Howdy partners!
Since the year is closing out and this is still (ostensibly) a gaming board I thought it might be kind of fun to talk about what we played this year, what our GOTY was, the biggest disappointments, etc.
I didn’t really purchase many new AAA titles this year, I think Elden Ring and The Callisto Protocol were it. Of the two Elden Ring met my expectations and was excellent, and TCP was monumentally disappointing.
I spent most of my gaming budget on indie titles this year, and while I loved Elden Ring it was narrowly edged out by Infernax as my Game of the Year. Infernax was a huge surprise for me, I don’t usually expect much from the indie-retro-nostalgia bait but it blew me away. A love letter to classic NES titles like Castlevania 2, Link’s Adventure, and Faxanadu, it combines gorgeous pixel art with a banger of a soundtrack and a fun story with multiple endings and unlockable characters and I can’t recommend it enough.
A close second would be Cultic; some people have complained that Boomer Shooters are reaching over saturation by now but I play the shit out of every one and I think Cultic is the best of the lot. The shortest way to describe it would be Blood crossed with Resident Evil 4; you’re a cop fighting a crazed cult and demonic monsters in the seventies, there’s a fun arsenal of upgradable weapons, cool levels to explore, and a shitload of monsters to kill, everything a fps ahould have in other words, go nuts.
As far as what I thought sucked ass The Callisto Protocol is the only big letdown I can think of, and I’ve bitched about it enough so now I want to hear what you guys have been playing, what surprised you, disappointed you, and what you recommend.
Cheers all, and have a Happy New Year!
In addition to the obligatory Elden Ring playthrough I've come across a few diamonds in the (very) rough of the gaming landscape over 2022.
Sniper Ghost Warrior : Contracts 2 - A fun snipey gadget-heavy game with hints of Hitman in it's sandboxy nature. Plus I recall they pissed off the soy games journos by daring to expose them to some testosterone and real guns in their pre-release press tour, so you know their hearts are in the right place. It's just more of the same from Contracts 1, but more is still fun.
Lemnis gate - Regrettably stillborn online FPS with time-looping, it did what Quantum League tried to do without gameplay sucking balls and its shitty art style. It's still good 1v1 so if you have a buddy to play with it's good shit, just don't expect to find a random match easily.
The Last Spell - Roguelite, (I know, believe me I know) turn based, castle defence wave survival thing. I know the format has been done practically to death, but it's beautifully balanced and fun and has bitchin' awesome concept art.
Against the storm - Short form colony survival management, again kinda oversaturated as a genre, but it does a few things quite differently and damn is it well made and fun.
Soulstone survivors - It's like vampire survivors, except made into a actual proper game instead of feeling like an early 2000s flash game. Balance is a little shakier on this one but still fun.
Honorable mentions to Satisfactory, Siralim ultimate, Barotrauma, Mechwarriors 5, Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children and X4 too.
Barotrauma looks like a lot of fun, too complex for me though.
Barotrauma is too complex for most the playerbase, that's half the fun. ;)
The number of times I've put out a barbequed engineer after they overloaded the nuclear reactor is comically high