Games of 2012

We often bemoan the encroaching invasiveness of the modern digital age.  Services like Facebook and Google are pretty notorious for collecting all kinds of data on us.  The amount of information that they know about a single person can be a bit creepy.  There's a fair amount of faith required to trust that they will respect our privacy, and it's clear that some are better at this than others.  But there are times when I really appreciate my digital footprint.  I like being able to explore my memory with the aid of some automatic stenographer in the cloud.  It's with this help that with a quick run through of Xbox and BoardGameGeek that I can tell you exactly what I played in 2012.

So, if you didn't already know it, I'm a gamer.  Hello.  It's pretty irrefutable when you look at these lists below.  I enjoy games at some fundamental level.  I love learning.  I love skill mastery.  I love interactive narrative.  I love the breath of experiences that games can often.

As various publications out there are putting together "game of the year" lists I feel like this is a good time to reflect back on my year of gaming.  Outside of Bastion I didn't make any game-related posts in 2012 (finishing the Music Made Me project took at the words out of me).  I'm not going to be able to comment on this entire backlog, or cough up some grandiose meta-editorial last minute.  But I can list them; that seems like a thing I can do.

So here you are: the games that I played in 2012, analog and digital, arranged by platform, then in reverse chronological order.

Xbox

• FEZ
• Guardians of Middle-Earth
• Rock Band 3
• Borderlands 2
• Dead Space 2
• Rock Band Blitz
• Darksiders II
• Magic 2013
• Trine 2
• The Walking Dead
• Halo 4
• Mark of the Ninja
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown
• Dance Central 3
• Minecraft
• Awesomenauts
• Spelunky
• Dance Central 2
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD
• Geometry Wars Evolved 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Rayman Origins
• Assassin's Creed Revelations
• Mass Effect 3
• Alan Wake
• Brutal Legend
• L.A. Noire
• Lara Croft: Guardian of Light
• Dungeon Defenders
• Clash of Heroes
• Half-Minute Hero
• Renegade Ops
• Orcs Must Die!
• Bastion
• Gears of War 3
• Halo: CE Anniversary
• Insanely Twisted: Shadow Planet
• Epic Dungeon

Windows Phone

• Wordament
• Feed Me Oil
• Carcassone
• BulletAsylum
• Mush
• de Blob Revolution
• Parachute Panic
• Fragger
• Bug Village
• Revolution
• Katamaridamacy
• Breeze
• Tanks

Windows RT

• Jetpack Joyride
• Wordament
• Fruit Ninja

Windows

• FTL
• Guild Wars 2
• Artemis
• Lord of the Rings Online

(no automatic tracking here, so these are by memory)

Web

• Frog Fractions
• Highgrounds

(I don't have any ability to track these automatically, so what you have here are a couple that I remembered)

Board Game

• Escape: The Curse of the Temple
• Seasons
• Cards Against Humanity
• Go Away Monster!
• Survive: Escape from Atlantis!
• Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre
• Small World
• Ascension
• Infiltration
• Tsuro of the Seas
• King of Tokyo
• Super Dungeon Explore
• FITS
• Elder Sign
• Race for the Galaxy
• Castle Panic
• Penny Arcade: The Game - Rumble in R'lyeh
• Sheepland
• Power Grid: the First Sparks
• Incan Gold
• Dungeon Command
• Zpocalypse
• 3012
• The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus
• Nuns on the Run
• Carcassonne
• Small World Underground
• Zombie Dice
• Sentinels of the Multiverse
• 7 Wonders
• Cargo Noir
• The Red Dragon Inn
• Conquest of Planet Earth: The Space Alien Game
• Betrayal at House on the Hill
• Pandemic

(I manually log all my board game plays at BoardGameGeek, because I'm crazy like that)