15 Best Months To Be A Gamer (Since 2000)

3. October 2012 €“ Horizons, Hotlines And Dishonour...

While Forza has always been a great racing series, you might be forgiven for finding it a touch too serious. It's a franchise very much focused on driving lines, tuning and realism. Forza Horizon is instead something of a spin-off but thankfully it's just as good as the regular series with an extra focus on fun. It's all about racing fast cars across a big desert-based playgrounds with a variety of events to compete in (including the series' first steps into rally) and a free-roaming multiplayer mode which allowed us to take our street racing online. Sequel soon please, Turn 10!

October was a great month for the indie game lovers too with Hotline Miami launching on the PC; a top-down game that blends violence, stealth and crazy storytelling, Hotline Miami was originally created as a tribute to the film Drive; let's just say, they got it pretty spot on. With a top notch soundtrack, style and addictive point scoring system, it quickly amassed a fanbase on the PC, leading to the announcement of a sequel, arriving later this year.

The biggest multi-plat release for this month was a brand new IP by the name of Dishonored. It's an assassination game played entirely from a first-person perspective with an emphasis on making your way through the game as stealthily as possible. Or, thanks to the game's multiple branching paths, you can cause as much mayhem as you want. Plus, it all looks like an oil painting, making it a truly memorable experience.

Elsewhere this month, the fourth episode of Telltale's Walking Dead continued to impress; the highly touted Assassin's Creed III arrived across all consoles; the first sequels in the Pokemon series - Black 2 and White 2 - arrived; and the amazingly disappointing Resident Evil 6 horrified gamers everywhere (and not in a good way).

Metacritic Roundup: Forza Horizon, 85. Hotline Miami, 85. Dishonored, 88. Average: 86.