E3 2012
By now it's no secret that 2012 wasn't a great year for gaming in general, but perhaps no other event reinforced that feeling than this year's E3 convention in Los Angeles.
Chalk it up as a "filler year" or the stagnant wait time in between consoles cycles, but E3 has a lot to make up for in 2013. New systems from Microsoft and Sony are almost guaranteed to, at the very least, be teased, so hopefully the buzz will create the shot in the arm this industry so desperately needs.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (Vita)
What on earth happened to Call of Duty on the PlayStation Vita? Its console counterpart provides an excellent campaign and arguably the best online multiplayer experience to date, so what went wrong with the portable version that had industry pundits like Polygon's Russ Frushtick tweeting out "Call of Duty Vita feels like they got someone on Canal Street to make it for them"?
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified provides almost no entertainment value whatsoever and is, for all intents and purposes, a broken game. A laundry list of complaints coupled with a disastrous multiplayer made it painfully obvious that this game was just a chance to cash in on the CoD brand, and not make a compelling piece of software.
The Wii U launch
Star Wars Kinect
Not that any Kinect game really stood out in 2012, but one title, despite its confusing runaway success, baffled critics across the board. Star Wars Kinect was just awful, and it brought none of what Microsoft had teased at prior E3's to reality.
Instead, we were left with a clunky, unresponsive flailing-arms-fest, devoid of any sort of suavity and finesse. You know, just like a real Jedi.
There's already a Vita game drought
Less than a year since its release, the well of must-own Vita titles has dried up. Sure, there're a few gems hidden in the PSN store, but the system has not been able to even come close to the impressive launch list that hit back in February.
The promises of triple-A titles like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty turned out to be disappointments, and save for rare successes, the Vita is starting to get lonely.
Resident Evil 6 and Raccoon City
If it weren't for Resident Evil Revelations on the 3DS, the Resident Evil franchise might have been dead in the water by year's end.
Two disappointing titles soiled the series' reputation this year, leaving gamers wondering what went wrong. For starters, Resident Evil Raccoon City failed to entertain on any level. Its clunky gameplay and ugly design rendered it painful to play.
Resident Evil 6, a game that shares its name with some of history's best, went completely off the rails by abandoning a sizable portion of what RE veterans have come to know and love for nearly two decades.