What games did you complete? 2022 Edition

[Quest]

27 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Blimey, @Quest. That's impressive. I thought I was doing well at 43 games for the year. How do you fit all of those in?

 

 

[Jamie John]

Oh 

[Gabe]

I won't be completing anything more today, so I have a final tally of 41. Considering the year I've had, I'm mightily impressed by that. Some high/lowlights:

 

My game of the year

There was no contest for this - it was without question The Forgotten City. I loved the setting, I loved how it treated the time loop mechanic, I loved that puzzles were logical, that it was completely without padding and it looked beautiful too. I also found the ending very poignant and it was just such a wonderful slice of life gaming; for those few hours I really did feel like I had been transported away and, a bit like how I feel about Edith Finch (a game I still think about from time to time) I think this hit me at a point in my life which means it resonates all the more.

 

The good stuff:

I got quite into emulation this year and so my range of platforms increased. I really enjoyed bookending the year with a couple of Fire Emblem games, the Gamecube and Wii entries, which happened to be linked in terms of lore and characters. Whilst the dialogue can be a bit twee at times, the political intrigue and machinations of bad guys gave interesting stories, plus the actual meat of the game was compelling. For both games, I started them and they gripped me enough such that I dedicated a lot of time to them, rather than dipping in and out as I do with many other titles.

 

Assassin's Creed is a good example of the above point - I started this at least 18 months ago and then ignored it for a year. But I did pick it back up and had a blast going through it. I wish the combat was a bit more in-depth (i.e. even having a limited combo skill tree) but it was serviceable enough. It was a good game though and Ubisoft may be many bad things, but they can build a coherent and beautiful world. Ditto for The Division, another I took a long time to finish (about 4 years?) New York in the snow looked stunning, and I loved just wandering around in the snow. Playing solo was tough at times, but it was a good experience.

Another Ubi game that I really enjoyed was Watchdogs. I read a lot about people hating the player character, but I thought he was fine and wrapped up in a really enjoyable game. As with the others above, I never try to finish everything so I didn't feel burnt out by the mass of icons I was ignoring. I played it as a shooter (because I hate stealth) and had a great time. I even didn't massively hate the driving sections, so that's a bonus.

 

Bright Memory Infinite was a pretty short but fun action game. Fusing first-person shooter with a slash-em-up in a completely non-sensical story, this had punchy combat, quite lovely visuals (it was promoted as one of the ray tracing games for Xbox) and was accessible enough that I was able to complete it (because I suck at games.)

 

The disappointments:

Loads of people said the combat was fine, but the story and script was the highlight. I disagreed massively and hated them both, so Guardians of the Galaxy was the biggest disappointment of the year by a distance. The combat was atrocious and I said at the time in the thread, a dev that puts in that many assists to make things easier knows it's a weak point. Even with everything as easy as can be, enemies were still huge damage-sponges and a chore to fight. Levels were far too long, too, with boring traversal and forced 'use this character's ability to progress' sections. The big thing - the script - was also bad. Everybody was shouty and/or whiney for 90% of the game and something I again mentioned in the thread was that it was fine for that approach in a 2-hour film, but not a 15+ hour game. It was so tiresome. The actual plot was incredibly generic, there was very little characterisation* and the script was largely forgettable. Was so, so disappointed in this.

 

*Drax was the exception to this - his character actually had some nuance and emotional depth, to the point that I would much prefer this version in the MCU to what we have.

 

Mass Effect Andromeda was not as bad as a lot of the internet noise would have you believe, but it was also not a patch on the original trilogy. I actually thought the premise was great, but I don't think the open-world nature of the game suited it at all. It robbed any situation of any urgency, traversal wasn't particularly fun and there was just lots of empty space. It's a shame, because a tighter approach to the structure could've seen this offshoot from the main series carry on, and I would've liked to see that. I still enjoyed it, but I started going for the mainline quests long before the end.

 

Much was made of the branching nature of As Dusk Falls, and it is easily the best implementation of such a structure as I've ever seen, with the ability to easily revisit each major decision point and go in a different direction. I had no interest in doing that after my solitary playthrough though as I felt the story went a bit awry in the final act. I also had no love for any of the characters, so the emotional beats of the story passed me by. It was decent - and I'd play something else if they make it - but it wasn't quite what I hoped it to be.

