This content was originally posted in early 2022 on my Twitter account, @Capshot18, and may have been edited slightly to better fit this site's formatting.
I know we're now a few weeks into 2022 and I still haven't come out with a list of my favorite stuff from last year (like I have in the past) but, well, if the Oscars are allowed to happen at the end of MARCH, I feel like I deserve a bit of leeway too.
Now, I know I've only got a small handful of followers and none of you are all that interested in these self-indulgent spiels of mine, but I still enjoy coming up with these lists as a way of shining a spotlight on the things I liked in any given year.
As for my *actual* life, things are still weird and a bit in flux, but I took care of some personal business I'd been meaning to do for a while and I'm also going to see what I can do to meet with a therapist soon(ish), so I'm trying to do what I can to, well, keep myself going.
I know that was a bit of a long introduction to this list (that, again, I really only do for my own benefit), but I wanted to record my headspace for posterity's sake since keeping this stuff (completely) to myself doesn't do anyone any good.
I'll probably be adding to this over the next few days but, before I begin, here's what I wrote last year (and before that, too).
Now, to actually get things started, here are my favorite movies from 2021:
10. In The Heights
9. Lupin III: The First
8. Summertime
7. Psycho Goreman
6. Spider-Man: No Way Home
5. The French Dispatch
4. Pig
3. Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes
2. Shiva Baby
1. The Green Knight
And, in a lot more detail (way too much, probably), my favorite games from last year:
9. Before Your Eyes
I've been following the development of this one for a long time now and, now that I've played it, and I'm really glad to say it fully delivered on what I wanted out of it. It's a first-person narrative game where you're watching your life flash "before your eyes", so to speak, and it has you move through vignettes from a character's life that get cut short whenever you, the player, actually blink (assuming you have a webcam hooked up).
8. Unpacking
It's a pretty straightforward concept for a game on paper (you're unpacking the boxes in your new home and need to move things around to make sure everything fits) but it takes that simple premise and does a lot with it. Over the course of the game you get to see how this character's possessions carry over (or don't carry over) from one home to the next, and through its mechanics alone it's able to give you a pretty firm idea of its characters and their interests.
7. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise
Maybe this isn't necessarily a "new game", but the Happy Home Paradise DLC for this is substantial enough that it absolutely seems worth mentioning here. I had already devoted a bunch of time to customizing my own house and would often spend time with the other creative tools in the game, so having an excuse to basically just do more of that (with a bit more structure) was wonderful.
6. Halo Infinite('s multiplayer)
They made another Halo. It's good. Admittedly I haven't played all that much Halo in the past, but they made a new one and it's good. It has some gross monetization in it (mostly tied to cosmetics, but that's still bad) but the core mechanics of, well, Halo are still superb. It's also led to me playing a multiplayer shooter with other people I actually (well, sort of "actually") know, instead of just random matchmaking lobbies, and I guess I had kind of forgotten how much I'd missed doing that.
5. Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Is it a new game? Maybe not. Is it even new to me? Also a no. Is it still great? Heck yeah. Like my "The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series" recommendation a year or two ago, this is less a new thing or a remake then, well, a really well-put-together package of some older stuff I already loved. There has been work done on it and there are occasional, noticeable changes here and there but, for the most part, it's worth highlighting because it makes it incredibly easy to play through three decade-or-so-old games and it reminded me just why I enjoyed those games. They still have their flaws (the third game, especially, has some... creative decisions that not everyone agreed with) but it's a cohesive universe with some incredibly compelling characters, so even with all of their baggage they're absolutely still worth playing.
4. Life is Strange: True Colors
Given its development maybe this should have been obvious to me, but this newest entry feels more in line with "Before The Storm" than either of the other "main" entries in the series, but that's not a bad thing. Compared to either of those two "major" games, this is a much smaller, less dramatic story but, as a result, it continues the trend of making this feel like a series not beholden to any one specific character, setting, or mechanic. There's a very specific vibe to these games that I really enjoy and I like knowing, now that now that we're three (technically four) entries into it, they can keep coming up with ways to tell stories in this vein that all still feel unique and interesting.
3. Overboard!
You are a woman who has just pushed her husband overboard and you have until your cruise ship docks in the afternoon to cover up your crime and get away with it. This is a game that plays on conventional murder-mystery tropes and combines it with a HITMAN-style clockwork-NPCs-on-a-schedule setting to give you everything you need to (try to) get away with murder.
