Best played games of 2012

Code Of Princess (3DS)

Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

Atelier Totori (PS3)

Eternal Sonata (PS3)

Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

Winner : 

Super Mario 3D Land / Eternal Sonata

Most Played Games (2011) :

- Mortal Kombat (PS3)

- Numblast (PS3)

- Dragon Quest IX : Sentinels Of The Stary Skies (DS)

- Korg DS-10 (DS)

- Final Fantasy : The 4 Heroes Of Light (DS)

- Dark Souls (PS3)

- Genji : Days Of The Blade (PS3)

- Dead Nation (PS3)

- Wipeout HD / Fury (PS3)

Best-played games runner up :

- Dark Souls, Korg DS-10, Dead Nation, Mortal Kombat, DQIX (2010' winner)

Best-played game winner:

- Korg DS-10 (DS)

(honorable mentions: Dark Souls, Mortal Kombat, Dead Nation)

*Top played games in 2010*

-Sands of Destruction (DS)

-Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the starry skies (DS)

-Phantasy Star 0 (DS)

-Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (PS2)

-Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

-Bioshock (PS3)

-Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce (PS3)

-Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (PS3)

-Nier (PS3)

-Final Fantasy XIV (PC)

::: Best played game in 2010 :::

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the starry skies (DS)

runner-up: NIER (PS3), FF XIII (PS3), Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce (PS3),

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (PS2)

::: Worst played game in 2010 :::

Final Fantasy XIV (PC)

* Top played games in 2009 *

-Flower (PS3 - PSN)

-The King Of Fighters 02 / 03 (PS2)

-Popful Mail (Sega CD)

-Guilty Gear Isuka (PS2)

-Silent Hill : Homecoming (PS3)

-Samurai Showdown CD (Sega CD)

-Ecco The Dolphin 2 (Sega Genesis)

-Phantasy Star 0 (DS)

-Kolibri (Sega 32X)

-Virtua Fighter (Sega 32X)

-Virtua Racing (Sega 32X)

-Pokémon Platinium (DS)

-Final Fantasy XI Wings Of The Goddess (PS2)

-Sonic The Hedgehog (1-2) / Sonic CD (Sega Genesis / Sega CD)

Growing apart from gaming, coming back to it, but never letting go. Because it is a passion deeply rooted in my growth. A great escapism, entertainment, and when lucky, also a form of art to discover in itself. That much I believe in it.

So in those current days, where I am getting back to things I loved for distractions and purely as passions - even though they may not have me end up with a better job, or put something out in the world like when i draw or make music or design; during the course of my life, video games did things for me, inside of me.

And that is good enough.

_Quezakolt

I love gaming.

But I have a big, big problem.

I work 40th hours a week.

I have many issues in my life also.

I can barely find the strength to watch movies or seldom read parts of books.

Music is always running at work, no problems there.

Everytime I want to continue a game to where I left, I find myself thinking it is useless, because it takes too much time. But damn, I still DO love gaming. It's some kind of guilty feeling where my mind is saying; you could be doing something else that needs to be taken care of.

Resume my 3 years study of Japanese. Start up the Mandarin studying.

Keeping fit, taking care of the chores. Seeing people and friends. Doing my art. Making new music.

Such a puzzle it has become to fit in gaming!! I cannot find the hole which I can fill with gaming without guilt.

So my questions is, where do you find the time to game on? How many hours per week can you dedicate to your gaming time? Or are games just too long and complicated nowdays? Why does a single needs to have all the freaking possible features?

Every input is appreciated!!!

~S.D.

I think one of the point that is forgotten when comparing games to other art forms is the idea of "game over". It is something that occured to me while playing Persona 2 : Eternal Punishement. The game story, setting and characters are novel, relevant and adult. Even some of the basic game mechanics are very modern. But the game is trapped in old school mindset. It's not forgiving; it's something i'm ok with it (in parts) as I enjoy hardcore games. It's got long dungeons after dungeons, and it's got an encounter every 5 steps.

The reason I'm saying this is because, when I read a book, I never have to start over. When I watch a movie neither. But story-driven games in modern clothing have this to them: the notion of having lost sometimes as much as an hour or more and having to start over. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just don't know why some games seems to want me to see the game over screen so often. I think games, especially console-rpgs, would benefit from having some kind of continue-point system which you could restart from, instead of that one save-point outside the dungeon which is 2 hours back in the game. A lot of games have this already (Resident Evil 4 comes to mind), so I think that story-driven games could keep their difficulty while also becoming more user friendly and less aggravating.

Today I played the Motorstorm demo for the PS3 in a retail kiosk. I have to say that I wasnt too impressed. It looked a lot "1st gen software-type" (of course, it also is..) A lot of textures were muddy, blurry, and the game seemed fuzzy at times because of the loads of special effects & blurs that are thrown at you when you hit high-speed. It also seemed not to be perfectly fluid during the race intro, but I didnt notice anything wrong when actually playing. It was impressive in parts, but not overall. The PS3 is big. Bigger than I thought it was from looking at pics on the net. But I guess it's still pretty slick. I'm kind of disapointed in the controller, in that the shape felt too familiar. It got the basic design model used since the introduction of the dualshock controller on the first PS. But I havent been able to test-drive the motion & wireless-ness of it.

We've waited 10 years to get our hands on it. This is The Next Level. We're gonna give it the electroshocks it needs to be kept alive. And then we're gonna nurture it. In some way I'm about to make the useless useful; give life to a badly cared about piece of technology; Not even cared about during it's conception. This is one of the weirdest and most useless console add-on ever; In fact, it is. I'm gonna hug it like a baby. Coz no ones likes him. More to come. The code is : 4PM WIRES.

I got to play the 360 recently. The machine is awesome-looking. The design I think is good enough for me not to brand it as a bad Apple knockoff. Shiny metal (well, it seemed to be so), clear white, except on the controllers, which have a cream-white kind of color. The machine is slimmer but a tad long. Anyway, the machine itself impressed me on first sight. I played "Call Of Duty 2" for about 10minutes. It didnt even took me 5 secs to get the controls right, which can mean two things: the controller is well designed and, second, that goddamn game I played one like it 200 times before. The graphics where good, in some parts great, but not mind-blowing. It didnt blew my socks' off like the first time I say the Playstation, the N64 or the Dreamcast in action. Some videos showed promise, like Ghost Recon : awesomly photo-realistic in times. Thus far the game list doesnt hold my interest that much (except a few, but definitly not worth buying it for); just more of the same, and more of the same that I'm not really a big fan of in the first place. I guess, one thing I can say for certain, this new console shows promises and I wonder what the games will look like in 2 years. Hopefully, they'll be more interesting too.. About the XBOX live things... too many functions, too much stuff: I liked my consoles better when all they did was play games. Anyhow, too much for me, all theses features look like they're made to take control of your life. Unless... I guess, unless you have a lot of free time.. or lots of money.. make that both.