For years, I’ve started my “Best Video Games Of [insert year here]” lists by lamenting how it was a terrible year for games, but that there were some bright spots. Not this year. 2022 was easily the best year for games — well, the kind of games I like, anyway — in maybe 10 years.
Here, in the order I played them, are my favorite games of 2022.
Let’s be very clear about something: The sci-fi first-person shooter High On Life (Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC) is absolutely, positively not a Rick & Morty game. Sure, it’s made by Squanch Games, the studio co-founded by Rick & Morty co-creator and voice actor Justin Roiland, who uses his Morty voice to voice one of Life‘s main characters, Kenny. And it has the same kind of weird, off-the-cuff, ribald, but also clever sense of humor as Rick & Morty. But it is absolutely, positively not a Rick & Morty game.
Though it might as well be.
As someone who spent the late-’70s and early-’80s watching Godzilla movies on TV, the classic mid-’80s arcade game Rampage — in which you get to be a gigantic monkey, wolf, and yeah, lizard who trashes a city — was an early favorite. It’s why I was so curious about Terror Of Hemasaurus (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PC, Switch), an old school-style arcade game in which you, yeah, get to be a giant lizard who trashes a city…but in a way that adds new menace to his rampage.
It’s always annoying when a game designer refuses to admit their game is like someone else’s. “So, it’s a sci-fi first-person shooter in which a genetically-modified super soldier in power armor fights religious aliens on a circular world…and you don’t think it’s like Halo? Really?” Thankfully, the good people at Striking Distance Studios who made The Callisto Protocol (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PC) aren’t afraid to admit that their third-person sci-fi survival horror action game is a lot like 2008’s third-person sci-fi survival horror action game Dead Space. And not just because some of them worked on both games. But while The Callisto Protocol is very Dead Space-y, it does add some new elements that make it more compelling than a clone.
I hate to say it — and hate that it’s making me say it — but Need For Speed Unbound (Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation 5, PC) gave me some serious “so what” vibes. While it’s not terrible or anything, this open world, arcade-ish illegal street racing game is just kind of…basic.
“The Deadsuit. Quiet for many years… On this day, something stirs within. Something new…” And with these ominous words, the adventure that is Ghost Song begins. A sci-fi, third-person, side-scrolling shooter for Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC, and Switch, Ghost Song is a modern version of a classic kind of game that manages to be as unique as it is familiar, and as flawed as it is fun.
One of the hallmarks of the Call Of Duty series is that these first-person shooter games’ annual installments usually only makes incremental changes, not big ones. Not since 2007’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, anyway. And while that’s certainly true of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PC), some of the changes they have made in this installment make things rather interesting.
As an old fool, I often like it when people kick it old school. Especially when those people are game designers making a first-person sci-fi shooter. But I also love modern conveniences. Which is why I was excited to try out Prodeus (Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), which the good people at Bounding Box Software have described as being an old school shooter with modern touches.
The rhythmic first-person shooter / hack & slash action game Metal: Hellsinger (Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC) has been billed as a cross between Doom and Guitar Hero, in that you shoot demons to the beat of heavy metal music. But having played the game — and, more importantly, experimented with different ways to play it — trust me when I say that while metalheads with a sense of rhythm will enjoy this the most, so will people who aren’t into heavy music or who have two left feet. Disliking Doom however…