The 10 Greatest Gaming Moments of 2012

We know we say this every year, but 2012 was a huge year for games. A lot happened in the world of gaming, from new business models emerging to seemingly niche games finding success in the most unlikely of places.

There were a few moments that stuck out to us, though, and we'd like to take this time—the calm between the storms of Christmas and the new year—to talk about them with you.

Of course, we're bound to miss a few, so let us know about your favorite gaming moments of the year in the comments or on Twitter.

Rumors leading up to the announcement of Assassin's Creed 3 predicted that it would be set everyone from Japan to Egypt. But the truth was much more unpredictable—so much so that we hardly believed the news when it leaked.

Assassin's Creed 3 being set in the British colonies—aka the United States—during the Revolutionary War was one of the most surprising things that happened all year. And though the game ultimately had its share of issues, that unique setting was easily its best feature.

E3 is often the source of the biggest news of the year, but recently it's seemed like the only games to get announced are sequels, reboots and other unoriginal titles.

That changed this year when Watch Dogs, the newest Ubisoft franchise, was announced. The action game lets players instantly hack into any systems—from cell phones to traffic lights—in a near-futuristic city. If Watch Dogs is what's going to ring in the next generation of Xbox and PlayStation hardware, then we're going to be in for a treat.

The PS Vita struggled all year. Hell, it's still struggling. But if there's one ray of hope for its future, its PlayStation cross-buy. Sony's cross-buy program lets you get two copies of a game—one for Vita and one for PS3—for the price of a single game.

Cross-buy is exactly what we had hoped would happen when Sony's portable systems began really catching up with consoles. The Vita is powerful enough that games released on both it and the PS3 have become pretty dang similar. We were worried that we'd have to buy two copies of games like Sound Shapes and PlayStation All-Stars, but Sony came through and took a step in the right direction for the industry.

Ubisoft's Motion Pictures division did a fantastic job with the short film Ghost Recon: Alpha, so we can't wait to see what's going to happen with the Assassin's Creed movie. Especially with Michael Fassbender on board.

The Shame and Prometheus star got on board this year, possibly even for multiple roles. Details are scarce, but with talents like Ubisoft and Fassbender driving the project, it may actually turn out good.

The Mass Effect 3 controversy was absurd, with fans petitiong, protesting and boycotting BioWare over the game's unsatisfying ending. But ultimately fans won out; BioWare caved, and the developers released an extended ending for free to their fans.

Regardless of which side you take in this debate, it's absolutely remarkable that fans have that much power over content creators in this industry. And that was another big change in 2012.

Dark Souls 2 was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Some Dark Souls fans claim to have seen it coming, but we can only assume they're lying, since we're the biggest Dark Souls fans around and we had literally no idea it was going to happen.

But the Dark Souls 2 trailer that debuted at the Spike Video Game Awards blew us away and gave us hope for the future of challenging, well-designed video games.

Austin Wintory's score for Journey being nominated for a Grammy was the clearest sign in 2012 that video games have continued to work their way into the pop culture conversation more and more every year.

Wintory's soundtrack was the first video game score ever to be nominated, and though we've yet to see whether it will win, it's awesome enough that it's even being considered—especially in a year that saw other composers ranging from John Williams to Trent Reznor nominated alongside Wintory.

Before Tim Schafer and his studio Double Fine jumpstarted the Kickstarter movement, there were basically two business models for game developers: get a big publisher to back you, or go full indie. Now, in 2012, developers can go straight to the fans through Kickstarter and other tools, and fans can vote (with their money) on exactly the games they want to be made.

There have been some duds, of course, but there have also been some successes. And it's all because one studio wanted to make a new adventure game that they knew fans wanted, yet no publisher would fund.

As surprising as it was to see Dark Souls 2, the biggest surprise of the year-end awards season had to be that The Walking Dead absolutely swept up. Telltale's adventure game, based on the popular zombie comic books and show, won a ton of game of the year awards, including the one from Spike's VGAs.

Not that it didn't deserve to win—but you've got to admit it seems like a niche title. And it's a licensed game, to boot, meaning by all logic it should suck.

Regardless of how you feel about the Wii U, you have to admit it's exciting that a new generation of game consoles has finally begun. Nintendo got a jump on Microsoft and Sony by releasing the Wii U before the other companies had even announced their new systems (they still haven't), and though ultimately the Wii U may prove underpowered, the other two are still going to be playing catch-up for a while.

And we happen to love our Wii U. Despite all its problems, games like ZombiU and Nintendo Land prove that there is a lot of potential there. We even enjoy posting on and checking the Miiverse.

So what did we miss this year? What were your favorite moments?