When you've got Traveller's Tales, Treyarch, and Telltale all at the top of their game, and firing on all cylinders, and the best they can muster are honourable mentions in the form of LEGO Lord of the Rings, Black Ops II, and The Walking Dead: Episode 5, you know it's been a good month. November 2012 might not quite have been as packed with releases as we've seen in previous years, but there was so much quality on show, and further honourable mentions should certainly go to Stealth Bastard Deluxe and Need For Speed: Most Wanted.
Runners-Up
PlanetSide 2 - Who said Free-to-Play had to be a dirty term? Well no one told SOE. PlanetSide 2 rewrote the book when it released properly earlier this month after an extremely promising beta period. Sure, it's had its share of teething troubles initially, but in delivering a triple-A shooter that you didn't have to pay a single penny for, and in teaching the big names a thing or two about player-driven cinematic gameplay, PlanetSide 2 was one of the revelations of the month.
Far Cry 3 - A massive step up from the divisive Far Cry 2, the third instalment in the series married a strong, thought-proviking plot together with a fantastically rich open world experience, again offering players the opportunity to do things that other games might only include in cutscenes. 9/10
Game of the Month: October 2012 - Halo 4
343 Industries had some big shoes to fill. Pressure doesn't come much greater than trying to follow up Bungie's Halo franchise with a fourth game that would usher the Master Chief into a new trilogy, and give the series a new lease of life. There wasn't even a new console to fall back on, with the current generation still going strong. All eyes were on Frank O'Connor and co. to deliver...and they absolutely did.
Though there are criticisms to be made of the campaign's sense of the epic, perhaps, it's the game we've been playing all month non-stop. And long after this year is out, it'll still be in the disc drive. A darker, more personal story led the charge (brilliantly supported by the live-action Forward Unto Dawn), but it was in the utterly comprehensive multiplayer modes that Halo 4 clinched this month. Spartan Ops Day has, as predicted, become a weekly staple, and it's some of the most fun we've had all year. 9/10
Win!
So if you want to bag a copy of Halo 4, all you have to do in order to cast your name into the hat is to tell us what your Halo weapon of choice is and why. Pop a little blurb into the comments box below and job done.
We'll being using Science to decide the winner this week, so keep an eye on those inboxes.
The competition will close on Friday 7th at 11:59pm.
A few little house rules:
- UK entrants only please
- No duplicate accounts
- Please use a valid email address
Good luck!
