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Metacritic: 2012 was terrible year for games

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DVDBack23 @ Jan 02, 2013 16:24 | 6 comments

Review aggregator site Metacritic says 2012 was a bad year for games, with the lowest number of high rated games since they started in 2009.

Only 18 total games reached a score of 90 or higher during the year, down from 23 in 2011.

14 of the games were console hits, while the other four were available for PCs and handheld.

Says MetaCritic: "Not even the late arrival of a great new installment in Ubisoft's Far Cry series could make up for the fact that the past 12 months paled in comparison to recent years, at least at the high end of the scale."

Game of the year was awarded to TellTale Games' The Walking Dead with a Metascore of 95. 'Persona 4 Golden' for the PSV came in at a close second, with a score of 94.

On the console side, Mass Effect 3 (for PS3/Xbox) came in at 93 followed by 'Journey' for PS3 at 92.

PS3 gamers had a slightly better year as average Metascores were 70.3 on 204 games. Xbox 360 games scored 69.5 on 243 games and Wii/Wii U games clocked in at 68.3 with 53 games.

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Comments

Comment by: Morreale (Jan 02, 2013 16:42)

Meh. There wasn't 1 game this year that made me want to play my PS3 again, or make me keep this new 360 I'm trying to sell, so I'd say they were all bad lol

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Comment by: 21Q (Jan 02, 2013 18:22)

Just to note that persona 4 golden is for the PSV not the PSP. It's also not surprising as these systems are pretty much at their end of life year. Developers are likely focusing on the next gen system games by now.

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Comment by: DVDBack23 (Jan 02, 2013 19:54)

Originally posted by 21Q:
Just to note that persona 4 golden is for the PSV not the PSP. It's also not surprising as these systems are pretty much at their end of life year. Developers are likely focusing on the next gen system games by now.

Thanks for catching that. Updated.

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Comment by: KillerBug (Jan 02, 2013 20:29)

I try to take Metacritic scores with a grain (or pallet) of salt. The new Hitman was by far the best game of the year IMHO...very fun to play with plenty of replayability, great story (by video game standards) and good realism (again, by video game standards). Metacritic gave it an 83 with people bashing it for their own mistakes. One guy complained it was like COD...obviously he never figured out how to hide. Another complained that it was buggy because when he killed someone a nearby guard heard the body hit the floor...I'd complain if they didn't hear that!

Meanwhile, the winner list has two different sports games that are just rehashes of the same games that have been released every year of the current generation, that got good scores because the people who bought and played them already knew exactly what to expect and didn't buy if they didn't like the last 5 identical games with (some) different characters. Then there were 4 games (actually, 2 versions each of 2 games) that were nothing but overpriced DLCs...same deal there. I don't think many people bought Mass Effect 3 if they didn't like Mass Effect 2.

Then you have The Walking Dead for 360 at the top of the list...it was on 3 platforms and only one version made the list? I don't care how much you like the game, if one version got the #1 spot and the other two didn't make the top 18, you know something is broken there.

All that said, I'd not say it was a good year for games...other than DLCs, I really only enjoyed one game released this year...not too optimistic about next year either. Right now the only game I would be willing to pre-order is GTA5...and that might not even come to PC this year (GTA4 didn't play very well on 360 and PS3, so I wouldn't even consider getting GTA5 for either of those.)

Comment by: harhumph (Jan 02, 2013 21:05)

I stopped being a hardcore gamer after N64 (the beginning of my college days), I just miss the old school games like old Mario, Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania (especially Castelvania), FF and Dragon Quest. I know some of these games are still being made, but not made well at least for me. Remakes of the originals with updated graphics and music and make the gameplay a little better would be cool, but I miss the side scrollers, and I don't enjoy the controllers with 15 plus buttons on them anymore, I am now a casual gamer who plays an android game here and there. Oh and I emulate the hell out of atari thru PS1 !

Comment by: wmccusker (Jan 05, 2013 22:22)

I don't understand how the far cry 3 can get a different rating on ps3 than it does for xbox. They are the same game.