Sometimes, when you first start to play a video game, you notice that something doesn’t feel quite right, and no matter how small or insignificant it may be, it still taints the experience. That, unfortunately, is what happened when I started playing Atomic Heart (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC), a first-person sci-fi action / adventure game that could’ve been unique, exciting, and interesting…had they not made one simple mistake.
Though it spawned two sequels, a couple side games, a mobile game, a pair of novels, two animated movies, some graphic novels, and a bunch of toys, t-shirts, and collectibles, the 2008 survival horror game Dead Space is often just considered a cult classic.
Which made it rather surprising when Electronic Arts announced a remake of the game for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (and just a few years after Glen Schofield, one of the original Space creators, announced a spiritual successor, the recently released Callisto Protocol).
But a lot can happen in fifteen years, especially in video games, something I kept in mind as I stepped once more into the breach.
A video game is often only as good as its weakest parts. But sometimes a game manages to overcome its obvious flaws. And while the results are never great, they can be good. Or at least halfway decent. Which is where we find Forspoken (PlayStation 5, PC), an open world, fantasy, third-person action / adventure game that manages to get fun despite its glaring flaws.
Well, to a point.
2022 was easily the best year for games in, well, I can’t remember how long (as you can see from my companion piece, “The Best Video Games Of 2022“). But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some real pieces of shit as well.
Here, in the order I suffered through them, are my most hated (and most disappointed by) games of 2022.
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.
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.
Some people think every new installment of a thing should be a reinvention, or at least add a lot of new stuff to the mix.
It’s why there will undoubtedly be people who’ll criticize God Of War: Ragnarok (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4) for not being as innovative as the previous God Of War, which rebuilt this long-running, third-person, hack & slash action / adventure game series from the ground up.
And while yeah, it’s not as huge of a leap forward, this sequel is still so epic, exciting, and effortlessly engaging that you probably won’t notice.