Hey guys welcome back to my review of 2012. Sorry about the delay in making this blog I was distracted by Christmas, my bad. Anyway last time out I talked about how slow the start of the year was for gaming. But I forgot to mention the best thing that happened in March: the Welsh rugby team winning the grand slam for the third time in 7 years. But that has nothing to do with gaming so lets move on.

April is a bit of a confusing month. There were a lot of good releases but none that really stood out. Prototype 2 was April's top seller. An open world action game, Prototype 2 has you play as a new protagonist as you attempt to stop a second Mercer virus outbreak and the evil plot that comes with it. While it was very well received by critics, Prototype 2 didn't gain huge popularity with a broad commercial audience (as stated by publisher Activision) which resulted in Radical entertainment, the games creator, suffering job losses. Tribes Ascend and Blacklight retribution were the years first major free to play games of 2012. Tribes offered a high speed multiplayer experience whereas blacklight gave a more traditional multiplayer experience; both at the low price of £0.00 (Although tribes does offer experience boosts and early unlocks at a cost). Indie game Legends of Grimrock showed us what RPGs are missing today as it gained success using old school mechanics. Other notable releases included Trail: Evolution, a favourite of the gamespot staff, the darkness 2, a very well received sequel which was let down by a short campaign length and a lacklustre multiplayer, and the first episode of the walking dead, a game I'll talk more about in a latter blog. Then there was Kinect Star wars; which I like to think was a warning that Lucas arts were planning on selling the franchise to song and dance loving disney. Otherwise it won't be mentioned again.

May, what can I say about May. We were another month closer to finding out how the awful the opening ceremony of the London Olympics would be, surprisingly good as it turns out, another American pie film graced our cinema screens, this time starring the original cast, and Blizzard finally released Diablo 3. Yes for the second time in as many years Blizzard released a game that wasnt Warcraft related, with the diablo series being the lucky recipient this time out. After being announced four years ago and spending a whopping 11 years in development (that's long even by R* standards) Diablo 3 became one of the most anticipated Pc games of all time as it broke many pre-order records and claimed the record for fastest selling Pc game of all time; selling 3.5 million copies in just one day. The game also received a lot of positive reviews and looked set to oust Skyrim from its throne. So why didnt it?

Three words: Always online DRM. This little feature came under criticism after it was found out that an online connection was required even for the single player campaign. While its nice to know that publishers are doing all they can to fight piracy, it wasn't nice for fans to find out they would not be issued refunds if they were unable to play the game for any reason. This coupled with lag in the campaign, a glitch with the Templars shield, and online PvP not yet being implemented ruined what should've been an amazing experience; especially after having to wait all those years. But for those who dont play Pc games; Dragons dogma offered a great fantasy RPG adventure, great combat, and some marvellous boss battles. Ghost recon: future soldier and Max Payne 3 offered a less fantasy-related experience; with the latter being the better received game.

With June came the biggest gaming event of the year: E3 2012. The show which promises to show us what to expect from the industry in the near future, most of the pre-event talk was about how we were going to be showered in news about the next generation of consoles. While Nintendo gladly spent time showing off the Wii U, it looked like Sony and Microsoft didn't get the memo. They decided to talk about their gimmicks instead. Although they did show us some interesting games being released in 2013: The last of us, Devil may Cry, crysis 3, Dead Space 3, Injustice: Gods Among Us. Looking away from the future and more to the present Junes releases weren't spectacular. Sins of a solar empire: rebellion was an expansion which brought many improvements but didn't add the campaign which most fans were screaming for. Lollipop chainsaw was a typical hack and slash with a half-naked teenager on the box art. Spec ops: the line provided a chilling story but lacked the better gameplay offered by other third person shooters.

July had a console release of Risen2: Dark water, an XBL release of spelunky, and a sequel for indie game orcs muct die! that game one of the Yogscast members made a video series for. Otherwise July wasn't full of inspiring games at all. Which brings me to the end of the blog. Now I did plan for this to be a three part blog series, but after looking at the games released between October and December alone I realised that its going to be impossible without it being a boring read. Anyway thanks again for reading and I'll see you for the next instalment.