Far Cry 3 | Xbox Live | £14.99 (save £7.43)
Far Cry 3 Price Comparison | Far Cry 3 Review (9/10)

Thanks to iamthomasthumb at HUKD!

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: Game Collection
• Current Price: £19.95
• Far Cry 3 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

At under £20 for what may be the first time, you really have no excuse to not pick up 2012's finest FPS experience. The open tropical paradise is packed with a wide variety of missions, tasks and collectibles. Stealth skills are fantastically fluid and empowering as you ninja your way through enemy bases, until you get attacked by a tiger that is. The multiplayer side of the game is excellent too, with the co-op proving a surprise highlight.

Thanks to Jas10 at HotUkDeals.

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: Green Man Gaming
• Current Price: £15.99
• Voucher Code: GMG20-FDSCL-AQQXD
• Far Cry 3 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

Gamestop's hilarious misprice has practically ruined Far Cry 3 deals for us now, but if you didn't pick it up for a fiver (along with all of its predecessors to boot), Green Man Gaming are currently the cheapest on the market. You're probably well aware that it's one of the best games of 2013, and quite possibly the best shooter, so this is still a bit of a bargain.

Thanks and credit to pmorris at Hot UK Deals.

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: Steam
• Current Price: £15.99
• Far Cry 3 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

Far Cry 3 just waltzed in at the back end of last year and wiped the floor with everyone. Halo? COD? forget about it, 2012 belonged to Far Cry 3. You have a huge tropical playground to explore with multiple collectibles and mission strands to complete. A huge improvement over the last game with less malaria and jamming guns and more stabby stealth and pirate bases. Make sure you don't miss out on the excellent online co-op too.

Journey Returns Triumphant

Those of you who weren't glued to the footy may well have watched the BAFTA Game Awards last night, where two PSN exclusives managed to clean up. Journey returned with no less than five awards, including game design, artisitic achievement and even online multiplayer (called it), while The Unfinished Swan managed to snag two shinies for innovation and best debut. Other worthy winners include Dishonored as Best Game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Best Strategy Game and The Room as best of British.

We've got all the winners and nominations after the jump, thanks in no small part to the inestimable Late who actually beat us to the punch this morning.

The British Academy Games Awards 2013 nominees have been announced, including a neat mix of big-budget AAA games and some deserving indie shouts.

Indeed, thatgamecompany's Journey has managed to steal the show, being nominated for a whopping eight categories including Artistic Achievement and Best Game. The Walking Dead, Far Cry 3 and Dear Esther follow (with seven, six and five nominations apiece), actually managing to beat the likes of Assassin's Creed III and Halo 4.

Of course, nominations are all well and good, but we'll find out the actual winners on Tuesday March 5th. We've got all the details after the break, everything from Action to Online Multiplayer and Ones To Watch. As always, we'd love to hear what you make of the choices - and your personal pick for the overall winners.

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: Zavvi PS3 | 360
• Current Price: £24.98
• Far Cry 3 PS3 | 360 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

In my opinion, this was easily the best shooter of 2012 and one of the most-improved sequels I've ever played. While I'm sure some of you are waiting for the game to dip below £20, this is still a great price. You get real value for money with FC3 as it has a huge campaign packed with extra side-missions and collectables. The multiplayer is stunning too, with the co-op stages in particular showing up the competition. Don't forget to check out my Survival Tips guide.

No new faces this week at the top of the UK charts this week, but there's been a reshuffle of the usual suspects. DmC drops to fourth as Black Ops II makes a return to the number one spot

Wow, this is a long list. Admittedly, I’ve barely encountered any of these and with any luck, I never will now. The patch fixes a range of issues in single player, multiplayer and the map editor.

Single player fixes include mission specific bugs, challenge leaderboard issues and a strange glitch that left weapons attached to your arm making aiming the bow a nightmare. Multiplayer updates fix issues with the loadout editor, weapon damage not registering and host migration problems amongst many others.

No change, please. A cursory glance at this week's UK games charts might make you wonder whether we've just copy/pasted the last one, with only a couple of titles shifting position in the bottom half of the top ten.

Anarchy Reigns, the only new major release, has charted at a fairly respectable 16th place. In what's becoming a worrying trend, you won't find even a single Wii U exclusive bothering the top forty - so here's hoping that the Q1 release schedule will shake things up a bit for Nintendo.

