I felt like making a top and 5 gaming list for 2022. Not a list of top 5 games, but just the top 5 gaming-related "things" of the year for me. Would love to hear yours. Whether it's actual games, or moments, or news items, or trends, or whatever.
Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year to everyone starting to take off as we wrap up the year!
Top 5:
#1: The Play Station 5
I did a lot of ebaying and trading and buying and selling this year so that I can mess around with the various platforms and I gotta admit, my status as a Sony cultist has cemented. Despite its prices, horrific looking case, distribution model, crappy UI, it is for sure the piece of hardware that gave me the most intesne gaming. Intense doesn't always mean good, just intense.
Finally sating my curiosity with Demons Souls; the pure dumb delightful fun of Horizon: Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Rollerdrome; and both my favorite and least favorite games of the year (Ragnarok and Elden Ring); and now culminating with the Witcher 3 with haptic feedback.
#2: Game Pass
I messed with it on a PC and a Series S and it did the opposite of PS5- I dabbled! I liked dabbling. I quit more games in 2022 than I ever have and it was a blast. Given my narrow tastes and lack of interest in Microsoft exclusives, I've exhausted the entire library and don't see myself wanting it back for a good long while. But I got to try a bunch of indies and critically acclaimed games I knew I'd hate (hi, Outer Wilds), and everything in between, making "Game Pass subscription miscellany" one of my favorite games of the year.
#3: The Escapist streams
I've had long stretches of work slow-downs and traveling where I kind of have to be at a screen. Music used to be my go-to audio entertainment but as I get older, I need to listen to less both to protect my hearing and to give my brain space to absorb the music itself. So I tuned into Escapist live streams and VoD's for my favorite series. Hearing Marty, KC, Jesse and now Frost especially just B.S. about whatever with the chat folks is the best background noise.
Considering I can't tolerate the vast majority of youtuber, content-creator, gamer type talkers, it's pretty incredible there are like 5 good ones here.
#4: Animated adaptations
Castlevania, Arcane, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners were the best shows I watched in 2022 on my own. I had always though that the only potential good game adaptions on TV would be animated and finally this happened. Bonus is that I have never and will never play any of these actual games, they just found ways to tell stories that look and reach a wider audience.
#5: Bayonetta
I tried the first game a while back on PC and got stuck. This year I had a Switch lite and blew through the entire series of three games. Now I am not saying these are like the best games or anything- they're fine. They're good! They're whatever- action fighting stuff, it's fine. But I just loved that I was able to get back into something I quit on, took it all the way, and timed it along with the third game being released right as I was ready for it.
And I get to have played as one of the most iconic, visually arresting and weirdest game icon characters. Bayonetta joins Mario, Link, Geralt of Rivia, Ezio Auditore, and Lara Croft as ultimate iconic characters I have gotten to embody.
Bottom 5:
#1: Elden Ring
I was so unbelievably hyped for this, and so frustrated and disappointed with the actual game. A bitter way to end a run of the most amazing games in my life for the past few years. Then to see critics trip all over their balls to give it praise after praise, and so many fans turn on anyone who didn't praise it with messianic glee. It is a GOOD game, but it has its problems, or at least it has things that are not objectively GREAT, and I fear it has made the curse of "open world" with us for the next 20 years.
#2: Corporate consolidation
It was inevitable, but I hate it. Sure the Microsoft vs Sony bitching is kinda funny but it's truly terrifying how mega our megacorps are.
#3: Big game disappointments
As I write this, the cinema is enjoying a bit of a revival with Avatar 2 while a shocking number of huge games were delayed or broken or crap. The biggest stunner to me is the big blob of MEH that was Halo Infinite, how it sort of petered out when I was sure it was gonig to be a monster. And the kicker with that is that the core gameplay was good, they just couldn't support it apparently?
Pokemon games are jank, Starfield and bunch of others got delayed-er, Callisto Protocol is crap? Overwatch 2 fell flatter than stale beer. Coming out of pandemic living with the games industry being so huge, I was expecting this to be a blockbuster time for huge games. It was, overall, pretty sad.
#4: NFT's and cryptocrap
Just.. ugh. I was thinking of putting the collective response to it as a top 5 thing because players and consumers and journalists hated on this crap appropriately, but I am just so mad we even have to deal with it. I still thinking that the sheer investor class money will force this into our lives no matter how much we hate it.
#5: Console wars continue
I didn't have any particularly strong feelings about Stadia, cloud whatevers, and alternative ways of selling and playing games. But I was hoping that it would ameliorate the worst aspects of Microsoft and Sony farting on each other. Instead, the new high-priced consoles + supply chain excuses + failure of alternatives apparently has made it worse. With new AAA games at $70 and this new console generation taking longer to get going, it seams as if 2022 was a harder year for folks with less money to get into cool games. As much as I like my consoles, I am privileged with disposable income.
