score a seat in the testing process. It also represents the most thorough NDA I ever had to sign, involving so much detail that it felt like I was signing away my first born. It was one of those testing processes where they forced everyone to join one massive all hands Ventrilo server, and gave us very focused testing directions. I was so excited for that first four hour testing session that I was nearly vibrating… and then I also remember the crushing “wtf is this shit” feeling I had moments later.

Guild Wars 2 was not the game I was expecting or the game that I wanted it to be… but by the time I reached launch I managed to push a lot of that beside me. However it still took years before I finally reached the point where I understood what people enjoyed about it. Now I get it… it is this weird casual sandbox that allows you to roam around and feel like you had an effect on the world with extremely short play sessions. It is a game of more or less checking things off lists, and if you are a list maker and a list completer I am sure it is an amazing experience. For me who was still very much in the rush to end game and raid all of the things mentality… I found the dungeons to be an extremely frustrating experience and the game play experience to largely be pointless. I’ve since found the joy in this game and the things that I apparently was missing, but in this first year it was a lot of confusion and frustration.

Borderlands 2

I am not really sure how much I actually have to say about this game save for the fact that it is important. The style of dialog and story was something unique at the time, and the slick package that it was all wrapped up in lead to some thoroughly enjoyable game play experiences. I played an awful lot of the original Borderlands, and this game took everything that was good about that game and iterated upon it. It truly is a masterpiece that still holds up extremely well by today’s standards. Unfortunately this is also the beginning of the end of the magic for Gear Box. I’ve not played Borderlands 3 at all, but the “pre-sequel” felt like they were phoning it in. When BL3 comes out on Steam I will likely use that as an excuse to pick it up and see where the game has gone. So far it has given me twinges of the same disappointment I felt playing Rage 2 just based on the trailers and such.

Dishonored

Dishonored is a game that deserves not only its spot on this list, but a spot on a “best games of all time” list as well. I have a bad relationship with stealth in games, and often times when I encounter a forced stealth sequence it causes me to nope the hell out of the experience. Dishonored is this weird game that works perfectly well for Tam on his desire to get “clean hands” and “ghost runs” where he is never spotted and never has to kill a single person… or for me where I murderate every single person I encounter. The game does an amazing job of allowing you to play however the hell you want to play… and then brutally judges you for your actions.

The first game is a masterclass in level design and how exactly you bring a brand new IP to market. I love everything about Corvo Attano and the setting of Dunwall. I love the weird mix of Steampunk, Magic and Chthonic monsters of the deep that come together perfectly in a single tight package. I also love the way that this game and its two DLC perfectly feed into the experience of playing Dishonored 2 and give the player backstory about the events that take place between the two games. The entire series is a phenomenal and I highly suggest that everyone play the entire thing through just to experience it. This is one of those settings that could be made into a television series on Netflix and would be almost universally loved. It is the type of game I feel comfortable suggesting because it allows you to largely carve out your own game play experience with so many different ways to be able to complete it.

Where Bel Was Mentally in 2012

It was an extremely rough year for me. We had a bunch of deaths in the family and I was still more or less recovering from events that happened in 2011. One of the high points of the year however was recruiting my friend Rae to come work for me. I miss having her at work because her excitement and the unique way she viewed the world was infectious. 2013 would be a banner year, and 2012 was sorta this weird doldrum between the horrible year that was 2011… and me finally starting to come out of that storm.