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The Magnificent And Important RPS Advent Calendar 2012!

By RPS on December 1st, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

John drew this. All glory to the Walkerman.

Welcome to December, the Roman month of lists. Yes, it’s here again, again! But don’t sit there thinking about how your life is slipping away like a grainy VHS-tape on fast-forward, instead distract yourself with the games of Christmas. They’re amazing! We will reveal one each day, until it is Christmas time. And then we will have a rest.

Here are the rules of the calendar:

1. The games are in no particular order, except number 24, which is our game of the year.

2. That means that number 5 and number 17 are on an equal footing as a game of the Christmas, do you see? 11 is important, though. And 23.

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78 Comments »

  1. 01/12/2012 at 12:03 Deathmaster says:

    BEARFACE

  2. 01/12/2012 at 12:03 Stupoider says:

    Is it sad that Dishonoured being RPS’s game of the year is so awfully predictable?

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:03 Carra says:

      Crusader Kings 2 I tell you.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:04 rustybroomhandle says:

      I’m going to go with XCOM or The Walking Dead.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:05 yogibbear says:

      Doubt it, I reckon it’s Hotline Miami.

      • 01/12/2012 at 15:45 Museli says:

        I will be very surprised if Game 24 is not Hotline Miami, based on the glowing praise it’s been getting from all and sundry around here. I’m always happy to be proved wrong, though.

        • 02/12/2012 at 19:11 yogibbear says:

          OK I just spent all w/e playing Farcry 3 and finished it. Having played XCOM, Hotline Miami, The Walking Dead and now Farcry 3… I have to say… despite my initial thoughts (and if you asked me a week ago before Farcry 3 came out I would not have expected this at all), Farcry 3 DESERVES many many GOTY awards. I can ignore the terrible HUD and the bugginess of uPlay. I can overlook release bugs that were carried over from Farcry 2. But OMGOMOMGOMGOGMOMOGMOGM the game is AMAZING! Story 10, Gameplay 10, Graphics 9.5, Sound 10, Immersion 8 (+1 if they fix the HUD), Time spent playing the SP (like ~55% of things completed) 30 hrs. (so ~50-60 hrs to get 100% if not more….)

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:06 Dowr says:

      I can’t see Dishonoured being number 1, but I’m sure it’ll be in the top 5.
      [EDIT]
      Top 5? What am I on about?!

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:07 westyfield says:

      XCOM is my bet.

      I wonder if the hivemind has already chosen which will be their game of the year, or are they eliminating games which definitely won’t be until they get down to a few and then decide which is king of all.

      • 01/12/2012 at 19:16 Museli says:

        I’m going to speculate based on what I’ve seen in previous years, and I’m guessing that the order is already set. We’ll probably see a mix of indie games and blockbusters distributed in such a way that we don’t get large clumps of one or the other. There’s probably around five games that were considered for GOTY, and we’ll see one in each of the first three weeks, then the final two on days 23 and 24. If I was placing a bet on the outcome, I’d say XCOM is day 23 and Hotline Miami is day 24. Now to just sit back and see how wrong I am. :)

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:10 Text_Fish says:

      FTL.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:12 Sander Bos says:

      First to guess Dishonored will be game of the year!
      (what? Stupoider misspelled it)

      Text_Fish gets points for guessing a game that already could not win anymore at the time of his posting.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:14 Dunbine says:

      I’d have wagered on XCOM or Hotline Miami, but now I’m thinking Far Cry 3 may be ahead in a photo finish..

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:17 Jim Rossignol says:

      It’s not Dishonored.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:23 Tusque D'Ivoire says:

      Yawn! It’s going to be whatever’s-the-current Call of Duty, like every year…

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:29 Deathmaster says:

      Going to call Darksiders 2 then.
      I know it was my GOTY.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:54 Oozo says:

      And then there are the odd chances that DayZ might be deemed seriously important, too, aren’t there? I know that it’s not a full-grown game, strictly speaking, and I know interest in the game has tailed off lately, but remember how very SPECIAL it made us feel back when?

