Year In Review: 2022

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OK, so, yes - Elden Ring came out. It’s the “best” game I played this year. But it’s not my GOTY. That honor belongs to Signalis. I just love it so, so much.

  • Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk – [6]

    • Cool little interactive story about a mentally unwell girl – it's like the kind of thing I would've wanted to make in high school, except actually good. More than worth the pocket change I spent on it; loved the art style.

  • Inscryption: Kaycee's Mod (Beta) – [7]

    • Getting to see this change/be balanced in real time was cool. This is a stellar add-on to Inscryption, one of my favorite games of 2021. The name of the game here is playing dirty and using degenerate strategies – the computer opponent doesn't play fair in this one, so you must do the same in order to outpace him and win. With a little luck and some clever card evaluation skills, though, you can prevail.

  • It Takes Two – [6]

    • Wife and I finally got around to this one. Lots of fun, and a beautiful environment. We had a blast trying out all the mechanics, which are doled out at just the right rate so that they never get stale.

  • Horizon Forbidden West – [3]

    • Aloy is just supremely unlikable in this game - in the first one she was stoic and determined; in this game she just feels unbearably cold and standoffish. Controls felt finicky – I don't remember the jumps being so bad – although this may be an in-engine change to account for the Death Stranding-style terrain system and BOTW-style glider (both new). Gorgeous environments. Good facial animations, if a little “uncanny valley.” Biggest issue – exploration felt “by the numbers,” like finishing a chore list, ESPECIALLY after playing Elden Ring. Frustrating combat as well. Hugely repetitive, grindy, disappointing – and we don't need an animation to pick up every weed we come across.

  • Elden Ring – [9]

    • Real sense of exploration, was an addicting first playthrough. Has some genuine quality of life additions to the Souls formula and solid combat; I particularly like the Ash of War system. Too many repeating bosses – understandable for a game of this size – but not a huge issue, as it lets you try out Spirit Ashes to blitz bosses you've done before.
      Like many, I feel like the general balance of the game drops off a bit after the Mountaintop of the Giants. The end game bosses in particular move so fast that it's extremely punishing to stand toe-to-toe with them. If you're in melee, the game's final encounters seem to funnel you into a dominant strategy of spamming certain Ashes of War and/or jump attacks. Which is OK, I guess, but it feels weird for a game that had such good variety before the home stretch.

      For example, everyone complained about Malenia – and I agree with many of the complaints – but I also think just a few small tweaks could've made her one of the best bosses in the entire Soulsborne franchise. It's just small things – Waterfoul Dance being unreasonably hard to dodge, her healing off of shield blocking – that make you go back to that dominant strategy (if you're melee): spam jump attacks to stagger, and/or use one of the hugely damaging, low-risk Ashes of War to slay the boss from relative safety. Again, it works, it's fine, and the fight is really awesome anyway – it's just a weird choice to me. (And frankly, I'm not convinced it WAS a “choice” – feels like the last 25% or so of the game was in need of one final balance pass, but FromSoft just ran out of time.)

      Anyway, long story short, the big final bosses felt more like I was figuring out how to cheese them, rather than fight them. Except maybe Godfrey. That fight fucking shreds. Great game.

  • Stray – [6]

    • A fun little walking simulator-ish adventure game. It's fun to explore and traverse is a cat, and the Kowloon-inspired environment design is great.

  • Cult of the Lamb – [6]

    • Adorable. I love the style of the game. The base building and roguelike combat are both a little on the half-baked side; the Tarot card deck in particular is a boring upgrade system, and lacks a lot of the surprises and wacky combos of classic roguelikes such as Binding of Isaac or Hades. The progression balance is also a little odd, but that might be a “me” problem – I was obsessed with keeping my cult efficient, and ended up maxing out nearly everything before I even fought the third boss. But, I didn't spend THAT much time in the base building area, so I'm wondering if some of the economy cycles are too fast? Also, ran into a few soft-lock bugs but nothing too crazy, and the devs are working on it. Anyway, fun and cute.

