Game of the Year 2022

Well well well, look at me. I was able to play a ton of games this year without leaving too big of a backlog. That said, as always there's so many games from 2022 I wanted to play that went unplayed due to lack of time and money. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Dying Light 2, and Kirby and a couple smaller metroidvanias Haak and Islets chief among those.

Some honorable mentions of games I enjoyed but not enough to crack the list: Shadow Warrior 3, Horizon Forbidden West, Rollerdrome, Moonscars, The Last of Us Part 1.

List items

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  1. Elden Ring

  Not only number 1 this year with the biggest bullet of all the bullets, Elden Ring is firmly within my top 5 favorite games of all time and depending on the day, I may tell you it IS my favorite game ever made. The freedom and creativity Elden Ring provides in its gameplay is wholly captivating. It's impossible to say how good this is and not just repeat the same things over and over, but it's so special and addresses nearly every weakness the Souls series has with its versatile and emergent reinvention of an open world game. I beat this thing 3 times back to back and think about firing it up again every so often.

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  2. Neon White

  This is a cool video game that allows you to do cool video game things to cool video game music. The controls are tight as hell on this level based speedrunning fp platformer and they are integral to what makes it feel so cool. It's like I'm forgetting about the controller in my hand and the inputs are just an extension of my thoughts on my 30th run through the same level trying to get juuuuuuuuust a slightly better time to earn a higher medal. The music though...some of these tracks are masterpieces. It's a million miles per hour the entire time. Like its underplayed and underappreciated cousin Ghostrunner, time melts away playing this one.

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  3. Nobody Saves the World

  An amalgamation of Diablo and Zelda with a wholly unique spin on an action rpg allowing you to play as multiple characters and combine their abilities into one. It essentially made a traditional game grind the most fun it can possibly be. One smaller note - I was really impressed by this game's new game plus implementation and how much it changes up the gameplay to keep the experience new and surprising through 2 full playthroughs.

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  4. Vampire Survivors

  There aren't a lot of games where I truly can put my brain on sleep mode while playing but Vampire Survivors is one of them in the best possible way. Even in the earliest goings the little gems are so satisfying to pick up. As you play more and more, soon you'll be picking up thousands of those gems and slaying thousands of enemies with no effort whatsoever in a matter of minutes. It's the most pure "don't think, just do" game of this year and as I get older, that's increasingly something I want and miss about the pick up and play nature of older games.

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  5. Tunic

  It's not below me to look up a thing or two in a guide for game. I'm here to have a good time, not to prove anything. Now, I did solve most of this game on my own (pretty much all of it except that whopper of a final puzzle and a few others here and there) but THAT BEING SAID, I couldn't help but be impressed with how obtuse that final puzzle was even after looking it up. It's amazing how interwoven the puzzles are in the game in plain sight with the only thing between you and the solution is redacted information. The game manual mechanic is brilliant - leading to revelations so enlightening that I just have to give it up to the designer for keeping them so hidden even though they're technically accessible the whole time. Not to mention how beautiful the manual art is.

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  6. Tinykin

  Is Tinykin the best collectathon ever made? I think it might be! There's so many good versions of this game on the 64 but nothing so polished, focused, and razor sharp as Tinykin. I love how it is a callback in so many ways - it being a collectathon is one way for sure, but if you're a 90s kid and the design of the levels inside a family home don't give you some serious nostalgia, I'm not sure you can claim 90's kid status. Tinykin is anything but just a nostalgia play though. It has some of the best feeling controls of the year and combines a 64 style 3d platformer with Pikmin to an extremely satisfying result.

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  7. God of War Ragnarök

  I expected this game to be higher on my list with how much I loved GoW 2018. However, I can't pretend the first 25 hours (!!!) or so of this game didn't happen. Ragnorok took a long time to get going for me. In fact, there was a gameplay sequence where you ride a certain slow ass animal that had me thinking I would give up on it. However, once you begin to unlock more areas and optional content, the game gets infinitely better. I do think the game's optional content is far and away more interesting and fun than its main story, but that said, I really loved the conclusion to this one and I'm still all in on the franchise despite this one ultimately not hitting the high I'd hoped it would (but hey, 7's pretty good!).

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  8. Signalis

  Quite possibly the most stylish and visually interesting game I've ever played. Signalis NAILS its aesthetic and dare I say gets a little avantgarde especially with its cutscene direction. It's like if Silent Hill was way more anime (with a generous portion of cyberpunk sprinkled in there). I wish there was more stuff that took these swings with as clear of a vision as Signalis - it hits what it's trying to be so squarely. I was annoyed by the inventory and I think that's a product of it being too bound to its source material, but my gripes with this one are minor. What a cool experience.

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  9. The Quarry

  It's more Until Dawn in the best possible way. While I did limit my own playthrough count to one (and lived with the dire consequences), I'm consistently engaging with streamers playing through the game to see the multitude of branching paths and reactions to situations. The writing is spectacular and intentionally schlocky. The acting / capture is really something to behold despite it looking a little bizarre from time to time. I honestly cannot think of a better implementation of an interactive movie than teen horror and Supermassive need to ditch this Dark Pictures nonsense and just go down the Until Dawn / The Quarry road until we're all blue in the face.

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  10. Cult of the Lamb

  Another one where time literally melted away while playing. There is never any down time in Cult of the Lamb. You're either tending to your cultists, the land, your facilities, or going on a run to kill some monsters for more supplies. The combat is a little half baked admittedly, but it still manages to be really satisfying despite some frustrations. I think it's a little telling how much I liked this since it was plagued with bugs at launch when I played it and I couldn't put it down to wait for the devs to clean it up a bit. Cult of the Lamb is a thoroughly addicting mishmash of genres.

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  11. Overwatch 2

  This is *technically* a new game. Sure, Overwatch 2 doesn't earn sequel status and it is a thinly veiled attempt to claim it is more than a relaunch as a free to play game, but hot damn I love to play Overwatch. And hey! It calling itself Overwatch 2 was indeed enough for me to come back and play it after a few years of not playing. I gave this a solid month of my time and had a blast getting back into the groove of playing my faves D.Va, Reinhardt, and Lucio. While it might be nice to reward actual new games, I'd be lying that I had more fun with them this year than I did with Overwatch 2. It's really struggling with its monetization aspects, but actually playing it is as fun as it ever was.