Games Completed 2022

[Jon Cheetham]

1. Dark Souls Remastered (Switch) - 3rd Jan
2. Pyre (Steam) - 10th Jan
3. Disco Elysium (Switch) - 17th Jan
4. Deathloop (Steam) - 24 Jan
5. The Forgotten City (Steam) - 13 Feb
6. The Solitaire Conspiracy (Switch) - 14 Feb
7. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4) - 19 Feb
8. A Short Hike (Switch) - 22 Feb
9. Elden Ring (PS4) - 10 April
10. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Expansions and DLC (PS4) - 22 Oct
11. Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose (PS4) - 31 Oct
12. Gears 5 (Series X, Game Pass) - 8th Dec
13. A Plague Tale - Requiem (Series X, Game Pass) - 19th Dec
14. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (Switch) - 21st Dec

15. Pentiment (Series X, Game Pass) - 28th December

This is a side scrolling narrative mystery about 16th Century Bavarian monks and the town they share with a small farming community, and it is unbelievably compelling!

Just to say at the outset - don’t be put off by this game thinking it is obtuse, or up itself, or overly pontificating. The writing is accessible, witty and very entertaining. This story is the equivalent of a page-turning paperback, there’s no pomposity to it.

You spend the whole game in Tassing and the adjacent abbey of Kiersau, and the sense of place is incredible. The story unfolds over decades and you get an intimate knowledge of the town, its buildings and layout, and most importantly the inhabitants and history of the place. It made me feel nostalgic for Tassing at points even though I was spending the whole game there! Despite being in 2D with this beautiful painterly style, it feels like a place I’ve been. Truly immersive.

I played it compulsively and it is a magnificent game for playing over Christmas - especially as one key moment takes place during Yuletide. Accompanied by porter ale it’s hard to beat and I might even make it a tradition. Really good mystery, really cosy, quietly devastating at a couple of points but for the most part funny and fascinating.

[Indiana747]

(Jan) Terminator Resistance(platinum) - PS5.
(Jan) Call of Duty: Cold War - Series X.
(Jan) Dishonored 2 - PS5.
(Jan) Aliens: Fireteam Elite - Series X.
(May) State of Decay 2 - Series X.
(June) Chorus - Series X.
(June) Shadow Warrior 3 - PS5.
(June) TMNT: Shredders Revenge - Series X.
(July) TMCC: Halo Reach - Series X.
(July) The Dark Pictures: Little Hope - PS5.
(July) Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - Series X.
(July) Far Cry 6 - Series X.
(July) Road 96(1000GS) - Series X.
(July) Trek to Yomi - Series X.
(July) Stray - PS5.
(July) Toy Soldiers: Cold War - Xbox 360.
(Aug) Avicii Invector - PS5.
(Sept) GRID Legends - Series X.
(Sept) Crossfire X(1000GS) - Series X.
(Sept) Metal Hellsinger - Series X.
(Oct) Bayonetta Remaster - Series X.
(Oct) Prodeus - Series X.
(Oct) Battle Islands - Series X.
(Oct) Tinykin - Series X.
(Oct) New Super Lucky's Tale - Series X.
(Oct) Dead Space 2 - Xbox 360.
(Oct) Scorn(1000GS) - Series X.
(Oct) Uncharted 4: LoTC - PS5.
(Oct) Final Fantasy VII Remake - PS5.
(Oct) Modern Warfare II - Series X.
(Nov) Somerville(1000GS) - Series X.
(Nov) As Dusk Falls - Series X.
(Nov) CoD Vanguard - Series X.
(Dec) The Callisto Protocol - Series X.
(Dec) Sniper Elite 5 - Series X.
(Dec) High on Life - Series X.