 

The downright abysmal:

I've gotten better at not sticking with playing absolute trash, but there were some titles this year I should've binned and probably smashed my PC up afterwards, just to be sure, because they were that bad.

 

King of this undesirable hill was Rune II. A game with a very troubled history (it had to have a 2.0 relaunch under different devs because the first incarnation was so bad), it actually changed completely from something more MMO-lite to a more standard action-adventure - but a lot of the stuff from the MMO experience remained (like you could plant a banner to mark your territory - something that had absolutely no function in the revised title.) It was full of bugs, horrible half-arsed gamepad implementation (you still needed a mouse/keyboard for some stuff), it looked awful and the combat was floaty, lack any feedback and had no depth. The plot was stupid, the quests filler, the world empty and boring and it was just a complete mess. It's delisted now I think so thankfully nobody else can witness the horrors, because it was bad, bad, bad.

 

Considering the love for the first game in particular, I expected a lot more from Ninja Gaiden 3. This was horrible. Again, issues with controls, a very twitchy camera, terrible level structure, lots of off-screen attacks, truly rubbish story...yeah, this was trash. It was mercifully fairly short (the only reason I stuck with it), but a painful experience.

 

Conclusion

When I compare to previous years, I think this year I played less objectively bad games, continued to dip into a good range of genres, enjoyed a lot of different platforms and overall had some great gaming. I have more Fire Emblem titles to look forward to, will finally start the Witcher 3 at some point, have a few FMV in my library to enjoy and hope to get through some more co-op stuff with a friend. Gaming has never looked so good!

 

 

 

[Quest]

41 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Oh 

 

I'm somewhat joking, but it is part of it. Really though I've just been lucky to have a job that affords me loads of spare time and I've spent the last few years ridding myself of TV and social media and all the hours of brainless doom-scrolling that comes with it. 

[James Lyon]

Final part of the list of games I played in 2022. This year has been the year of Game Pass with all but one of my completed games being from there. It's been brilliant, but I can't help feeling I'm neglecting all my already purchased Steam games so hoping to get back to some of those in 2023.

 

I can't say I played anything truly terrible. One was a bit boring and the other disappointing, but it's all been good fun so far.

 

Anyway:

 

Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit In Wonder Labyrinth - the Symphony of the Night homage I didn't know I wanted. A nice little Metroidvania although more on the Castlevania side in being more linear with not too much secret stuff. The mechanic of switching between two elements in combat and puzzles was a nice touch. I thought the retro design was lovely and I could have believed this was a forgotten game from the 90s if you'd told me. Not too hard to complete although I used a guide for some of the Achievements as I didn't have long before it left Game Pass.

 

A Plague Tale: Innocence - a solid action adventure which stands out purely because of its unique setting of historical France mixed in with the fantastical elements of alchemy. Also lots of rats. I liked the focus on stealth or clearing a path through the rats. Being a case of escorting AI characters some of the time it wasn't too frustrating in that respect either. The crafting system was a bit surplus to requirements, though.

Otherwise, I thought it looked really good graphics-wise with an interesting story. Will get on to the sequel next year.

 

Lost Words: Beyond The Page: It seemed to review OK so I thought I'd give it a go but it wasn't really for me. More aimed at a younger audience with some simple puzzles and platforming. Alright, but I've forgotten a lot of it already.

 

Subnautica: Below Zero - Not as great an experience as the first but I still enjoyed it. True, the endless horror of the deep was reduced but I thought the new sights were still worth exploring. I wish the land bits were a bit more fleshed out, though. The Seatruck was a brilliant addition, however, and I liked the new base building parts. I hope they can put it all together for a proper sequel but this is worth a go at least if you liked the first.

 

Breathedge - One third a pretty good survival game and two-thirds mediocre walking about game. Basically, the survival and crafting elements become cursory once you leave the first area in favour of walking through different spaceship sections to push buttons and progress the story. Not so much fun, although the game has a sense of humour which relieves some of that (probably not to everyone's taste, mind). Not heartily recommended. I did pay through it twice to get all the Achievements, though, so what do I know...

 

Procession To Calvary - Adventure game made up from cut-and-pasting parts of various Renaissance paintings together in a humorous style. I assume it's Renaissance, being not so knowledgeable in art. Either way it works. Very silly with some decent adventure puzzles along the way.

