2012 was a surprisingly good year for stealth games. What surprised me even more is that I like all of them. Stealth isn’t typically a genre that I like, but Dishonored, Mark of the Ninja and Stealth Bastard have got me reconsidering my genre preferences. Stealth Bastard stands out from the other two, though, for being primarily a puzzle game instead of an action game. It’s a nice change of pace, the challenge is high, and it feels unique in a crowded year for the genre. READ MORE
Editor’s note: From now until January 2, we’ll be sharing our individual favorites from 2012.
Orcs Must Die! was great, and the sequel improves on it in every way. There are more traps, more interesting maps, more playable characters, more download packs, more enemy types and the addition of cooperative play. My only complaint with OMD!2 is that my favorite weapon, the swinging mace, is not as effective as it was in the original. READ MORE
Anniversary / Devil's Advocate / Features / by
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I’m not going to lie to you: I don’t particularly like Kotaku. I’ll visit occasionally when a friend links me to an interesting story, but left to my own devices I don’t visit. Why? Because I find it difficult to find the interesting articles since their redesign, and most of what I end up seeing is game-related cakes. I have Reddit for that, and it works better because the cakes are easier to find, and I can completely bypass them if I want to read better articles. Recently I was sent a link to Kotaku’s take on the Humble THQ Bundle. READ MORE
There’s a lot to love about Ratchet & Clank games: they’re light-hearted, they’re challenging, they gracefully merged platformer gameplay with RPG leveling mechanics and, most importantly, the developers aren’t afraid to try new things. If it weren’t for this desire to iterate and improve, we wouldn’t have weapons that level up, time-bending puzzles, giant Clank segments or the off-the-wall weapon variety that the series is known for. READ MORE
Mass Effect DLC is a little strange. Story-heavy games are sometimes hard to go back to, and that is absolutely epitomized by Mass Effect 3. The story ended. I finished it months ago. In order to play the DLC packs, I’ve had to load up a save from before the final act of the game, and it’s a bit strange. I know what’s going to happen, and I know that since the DLC packs can’t and won’t radically alter the ending, that unless a pack really dives into the lore (like Leviathan did), my efforts won’t have a real and lasting effect on the universe. READ MORE
