It's always difficult to narrow an entire year of games down to just a select set of the best, but this task seemed harder than usual in 2012. The year really was an embarrassment of riches as far as video games, with plenty of excellent, innovative games ranging from indie to AAA, from iOS to high-end PC.

This is our best attempt to narrow that great year to 20 games that we feel no one should miss. Obviously there were some personal picks from our editors that didn't make the cut; a small sample of these are included in the "best of the rest" section at the end of this piece. Even with that, there are plenty of deserving games that we weren't able to include. Let us know what you thought were the best games of the year in the comments.

20. Dustforce

Hitbox Team

Windows, Mac, Linux

It’s easy to think that there’s nothing new to see in a genre as old and overdone as platform games, but Dustforce proves just how false this is. Ostensibly a game about cleaning up detritus, the game is really about finding that perfect line of momentum through some exquisitely designed 2D levels, using a careful combination of slides, dashes, double jumps, wall and ceiling runs, and mid-air attacks.

The gentle learning curve quickly makes these things second nature, and turns each level into an almost balletic performance, forcing you to strive not just for completion, but perfection. The result can be maddeningly frustrating at points, but it’s all worth it for that one pure moment of well-earned success.

19. Final Fantasy: Theatrhythm

Square Enix

Nintendo 3DS, iOS

As a love letter to obsessive Final Fantasy fans, packed with the series’ signature music, this game was guaranteed to sell well even if the gameplay was utter tripe. So it was a bit surprising that Theatrhythm is one of the freshest and most interesting takes on the rhythm genre in recent years. The game takes great advantage of the 3DS touchscreen for a number of different rhythm-keeping modes that requiring precise movements and flicks in time with the music, rather than just taps.

It’s accessible enough for beginners, but some songs can get pretty darned tough even for rhythm game experts. The way the game integrates light RPG mechanics and character building into the mix gives a bit of extra depth that’s lacking in many other rhythm games. Maybe there’s life in this half-dead genre yet.

As Jon Brodkin summed up, "Final Fantasy Theatrhythm perfectly mixes nostalgia and clever gameplay, combining Guitar Hero-style mechanics with battles and the best music from the Final Fantasy series."

18. FTL

Subset Games

Windows, Mac, Linux

I have yet to beat FTL, and it’s not for lack of trying. There have been times I’ve come close, methodically building up my ship’s crew, defenses and attack power as I explore a randomly-generated galactic map. But then I’ll have the bad luck to stumble across some overpowered ship, or lose precious resources in a random accident, or have my crew die on a seemingly safe away mission, and all the careful progress will be totally lost.

Yet I keep coming back to the game, hopeful that next time will be the one I escape what seems an inevitable failure. That’s a testament to the core design of the game, which has a deep base of tactical logic beneath the capricious and cruel fate. And I always know that, the next time I fail, at least it will likely be in a way I have never failed before.

17. Mark of the Ninja

Klei Entertainment / Microsoft Studios

Xbox 360, Windows

Mark of the Ninja made me actually feel more like a ninja than any game before it, which is saying something considering how common the character trope is in video games. The key is in the way the game grants players just enough information to feel like a preternaturally gifted stealth warrior, without offering so much making that player feel like an invulnerable superhero. Whether it’s seeing the footfalls of an unseen guard as small rippling clouds or seeing an enemy’s last known position as a quickly-fading outline, the visual presentation is top notch.

It doesn’t hurt that the game’s slowly expanding bag of ninja tricks is incredibly enjoyable, or that that the game rewards you for using the most inventive and/or stylish way of clearing rooms, offering many distinct methods for solving potential problems. Overall, Mark of the Ninja is just an extremely well-designed and thought out stealth experience.

16. Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet / NCSoft

Windows, Mac

First off, there’s the world of Tyria, a huge, beautiful place filled to the brim with opportunities for heroism. But Guild Wars 2 doesn’t simply paste the usual MMO tropes onto this environment. Instead, it advances the genre in some important ways, streamlining the quest-giving process and overhauling the character advancement system to largely eliminate the “level grinding” that required getting to the most interesting end-game content in other MMOs. The epic “world boss” fights, which can involve dozens of players at once, are sprinkled throughout the game in a way that breaks up the usual MMO errand-quest monotony quite well.

Add in great PvP options, a subscription-free business model, and the sheer amount of available content, and you have what’s easily the year’s most compelling MMO experience.

15. Letterpress

atebits

iOS

There are probably thousands of word games on iOS at this point, but there’s a reason Letterpress is one of the few to catch on with a wide audience. The well-balanced two-player competition mixes the pure vocabulary and pattern matching of a game like Boggle or Scramble with the positioning of a board game like Risk. This means that the best word isn’t necessarily the longest, or the one with the most difficult letters, but the one that uses the best positioned tiles.

Sure, games can often come down to games of chicken where both players don’t dare to take the second-to-last letter, for fear of ending the match on the losing side. Still, the tight mix of game styles and tight Game Center integration has made this our go-to iOS app for filling a few space minutes this year.

14. Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Naughty Dog / Sony

PlayStation Vita

The game that finally proved that portable games don’t have to be the neglected cousins to their console counterparts anymore, Uncharted: Golden Abyss launched the Vita with a meaty exploration adventure that’s easily the equal of it’s PS3 predecessors, with top-notch production values and gameplay that’s nearly indistinguishable from the games that came before it. It remains to be seen if there’s a market for this kind of game and this kind of system in a world dominated by Angry Birds and free iPhone apps, but it’s nice that someone was able to make it anyway.

Listing image by Michael J