[Toon Scottoon]

Elden Ring - Gravitas the Grafted
Pyre - Reading and Riting
What Remains of Edith Finch - Bird Slaughter Simulator
Marvel Snap - With great power…
Bloodborne - Bloody Viscous Violence
Live Alive - Genre After Genre
Cuphead the Delicious Last Course - Dishy Action Achievement
Gato Roboto- This Game Purrs!
Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope - Tactical Mascot Mayhem
Splatoon 2 - Splashy Squid Shooter
Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Mouthy Pink Puncher
Triangle Strategy Game - Shape Norzelias Future
Splatoon 3 - Spray Needs Nozzle
Undertale (Pacifist run) - Friends helping friends
Banjo Kazooie - Feather's Fur Ever
NES Remix - Old is New
Hitman 3 - Super Murder Maker
Tunic - Final Boss Blues
Rhythm Heaven Megamix - Offbeat flow finder
Punch out - Complicated Technical Knockout
Shantae and the Seven Sirens- Forgettable but fun
Elechead - Alternate Positive / Negative
The Wonderful 101 - Sketchy on Switch


If you play as many games as folks on this site do, it's easy to assume that you know which games are going to speak to you each year and which games won't, but for me 2022 had more surprises than a magician standing by the arcade change machine. I'd never heard of Live Alive before this year, and I wasn't all that enamored with Hades so I didn't expect to be nearly as drawn into Pyre as I found myself, and I don't really play games on my phone, at least I hadn't until Marvel Snap came along, and I'd never rolled credits on a FromSoftware game, but now here's two that dazzled me on the list, and I thought Gato Roboto was a dance game for some reason instead of a purrre Metroid clone. So here's to another year of wonderful surprises, great podcasts, and kind folks on the Cane and Rinse site.

[ColinAlonso]

Spoiler: show

Jan 10 - Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS5)
Jan 16 - Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission (PS5)
Feb 3 - SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash - SNK version (Switch)
Feb 13 - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PS5)
Feb 19 - Bravely Default II (Switch)
Mar 20 - Universal Paperclips (Android)
Apr 12 - CrossCode (PC)
Apr 17 - Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Switch)
May 31 - Inertial Drift (PS5)
Jun 6 - CrossCode: A New Home (PC)
Jun 17 - Psychonauts 2 (PS5)
Jul 14 - Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)
Jul 23 - Dodgeball Academia (PS5)
Aug 7 - Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club (Switch)
Aug 13 - Downtown Nekketsu Story (Switch)
Aug 20 - Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day! (Switch)
Aug 21 - Judgment (PS5)
Sep 3 - Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5)
Sep 8 - River City Girls (PS5)
Sep 22 - Splatoon 3 (Switch)
Oct 29 - Pirate Ship Higemaru (MAME emulation on Steam Deck)

Dec 2 - Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
This is the second Xenoblade game I played after XC1. I enjoyed this but there is a big sticking point.

The world is great although it doesn't quite have the wonderful sense of place as XC1.

Many of the characters are good too. Of the party, I really liked Eunie, Taion and Mio. Unfortunately some JRPGs can have very bland do-gooder boring young male leads and Noah is a bloody standout of this type of character. I didn't like him at all.

The story has a great set up and some fantastic moments but can falter in a few spots.

Music's really good. Graphics are nice for Switch, though there can be some moments of slowdown, particularly in the large sea area where there can be brief periods where the game looks like a slideshow. I really liked most of the voice acting, although I think I've heard "Hear that Noah, Lanz wants something a bit meatier" more times than "It's Reyn time" from the first game and I have to make sure not to have Fiona in the party near the Colony Mu dock "I LOVE THE SEA!!!".

This would be one of my favourite games of the year, except, I sort of ruined the game for myself. Each colony (town) has a series of quests that flesh out the place and the guest party member from the place. I enjoyed these as an idea. However, these also took up so much time that actual main story beats were way too far apart for good flow and the extra leveling from these made the game an absolute breeze. It soured my opinion quite a bit. It's a shame.

Dec 2 - Drill Dozer (GBA emulation on Steam Deck)
Nice 2D action platformer with a nice gimmick of using a small mech with a drill to get around. I'd play a level once every couple of days and it was really enjoyable. I think if I played it all in 1-3 sittings it could get a bit tiresome though, so I'm happy I did just one level at a time.