 

The Forgotten City - inventive timeloop adventure game. I had a good time finding all the ways to break the loop and I liked the discussions on ethics and morality which underpin the whole game. Ambition which overcomes its small team; not bad for a game which started as a mod. Best timeloop game since Outer Wilds. Recommended.

 

Deeer Simulator: Silly physics game in the style of Goat Simulator. You're a deer with guns and spend the time blowing up buildings and engaging in escalating combat scenarios. Fine entertainment for the night it took to beat and find the secrets but I think Goat Simulator is slightly better for deliberately crappy physics gaming. It does have quite an amusing payoff to its overly-elaborate character creator, though.

 

That's it, I think! In the pipeline for 2023: finally finishing off the Accolades for Forza Horizon 5, Guardians of the Galaxy, Arkham Asylum (again), Super Lucky's Tale and much more! I might even make a start on the Yakuza series once some of those are out the way.

 

[Jamie John]

1 hour ago, Gabe said:

The Forbidden City.

 

So good you got the name wrong 😘

[Gabe]

10 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

So good you got the name wrong 😘

I don't know what you are talking about.

 

[Gambit]

I guess I'm done! Was hoping to get Deus Ex: Human Revolution done under the wire but found my new years eve time was spent playing Midnight Suns instead. Completed game tally: 27. Not bad. But every time I clear a game from my backlog I seem to add two more.  

 

Spoiler

January

05/01 - Starfox 64

14/01 - Resident Evil 3

15/01 - Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

30/01 - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

 

February

06/02 - Hades

 

April

03/04 - Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files

10/04 - Knights of the Old Republic

25/04 - Horizon: Forbidden West

 

May

15/05 - The Nonary Games

26/05 - Star Wars Squadrons

 

June

05/06 - Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

15/06 - Kirby 64

17/06 - The Quarry

 

July

17/07 - Zero Time Dilemma

23/07 - Hotel Dusk: Room 215

30/07 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge

 

August

10/08 - The Legend of Zelda

 

September

11/09 - Turtles Cowabunga Collection

16/09 - Stranglehold

18/09 - 007: Blood Stone

23/09 - Spec Ops: The Line

 

October

01/10 - Mortal Kombat 11 (Story Modes)

08/10 - Zelda: Link Between Worlds

 

November

06/11 - Bayonetta 3

12/11 - Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X

30/11 - God of War: Ragnarok

 

December

01/12 - Xenoblade  Chronicles 3

 

[BabelRich]

My final post for the thread then.

 

15/12 - Chained Echoes

When the GamePass tweet for December dropped I saw some games I liked the look of and yet another of those dodgy also-ran JRPGs which I quickly dismissed thinking 'I'll play High on Life when that drops.'

 

Then someone posted the trailer for Chained Echoes and it looked gorgeous so I gave it a look. Boy howdy, this was almost the worst case of judging a book by its cover since I saw one of those adult Harry Potter covers back in the day.

 

This game is absolutely brilliant, a mashup of FFs 6 and 12 with some Skies of Arcadia and a sprinkling of Xenoblade Chronicles X. It's story twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing and the battle system is a lovely spin on the usual turn-based affairs, with an overdrive bar that you have to keep in a sweet spot by mixing up your abilities instead of just hammering attack and other treats I wont spoil here.

 

My only knock is that there is maybe one too many systems at play. Weapons and armour can be upgrade and socketed with crystals; standard. But the crystals can also be fused with other crystals to make better ones but some can't be used as a base crystal and if they're not of the right purity they can't be fused and take up more slots and there are so many of them and... oh no I've gone cross-eyed. I found this stuff easy to ignore after a while though. A couple of the menus are a bit unwieldy but that doesn't detract from what is one of the best games of the year, which was created by one bloke with a little bit if help. Madness.

 

10/10

 

20/12 - High on Life

I'm not a big fan of FPSs, I do, however, like Rick and Morty. So the conundrum of whether I would play this could have raged for a while, were it not for our old friends, GamePass and Story Mode.

 

A nice lean eight hour blast through later and I can say I enjoyed it. Not all the humour landed but it was pretty funny, especially the in game forums which absolutely nailed poster archetypes in a very funny way.

