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Reader Discussion: What's Your Favorite Gaming Moment From 2012?

There were a lot of great games released in 2012. If you had to whittle all of your favorite gaming experiences from the year down to one particular moment, what would it be?

How about I go first? 

My moment of the year came courtesy of Far Cry 3. I was staking out a pirate outpost from a distance. I'm kind of neurotic with these kinds of things, and I was taking my time. I'd walk a few steps, scan the patrols with my camera, and then move into cover. Over the course of about 10 minutes I had worked my way around the perimeter, and I was just about ready to mount my attack. I pulled out my sniper rifle for one last quick survey and was lining up a shot when, out of nowhere, a tiger pounced on the pirate I'd zoomed in on and the place immediately erupted into chaos. I ended up just walking in with a shotgun and mowing down the unsuspecting (and understandably panicked) survivors.

It was silly, unexpected, and a fitting summary of one of my favorite games of the year.

This isn't a favorite moment, but I figured I'd share while I still had your attention. I was playing some Skyrim yesterday (getting around to playing the DLC), when a dragon did one of its dragony nosedives at me and my party. It hit the ground with its nose, and, without changing from the diving pose, ricocheted off and bounced into the stratosphere. That was really...something.

Your turn! What do you have?

As you might imagine, the comments are going to be a minefield of potential spoilers. Tread carefully.

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Comments
  • My twin brother and I killing Warrior in Borderland 2.
  • Lighting Matchstick on fire in Borderlands 2.
  • Dishonored:
    Visiting the Void.
  • The first time I popped my squad into a ship and ran face to face into a sectopod that just destroyed my entire team.
  • Hah! One for the 2012 glitches! Mine would probably have to be AC III's ending. The game itself certainly isn't the best of the year, or even Desmond as a character, but I loved seeing the resolution of the First Civilization mystery. I'm a history/conspiracy buff, so getting to see the whole alien/earth connections of the franchise fleshed out into a new beginning for the series was very cool. Glitches in the game aside, I thought that the story directions like that made for a promising future for the series. (Though counting on fewer glitches in the future, Ubisoft)
  • Yelling "What the f*** just happened?!?!" at the end of Mass Effect 3.
  • Posterizing my first defender in NBA 2k12.  I felt so accomplished.

  • Probably the extended cut ending of Mass Effect 3. It was a bittersweet goodbye to a character I held great reverence for the last 5-6 years.

    In Far Cry 3, getting my first triple takedown was awesome.

    Skyrim(not a 2012 title, but...) getting modded to where it looked like a "next-gen" game.

  • Reaching the summit in Journey. There are only a few experiences in gaming that seem so magical.
  • Hmm...probably the final battle of Borderlands 2 with my friends. Or the final battle of Xenoblade.
  • not a fan of dubstep, but lighting the fields on fire in Far Cry 3, it was so fitting.
  • igniting the pot field in FARCRY 3 and watching people burn the the fine ass rhythm of skrillex in the background...was balls deep into epic!
  • My second playthrough of Journey was with just two people. One person I met for about two seconds in the first area where you meet people. But in the next section I met another player and we stayed together the rest of the way. It was amazing.

    Tuchanka- Mass Effect 3. The rest of the game was a severe disappointment for me but every single thing about that mission was golden. The writers in charge of that one should do their own game.
  • Shooting face mcshooty everywhere but the face!!!
  • Not really a 'moment' but re-playing Half Life series again after a long time; with the Black Mesa in place of the first one... great games, best story and lore ever in a videogame.


  • Al my all nighters with my friends. That is always the best.

  • Hmm, so many to list. Using Grimlock for the 1st time in Fall of Cybertron Campaign, the MP improvement in FoC,  The Face Mcshooty mission in Borderlands 2, the improvement of Madden 13, but most recently, would be how much fun PlayStation AllStars actually is. I can't get enough of it.

  • It's either White Phosphorous in Spec Ops (that game impressed the hell out of me) or... hmm. I guess, leaving Earth when playing Mass Effect 3's demo. Forgetting the rest of the game... that moment was truly solemn. The song from that moment still makes me feel that sadness, it was perfect. Although, there also was the moment where I found an alternative solution to a puzzle in Tiny & Big without breaking the game's logic. In fact, it made perfect sense within the game's logic, and that reminded me of just how brilliantly done the game was. My last possibility would be when I first tried the DmC demo. I had never played a Devil May Cry game before and... oh my gosh, it was beautifully done. As a designer, it practically made my heart sing at how well done the gameplay was. It made Arkham City's combat look like a proof of concept tech demo. It made Heavenly Sword feel like a pre-Alpha version of it. It was a brawler without obsession of combos, that focused on observation and on the fly tactics, that rewarded button mashing and strategy all the same, that had actually entertaining platforming, and included a boss fight that didn't require any bloody QTES!
  • Scaling Kaldwin's Bridge for the first time in Dishonored.

  • Definitly killing Kalameet in the artorius of the abyss DLC for Darksouls, That guy gave me so much trouble but I was super happy when I managed to beat him.
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