  • Splatoon 3 – [6]

    • I love Splatoon, and I do like this game. Although Salmon Run is still fun, the multiplayer experience is not significantly different enough from 2 to really hold my attention. The single player was alright, and I quite enjoyed the “diet open world” gating/unlock system. The soundtrack and diva banter isn't quite as charming as 2's, and the additional trading card game is pretty boring. Overall, still play it a lot, but I want some DLC to put some (more) fresh meat on these bones.

  • Bayonetta 3 – [4]

    • Bayo's combat is smooth, engaging, and surprisingly accessible as always; I was initially turned off at the prospect of the demon puppet summoning, but once I started weaving summons into combos, it sort of clicked for me. However, that's where most of my praise ends – the good bits of the game get constantly interrupted – too many on-rails sections, too many cutscenes, boring rock-paper-scissors kaiju battles, and worst of all: Viola. Viola's combat just falls completely flat compared to Bayo, and her levels are a chore. Also dumb, dumb story – not even funny dumb, just dumb dumb.

  • Signalis – [10]

    • A true love-letter to Silent Hill, and a setting after my own heart. I love almost everything about this game – the retro-future setting, the art style, the story, the loving homages to old survival horror. It might have just a tad too much backtracking due to inventory space (maybe being TOO faithful to old survival horror), but it's hard for me to fault it too much. I can honestly say that, for any faults, this is as close to a “dream game” for me as any in recent memory. Also, you know what? If they had just made it so the tool items (flashlight, camera eye, etc) took their own independent item slot instead of wasting space in your precious inventory? I think that'd bump it up to a 10 for me.

    • UPDATE: With the retooling of the module system, the “inventory pinch” is now lessened - easily bumping this up to 10.

  • God of War: Ragnarok – [5]

    • Docking a whole point because Atreus will never shut the fuck up and let me solve the (already easy) puzzles on my own. I don't care for the writing here as much of the first one – it ratchets up the quirky Marvel-style dialogue far too much for my liking, and frankly the story is all over the place. Not like the first game was a masterfully deep story; it was just a solid character piece. But, in Ragnarok, it seems so to be TOO in love with story it's trying to tell – too much dialogue, too many cutscenes, too proud of itself.

      When the game does throw you a bone and interrupt the conversations with a fight encounter, it feels like it's doing so begrudgingly, like it would much rather be continuing to narrate the convoluted story of Loki and the giants and the nature of fate and soul transferring and blah blah blah. Where the game does excel is at its core: the combat. It's not perfect, but it is a pretty good masher - tense, challenging without being unfair (mostly). And the enemy variety has been increased as well, which was one of my main complaints about the first game.

      I just wish Western AAA games would be quiet and let me contemplate and explore again. See: Elden Ring.

  • Plague Tale: Requiem – [4]

    • This is a “good enough” sequel, but the writing is all over the place, and the stealth is sometimes frustrating. Amecia is definitely giving Aloy a run for her money in the “poorly written strong female character” category this year. Beautiful environment art though.

  • Pokemon Scarlet – [6, or 7 post December 2022 performance patch]

    • What a shame. At its core, this is one of the most fun and unique Pokemon experiences in years. This should have been the BotW for Pokemon, but it is held back by horrible environment art and unacceptable performance. If this game had more time to cook, it would've been an easy 8/10 for me.

  • Darktide – [5]

    • And coming along as another entrant in the “needed longer in the oven” category, we have Darktide. There's a solid game in here. It's just buried underneath performance issues/crashes, baffling (and incomplete!) design choices, and a giant nothing of a story; why even include these cutscenes?! The strangest decisions here are removing some of the best kinds of game feel of Vermintide 2 – why do mooks spawn in monster closets directly beside you, for example? Why is there no progression of levels in a linear order? No climactic final holdouts, save for a scant few examples? Every end of mission encounter in Darktide is some flavor of “carry the same heavy object” or “burst the same demon pustules” or “defeat the same boss” - all the while you're constantly getting harassed by enemies that spawn on top of you, often in your direct line of sight. Anyway, promising core game, but awful launch; needs work.