Back in November we posted an amusing live action video starring Christopher ‘McLovin’ Mintz-Plasse shooting a promo for Far Cry 3 that suddenly got very real. Think Tropic Thunder and you're on the right line. Well, after that teaser, we've found a video compiling all the episodes of The Far Cry Experience. Michael Mando (the voice of Vaas) stars in the video and steals the show, also proving he's a shoe-in if anyone decides to make the game into a proper movie.

Ubisoft have released a new free app on the Apple App Store and Google Play for Android-enabled devices. If you play Far Cry 3 online competitively or in co-op -and you really should- this is an essential tool. PC users can also gain access to the Outpost here.

Co-op players will be familiar with decoding found DVDs, data sticks and so on to unlock mods and boosts. Thanks to the app, you no longer have to be playing the game while they decode in the background as this allows you to decode and collect the rewards on the move.

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: ShopTo PS3 | 360
• Current Price: £22.85
• Far Cry 3 PS3 | 360 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

Arguably the finest FPS experience of 2012 with a huge single-player game on a series of beautiful tropical island full of pirates and angry wildlife. Customisable skills, most notably some excellent stealth moves along with lots of exploration opportunities mean this will last you for months. multiplayer options include the usual modes along with one that sets the large areas of the map ablaze. The co-op levels are great fun too and much more enjoyable than the usual co-op horde modes as they feel like proper stages.

Another week, another disappointing showing for the Wii U. Third week straight without a single exclusive in the top 40, and if the numbers are to be believed, it hasn't had a stellar showing when it comes to the multiplatform titles either. The start of the January transfer window has, however, meant FIFA 13 zips back in to number one. Elsewhere, there's not much movement in the top ten - Skyrim sneaks back in at the expense of Ass Creed III.

Christmas week saw a last sales spurt from Ubisoft's hugely impressive Far Cry 3, which helped the jungle tumble outstrip FIFA 13 and Black Ops II to take Christmas #1. Forza Horizon sneaked into the top ten, having climbed eleven places from the week before.

There was precious little good news for the Wii U, though, with none of the platform exclusives making an impression on the top forty.

Typically, with our small staff size, there's simply no way we get to play all of the best games each in a given year, there's simply too much reviewing to be done. It can often make these end of year debates rather personal, with individual writers championing games that have had a personal effect on them, and the shortlists get longer and longer. There came a point where I was worried there'd be no overlap, that the internal voting process would yield only singular choices, rather than clear frontrunners.

Of course, all that really means is that the true winners of 2012 have been the consumers. We've seen genres busted wide open, brave new approaches to distribution and development, new ways to get projects off of the ground and in front of an audiences, new IPs when "experts" declared there'd be none. There have been mechanical marvels, fresh waves of indie innovation, sublime storytelling, wondrous worlds in which to wander.

