Top 5 Video Games of 2012

FEZ is an impressive and creative work of art developed by Polytron and created by Phil Fish. This game has been in development for an extremely long time (first announced in 2007), but was finally released this year.

The main character, Gomez, lives in a 2D world. On his travels, he encounters the hexahedron (cube) who hands him a fez and from this, Gomez is now able to see the world in three dimensions. Subsequently, the hexahedron explodes and Gomez then spends his time attempting to collect the 32 cubes needed to repair the hexahedron and the world around him.

The biggest unique feature of FEZ is that the 2D world can be rotated and therefore 'experienced' in three dimensions. This is totally in the player's control and it's up to you when the world rotates. Having this feature unlocks the potential for many different puzzles and especially ones that you're unlikely to have seen before. 

They're not easy either. Most of the difficulty comes from trying to wrap your head around the fact that there is actually multiple sides to the game world. Rotating the game allows you to move from a ledge on one 'face' to another 90 degrees round the corner.

Trials Evolution is a sequel to the insanely popular Trials HD. Developed by Red Lynx, it's a 2.5D racing game that's provided me with hours of fun and excruciating pain trying to beat others' times.

There were plenty of tracks to keep me entertained from the second I purchased the game and they come in a wide variety of settings.

There's easy tracks to help you learn the ropes, but there's also insanely difficult tracks which have rather embarrassingly taken me upwards of 20 minutes to complete.

Skill games are a notable feature too. Ever wanted to know how far you can flap your body after crashing on a bike? Now you can find out!

Wondered how well you'd do skiing on a dirt track? Give it a try! They're highly obscure but this only adds to how much I enjoy playing them.

It's another game that's made exponentially better by its community. As the trailer states, it has a map editor of epic proportions.

It's absolutely crazy what some people have created. I've even seen recreations of pacman!

It had to be, didn't it? I can't think of a game that I've loved playing more this year than Far Cry 3.

From my point of view, it's flawless. Granted, I'm slightly biased as I loved the previous two games, but still, it's an absolutely incredible game and you're definitely missing out if you've not played it.

The game's easily one of the most picturesque I've played and the fact that it's set on a tropical island is new to me too. It's got to be one of the best looking games of the year regardless of whether you like the game or not.

The gameplay is marvellous. The campaign's storyline is in-depth and had me gripped from start to finish. The methods of gradually unlocking pieces of the game are great and the tatau (tattoo) ranking up system is novel also.

The idea of having to hunt specific animals to create extra ammo pouches, inventory space and syringe slots sounds like a chore but it's really the opposite. I've never actually feared for my life while swimming in a river in a game before. Far Cry 3 changed that. Stupid crocodiles.

Simple things such as the way fire spreads and the way enemies react to it increase the game's satisfaction level exponentially. The way you can choose how you wish to approach a mission and have different outcomes depending on it is incredible too.