Good morning, people. It has been an interesting year to say the least. When we first started compiling all the games for our Game of the Year 2012 feature, it seemed like it was going to be little to choose from. Also, it was a whole lot easier last year, when Skyrim completely blew away the competition.

We've had some truly fine games this year too, although I can't honestly single out something I was personally fond of. For instance, when Diablo 3 was released, I was so excited, as most of us were, I kept playing it for nearly a month. It didn't take too long for the magic to fade somewhat, until eventually I just gave up on the whole item-fetching thing and just picked up Torchlight 2, which offered some significant improvements in the genre. Generally, we're still debating which one of these is the better game, but it remains obvious that Torchlight 2 simply offers a smoother and more enjoyable experience when compared to Diablo 3, which could've been so much better if Blizzard didn't oversimplify the gameplay mechanics and forgot to, shall we say, spice-up the end game content.

As usual, the action genre is crammed with competition, albeit there are no shining examples this year that proved to be groundbreaking or worthy of any special recognition. I'm pleased to see, on the other hand, that so many solid indie games made it to the market this year. This gives us hope for the future of the video games industry. The biggest innovation seems to originate from this area of the gaming scene.

Also, thanks to things like Kickstarter, we have no doubt that the year 2013 will most likely see the birth of even more cool projects. After all, with titles like Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen and Project Eternity in the pipeline, we really couldn't ask for anything more.

Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone.

Cheers from Dex, Vince, Un Om Bun, Vader and even that mad old fart 2lions.

Thanks for sticking with us!