      (This, or Dark Scavenger, obviously.)

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:55 Inglourious Badger says:

      It’s going to be….(checks his prediction from the end of last year)….Bioshock Infinite! Ah, hmm. Ok, it’s a toss up between Hotline Miami and XCOM. I’m going with XCOM.

      My personal choice is DayZ.

    • 01/12/2012 at 16:50 Fenix says:

      Botanicula, for great justice!

    • 01/12/2012 at 17:18 Barlk says:

      Dark Souls.

      • 01/12/2012 at 22:17 yourgrandma says:

        Some good game came out this year on pc… but dark souls is the only one that deserves the title.

        • 02/12/2012 at 00:11 Miltrivd says:

          Shoddy ports shouldn’t ever win any prizes. I’m loving every second of Dark Souls, but as what made PC shine brighter this year I can think of DayZ near the very top.

      • 02/12/2012 at 20:23 eclipse mattaru says:

        I’m fairly certain it’s not gonna be Dark Souls –it didn’t get nearly as much RPS love as XCOM or Dishonored did, for one thing (be wary of telegraphed first place!)-; but since it it my GOTY hands down -and it could very much be my Game of the Decade as well- , I’m gonna stand here with you, waving my “Praise The Sun!” flag and wearing my giant Furysword-themed foam finger.

        By the, way, how did those Ornstein and Smough treat you? Those guys are quite the card, are they not?

    • 04/12/2012 at 14:49 Teovald says:

      I don’t think so. It was my favorite game of this year by far. It is a bit ironic since I also think that the gameplay is seriously flawed, but in a way that serves the experience delivered by Dishonored.

      But anyway, does it really matter ? What if game x is RPS favorite game of the year ? It does not mean that it is a better game than all the other entries. Most of them are not even comparable.

  3. 01/12/2012 at 12:11 Hexagonal Pensioner says:

    So prime numbers are better than composite ones? Apart from 24 of course.

  4. 01/12/2012 at 12:15 Tusque D'Ivoire says:

    YAAAY! Been looking forward to this since 12/25/2011

  5. 01/12/2012 at 12:23 CMaster says:

    Outside bets:
    Planetside 2
    Waking Mars (have enough of the hivemind played it for it to have a chance?)
    DayZ (would be the most “Zeitgeisty” choice.)

  6. 01/12/2012 at 12:32 MeestaNob says:

    Have you thought about selling a Horace plushie?

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:33 CMaster says:

      It would never leave the factory however.
      I guess they could put the start of it in the post.
      I’m not sure that paypal or credit cards support a bill for infinity dollars though.

      Also, idols and all that.

    • 01/12/2012 at 12:48 DiamondDog says:

      I’m trying to think how you would physically deliver something that is endless.

      You’d just sort of end up with lots of endless plushies criss-crossing the world.

      • 01/12/2012 at 13:10 Koozer says:

        Maybe you could just buy a sunscription in the Horace plushie, with each person paying for one extra Taiwanese plushie knitter on the infinite production run. Maybe the head end could be carried around to each subscriber’s house for revering purposes, with his body weaving in and out of everyone’s doors, a metaphor for his presence in all our hearts.

      • 02/12/2012 at 19:55 SuperNashwanPower says:

        Make Horace The Mobius Strip Bear plushies

        Deliverable, yet still infinite.

        /mathsjoke

  7. 01/12/2012 at 13:10 Lambchops says:

    I’m going to put a guess at either XCOM or Hotline Miami for game of the year. Though Far Cry 3 could make a late rally, particularly as it’s a game I can see all four writers enjoying whereas some games might see one or two people being a bit less enthusiastic.

    Perhaps not GOTY contenders but I also expect to see the likes of 30 Flights of Loving crop up, with an outside chance of something like Rayman “Oranges” making an appearance.

