PixlBit

What were our favorites in each genre in 2012?

Halo 4 - Winner

I suffer from a condition I like to describe as shooter fatigue, which I think stems from my long history with the genre. I've been pointing guns at things and pulling the trigger from a first person perspective since I first discovered Wolfenstein 3D. I played Blake Stone next, then Doom, then Descent, then Quake, then Unreal, then Half Life, then Counter Str... well you get the idea. Suffice to say, by the time Halo 4 came around I really felt like I had played it all and was kinda over it. I'm not saying I wasn't excited about the game at all, but I didn't expect a very remarkable experience with the title.

Boy were my expectations shattered. The graphics, of course, were the first thing I noticed, and they are outstanding. Before long it became apparent that the entire game was a well polished work of art. New covenant character models, animations, and enemies showed off the technical ability of Halo's new developers. The sounds are spot on, dynamic, and believable (as believable as plasma and hard light based weaponry can sound anyway.) The game contains some of the most fantastically detailed skyboxes I've ever seen, and the motion capture was top notch as well, with characters' facial expressions and gestures coming across as genuine and believable.

Multiplayer is fun and exciting. They borrowed what they needed to from other shooters, and added something major: Spartan Ops. Now, when I inevitably become frustrated with fighting other human beings, my friends and I can go pop some Covies and Promethians to change the pace. It's a great idea and will attract players who were previously uninterested in the game's multilayer components, as well as keep Halo veterans in the hopper longer than war games alone ever could.

Then there's the story. 343 Industries promised to consider the Master Chief as a person, a claim that actually caused me to have a bit of a sarcastic chuckle at their expense when I first heard it. I'm no lore junkie when it comes to Halo, and really all the Master Chief had done for me previously was hold my gun and tell me what switches to push and bad guys to shoot in the head. Likewise with his AI companion Cortana.

Playing through the game, I was astounded to find that they had actually pulled it off. Somehow 343, without treading on anything established in the Bungie years, managed to make me care about  Master Chief, as well Cortana, and their relationship. The last part may be their biggest narrative accomplishment. It's not a romance, and it never could be, but what 343 did was take two of the most emotionally unavailable characters in the medium and have them demonstrate their honest love for each other in a way that should have the hacks in Hollywood taking notes.

Halo 4 certainly didn't re-write the rules of the FPS, but it did accomplish far more than I expected it to. As a result, I, and some of the other PixlBit staff, have been playing it far more than expected, which is a testament to the talent of 343 Industries. They have clearly shown their ability to run with the torch Bungie lit over a decade ago, and I hope to see more of their creativity and talent on display in the future of the franchise.

Write-up by Angelo Grant

Borderlands 2 - Runner Up

Our second foray into the wasteland planet that is Pandora didn’t veer too much from established territory.  What already worked for the celebrated original title was brought along to the follow-up with a few tweaks and some minor polish applied.  For many, this would be enough, but the series helmsmen at Gearbox wanted to address the original’s greatest weakness – the story.  Characters reappearing from the original were given greater substance, and the player was given purpose and an objective beyond simply locating a mythical vault.  This added depth has been enough to keep Borderlands amongst the best of the genre and there’s no reason to think that another addition to the series wouldn’t be as well.

Write-up by Jesse Miller