by ilythium
2022 was an exciting year for me personally. I got married in early March, right in the height of the Omicron outbreak in my country, which meant a very stressful lead up to the big day where at one point we were not sure if we would even be able to go ahead with it. Luckily we made it, and were only short a couple of guests which was a pretty remarkable feat.
Therefore I was pretty out of the loop around March as far as games were concerned but fortunately there were no earth shattering, genre defining, universally praised releases around that time so I don't think I missed too much.
However the rest of the year provided some great gaming highlights, and this is my personal list of the top games I’ve played this year. I tend to play a lot of games on PS Plus or Gamepass so a lot of what I play isn’t always the latest releases. so as always this list may not be exclusively releases from this year.
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
10. Escape Academy Playing this game with a buddy made it what it was for me. I imagine this game wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable on your own, much like a real life escape room. Solving puzzles to progress through the classes of the Academy and uncover the mystery surrounding the school whilst joking and catching up with a good friend made this one of my favourite gaming experiences of the year.
9. Two Point Campus A charming and delightful management sim where you are running an assortment of different university campuses. Two Point is remarkably easy to jump into as the intuitive systems and tutorials make it quick and painless to pick up. A quaint and comical art style combined with some classic british humour and some particularly peculiar takes on university courses make this an absolute pleasure to engage with.
8. Nobody Saves The World Released early on in 2022 I knew this would likely feature on my list come the end of the year, that was how much I instantly loved playing this game. Once you start unlocking a few of the different forms and can start to combine the abilities of them to tackle the unique enemy weaknesses or strengths in the range of contrasting dungeons the game really comes into it's own. It gives freedom to experiment and find a build which suits your own personal play style, whilst the steady flow of challenges to unlock more abilities gives you something to always be striving towards.
7. Marvel Snap The first time in a long time that a Mobile Game has really caught my attention and had me hooked. Being a big MCU fan I'm a bit of an easy mark, but it was the satisfying card mechanics that just kept me wanting to play one more game. There is a lot of variety in strategies, and as a bonus I found it introducing me to an array of lesser known Marvel characters. Also I'm yet to feel the need to spend a single cent on it.
6. Ghost of Tsushima Having released in 2020 this is the oldest game that appears on my list, however it did come to the PlayStation Plus service this year. An open world adventure game of prodigious quality, set in Feudal Japan. One of the most stunningly beautiful games I've ever played, with interesting encounter mechanics, providing an exciting and rewarding Samurai experience. Plus you can pet the cute Foxes so that is always gonna win me over.
5. Tunic One of the few games I played through entirely on stream this year. I was immediately enamoured with the extremely cute protagonist and the charming art style. The combat can be quite challenging, but is satisfying once you get your head around it. There is so much to uncover and the old school game manual pages that you pick up to reveal new information and secrets are a brilliant inclusion.
4. Vampire Survivors So simple in concept but so perfect in execution. Time just melts away when playing this game and it is definitely the pinnacle of that "just one more run" type of gameplay. The amount of variation in weapons, items and characters ensures that each run is extremely different and there is a number of upgrades to unlock giving a great sense of progression until you can eventually take on Death itself.
3. PowerWash Simulator Oddly Satisfying, the Game. There's just something so gratifying about taking an extremely grimey thing and making it sparkling and clean. An almost meditative experience that actually has a surprising narrative thread running through it in the background. I never would've thought something like this would be this high on my list but that just shows how much this game grabbed me.
2. Inscryption Inscryption released in 2021, and if I had played it on release it probably would've been my GOTY last year. I love a good card based strategy game and this is an excellent example of one of those. However this has many more layers to it than it first seems, which elevates it even further. I was absolutely blown away the more I played of this and uncovered more of the meta narrative of Inscryption. Just a truley unique and exceptional undertaking.
1. God of War: Ragnarök A continuation sequel of the excellent God of War 2018, which in my opinion manages to improve on it in almost every way. It is incredibly beautiful to look at, the combat is as brutal and engaging as ever, the story is absolutely fantastic and the performances from the lead actors are top tier. A marvelous adventure throughout and a worthy winner of my Game of the Year.