	Title	Description
	Borderlands 2	We described Borderlands 2 as "the best co-op shooter of its generation" and it still holds true to that accolade. Outstanding AI, superlative scripting, one of this generation's finest villains in Handsome Jack, and more loot than we knew what to do with, Borderlands 2 was a huge step up from its predecessor. Not that Borderlands 1 wasn't great, it's just that its bigger, badder, bolder brother was so very pleasing.
	Dishonored	Dishonored did better than simply revive the stealth genre, it made us wonder why the hell it went away in the first place. Arkane delivered a blank canvas in Corvo Attano, with a commendably mature approach to player freedom that asked much of you, and delivered ultimate gameplay satisfaction in return. In Dunwall, we had one of the finest video game worlds of this generation. Nothing short of astonishing.
	Dragon's Dogma	It was broken in places, and Gransys was one of the more forgettable worlds we've seen from an RPG, but Dragon's Dogma was one hell of an endearing game. Breathtaking combat, an innovative Pawn mechanic, and deep customisation options made it a firm favourite in spite of its flaws. Plus, the opportunity to take down a hole bunch of mythical beasts made it all the sweeter. Refreshingly mature.
	Far Cry 3	Far Cry 3 undoubtedly takes took the SP crown in the shooter category this year. Magnificently epic in scale, stuffed with things to do, and set in a living, breathing jungle, Far Cry 3 empowered the player to become the ultimate tropical predator, with a cracking story and lashings of immersion.
	Guild Wars 2	It touted a rather bold MMO manifesto in the run up to its release, and while it didn’t quite match all the claims they were hoping for, what they did deliver provided the biggest shake-up to the genre in years. With a huge world that was an explorers paradise, personal stories that went in the direction the player wished, a scaling system that meant no content ever got out-levelled, and more PvP options than you could shake a Quaggan at, it gave players a complete MMO experience, all without an subscription.
	Halo 4	343 Industries were up against it, the pressure must have been huge. Yet, with Microsoft's biggest frnachise in their hands, they pulled off the incredible: not only did the match up to Bungie's predecessors, they even managed to surpass some of them. Halo 4's campaign was excellent, but it was in the multiplayer modes that 343 really pulled out all of the stops. War Games is still giving us tons of fun, with expanded loadouts and greater gameplay variety than ever before. And then there was Spartan Ops: yes, there were examples of some lazy content recycling, but we've simply been having too much fun to care. An utter blast.
	Journey	Gloriously life-affirming, utterly transcendental, Journey was one of those few games that not only provided a thoroughly unique experience, but also deeply personal one too. It didn't matter whether or not you considered it art, or even if you defined it as a "game", one thing was for sure: it was absolutely unmissable.
	Sleeping Dogs	Sleeping Dogs was this year's little-big game that could. Dropped by Activision whilst it was still True Crime: Hong Kong, Square Enix snapped it up after a year in the wilderness and dropped it over the summer. Wei Shen's adventures provided the perfect antidote to the traditional sunny lull. Perfectly sized, utterly OTT, United Front Games refused to take themselves too seriously, instead providing an immaculately balanced open world game, stuffed with things to do, and supported with a near endless stream of cracking DLC.
	The Walking Dead	Telltale could perhaps have structured their releases with a little more organisatiion, and maybe fixed that infuriating cross-platform savegame bug, but otherwise there was little to complain about from The Standout Storytelling Experience of the Year. A cracking adventure game, with some utterly fantastic scripting and voice work, Telltale's take on Kirkman and co.'s zombie-ridden franchise was miles ahead of the TV series, and showed BioWare that it's possible to pull off a brave ending without compromise. There were tears. So many tears.
	Uncharted Golden Abyss	A staggering technical achievement, and undoubtedly the lead launch title for the Vita, Golden Abyss carried on the series’ tradition of excellent adventure games with all the familiar elements working fantastically on the new handheld. The list of collectibles had us replaying it obsessively, the Vita’s unique control features were used to fantastic effect, and the bar was set incredibly high.
	XCOM: Enemy Unknown	XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a sensational game and a truly exquisite reboot. We fell in love with the series all over again, even as Firaxis blew the classic turn-based formula wide open for new players to consume and enjoy. Sid Meier and co. gave us the freedom to make many terrible choices over the course of countless non-linear campaigns, but the first one was simple: buy the damn thing!

Previously in this year's season of Game of the Year awards, we've dealt with difficult decisions by looking at the nature of the genre in question, searching for innovation from the games in question, forward-thinking approaches to development and distribution, value and longevity in content and effect, and how the games in question might define, or in some cases redefine, those genres.

But when it came to Game of the Year, presented with a clipped shortlist of Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Far Cry 3, Journey, and The Walking Dead, we had to cross genre boundaries. There were games on the shortlist that didn't play by the book, so we threw the book out of the window.

