18 Great Games You Might Not Have Played in 2012

It’s finally getting to the time of year where all the big games are out and I can sit down and think for more than five minutes, so my thoughts are naturally turning from 2012’s huge releases to the other stuff – the smaller, often more interesting games that have stuck in my mind as the months have gone by. For me it’s often these games that give the year personality; where the schedule of big releases is pretty much the same every year (a few in January, a few in April/May, maybe one in summer, and an avalanche from September onwards), these games pop up unexpectedly, brightening a weekend or a lunch break or a cold February afternoon. The evolving nature of game narrative, particularly, has been a theme for me this year – games from The Walking Dead to Dear Esther have been ignoring the conventions of interactive storytelling, often with huge success.