 

Gameplay wise it was ok but I'm not the best judge of FPS gameplay. The guns at least kept it interesting.

 

7/10

 

So there we go 46 games completed this year with a nice mix of old and new.

 

I will see you all in the 2023 thread, thanks @Unofficial Who, where my first entry will be Midnight Suns which so far is fucking brilliant.

 

 

Spoiler

11/12 - Vampire Survivors 10/10

09/12 - Soccer Story 6/10

07/12 - Gotham Knights 7/10

26/11 - Escape Academy - Escape from Anti-Escape Island DLC 7/10

24/11 - God of War: Ragnarok 9/10

09/11 - The Turing Test 7/10

05/11 - Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope 9/10

19/10 - Danganronpa V3 7/10

05/10 - Gone Home 8/10

03/10 - Return to Monkey Island 8/10

07/09 - God of War 10/10

07/09 - Kentucky Route Zero 6/10

07/09 - Tinykin 9/10

30/08 - Saint's Row (2022) 8/10

12/08 - Bug Fables 8/10

29/07 - Escape Academy 10/10

27/07 - Dodgeball Academia 5/10

25/07 - Assassin's Creed: Syndicate 9/10

11/07 - Assassin's Creed: Unity 3/10

10/07 - Donkey Kong Country 4/10

05/07 - Dragon Age: Inquisition 8/10

18/06 - TMNT: Shredder's Revenge 7/10

14/06 - Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 8/10

01/06 - Dragon Quest XI 8/10

26/05 - Tales of Monkey Island 8/10

16/05 - Red Dead Redemption 9/10

12/05 - Lost Words – Beyond the Page 6/10

10/05 - Citizen Sleeper 9/10

06/05 - Lost in Random 6/10

08/04 – Kirby and the Forgotten Kingdom 9/10

01/04 – Danganronpa 2 – Goodbye Despair 08/10

25/03 – Tunic 6/10

16/03 – Danganronpa – Trigger Happy Havok 8/10

13/03 - Horizon - Forbidden West 10/10

15/02 - Agent A 7/10

14/02 - Saint's Row - Gat Out of Hell 6/10

11/02 - Nobody Saves the World 8/10

04/02 - Final Fantasy 7 Remake Episode INTERMission 6/10

01/02 - Final Fantasy 7 Remake 8/10

26/01 - Gorogoa 9/10

25/01 - The Gunk 7/10

23/01 - Control 7/10

11/01 - Rise of the Tomb Raider 7/10

07/01 - Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space 9/10

 

[peeveen]

I didn't keep a rolling report this year like I did last year, but in 2022 I completed ...

 

Xevious *

Mega Man 9 *

Monkey Island 2 *

Metal Slug 3 *

Cuphead: Delicious Last Course

Moving Out

Horizon Chase Turbo

R-Type Final 2

 

All Xbox, full gamerscore + DLC

* = 360 BC

[James Lyon]

I forgot one last game! Putting it here for completionist's sake.

 

The Pedestrian - nice little puzzle game. One of those ones where you work backwards from the solution then use trial and error to make it work. It wasn't too hard but it did require a bit of pausing and thinking at the trickier bits. Nice escalation of puzzles and I liked the surprise change of direction at the end. Background graphics looked very pretty but very easy to ignore. The actual foreground change in styles was quite interesting, though. Easy one to complete as all the Achievements are on the main path.

[Colonel Panic]

Metroid Prime

 

This game is such a classic. I played through the GBA, 3DS and Switch games in 2021 so this felt appropriate. Was a lot easier for me this time around. I think I'm a better, more patient gamer with age. The backtracking is a pain, I wish I'd done more exploring as I played through to deal with some of that.

 

Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart

 

Envoyable, forgettable fun. Very pretty and some great weapons. Did not 100% this but game close

 

Super Mario Land 2

 

I'd never played this before and as I'd made a nice IPS modded GameBoy Colour, I decided to spin through this.

 

Firewatch

 

I have owned this game for a LONG time. Finally played it on Steam Deck

 

Dead Space

 

Another replay. One of my favourite games of that generation. It's still got it.

 

A Plague's Tale: Innocence

 

A fun 7/10 game. Flawed as fuck and with one or two insane difficulty spikes but I mostly enjoyed it.

