eGamer Awards 2012: Best PC Game

If anyone ever doubted the PC’s capabilities, then 2012 offered up a handful of truly stellar games that showed exactly why the platform is still unbeatable at what it does best. Head down below to look at the top PC games of 2012, and see which one we considered to be the best of all.

 

For the best console game awards, we’re only going to be considering exclusive and semi-exclusive titles as nominees for the platform, as that arguably makes the most sense to us, and would prevent the same games – or multiplatform games – from being nominated across multiple platforms. To define a semi-exclusive title, we’re talking about a game that may have originally been exclusive until it was ported somewhere else, or a game that has its origin primarily on one platform and was clearly designed for a specific platform. This award acknowledges the greatest exclusive games on each console, and allows us to choose which of them was the best, and evaluate the consoles entirely.

 

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 was an incredible highlight this year, and not just because it was an MMO that required no subscription fees. It had so much to offer us, and cleanly blew us away with its innovations and downright awesome gameplay. Perhaps the most rewarding and best part of the game was its stunning PvP system, which was just one of many great talking points. Sure, it’s difficult to state outright if this is the MMO as we can’t know where it will go in the future, but right now we can rather easily say that’s one of the most attractive ones out there, and definitely one of the best to play right now.

 

Torchlight 2

Torchlight 2 was a highlight for the PC this year. Sure, it didn’t reinvent the wheel or deliver anything completely new, but who cares? It was simply an incredible game, dare we say one that stole Diablo’s thrones. It did absolutely everything well, and was just a blast to play, even more so in co-op. Honestly, there wasn’t much else we could have wanted from this game. It was amazing, visually stunning, it was stuffed with content and very replayable, and on top of that gamers were free to mod it with Steam Workshop. And the grand cherry on top? It was extremely cheap for what you were getting.

 

PlanetSide 2

PlanetSide 2 was a great surprise this year, although it did come to the party rather late, releasing just a month ago. Still, the wait was surely worth it. This free-to-play title was a mix of MMO and shooting, and the result was an absolute winner, and perhaps the best attempt at trying to combine these two elements yet. The scale of PlanetSide 2′s battles was most of the time breathtaking, and its gigantic scope became that much more impressive when its strategy and teamplay elements still played pivotal roles. Its rich and deep gameplay was extremely rewarding if you took the time to learn it, and we really felt as though this game needed a hazard warning because of how utterly addictive it was.

 

Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2 was another stand-out title this year, as it combined both real-time strategy and first-person shooting to create something very unique. It was certainly one of the most interesting and intense multiplayer experiences we had on our PCs this year, and the result was just surprisingly good. It did require a certain level of patience and it had quite a steep learning curve, but the satisfaction and enjoyment came from learning how to be effective in your team, and the game’s strong focus on tactics and teamplay ensured that conquering this was extremely rewarding. Natural Selection 2 was unique, but it wasn’t just its difference that earned it so much of praise, but its commendable execution.

 

Angry Birds Star Wars

Don’t judge us. Seriously, don’t. If there’s one thing Angry Birds Star Wars understood, it was how to turn us into absolute nerds. Well, bigger ones than we already are. Whether or not you were a Star Wars fan, Angry Birds Star Wars was a blast to play, and a truckload of fun. Packed with clever twists, variety, fan service and the staple gameplay that was as addictive as ever, there was nothing really to dislike about this game. Many would agree that this was the best Angry Birds title yet, and while it was far from the most original game around, we definitely find ourselves agreeing with that.

 

 

It wasn’t Natural Selection 2, because it had a few flaws and faults in execution that held it back. We really liked the game and concept, but it will take a bit of time for its issues to be ironed out, if at all, and that puts it slightly out of favour compared to our stronger nominees.

Angry Birds Star Wars didn’t take this one either, because at heart it was still an Angry Birds, shying away from innovation and not particularly wowing us.

It wasn’t PlanetSide 2, and that’s simply because our remaining nominees posed a far greater argument for the prize. We don’t want to take anything away from this game.

This was a hard fought battle, but in the end Torchlight II didn’t take it either, and that can only come down to the fact that our winner stands above it.

 

The WINNER of eGamer’s Best PC Game Award of 2012 is.. (click to reveal)