Time names Guild Wars II best game of 2012

 soulless4nowhttp://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101344_2101197_2101198,00.html

 http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944169_1944171,00.html

 USAPATRIOT21 As much hate as it gets because of the ending, I have to agree with you, Mass Effect 3 was certainly one of the best games of 2012.

Oh and I forgot to mention Gw2's false advertisement of "No more grinding!". If you're at lvl 80 and doing dungeons, you'll know what I mean when I say this... There's so much grinding that it makes other games look like shit. Gw2's grind is one of the hardest grinds I've ever played in any MMORPG. Sure it's not required to play the game, but it's what you will do when you run out of things to do at "end-game".

CriticalGamer92

LOL GW2 a hard grind. You never played UO, EQ, EQ2 even WOW has more grind than GW2. Are you kidding me? If the Grind is that hard may I suggest you go play Hello Kitty Online is up to your speed.

And borderlands 2

 jenovaschilld borderlands 2 , yes . ME3 ? no , top 15 maybe , but the game was worse then you might have realized (not counting the ending cause we all know that) , care to notice how all the side quests were unbelievably simplified fetch quests that ended up being numbers? how besides primary missions there didnt seem as much side places to explore? ppl have pointed this out awhile ago during the whole outcry of the ending rather then just focusing on the ending , if were counting just the main storyline then yes top 15 , but not top 10.

 tgwolf Can't tell if you are trolling or just that dumb

 tgwolf Oh how embarrassed I am to vote for a game you don't even understand.

 tgwolf

WARNING: "DANGER DANGER " WOW fan Troll.

 Mr_BillGates

*Terrible, Like your spelling.

 sammoth  No he meant turrible, like when Cleveland Brown says it.  Its worse than terrible.

 oflow

 Oh so it's Ebonics For Nerds.

 sammoth if thats what you want to call it.

 Leeric420 I was an early SWTOR player and I am glad PVE is nothing like TOR.

For starts the maps are better in every way, TOR was too empty and soulless.

Level adjustment makes it challenging (more or less), I'm lvl 80 in full exotic and if I park near an enemy on a lvl 50 map he'll kill me before I can grab a beer.

PoI, vistas and WP make it rewarding when it comes to exploration.

Task (hearts/side quests) are a lot more fun and varied never taking more time than it should.

And on top of all this, dynamic events that give a living organic feel to the game.

In SWTOR 80% of the time I was either overpower or underpowered, often the game got genuinely boring and I never even got to lvl 40.

Don't get me wrong, I like SWTOR and I wish I could like it more, but they'll have to add a lot to it before that.

Kane04Leeric420

The fact that ANet decided to make the level adjustment feature made things good/bad... Mostly bad imo. There's no reason to go into lower level areas (other than finishing achievements). If you want to grind in these areas, you'll be sorry to find that you get no good drops. They're drops specifically for that low level area. So it's really a waste. This forces everyone to end up in the same place anyway? which leaves a very populated map with barely any monsters to kill.

I have 2 lvl 80s, a Guardian and a warrior. I tried my best to keep playing the game, but I just couldn't. There's nothing more to do. Beat the main storyline, PVPed throughout my levelling process, and now I feel like I've gotten everything out of the game. Btw, I did this all in 2-3 weeks after release. Really, there's no point in the PVE because, if you want to PVP, you can go straight into it a lvl 1, and be as strong as other players (this is a pro and a con, as gear doesn't matter, neither does getting dungeon gear other than appearances sake..)

What ANet should've done was allow armor upgrading, making it like other MMORPGs for PVE SPECIFICALLY. But when it comes down to PVP or world vs world, armor should get balanced. This gives much needed a sense of progression (at lvl 80 specifically) throughout the game and allows more content to be delivered. This is how Vindictus and Dragon Nest does it, and it works wonders. It gives you an incentive to do PVE, to get better gear, upgrade into better gear, etc.

Plus, I'd like to point out that the boss fights are very very tedious. Spam all spells, dodge if you see a red circle, heal if you get hit. That's it. No real strategy into killing bosses. If you've played Vindictus, you'll quickly learn that if you don't know the boss's (and there are many bosses) attack patterns, you.will.not.survive.

An example would be a boss wielding a large axe. He'd swing it 3 times in a certain way that only a certain direction of dodging will actually DODGE the attack, (in Gw2, as long as you're in the dodge animation, you're invincible unlike Vindictus). If you dodge into the axe, you're hit. Next thing you know he's swinging it like a madman when you get him to a low enough HP. He's going panic-mode, and you have NO IDEA how to dodge his erratic movements. THAT'S how a boss fight should be like.

