2022 was quite the year. And honestly, I didn’t do much “hard core” gaming. I watched a lot, but I didn’t do a lot.
I played my normal amount of puzzle games and shovelware for the most part. I bought some fun games and replayed a couple because I could. I even broke out my Vita at one point because why not.
Instead of doing a “Top 10” list of games, I’m simply going to highlight some of the games that have sat with me this year. These can be ones that I finished in 2022 or ones that I replayed in 2022, as well as the ones that I played completely in 2022.
I’m gonna start with one that was well done, but never should have been released as a full game. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales tells an amazing story with updated graphics and extra powers for Spider-Man that have a bit of a learning curve to get used to. I really enjoyed my time with it and it was a great way to start the year. I just think it was a very large DLC to the original game. I just think that selling it at the price it retailed at was a bit much. But it was a brilliant trip, one that I look forward to replaying in 2023 on my PS5.
Island Saver is a kids game that released a few years ago. It’s short, it’s simple, it takes no time at all to figure out, and I had a blast with it. It’s all about pollution and preservation. It’s a fun little game that I first saw… I think Ray Narvaez Jr play (a Twitch streamer I watch).
Lost Words: Beyond the Page is a spectacular game about grief and mourning. The story is told in two ways. The first is in diary entries, where the writer deals with the loss of her beloved grandmother and how to heal. The other side is the story that she’s writing in a fantasy world, and her grief changes how the story goes. It’s done so very well and is sadly looked over. I highly recommend it to anyone who has access to tissues.
One of my games of the year was always going to be Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, because it was finally released in April. I had a damn blast with this, even with the few issues I had. The levels were a bit lacking and some of the tasks were a bit repetitive, but I really ended up enjoying it very much. My goal when I get my PS5 set up is that it will be one of my first games played to 100% if I can help it. Totally worth the rush. (Now if it only would get some story DLC…)
Then there’s the indie title Unpacking, which finally made its way to the Playstation systems this year. A story told by unpacking a young woman’s boxes, I loved every moment of it. The subtle ways of showing the woman growing up and finding her true self was done so very well and it absolutely deserves all the love it gets.
I ended up replaying Lego DC Supervillains in August and September. It was the Japanese port and wow was it weird to play a game with the X and O buttons flipped (the amount of times I thought I crashed something…). The game continues to hold up even a few years post launch. All that is left is to get the Asian release and I will have Platinumed all versions. That’s a 2023 goal.
I played The Gardens Between on Xbox one last year and enjoyed it. I ended up replaying it on PS4 a few months ago and I think it holds up. It’s a simple puzzle game but I do enjoy it. I’ll be honest though, I probably won’t play through it a third time.
Submerged: Hidden Depths is the sequel of a game I played a few years ago. It’s an indie title that I really enjoyed when I first played it. I did like the story in this one, though I was sad to see that there were some pretty nasty graphical glitches that really bothered my eyes and pulled me away from the game. I also wasn’t entirely clear that it was a sequel until I literally googled it, which is just slightly an issue. But it was still a fun little game.
All and all, it’s been a slow gaming year. I knew it would be when I started working, which very much slowed down my playing through everything. I’m hoping when I get my PS5 on Christmas and I’ve settled into my new positions (or if I go through with my desire to move to a different department because I’m honestly not happy where I am right now), I’ll find more time to play through some of the other games on my backlog that I really want to kick back and enjoy.
The only sad this is that at the beginning of the month, we had lost power for an entire day and I wasn’t able to get a trophy which killed my trophy streak. I’ve since restarted so we shall have to see what comes of this trophy streak next year.
I’m excited to see what 2023 will bring for me in gaming! Who knows? It can only go up from here.
Until next time!
