Best Games of 2012
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
Max Payne 3The best feeling third person shooter Rockstar has made, wrapped around a story about a man who has run out of ways to be interesting to himself.Read the review
Far Cry 3The template for every open world checklist since, saved by a fire propagation system and a villain who leaves halfway through.
Call of Duty: Black Ops IIThe series' one real experiment with choice, and the Pick 10 system multiplayer still misses.
DishonoredBlink turns every ledge and window into an entrance, and the chaos system grades your restraint through the world itself.
JourneyAnonymous multiplayer with no chat, no names and no ranking, which is exactly why the company means something.
NHL 13True Performance Skating made virtual hockey feel like ice for the first time.
Borderlands 2Handsome Jack is the best villain in a shooter because he is funnier than you and never stops calling to prove it.
Mass Effect 3The finest hours BioWare ever wrote sit twenty hours before an ending that answered a trilogy of choices with three coloured lights.
XCOM: Enemy UnknownFiraxis proves a beloved dead genre was never too complicated, only badly explained.
Diablo IIIThe best feeling combat the series ever had, shipped inside the worst set of business decisions Blizzard ever made.