Apparently some of the new Samsung TV's have like an XBox app built into them so that folks can stream GamePass or something- I hope more stuff like that works out.
Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year to everyone starting to take off as we wrap up the year!
Top 5:
#1: The Play Station 5
I did a lot of ebaying and trading and buying and selling this year so that I can mess around with the various platforms and I gotta admit, my status as a Sony cultist has cemented. Despite its prices, horrific looking case, distribution model, crappy UI, it is for sure the piece of hardware that gave me the most intesne gaming. Intense doesn't always mean good, just intense.
Finally sating my curiosity with Demons Souls; the pure dumb delightful fun of Horizon: Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Rollerdrome; and both my favorite and least favorite games of the year (Ragnarok and Elden Ring); and now culminating with the Witcher 3 with haptic feedback.
#2: Game Pass
I messed with it on a PC and a Series S and it did the opposite of PS5- I dabbled! I liked dabbling. I quit more games in 2022 than I ever have and it was a blast. Given my narrow tastes and lack of interest in Microsoft exclusives, I've exhausted the entire library and don't see myself wanting it back for a good long while. But I got to try a bunch of indies and critically acclaimed games I knew I'd hate (hi, Outer Wilds), and everything in between, making "Game Pass subscription miscellany" one of my favorite games of the year.
#3: The Escapist streams
I've had long stretches of work slow-downs and traveling where I kind of have to be at a screen. Music used to be my go-to audio entertainment but as I get older, I need to listen to less both to protect my hearing and to give my brain space to absorb the music itself. So I tuned into Escapist live streams and VoD's for my favorite series. Hearing Marty, KC, Jesse and now Frost especially just B.S. about whatever with the chat folks is the best background noise.
Considering I can't tolerate the vast majority of youtuber, content-creator, gamer type talkers, it's pretty incredible there are like 5 good ones here.
#4: Animated adaptations
Castlevania, Arcane, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners were the best shows I watched in 2022 on my own. I had always though that the only potential good game adaptions on TV would be animated and finally this happened. Bonus is that I have never and will never play any of these actual games, they just found ways to tell stories that look and reach a wider audience.
#5: Bayonetta
I tried the first game a while back on PC and got stuck. This year I had a Switch lite and blew through the entire series of three games. Now I am not saying these are like the best games or anything- they're fine. They're good! They're whatever- action fighting stuff, it's fine. But I just loved that I was able to get back into something I quit on, took it all the way, and timed it along with the third game being released right as I was ready for it.
And I get to have played as one of the most iconic, visually arresting and weirdest game icon characters. Bayonetta joins Mario, Link, Geralt of Rivia, Ezio Auditore, and Lara Croft as ultimate iconic characters I have gotten to embody.
Bottom 5:
#1: Elden Ring
I was so unbelievably hyped for this, and so frustrated and disappointed with the actual game. A bitter way to end a run of the most amazing games in my life for the past few years. Then to see critics trip all over their balls to give it praise after praise, and so many fans turn on anyone who didn't praise it with messianic glee. It is a GOOD game, but it has its problems, or at least it has things that are not objectively GREAT, and I fear it has made the curse of "open world" with us for the next 20 years.
#2: Corporate consolidation
It was inevitable, but I hate it. Sure the Microsoft vs Sony bitching is kinda funny but it's truly terrifying how mega our megacorps are.
#3: Big game disappointments
As I write this, the cinema is enjoying a bit of a revival with Avatar 2 while a shocking number of huge games were delayed or broken or crap. The biggest stunner to me is the big blob of MEH that was Halo Infinite, how it sort of petered out when I was sure it was gonig to be a monster. And the kicker with that is that the core gameplay was good, they just couldn't support it apparently?
Pokemon games are jank, Starfield and bunch of others got delayed-er, Callisto Protocol is crap? Overwatch 2 fell flatter than stale beer. Coming out of pandemic living with the games industry being so huge, I was expecting this to be a blockbuster time for huge games. It was, overall, pretty sad.
#4: NFT's and cryptocrap
Just.. ugh. I was thinking of putting the collective response to it as a top 5 thing because players and consumers and journalists hated on this crap appropriately, but I am just so mad we even have to deal with it. I still thinking that the sheer investor class money will force this into our lives no matter how much we hate it.
#5: Console wars continue
I didn't have any particularly strong feelings about Stadia, cloud whatevers, and alternative ways of selling and playing games. But I was hoping that it would ameliorate the worst aspects of Microsoft and Sony farting on each other. Instead, the new high-priced consoles + supply chain excuses + failure of alternatives apparently has made it worse. With new AAA games at $70 and this new console generation taking longer to get going, it seams as if 2022 was a harder year for folks with less money to get into cool games. As much as I like my consoles, I am privileged with disposable income.
Apparently some of the new Samsung TV's have like an XBox app built into them so that folks can stream GamePass or something- I hope more stuff like that works out.
