As a companion thread to this one: http://www.justadventure.com/forums/posts.asp?t=25433

Which non-adventure games did you play during 2012?

As always I played quite a few games during the last year, though many of them were short indie games, and many of them left no real lasting impression. So here are the ones that I can remember:

Tyrian 2000. One of the free games on GOG, Tyrian 2000 was an outstanding 2d shooter, and a surprisingly lengthy one at that.

Wings of Prey. The first flight sim that I can say that I actually managed to "beat". While some flight sim enthusiasts seem to think that this one is not all that good, I enjoyed it (played on "realistic").

Jagged Alliance 2 Oh wow, this was a game that really impressed me. It combines turnbased tactical combat with a strong CRPG element, and it all just worked so well. Probably the best TBT I've ever played. And this is a game that I've previously skipped because I thought it looked so unattractive (that really shows the perils of judging a game by its graphics).

Breath of Death & Cthulhy saves the world. Two short JRPGs. Somewhat funny, and they managed to find a way to make random encounters less frustrating (there were a limited amount of them in any given area), which was nice, though I find it unlikely that I'll return to either of these games.

Galactic Assault: prisoner of Power Quite similar to the old Battle Isle series, though on a slightly smaller scale. Good but not great.

Shadowgrounds & Shadowgrounds survivor Satisfying isometric shooters that I quite enjoyed. Had they been longer they would have overstayed their welcome, but at ~5h, they were just the right length.

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic I was a bit disappointed by this one. It had some neat ideas, like the ability to push enemies into things, and it allowed you to use your environment to a greater extent than most games, but the way this was implemented was a bit immersion breaking. Why were spiked walls that you could push enemies into so common everywhere?

Freespace 2 Best space sim that I've ever played. Good story, great gameplay, and surprisingly good graphics for a game of this age.

Rochard A nice puzzle/platformer, though a bit on the easy side.

Company of Heroes I finally managed to beat the campaigns in this game. They were good, but the skirmish & multiplayer mode was far far better.

DLC Quest Worst game that I managed to beat last year. Short (less than 45min), and it just tried too hard to be funny.

Arx Fatalis By the same people who made Dark Messiah, this one was actually really good. While the spell system was a bit wonky at times, it had an interesting setting and the combat system was quite nice as well.

Hard Reset A game that obviously was made by fans of old school shooters. It was really well made, and it also looked really good.

Legend of Grimrock Shared game of the year for this one. I really enjoyed this old school-inspired CRPG, mainly due to its excellent puzzle design and surprisingly engaging combat.

Crusader Kings 2 And here is the other game of the year contender, Crusader Kings 2 was a surprisingly accessible yet incredibly deep strategy game about court intrigues and conquest during the middle ages.

MechWarrior 2 While I've heard people say that this one is the best game in the series, I suspect that that is at least in part due to nostalgia goggles. It is a good game, don't get me wrong, but you can tell where the technology of its era limited the devs.

Rogue Trooper It is said that this was the game that spawned the cover based third person shooter that is so popular these days. I found it to be better than most modern shooters though, even though I know nothing about the comics that it is based on.

Might & Magic 7-8 I still don't quite know what to think of these two. While I love the character customization system & all the spells one could play around with, I found combat in 7 to just be a drag, in particular really early, before you get access to all the fun spells, and towards the late game, where enemies had so much HP, and combat in 8 to be far too easy.

Dungeon Siege 3 As a person who never liked Dungeon Siege 1, this one was a pleasant surprise. It had a nice setting and good writing, even if it was a tad bit simplistic at points.

Men of War: Vietnam The first Men of War game that I actually managed to beat, this one was a real challenge, even on easy (and in particular the NVA/Russian campaign). I quite enjoyed it though, in part due to its high difficulty.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane. Multiplayer game of the year. This Master of Magic inspired game suffers from a relatively poor AI, but I've played it quite a bit with some friends, and that is where it really shines. And even with its poor AI, it was still enjoyable in singleplayer.

King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame. I really hate that name. Still, once this game was properly patched, and archers were made weaker (they were downright broken on launch), this game turned out to be quite good.

Avernum: escape from the Pit This was my first Avernum game, and darn, it was good. Good story, excellent writing, and fun tactical combat.

Torchlight I don't think I need to explain this one. Very Diablo-like, though in a good way.

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy I gave up on this one during my first playthough, but when played with other people, it actually became a far better game, mainly due to how you now could bring different weapons, which made some of the tougher enemies more manageable, without making the smaller enemies too hard to take out. Still deeply flawed though.

Spec Ops: The Line I've never actually played a game that managed to make me feel this uncomfortable before. This game is basically a deconstruct of the modern shooter, and it tries to show how unrealistically they portray the world and combat.

Geneforge Better story and setting than Avernum, though I found the actual combat to be worse. Overall another really good game by Spiderweb software.

Tiny & Big A clever but incredibly short puzzle/platformer with an interesting mechanic. You can cut up parts of the environment. Had this game had a level editor, it would have been a real winner, but as it stands, it is too short to be really good.

Overlord A good action game with some minor strategy elements. I still wish the game would have been more like Dungeon Keeper though, at least in how it portrayed "evil". 

Reprisal A populous clone, plain and simple. A lot shorter than populous, and also far easier.

Blitzkrieg This game was quite challenging, though I sadly found a rather gimmicky strategy that worked far too well (it was mostly reliant on artillery), which once I found it made the game too easy. Still really good, and some of the levels that did not allow for use of artillery forced me to restart a few times.

Defenders Quest I'm usually not a big fan of tower defense game (defense grid being the big exception here), but this one was fun, as it had a lot more personality than any other tower defense game that I've played before. 

A slow year for me, I'm afraid. As I mentioned in the adventure thread, I spent a good deal of time in Lord of the Rings Online. There were a few hidden object games, and a couple partially finished games, Icewind Dale 2 and Legend of Grimrock. Icewind Dale 2 offered decent tactical gameplay, but was so lifeless and uninspired otherwise that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Legend of Grimrock is apparently a good game of its kind, but unfortunately as it turned out not my sort of game. I enjoyed the puzzles, but the combat was too stressful and unrelenting for me to enjoy. I stalled at level 5 and never picked it up again. That leaves Portal 2, which I actually both completed and enjoyed. Everything I liked about Portal 1 but ever so much more so.

Re: Spiderweb Software games, sounds like I need to check them out. From all accounts they're the sort of solid and complex RPG's I tend to prefer. A shame the entire Avernum series isn't available on Steam yet, that's probably what I'd want to start with.

Originally Posted By Andromus (30 JAN 2013 4:32pm)

 

Re: Spiderweb Software games, sounds like I need to check them out. From all accounts they're the sort of solid and complex RPG's I tend to prefer. A shame the entire Avernum series isn't available on Steam yet, that's probably what I'd want to start with.

It is on GOG though, but the version of Avernum 1 is the original remake (i.e. the remake of the first Exile), and not the recent re-remake (Avernum: Escape from the Pit). Some people prefer that version of the game though, as it apparently offers a bit more character customization options.

Also, the entire Geneforge series can be found on both Steam & GOG (and a few other places as well). 

Thanks, good to know. I didn't realize they were on GOG.