Dec 3 - Ninja Pizza Girl (Steam Deck)
This must have been in a random bundle I bought years ago. It's a game about delivering pizzas across rooftops in a somewhat dystopian city (real world issues amplified: MegaCorp controlling many things including most pizza delivery apparently, street traffic talked about in such a way that suggests some people just don't go down there to avoid the chaos). Easy and short, and it handles well too. One big issue is that when health (motivation) is low the world washes out into greyer colours and that makes levels harder to read.

Dec 24 - Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (3DS)
I've reached the 5th game in my annual Layton playthroughs. Better than the fourth game but I don't think the third can be matched.

Dec 25 - A Short Hike (Steam Deck)
A lovely replay before I listen to the podcast.

Dec 30 - Stray (PS5)
Look, the world is interesting and the cat is fun to control and does cute things. I really enjoyed it but even then I think I'm a bit lower on this game than a lot of the initial reaction to this. (If I'm remembering correctly).

[Magical_Isopod]

#19 - Pokemon Legends: Arceus (2022, Switch)

Right, so in reviewing my list of games completed in 2022, I actually somehow managed to forget Pokemon Legends: Arceus. I finished it during my election campaign, and I somehow never got around to writing about it.

I'll keep things brief, because it's been a few months now... PLA is a game with a lot of great ideas and mechanics that is woefully slight on content. If you take this game, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and a bottle of industrial glue, then slap these two games together, you will actually have a complete and incredibly innovative Pokemon game. Sadly, in Nintendo's pursuit of greed, we have two buggy, unfinished alpha builds of games that were absolutely not ready for release.

The dialogue in this game is awful, the story is little more than a series of events strung together with waypoint markers, and while the boss fights are cool, they completely ignore the new battle mechanics - mechanics that somehow managed to feel both less and more complicated than the core system.

To be clear, I liked PLA well enough. It's a blueprint for a good formula. But it most definitely feels undercooked and rushed out the door to meet some kind of arbitrary sales window... And sadly, with Pokemon SV coming out the same year, Hisui feels like it never had a chance to develop in the broader Pokemon zeitgeist.

[Magical_Isopod]

#20 - The Quarry (2022, PS5)

Suitably enough after my Pokemon review, we have another game from a studio that tried to rush too many games out the door at once. In 2022, Supermassive decided, for whatever reason, that they would ship not only The Quarry and the fourth Dark Pictures game, but also substantial next-gen updates for Man of Medan and Little Hope. Unlike Pokemon, however, The Quarry is a completed game; and it was the Dark Pictures title that would wind up suffering - that's some foreshadowing for an upcoming 2023 review.

To me, Supermassive games have this weird quality threshold. While all their games are GOOD, there is a clear quality difference between the games that are truly great (Until Dawn, and my 2021 GOTY, House of Ashes) and the ones that are mostly forgettable (Hidden Agenda, Man of Medan, Little Hope). Thankfully, The Quarry falls into the former category.

More than any other previous game, the world and characters of The Quarry feel incredibly well-developed, with excellent acting performances to boot. The game definitely maintains the "Choose Your Own Adventure" elements of the series thus far, but in a game with much tighter narrative pacing and less "wander around this big, empty room" padding. It's hard to say exactly how, but the game feels somehow more linear, in a good way. There's a tension in every scene, and you're never given time to become bored. The setting and its lore are incredibly well-developed, and collectibles go further than usual to explain the rules of the world and why all this stuff is happening.

One frustrating thing about some previous Supermassive games is how some characters will just die, and you have zero idea about what you could have done to prevent it. Here, character deaths are always your fault - and you know what you can do differently next time. As you learn more about Hackett's Quarry, you think back on past decisions and missed collectibles and think, "Oh shit, I know exactly how I can do that differently next time." This point is really hard to qualify for folks that haven't played this sort of game, but these games feel better when you feel like you're in control. When Supermassive games are on their game, you feel like every choice you make matters, like you know how to make informed choices. When they're a bit messy, choices feel arbitrary, and failures feel like, "How the hell was I supposed to know that would happen?"

I haven't gone into detail on the plot because, well... This is one I really recommend going into blind. It's a horror game set in a summer camp - use your imagination. And be pleasantly surprised about some of the turns it takes along the way.

Great game, highly recommended.