Video games 2012 - a year in review

Video games in 2012: year in review - Telegraph: " . . . But the true creative success stories were digitally distributed games. Free from the pressures of big business boxed sales, downloadable games are able to provide more diverse pleasures at lower prices. The result is an audience more willing to take a punt on riskier concepts, and developers more willing to provide them. Two were revelatory. Thatgamecompany’s Journey was a staggeringly beautiful rumination on faith and companionship, as you played a robe-swaddled traveller on a pilgrimage across shifting sands, occasionally accompanied by strangers playing the game at the same time. Telltale’s The Walking Dead, meanwhile, provided a masterclass in interactive storytelling, exploring the human condition while casting you as a paternal protector. Every decision you made had real weight behind it, as you became the de facto leader of a ragtag bunch of wonderfully characterised survivors. Elsewhere, the startling emergence of crowd-funding on websites such as Kickstarter may see a major shift in how games are published, and the burgeoning independent scene on both PC and smartphone devices continued to impress. A lower barrier to entry for prospective developers and the ease of distributing games over the internet has paved the way for the second coming of the “bedroom coder”, creating a wildly diverse library of games that may not have the production values of their big-budget cousins, but are full of promise and fresh ideas. It is this kind of enthusiasm and inventiveness that deserted many of the blockbuster games this year. 2013 will mark the arrival of new technology that may decide the future of this young medium. . . ."


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