Game of the Year 2022
Well, would you look at the time? It’s the end of the year and 2022 has probably been my biggest year professionally, ever? It has been a big year for laying the foundations of both the future of my work and my own future as well. But it was also a year where a lot of good video games came out and while a lot of this year’s gaming landscape had been dominated by Elden Ring (spoiler alert, it’s my overall game of the year), some other excellent stuff came out as well. So sit back, relax, and get ready for me to talk about the games that truly stood out from the pack in 2022. The entries this year are gonna be a bit truncated because I’ve written about all of these in some capacity, so I’ll be linking to them.
Like I said when I first wrote about this back in September, Tinykin is one of the best platformers in years. From the generally great feeling of the controls, the imagination on display in the world and level design, to even the titular Tinykin themselves being great Pikmin-style mascots/power-ups, all of it has me charmed. And if I had to describe it in one word, charmed would be it. Because I had a goofy smile on my face playing this and sometimes, that’s all a game needs to be.
Signalis is one of the most terrifying games I’ve ever played. And while that might be my cowardly ass skewing the results a bit, that doesn’t make it any less true. It evokes the best of early-era Resident Evil and Silent Hill and combines it with ample amounts of inspiration from the works of H.P. Lovecraft to create an incredibly oppressive world filled with dread and hopelessness. But it also uses this to explore connections people make and the promises we keep, telling a more personal story amidst the East Germany in Space/Cosmic Horror-inspired backdrop of the setting. All of this comes together to create an experience that’s dreamlike in its terror and I was captivated the entire time.
Destiny 2 The Witch Queen’s Campaign
While I will fully admit that the Bungie of the Halo days and the Bungie of now are two completely different studios, I feel like I just want to shout this: The Witch Queen, as a traditional FPS campaign, is the best shooter campaign Bungie has made since Halo Reach. The mystery that unfolds across its eight-mission run time is expertly paced and runs you through a gorgeous set of locales that do a lot of environmental storytelling regarding the focus of the story: Savathun, the titular Witch Queen. While the end mission isn’t nearly as much of an emotional gut punch as Reach’s, the rest of the story drops some major revelations in regard to the Hive and does a good job of being a jumping-off point for the year of seasonal content that is currently in its final stretch. This combined with the excellent utilization of Ikora Rey as a character and the introduction of new characters goes a long way to giving the world some new flavour. The new subclass revamps that began this year help, but I’ll talk more about that stuff with my pre-Lightfall recap in a few months.
This is still, to this day, my occasional chill game. For when I need to do something with my hands and not have to overly think about what I’m doing and just relax. Everything about it from the grime of the different areas and objects being cleared away, to the sounds of the rushing water, to the distinct “DING” sound effect made when you get something fully clean, hell, even the increased saturation of colour from clean objects, gives me the good brain juice. And I normally hate cleaning. It’s just…everything about it feels so goddamn satisfying, that I can even turn on a Video Essay, podcast or some music on Youtube, start playing this and just have the hours and stress melt away. And I’ve kind of needed that in the last few months, not gonna lie.
PRODEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSS!!!!!
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, this and #1 can honestly go either way, but I’ll just get this out of the way: Prodeus is probably the best game I’ve played this year under the circumstances of the next entry not being a thing. It’s the best straight-up FPS campaign I’ve played since Doom Eternal. It’s more straight-up rampage than resource management, but that doesn't change the fact that between the excellent level design and map system, a killer’s row of weapons and an interesting assortment of undead and demonic baddies, you have the ingredients for something special. And that something is a damn fine piece of brutal, uncompromising, blood-slaked industrial metal-fueled mayhem. And it’s some of the best times I’ve had with a video game this year
However…
Elden Ring has its fair share of issues: the locations and enemies in the back half of the game aren't nearly as interesting as the first half of the game, and you can hit the diminishing returns on stats way too fast if you’re going out of your way to do that sort of thing, and I wish I was capable of hating anything as much as Elden Ring hates Holy Damage users.
But even with those admittedly minor gripes, I still love the fucking hell out of this game for one major reason: It is the closest that any major video game release has come to making me feel like I was playing Dark Souls 1 again for the first time back when I was in college. The Lands Between are this set of harsh and unforgiving locations ravaged by war and disease. But it’s also a place of quiet, almost contemplative beauty. There are these moments that have me taken aback by what was done here. My go-to example of this has to be when I’m sitting at any of the sites of graces at night and I just see small leaves of the massive Erdtree dancing in the night sky, causing what I would assume is my character’s line of thinking; even during the quest to become the next Elden Lord, you need to take the small things into account, let both them and yourself breathe.
Hell, this even extends to the multiplayer to an extent where I’ve helped and have called friends for help and we’ve exchanged silly gestures while showing off our Elden Bling (the latest iteration of Fashion Souls. Or when I’m being invaded when I’ve called a friend in to help with a boss and we just kill their ass and go back to our business.
But I will say this: Unlike Dark Souls 1, Elden Ring sticks the goddamn landing because while everything from the Mountaintop of the Giants to the end of the critical path is perhaps the most brutal endgame in a FromSoft game to date, it has some of my favourite bosses in these games I’ve ever seen. Did I get frustrated? Yes. Was I traumatized by losing power at the final boss of Crumbling Farum Azula being a hit away from death so hard that I stopped playing for 3 months? Also Yes. Did I do a “No Spirit Ash run” by goddamn accident during the majority of my first playthrough and gave myself an unnecessary amount of grief? You bet your sweet ass I did. But that doesn't change the fact that Elden Ring is hands down my favourite game of the year because even with all of that being piled on top of it, I still felt compelled to finish it. And that to me says more about what it gets right than what it gets wrong.
Also, If you pick anything other than the Age of Stars ending, we cannot be allies in the coming revolution. Just kidding. Mainly about the revolution stuff. If anything, I’ll probably just think your weird and call it a day.
And with that, we got another year of writing in the books. 2022 has been a wild year and possibly my most consistent to date. I just want to let y’all reading this know that I’m going to be taking the next month off so I can have a much-needed break from doing this. And with that, thank you for sticking through to the end, I deeply appreciate it and I’ll see y’all in 2023. Have a happy holiday and a Happy New Year.