    Anyone else got any potential “outsiders” that they think might make an appearance? Farm Simulator perhaps?

  8. 01/12/2012 at 13:11 povu says:

    Since we’re looking back at 2012… A few months back RPS did an article that looked at all the important things that happened in gaming in 2012. Does anyone have a link to that? I can’t find it back.

  9. 01/12/2012 at 13:14 NathanH says:

    I think they’ll try to beat the number of comments on the Sexism threads by picking Mass Effect 3 as number one.

  10. 01/12/2012 at 13:14 Xanadu says:

    Personal game of the year Guild Wars 2, in terms of hours put into it and enjoyment had. Think this should be on the list of 24, though probably not the winner.

    • 01/12/2012 at 13:31 Commander Gun says:

      I don’t know. I bought GW2 because everyone was sort of frantic about it, but i just didn’t impress me. Not at all a bad game though, it just didn’t “click” with me.

    • 02/12/2012 at 15:48 Dances to Podcasts says:

      I spent a lot of time on it at first, but I’ve quit now. The innovations it did bring just didn’t really add that much. Not that it’s a bad thing, but all it does is make you imagine what could be if they consistently pushed things rather than just take one step and then stop.

  11. 01/12/2012 at 14:15 stahlwerk says:

    I don’t know if it’s a good thing that the M.A.I.A. RPS Calendar ends after the Mayan Calendar. I hope Quetzacoatl will at least tell us his / her GOTY before devouring us all.

  12. 01/12/2012 at 14:50 Hodge says:

    Too close to call, but I reckon it will go to DayZ, Hotline Miami or XCOM.

  13. 01/12/2012 at 16:44 StashAugustine says:

    Technically, Advent doesn’t start til Sunday. /nitpick

  14. 01/12/2012 at 17:35 Baines says:

    I never understood the point of advent calendars, not at any of the web sites that do them.

  15. 01/12/2012 at 18:30 Tomba says:

    I think they did more then enough of shameless XCOM promotion for one year despite being proven wrong when the game actually released. Even though it’s a very entertaining game, it should never be called GOTY because of the myriad of bugs still present in the game. And since Firaxis have only announced DLC and no mention of fixing some of the bugs (or the mod support they promised!) I think it’s not really a game that deserves any honours…

  16. 01/12/2012 at 18:45 TooNu says:

    WOOOOOO! XMAS BEAR! :D

    I love this calender that RPS does, it’s been a staple of my Christmas for the last 3 years now. What will be number 1 this year then? Dishonored? Guild Wars 2? hmmmmm

  17. 06/12/2012 at 16:34 ClaudiaBrowne22 says:

    Addison. even though Lori`s blog is shocking, I just received a great new Ford since getting a cheque for $5234 this past 5 weeks and just over 10/k this past munth. with-out any question its my favourite-job Ive had. I started this seven months/ago and pretty much immediately earned over $84, per-hour. I use the details on this website,, Fox76.com

  18. 07/12/2012 at 15:07 JoeyJungle says:

    I can’t find advent calendar day six?

    • 07/12/2012 at 15:24 Llewyn says:

      Isn’t that always the case with advent calendars? And then when you do eventually track it down you realise some [pirate]‘s already swiped the chocolate and pushed the door closed again.*

      *Or so I hear, chocolates in advent calendars hadn’t been invented when I was a child.

  19. 19/12/2012 at 01:59 tinafey says:

    my co-worker’s ex-wife makes $73 hourly on the internet. She has been without work for 9 months but last month her check was $21030 just working on the internet for a few hours. Read more here http://www.fly38.com

  20. 29/12/2012 at 06:23 JenniferSimpson22 says:

    until I saw the receipt of $6749, I didn’t believe …that…my friend had been actualey erning money parttime at there computar.. there neighbor has done this less than twelve months and resently repayed the mortgage on their place and bought a great new Toyota. I went here, Great60.com

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