Top Ten New Video Games for E3 2012

Each year as another Electronic Entertainment Expo wraps up the burden falls upon us to pick the best of the best and share that with you -- and this year the burden of making those choices was expanded due to the large number of very good games.

Regular members here will be expecting a Top Ten list and details for each, but we must confess that providing that to you is simply impossible this year, due to the neat division that separates the games into two distinct categories: the Old and the New.

What is meant by that is simple enough -- there were so many new titles and so many sequels presented at E3 2012 that trying to pick out a Top Ten List culled from that complete listing is simply impossible -- so this year we are taking the easy and expedient path at least initially, and dividing the list into the Old and the New, and will follow that with a definitive Top Ten List later once we have had the opportunity to properly reflect upon all of the games, their strengths, and their weaknesses.

So to begin our annual Top Ten we will start with the sequels and then the new titles, offering them to you in reverse order, as a countdown to the best for last! You should also bear in mind that the position of the games in the list is purely subjective, being ranked where we thought that they should be rather than using a scientific method (or really any logical method whatsoever save for the magical and all powerful parental spell, Buddhist Mantra, and Gregorian Chant: "Because I Said So" that automatically takes upon it the force of Law when it is properly evoked by a parent (which it has been here).

Don't like the order that we ranked them in? Are you convinced that they should be ranked in a different order? Do you feel strongly that we should have included different games in the list? Well that is what the official comment section is for, so please feel invited to comment!

Picking the Top Ten for the new titles that were introduced to us at E3 2012 was a much more difficult process because there were so many, and among that cornucopia of new game goodness there were many deserving titles, but in the end strength always shows, so our job was made all the easier by that virtue:

10 -- X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Firaxis Games

Platform: Xbox 360 / PC / PS3

Release Date: 9 October 2012

A fair case can be made that this game actually belongs in the "Out with the Old?" section because it is, arguably from a series, but our response to that suggestion has to be a very firm but polite "Nuh uh!"

No doubt you are probably thinking "Why is that?" or something to that effect, and that provides the perfect opening point for its entry here, as a new title... The simple fact is that largely due to an understandable but confusing set of facts, even the most observant of games journos and fans are largely unaware of -- starting with the factoid that X-COM: Enemy Unknown is NOT the second appearance of the same XCOM that was presented last year at E3 2011 as one of the core games in 2K's exhibit. Let's examine that coincidence next.

At E3 2011 the game/title "XCOM" was one of the widely promoted titles and projects in the 2K stable, which was then and is now being developed by 2K Marin -- and will be published by 2K Games in 2013 when it is released, while X-COM: Enemy Unknown is being developed by the sister studio Firaxis Games and has a release date of October 2012 -- with both titles to be published by 2K.

Both titles are considered to be part of the designated "X-COM" series, but where the game XCOM is classed as a reboot for the original game (and was first revealed to at E3 2010), X-COM: Enemy Unknown is a re-imagined remake of the 1994 classic strategy game UFO: Enemy Unknown (AKA X-COM: UFO Defense), and therein lies the difference.