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My Games of the Year: 2022 Edition

According to my Steam replay for 2022, two of the games I’ve played the most this year have been Apex Legends and Destiny. Steam is of course not counting the hours I spent in a non-Steam game like Overwatch. Yet, none of these games are on my list of games of the year.

Apex Legends, Forza Horizon 5, Destiny 2, Yakuza Like A Dragon, Cyberpunk 2077 - these are the top 5 games by % of playtime according to Steam.
Apex Legends, Forza Horizon 5, Destiny 2, Yakuza Like A Dragon, Cyberpunk 2077 – these are the top 5 games by % of playtime according to Steam.

It seems despite my enjoyment of multiplayer shooters, I grow increasingly tired of their progression systems. Every multiplayer game has a battle pass. Every game is a grind. For a time some of this grind is even mildly enjoyable. But only for a time, eventually I get tired of them. I slogged through an entire season of Apex Legends, bought the battle pass for the next one and then lost interest part way through.

So for my 2022 list of games of the year I have a list of single player games I consider good or interesting or weird or all of those things. More importantly all of these games don’t have an endless treadmill. They end.

Here they are, in no particular order.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 52 – The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

Pages: 296
Purchased from: Kobo

I liked this retelling of a classic Korean folktale. Interesting characters, mythology and a world that reminded me of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (yep, the blurb on the store page is fairly accurate). And this particular YA fantasy’s romance subplot is…alright, I didn’t dislike it.

A nice easy read to close out this year with. I did it folks, 52 weeks, 52 books.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 51 – Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Pages: 209
Purchased from: Kobo

This just might be one of the best books I’ve read this year. It is a very well written memoir, it had me laughing and then it had me crying. My experience as an immigrant to Canada does not quite match Elamin’s but there are a lot of small similarities that felt very real. I’m reading this and I’m going, “damn yeah that’s real shit”.

The story about dealing with grief and mourning absolutely ruined me, Whew lord. Also the way Elamin uses the 401 highway as a metaphor throughout this memoir is so so good. Loved it. Loved the stories about getting into pro wrestling and heavy metal.

Highly recommend this book.

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The Open Worldification of Video Games

Today I read an article on Rock Paper Shotgun which was a bitter rant about how bad Sonic Frontiers is and there is a paragraph in it that I want to expound upon:

Oh, for God’s sake, of course I’m bitter. How could I not be bitter that Sonic has thrown all that delightful strangeness, that off-beat wrongness back in my weeping face? What the hell is Sonic Frontiers, anyway? A set of enormous maps that you gradually reveal portions of, complete with icons all over it to tidy up? It’s blinkin’, bleedin’ Assassin’s Creed, isn’t it? This is what people want from Sonic! This is what makes them cheer! To see him to fall in line. For him to be boring.

Stuart Gipp, “Sonic Frontiers is popular, but it’s a boring Sonic game – and I’m bitter about it”
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packetcat reads 2022 Week 50 – Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Pages: 626
Purchased from: Kobo

This one is pretty good as far as YA fantasy goes for me. Good characters, an interesting magic system and a plot that kept a good pace throughout. The book also deals with complex issues like trauma, grief and racism. All of these were handled with care and weaved into the narrative in a natural way.

The only thing I disliked about this book is what I usually seem to dislike about YA fantasy books…the romance plot. In this book’s defence, the main character is a teenager and the romance stuff is very teenage romance stuff. I am just too old for that particular kind of romance in books now.

This book was another recommendation by cari of the the cari can read YouTube channel, no misses yet!