The clouds are piercing the morning air with their incandescent colors, as my lungs fill up with the sweet rubescent scent of the morning air over Columbia’s horizon. This is BioShock Infinite, a title which brings a fantastical world alive in the sky similar to Laputa: Castle In The Sky. BioShock Infinite shatters a new ground-breaking reality in terms of storyline atmosphere that is reminiscent of BioShock itself. Irrational Games has created another glorified masterpiece in terms of gameplay structure, environment, ambiance, sound and much more. BioShock Infinite itself skyrockets to sky-breaking depths and keeps transcending its own bounds with gameplay that blends the traditional elements of BioShock and brings it to infinite lengths in BioShock Infinite.

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Injustice: Gods Among Us is a decent fighting title from WB Games and NetherRealm Studios, but largely fails to hold much value in terms of storyline pacing. In terms of fighting mechanics, Injustice: Gods Among Us presents some environmental elements which are unique, but largely a gameplay structure which lacks a lot of originality. Injustice: Gods Among Us feels more like a let down from the Gods, and while the superhero vs superhero structure is admirable, the old rehashed Mortal Kombat engine and plug-and-play game design is definitely not.

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance takes a different spin on the Metal Gear franchise by making a decided move away from stealth that is welcoming. While nostalgic fans of the franchise may be looking for the stealth crouching shadow-kills from Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons of the Patriots, Raiden keeps a decidedly new persona of ruthless vengeance as the title implies. Action combat is fierce, and while the storyline is less than exciting, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance brings a new light to the Metal Gear universe in the form of hack and slash adventure with very solid gameplay.

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Kratos fails in this latest adventure to capture the same remnants of the God of War series. The action is mediocre and the thrills are close to irrelevant, but there is some solid action to be had in this latest offering for God of War fans that is in the realm of Greek moderate adventure.

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Gears of War: Judgment is a decent prequel title to the original Gears of War franchise, and serves to go in-depth with Kilo Squad on Emergence Day. The gameplay structure is definitely more different than immersive combat qualities, but there still remains a Gears of War feel to this new style of shooter.

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Crysis 3 is a technical acheivement that reinvigorates life and sees a medley blend between the second and first titles. Crysis 3 takes the open-world adventure exploration of Crysis, and takes a blend of linear pathism from Crysis 2 to create something that is surprisingly in the midpoint of these two titles. While old-time fans of the series would have preferred a more open-world Crysis, Crysis 3 offers something unique in direction of storyline, pacing, and mission variety that somewhat make up for any lack of gameplay features. The multiplayer is still relatively boxed and generic, but the single-player campaign shines not only on consoles, but greater on high-end PC’s.

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Dead Space 3 reintroduces Isaac Clarke, who happens to quite possibly be one of the unluckiest engineers in space history. Visceral Games’ Dead Space 3 brings the survival horror genre to a more action-thriller spin with the introduction of a second character who is welcomed, thereby breaking away from the palpable fear of isolation in the first two series. While Dead Space 3 retains quite a lot of thrills to be had, much of the storyline is bleakly blatant and the actual character development has diluted into something rather disappointing.

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WhatIfGaming Game Of The Year 2012 Awards

Another year and more titles passed us by along with the days of 2012. It was filled with sadness, happiness, and times to remember that have marked many more good days to come for many of us. For gamers worldwide, it was a year in which not many games were released, but a few notable titles were profoundly worthy of mention.

It is with pleasure that we provide the millions of anticipated readers what they have been waiting for since the dawn of 2012: the video game industry’s most exceptional and gratified WhatIfGaming 2012 Game Of The Year Awards ceremony, presenting its official Game Of The Year awards before anyone else with a collective decision from industry experts and WhatIfGaming editors worldwide through its defined rigorous selection process which focuses on industry and developer recognition. The moment you all have been waiting for is finally here. Unlike the previous year, we are not the first this year but we wanted to maintain the similar quality to last year in having the most comprehensive awards this year, as always. See the Worst Game Of The Year and laugh at its shortcoming or weep for it, ponder about the Best Idea, or play through a title again to experience Best Storyline that is unlike any other.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to our beloved millions of WhatIfGaming readers! See you all in 2013.

Halo 4 brings the legend back to the big screen. Master Chief has returned with a passion and 343 Industries’ Halo 4 is undeniably an action-infused adventure that resplendently creates a level of gaming prowess that is incredible. The seamless visuals and the nostalgic qualities of Halo 4 make it one of the best Halo’s to be created not just as a AAA title, but also a creation by a studio that had the burden of living up to the success of Bungie’s former Halo glory. Halo 4’s storyline pacing is incredible, the sandbox style adventure of gaming is refined, and the multiplayer is reinvigorated with the right elements of the classic niche that Halo made the multiplayer universe of Xbox Live. Halo 4 delivers on all accounts and creates a title to be remembered.

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For sequels to be accepted and loved they need to do two things. Firstly, they need to keep the features that made the original game so popular and most importantly they have to fix all the problems that were flagged previously. Far Cry 3 ticks both these boxes with aplomb and it is refreshing to see just how much effort has been put into this game to respond to the feedback from the consumer. Not only have main gameplay mechanics been completely overhauled but every new feature that has been added seems to have been implemented to near perfection so that nothing could be construed negatively.

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