Video
games can be many things to many people, so the idea of proclaiming a
single one as the best of 2012 strikes us as a little limiting. This
year, instead of screaming at each other for hours in a sweaty,
smoke-filled room until we emerge with a handful of winners, your
friends at 1UP have decided to forsake categorization and write about the
experiences that brought us the most enjoyment this year
— and that’s the point of playing video games, isn’t it?
Like any year in video game
history, 2012 had its share of interesting surprises, but the one
involving Capcom’s fan-favorite Resident Evil series may have shocked
me the most. If I could travel back and place a bet on which of 2012’s
three RE-related projects would deliver a satisfying survival horror
experience — one that felt in line with the original game — I
would’ve placed the safe bet on Resident
Evil 6. Judging from some early
trailers and Captivate impressions, how could I not? And, somehow, it
turns out I would have chosen wrong. Resident
Evil Revelations, a portable
experience for Nintendo’s 3DS, pulled off an unfathomable upset over
its console counterparts. The developers kept a laser-focus on pacing
and maintained
a consistently creepy tone to match its high production visuals. This
conservative approach eventually grew into spectacle-level
entertainment over time, but Revelations also revived the low-light
suspense missing from RE5.