2. HITMAN 3
Speaking of HITMAN, well, I also played the new HITMAN. It's more HITMAN and that foundation is still incredibly solid. If you don't know what HITMAN is, it is a series where you arrive in an open-world sandbox that essentially runs like clockwork and you need to eliminate a few targets using whatever disguises, gadgets, shortcuts, and clever ideas you have at your disposal. While I absolutely loved the 2016 game, I bounced off HITMAN 2 shortly after its release. While a lot of what I'm about to say also applies to those earlier games then, HITMAN 3 is the newest and most up-to-date way to play through this entire trilogy. HITMAN 3 adds new locations but, more importantly, still allows you to play the stuff from those two earlier games so, as a complete package, you can play (nearly) all of this trilogy's content with all of the bells-and-whistles that got added as the series progressed. If you don't already own those earlier ones I'd recommend waiting for a sale (as buying EVERYTHING now would cost close to $200) because the thing I'm specifically recommending here is that complete product. Admittedly that's an incredibly high barrier of entry but, provided you can find a reasonable way to get past it, the complete package on the other side is such a cool, cool thing.
1. Wildermyth
I want to preface this by saying this game may not be for everyone, but what it is such a profoundly unique thing that I had to include it at the number one spot of this list. Mechanically it's a turn-based overhead tactics game (a bit like a Fire Emblem or an XCOM, for example). The real draw of it though is in the connective tissue between it all. You start out by creating a group of adventurers (imagine a typical fantasy or DnD party) and you take that group from one procedurally generated encounter to the next to take on whatever random events the game throws at you. It has scripted sequences where your characters are given personality, and as you progress through the game your characters' relationships with one another and mechanical quirks they pickup along the way add a genuine history to them. There's a constantly ticking world clock as your party roams the map, and as your characters age with the passing time they may retire or have children who can also join your party. There are mechanics in place for permadeath as well as mechanical consequences for story decisions, and in all there are just a lot of systems in place to make you feel connected to your (otherwise seemingly generic) adventuring party. It's difficult to put into words why this seems so remarkable, but it just tickles a part of my brain that so very few games do and there are times when it basically seems like magic.
You might have noticed that I started that list at number 9, and there's a reason for that. There actually were a few more games I played last year, but the thought of recommending any of the ones that stood out to me (either because they have gross monetization or are literally gacha games) just made me feel scummy.
"Halo Infinite" was also guilty of that, to be fair, but that had enough other stuff going for it that I still feel OK highlighting it though, of course, your mileage may vary when it comes to how much that stuff bothers you.
As was the case with previous years, I also put a lot of time into older games so here's a list of 9 (see above explanation for why) games/franchises that I enjoyed playing last year.
9. Tell Me Why
This may not necessarily be a "Life Is Strange" game in name, but if you wanted another DONTNOD small-town mystery with some tragedy, an indie/alternative soundtrack, and some supernatural powers, then this should be right up your alley.
8. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
On paper this may not seem super innovative (it's a puzzle platformer, essentially) but taking something as simple as that and tacking on the polish and charm you'd expect from a traditional Nintendo game goes an incredibly long way. Each level is clearly readable, the mechanics are relatively simple throughout, and there are enough bonus objectives and challenges to make sure the levels don't ever seem *too* trivial.
7. Mortal Kombat 11 (but also 9 and X)
I've never really considered myself much of a fighting game fan and I'm still not necessarily sure I'd change that assessment, but playing through these three games was still a really enjoyable experience. This is a series that's been going on for a long time but, starting with 2011's "Mortal Kombat" which functioned as a reboot of sorts, they've been telling one continuous story that's honestly as enjoyable and well-produced as any single-player video game campaign. It's got voice acting and animated cutscenes, and it basically tries to make sense of thirty (or so?) years of continuity and characters. It runs you through the gamut of characters to give you a sense of how they all play, but even if you don't stick with it competitively (I sure didn't) there's a lot here to enjoy.
6. A Short Hike
Maybe it was just because I played this to wind down immediately after finishing the next game on this list (which was considerably more stressful), but this is a game I deeply enjoyed largely because of how peaceful and, well, chill it all was. It's not a very long game, but if you want to have a charming little afternoon scaling a mountain while helping out your neighbors, then this will let you do precisely that.