It didn't matter if you wanted to play with or without company; if you were looking for an expansive, open-world bundle of gunplay, or a tightly focused corridor shooter; it didn't matter if you preferred your MP co-operative or competitive; whether you were a fan of the super-serious, or the terrifically tongue-in-cheek...2012 had what you needed, and it had it in swathes.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	Binary Domain	Like the very best mad scientists, Binary Domain proved incredibly entertaining, stuffed with smart ideas, and occasionally got things wrong. But the very fact that it tried to innovate in such a relatively lazy genre was worthy of applause. Boasting some incredible boss battles, slick gunplay, and a cracking story, Binary Domain threw off any Gears-clone tag it might have attracted and became a barnstorming title that married the best East and West had to offer.
	Black Ops II	As usual, Call of Duty delivered another comprehensive content package this year, with Treyarch making tweaks here and there to expand and enhance rather than overhauling. Reliably excellent fun as always, the simple -yet brilliant- revolution of giving players total freedom to tailor their loadout made Black Ops II a joy to play. Not many new modes to speak of, but existing party favourites, deathmatch options and shiny futuristic boomsticks made it a surefire online MP hit, with an excellent singleplayer campaign to boot. Another stunning content offering that saw Treyarch step out of Infinity Ward's shadow and become COD's premier dev team.
	Borderlands 2	We described Borderlands 2 as "the best co-op shooter of its generation" and it still holds true to that accolade. Outstanding AI, superlative scripting, one of this generation's finest villains in Handsome Jack, and more loot than we knew what to do with, Borderlands 2 was a huge step up from its predecessor. Not that Borderlands 1 wasn't great, it's just that its bigger, badder, bolder brother was so very pleasing.
	Far Cry 3	Far Cry 3 undoubtedly takes took the SP crown in the shooter category this year. Magnificently epic in scale, stuffed with things to do, and set in a living, breathing jungle, Far Cry 3 empowered the player to become the ultimate tropical predator, with a cracking story and lashings of immersion.
	Halo 4	343 Industries were up against it, the pressure must have been huge. Yet, with Microsoft's biggest frnachise in their hands, they pulled off the incredible: not only did the match up to Bungie's predecessors, they even managed to surpass some of them. Halo 4's campaign was excellent, but it was in the multiplayer modes that 343 really pulled out all of the stops. War Games is still giving us tons of fun, with expanded loadouts and greater gameplay variety than ever before. And then there was Spartan Ops: yes, there were examples of some lazy content recycling, but we've simply been having too much fun to care. An utter blast.
	Spec Ops: The Line	Providing probably the most striking narrative we've seen in the shooter genre for some time, Spec Ops: The Line was Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Coppola's Apocalypse Now relocated to a seemingly post-apocalyptic Dubai. As a pure shooter it was admittedly lacking, but excellent presentation, a storming Vietnam-era soundtrack, thought-provoking writing, and a barnstorming performance from a nearly unrecognisable Nolan North rendered it one of the greatest surprise packages of the year.

• What: Far Cry 3
• Where: Amazon PS3 | 360
• Current Price: £22.49
• Far Cry 3 PS3 | 360 Price Comparison
• Far Cry 3 Review

You'll need to act quick for this one, Amazon are undercutting the competition by over £10 to give us the best price yet for consoles. Far Cry 3 gets my mod for Game of the Year for providing a fantastic location, lots of collectables, incredibly satisfying stealth and a bat-shit crazy cast of enemies. Just exploring the tropical islands between story missions is great fun and the missions themselves never fail to provide great action set-pieces or surprisingly strong climbing sections as you discover ancient underground temples. The multiplayer is very strong too, with lots of upgrades to work towards and the XP is shared with the excellent co-op missions. In short, Far Cry 3 has no weaknesses.

What with the gaming industry still being keen to strangle itself every year by releasing all the good games at once, I’m going to be playing catch up on some of the great titles long into next year. This might even give me something to do next summer if the lineup for the ‘sunny’ bit of the year is as grossly thin as it was this year.

I’ve played some great stuff this year though, many of them get a mention below, but a few other honourable shouts go out to Dishonored, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, Black Ops II, Sports Champions 2 and WipEout 2048 and Virtua Tennis 4 on the Vita.

The lows of the year include a few bum releases from games we expected so much more from, troubles on the high street retail market for the gaming industry and a frankly lacklustre launch from the new console, the Wii U. But when you look at the games we’re getting in the first quarter of next year (aka Xmas 2), 2013 is looking hella strong. I think the Wii U will start to gain some legs and if it doesn’t, who gives a damn? As with any luck, next Christmas will see stores tearing each other to pieces get our money for the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

So here are my picks for 2012 and we’ll do it all again next year. Unless the Mayans turn out to be right. In which case, I’m totally not paying this gas bill.

The problem with releasing a console that barely pushes the top level of current-gen console power, with only a smattering of games, none of which can really boast to being  "killer app", is that your competitors will be firing on all cylinders. Thus it's perhaps no surprise that a week on from the Wii U's release, Nintendo Land and NSMBU have fallen 15 and 22 places respectively. ZombiU is nowhere to be found in the top 40.

Instead, it would seem that gamers are perfectly happy spending £40 on the likes of Blops II, which sits pretty at #1 once again; the excellent Far Cry 3; and top ten mainstay - FIFA 13.

Hell, even Wonderbook held firm in 21st place.