In Gw2, it's pretty safe to say there's no varied attack pattern that you have to learn to succeed in defeating a boss. Just spam spells and dodge. It's made for casual gamers. And I'm not using that lightly. Gw2 is MADE for casual gamers, which is why the market loves it so much. The market is FILLED with casual gamers nowadays (like League of Legends.. lmao that game cracks me up when they say they're better than HoN/DoTa), that the old, difficult games of the past are just that: A thing of the past.

CriticalGamer92Kane04Leeric420

You leveled 2 toons have done all the dungeons all paths, finished the map. Got your legendary weapon, done all the jumping puzzles all in 2-3 weeks. Not Likely. The Loot scales to your level. So WTF are your talking about? Boss battles are not what you claimed them to be. That is a lie. Some may be like that but, not all. Just because you RUSHED pathetically through the game in 2-3 weeks that?s not anyone?s fault but your own. GW2 was never designed to be rushed through like that. What?s even more pathetic about people like you that speed level through these games and then claim there is nothing to do. You may try some anger management classes your last couple of posts are just have anger written all over it.

 CriticalGamer92  I liked SWTOR better too, even if I only played a smuggler and never finished.

I never played the game you mention, but dying 100 times to learn the attack pattern hardly sounds any fun.

You'd be kicked from the party over and over again the only chance would be looking up (on YouTube?) how to do it then do, and again, it's not what I'd call fun.

Personally I've been playing GW2 3 months, 245 hours got 1 and only 1 character lvl 80, full exotic haven't done half the dungeons not 1 PvP match and just a little of WvW, 81% of the map complete.

So you can say I still have a lot of game ahead, guess I'm playing it like whiskey and not beer.

Like this other user said, this is not a game to be rushed, exploration is rewarded, either because of beautiful scenery, chest, rich ore.

Combining pieces of armor and freely picking the color for a unic look is also something I enjoy.

 i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x363/48273/gw962.jpg

Being able to use several kinds of weapons to break the routine is also God send compared with SWTOR.

Again, like I said, I like SWTOR but my experience with it was no where near as good or fun as GW2.

 Kane04  CriticalGamer92

 Nice Pic COF armour with ?

 ikcizokm Yeah you know, because when you're hired to work for TIME they specifically make sure you have no relation to games. It couldn't be that Matt Peckham is a gamer who reviews games for TIME magazine and this is just his opinion though could it? >.<

 noclue_27 Stop trolling, Matt. =P

 ikcizokm Hahahahaa, I lold. I have no way to prove or disprove that I'm Matt Peckham, all I can tell you is that the chances that I am are incredibly slim.

 damnstraight003 Well said. Personally, I think GW2 executed on its PVP almost to perfection. But the game lost my interest with the terrible PVE issues, not to mention the mediocre voice acting. I've heard talk that the devs are going back and re-balancing all of the instances, so I might give it another spin. 

 ikcizokm  I dont play GW2 (im on the fence about it though)I've heard their endgame PvE content basically is the same as what you're doing in the game initially. Is this true? The PvP sounds really good - but i do like my PvE quite alot.  

 gufberg It's a fun game, but IMO the end-game PVE and dungeons were broken. They were beyond difficult, bordering on impossible. I like a challenge, but I'm no masochist. 

ikcizokmgufberg

LMAO Masochistic really? Then you or the groups you where in where terrible at doing the dungeons.

 ikcizokm Everything you find in GW2 is considered endgame content. You don't have to grind to access engame content and have fun with your friends. For example the new Fractals dungeon came out in November is also available for even very low level characters and it's designed to serve players who seek progression and real challenges. There are 9 completely different dungeons in Fractals with tons of fun bossfights and "unlimited" levels of difficulty as you progress in it. The amount of endgame content is just huge and the best thing is that ANet is doing a great job expanding it surprisingly frequently. This game is just a huge evolving world with tons of PvE and almost perfect PvP content. People who say there's no real endgame content in GW2 just don't understand how the game is designed. Typically people try to play it like they would play any other MMO and they try to rush to the level cap (80) at all costs. That is not the way to play GW2 because doing so they'll miss a lot of fun. Just hop into this beautiful world and enjoy the game right from level 1. Actually you don't have to grind gear and XP to enjoy the game. GW2 is not about getting gear to be powerful. It's about getting better in regards of your gameplay skills no matter what you prefer PvE or PvP.