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Gaming's Defining Moment - 2012

Warning: spoilers within.

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Save a species, loose a friend. Steal supplies to survive, become a murderer. Leap into oblivion to save a complete stranger or journey alone. Choose monogamy or infidelity.

2012's defining moment stretches across multiple titles. It's the question of choice. Or at least the illusion of it.

As much as last year's entry proved, it's about being emotionally invested in the moment. No analytical weighing of consequence for each possible action, each possible consequence. Studios had us completely absorbed in their narratives, committed to our actions with fantastic story-telling that hid the rolling of virtual dice utterly.

There were other candidates for this year's Defining Moment. mechanics polished to perfection after seven years of refinement. Vistas that caused us to catch our breath. Moments that have spawned dynamically on battlefields that no one would believe in the retelling.

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Gaming's Defining Moment - 2012

Yet the true water cooler moments this year are ones that have been discussed repeatedly since. A series of roundhouse punches to the gut entirely of our own making. Virtual lives made wretched, beautiful.

Choice is the territory of the RPG. But it's a trope that's bled into other genres ever more frequently this generation until nearly everything offers a bastardisation of those elements. In a time when diversity is a much- sought rarity, the illusion of choice, freedom, is one that's been openly welcomed to every fold.

We've talked about The Walking Dead to death. In the office, in the pub, eulogising it to newcomers. But that reverence is horrifically, rightly, earned.

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That the entire five episode story is about parenthood isn't wrong, though its much more effective when you're not aware at how funnelled your decisions become, even if that's what Telltale is pushing you towards all along. The final denouement comes in two parts: the last advice you give to a terrified girl, forced to grow up much too fast, and the final, brutally short post-credit scene in which all your nightmares could come true.

Gaming's Defining Moment - 2012

Mass Effect 3 concludes decisions a generation in the making.
The impact's lost if you haven't spent over half a decade living with the Normandy crew and a universe of intriguing characters. But the third finally forces you to make cold choice on issues that have dogged the series since beginning.

Fallouts can scar: species and friends die. The galaxy inexplicably changes. Think why BioWare went to the never-recorded lengths in issuing a new extended ending after so much audience pressure: we wanted payoff to our choices, our lives. Something we'll never get in real life after we're gone, but something we'd always ask: did our presence have worth?

Its not all nihilism. One of the most gratifying choices this year was in sticking with a complete stranger in Journey. Again, foreknowledge somewhat spoilt the experience - the game never implicated stated those joining you were human rather than AI, credits acknowledgement the only nod to those souls on the road with you.

Gaming's Defining Moment - 2012

Yet it was heartwarming to see moments when instinct leant towards aid rather than dismissal. How partners were so quick in jumping after you if you stumbled off a cliffside. How you drifted shoulder to shoulder in that last mountain climb for heat, companionship.

Selfish desire was the main theme of Catherine, the oddball puzzler / life-sim that saw a UK release at the start of the year. in the age of social media, it's easier than ever to live a separate life to the one with a partner, yet excited titillation wrestled violently with strong feelings of guilt.

There's many more smaller examples throughout the year, but these are the examples that really stood out. Games can be too clear on the routes through them, illusion shattered, mathematical equations of decisions laid bare like intestines. Great storytelling effectively washes that clarity away, leaving you drowning in the moment at hand. It's in these moments that we feel as alive as if we'd scored a headshot, a last minute goal.

In 2012 there was no VR helmet needed - we felt, we bled, we mourned. We lived.



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