5. Celeste
While I really loved this game, I'm not sure what I can say about it other than the fact it's just a really great, well-designed 2D platformer with respawns and restarts that are snappy-enough that your frequent failures and deaths don't ever seem too punishing. It reminded me a lot of platformers I played about a decade ago (in a very good way). There's a simplicity to its mechanics that means it stands up there with Super Meat Boy or VVVVVV as, well, just a solid, straightforward platformer with really good music.
4. Star Wars: The Old Republic
This is a game I've been playing sporadically for a few years now, but I thought I'd finally mention it. Put simply, it's another story-driven single-player Bioware RPG that's *technically* also an MMO. For some that MMO may be the draw but, for me, it's this: there are eight wholly unique single-player campaigns to play through, each based on a traditional Star Wars archetype. The reality is a bit more complicated, but, in effect, you end up with a Bioware RPG about a smuggler, a separate story about a bounty hunter, two different Jedi stories, two about different sorts of Sith, one about a Republic soldier, and another on an Imperial spy. True, each of these stories may not be as complex as your Mass Effects or Dragon Ages, and there's still a fair amount of overlap when it comes to sidequests and ancillary content (expansions especially, as far as I can tell) but that basic pitch is just so enticing. Admittedly it's not the KOTOR 3 that a lot of people wanted, but what it *is* is an ambitious and incredibly fascinating thing (to me, at least).
3. Super Metroid (and Metroid, and Metroid II)
I had intended to play through all of these games last year in preparation for Metroid Dread but I only made it through the first three (and thus still haven't gotten to Dread), but DANG were those early games still excellent. Obviously this is a franchise I've been aware of for a long time but, outside of struggling to get past the early parts of Metroid II when I was a kid or my brief interest in AM2R, it had never been something I'd given much thought. While I did also play through Metroid 1 and 2 last year, Super Metroid stood out as something truly special. It's still of-it's-time and there are still occasional design decisions that feel frustrating by modern standards, but it is such a finely-crafted thing that I fully understand why so many developers have been trying to recapture this magic with other "Metroidvanias" in the decades since. So much of why this game is great comes down to specifics of its design or its "feel", but, even more-so than the other two entries in the series I played, Super Metroid honestly just seems impeccable.
2. The New York Times Crossword
I've always enjoyed word games and trivia so I don't know why it took me so long to give this a shot but, for whatever reason, I'm hooked now. They're something I'd look at occasionally over the years but, as I'm now (at the time of writing this) on a 100-day streak, I'm really enjoying the daily ritual of sitting down and just working through a crossword puzzle. I don't know, maybe I'm just old and boring, but I've genuinely really loved having an excuse to stretch parts of my brain I haven't really needed to use since I was in school. Sure, I may not like the New York Times much as an organization, but the app/website associated with their crossword is really straightforward and it's the one I've been using (so it's the one I'd recommend).
1. Umineko When They Cry
Maybe this'll be obvious given how much I raved about it as I was working through it, but Umineko When They Cry is an incredibly enjoyable story that I still find myself thinking about. Much like its predecessor "Higurashi When They Cry", it's a "sound novel" where you read through a story that's accentuated by sound effects, music, and sprites that change to reflect the relevant characters in the current scene. I happened to play through it with a mod that added the voice acting from the PS3 port of the game and I'd highly recommend doing that as well, though I made a point to stick with the original art by Ryukishi07. It's not *necessary* but it added a lot to my experience. If you want a basic pitch of the story, a wealthy family meets at their island home to discuss how their elderly father's inheritance is going to be split up after his death. The story itself eventually becomes many different things, and to explain how it changes would be to somewhat spoil the fun of the whole thing, but at its core it is a text that wants you, the reader, to engage with it as you would any *good* mystery. While it's still, largely, a novel without much (direct) interactivity, I tried to engage with it in the way (I believed) the author intended me to. I read through this alongside my brother and we treated it almost as a kind of book-club, discussing what had happened while speculating about where we thought it would go. While it may be entirely possible for someone to simply passively follow along with it, for a story this absurdly long (Steam tells me I put in roughly 160 hours!) some amount of investment on your part feels almost necessary, though in my opinion it was worth it. Maybe I haven't done a great job describing this, but it's an incredibly enjoyable ride that kept me entertained throughout its (again, very long) runtime.
Comments
Post a Comment