As usual, this year was a mix of me playing some genuinely good older games and occasionally even picking up (and playing) an new game, so this list represents what I played and now what was fresh and new. So that said....
Best Walking Simulators of 2022: Scorn, Moons of Madness and Soma
That it took me so long to play Soma and Moons of Madness is a shame, but at least I got to discover them for the first time this year, a year in which I really decided that I love the shorter form of an exploratory walking simulator with a deep story/realm to uncover. Unfortunately there are plenty of less thrilling examples of this genre out there, but these three games in particular were each amazing in their own ways:
Soma was a deep dive in to the nature of human consciousness, viewed through the lens of a posthuman apocalypse;
Moons of Madness was an SF excursion into Lovecraftian tradition but on Mars, and presented a really fascinating mix of hard SF tropes mixed with cosmic horror;
Scorn was a wordless nightmare written in Giegeresque imagery of a universe which wasn't merely posthuman but had long ago abandoned the concepted of the ideation of self. It was a nightmare from beginning to end, and not for everyone, but I loved it.
Best Open World Game I Finished in 2022: Assassin's Creed Origin
Ubisoft makes games that are simply too large for me to get to with any proper sense of time, and I sometimes wonder if Ubisoft sees this in their numbers, that for every Mountain Dew-powered gamerbro who grabs their latest game and plows through it in a couple weekends, there's a torrent of gamers like me to take months or even years to finish one of their giant worlds. Origin isn't even close to the size of Odyssey or Valhalla which has me worried....I am working on Odyssey now, and wondering how many years before I finish it. I question whether I have the energy to ever tackle Valhalla, given that so many new AC games are scheduled for release (and thankfully Ubisoft has made noises to the effect that their future games will be a bit shorter). In any case, exploring a fictional Ptolemaic Egypt was a lot of fun, and I really appreciate that the developers of these games put so much effort into making them the way they do; it got my son into Egypt and he is learning so much more as a result now.
Best CRPG of 2022: Tactics Ogre
I'm still playing it, but I am gonna call it for this one. Tactics Ogre is an incredibly satisfying experience. I played other RPGs this year: I tackled, at last, Xenoblade Chronicles I on Switch and while it was fun, that game got long in the tooth well before getting to the end. Tactics Ogre is by contrast a perfect game for a portable experience like Steam Deck or the Switch, and its turn-based rules are a lot of fun to parse out. The story isn't bad, either! I recall playing the original back in the PS1 days, and enjoying it just as much.
Best Shooter of 2022: Halo Infinite
First, I actually finished this in 2022, so there is that. Second, the campaign is really fun, a nice return to form for the Halo franchise which felt like Halo as its fans tend to think of it. The only real issues with Halo Infinite are the fact that the open-world sections felt a bit forced to me; once I finished the main campaign there simply wasn't that much left to keep me involved in the game afterward, and of course the fact that the multiplayer component does not live up to modern standard of what a multiplayer persistent games-as-a-service experience is supposed to be. Some might consider this a feature, not a bug, but I know those who were really hoping for Halo Infinite to rank next to Fortnite and Warzone were certainly disappointed. But for me? I've only ever played Halo for the campaigns, and this one delivered.
Hall of Shame: Destiny 2
What the hell has happened to this game? It's focus on story is now so disjointed and at times nonsensical that keeping up with what is happening and why is impossible. By abandoning a model closer to Halo, we no longer can access and play older campaigns, are stuck on a seasonal treadmill of content that forces gamers who only play for story to grind through unpleasant content to get the most out of it (which I refuse to do; my time is too valuable), and the overall experience feels disjointed and shallow as a result. I have played less of Destiny 2 this year than ever before, and I have decided I will refrain from picking up the next $100 "expansion" as that's the kind of cash I reserve for games I can properly revisit and enjoy on my own time, not Bungie's. To Bungie: start releasing stand along "Best of Destiny" releases with the older campaigns that can be bought for a static price, played forever, and don't turn in to gated content in the future, and I will return. Until then, I will accept that despite the fact that this was once one of my favorite franchises, I must accept that I am not your target demographic anymore.
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