Preamble:
If this were a list that were attempting to be anywhere near the word "objective", the winner would be obvious. In fact, last year Game of the Year has never been easier to pick. This is one of those opinions so universal they can be confused for facts.
It's Elden Ring - obviously and near indisputably. The most important, most anticipated, most discussed, most acclaimed, and most successful game of 2022 was Elden Ring. It practically had half the year all to itself. It squashed Sony's big AAA production, Horizon: Forbidden West more easily than Horizon: Zero Dawn had been squashed by Zelda: Breath of the Wild five years earlier. Elden Ring was the culmination of a twelve year story telling From Software's rise from strange niche developer from Japan, a then-laughable backwards country in gaming, to the single most beloved force in the industry. We have seen a revolution occur in our lifetimes and Elden Ring is the moment the old monarch was decapitated in the street, death to the ancien régime. Animal from The Muppets simped for Melania at The Game Awards. If that is not the definition of mainstream success, I do not know what is.
Anyway, I did not play Elden Ring. Not an hour, not a minute, not a single button pressed. I do not like Souls games. I find them deeply unpleasant and they make me upset. I do not have fun. The best Souls game of all time is as much fun to me as the best termite. It might as well be the most delicious meal in the world made with vinegar. I don't like vinegar, no matter how you use it. It's gross. Please leave my salad without dressing.
I notice I have a pattern of being dismissive of the most popular thing in the world when I'm writing these lists. Hmm. Anyway, here's a bunch of other games I want to talk about that are not Elden Ring.
As always, these Preambles are mostly apologies for how few games I actually managed to play in 20XX. 2022 was a year full of massive gaps between major releases. It was hopefully the final awkward stumble of the Covid-era mixed with the stress of a new console generation before we get back to regular production. However, 2023 looks weirder and more fucked already but in different ways. (Sure are a lot of layoffs in gaming and games media even with the economy doing better otherwise.) The thing is that like the rest of the world, I played a lot fewer games in 2022 than I did in 2021. All my Yearly Recaps for Switch and PlayStation and Steam show me spending months without touching any of my consoles. A lot of the games on this list are pretty short, usually under ten hours. To which I say: hell yeah.
So I do not know what that means for me as a gamer and a critic. Am I just old and boring? Is my day job so exhausting that I get home and only have the energy to watch TV? Did I go outside too much? Am I such an Old Head that I only want to play three or four kinds of games? Or maybe this is just right. I played exactly as much as I needed to in 2022.
In another reality where time is infinite I do wish I had gotten around to more games. Games like Vampire Survivors, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, AI: The Somnium Files 2: Nirvana Initiative, The Quarry, SIGNALIS, Splatoon 3, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Tinykin, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, God of War: Ragnarok, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and most painfully, Marvel's Midnight Suns. (I hope to fix a couple of those one day, but there are too many fucking games, what is one to ever do?)
Still do not regret not playing Elden Ring though. I do not think I would have gotten anything out of that experience that you would want to hear about.
But here are some experiences you might want to hear me talk about, we'll be publishing one review daily just like Movie of the Year. So enjoy the next ten days:
9. Norco, dev. Geography of Robots & Citizen Sleeper, dev. Jump Over the Age
7. Chained Echoes, dev. Matthias Linda
6. Immortality, dev. Half Mermaid
5. Neon White, dev. Angel Matrix
4. Live a Live, dev. Square Enix & Historia
3. Pentiment, dev. Obsidian Entertainment
2. Pokémon Scarlet, dev. Game Freak
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