 

The Callisto Protocol

 

So close to being a classic. The melee combat needs find tuning and some of the mini boss repetition is a ball ache.

 

Almost....

 

I think I finished the last Kirby Switch game too, although not the extra content of which there felt like it was a sizeable chunk of game so maybe that doesn't count.

 

Similarly, Klonoa is ALMOST done but the timing of one piece of the final stage eludes me so fuck that.

 

Returnal - hard to put time into this, but I fucking love it. Maybe in 2023...

 

 

[matt0]

A few things from last year I didn't post in here yet:

 

Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One)

Requiem: A Plague Tale (Xbox One via Xcloud)

Moonscars (Xbox One)

Chorus (Xbox Series S)

Kingdom Rush Origins (Android)

 

If your favourite thing about Robotron is the between level cut-scenes and your favourite thing about Myst is the kart racing mini game then you might enjoy Chorus. A space combat game with switch puzzles in.

 

I can't be bothered to go in to a detailed run down of the many things wrong with Chorus, and the few things it does exceptionally well but only very occasionally in case you started to have too much fun playing it. But I do feel fairly confident that if a game ever gives you a mission objective to "attune the void crystals", the only correct response is to immediately think "I bet this is some bullshit", followed shortly thereafter by confirmation that it is indeed some bullshit.

 

Halo Wars 2 was slicker than the original in some places, clunkier in others. Where the first game spread its standout levels across the campaign this one saves them all up for an epic 5 mission long closing act which put it slightly ahead of the original in my affections. Fun, stripped down RTS action.

 

Requiem: A Plague Tale was a game I felt possibly misunderstood its own appeal. My feeling about the first game, a couple of difficulty spikes aside, was that it was almost a walking simulator. The perfunctory stealth sections were really just there to give you a sense of friction and to make the hardships the characters face more more real for the player.

 

For whatever reason they've tried to make the second one a "real" game with the first stealth encounter outside of the tutorial being harder on the default difficulty than anything in the first game, even that bastard cart section. But... why? The combat mechanics are bad. The stealth mechanics are basic. Mechanically there's nothing interesting here - the selling points are the story, the visuals, the journey - which are all still great.

 

Kingdom Rush Origins and Moonscars were both middling. Not terrible, not great.

 

...

 

Best game I finished in 2022 was EDF 2025, which I'd been plugging away at since 2014.

 

Best game I didn't finish was Elden Ring.

 

Worst game I finished in 2022 was Chorus.

 

2022 in full:

Spoiler

 

January:

 

 

Mortal Shell (Xbox One)

Halo Infinite (Xbox One)

 

A nebulous period of time from the end of January to some point in May:

 

Into The Breach (Switch)

Death’s Door (Xbox One)

Mad Stalker (Megadrive)

Metroid Dread (Switch)

Loop Hero (Switch)

Shin Megami Tensai Strange Journey Redux (3DS)

Final Fantasy 12 (Xbox One)

 

From around the middle of May to end of July:

 

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest (3DS)

Citizen Sleeper (PC)

Opus: Echo of Starsong (Switch)

Heaven's Vault (Switch)

Panzer Dragoon Remake (Switch + PC)

Frostpunk (PC)

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge (Xbox One)

Space Marine (PC)

Halo Wars Definitive Edition (Xbox One)

 

August / September:

 

EDF 2025 (360 + b/c on Xbox One)

Roguebook (PC)

Castlevania 3 (NES via Castlevania Collection on Xbox One)

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 (Xbox One)

Vampire Survivors (PC)

 

October / November:

 

Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One)

Requiem: A Plague Tale (XCloud)

Moonscars (Xbox One)

Chorus (Xbox Series S)

Kingdom Rush Origins (Android)

 

[HarryBizzle]

1. ElecHead (Steam)

 

Bought this having seen it recommended in the 2022 version of this thread. It's pretty good, but the otherwise clever mechanics which do well due to the game's short length are spoiled by it being needlessly obtuse in places and the map (there is no in game map view) being really quite confusing. A nice diversion for a couple of hours.

 

7/10.

 

[Popo]

Dude this IS the 2022 thread. 

[HarryBizzle]

8 minutes ago, Popo said:

Dude this IS the 2022 thread. 

Oops. I was looking this up to see what you said about it, I think. Will repost in the 2023 one.