Games I put a decent bit of time into (enough to form an opinion), but didn't finish:
Dying Light 2 - I mentioned recently that I'm kinda burnt on open world games, and this was a casualty of that. The other strike against it was that I didn't find it to be very different from the first one (you'll see this complaint pop up again...). The first game was great, but with a sequel - especially one that's been in development for as long as this one has - I want something that really makes it stand apart. This one just didn't have that. It's not a bad game at all, and anyone who enjoys open world games mixed with some parkour will probably love it. And I'm not saying I won't ever go back to it...but it's not super high on my list either.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - I thought I was in the mood for a LEGO game again. Turns out, I wasn't.
Tales of Arise - I got about 6-7 hours into this one, and I enjoyed what I played well enough, but it didn't really get its claws in me. I may pick it back up at some point, we'll see - JRPGs are so daunting for me these days because of the massive time commitment, if they don't REALLY hook me up-front it just starts to feel more like a job than a game.
Roundguard - I think this one made my list in a past year, but I fired it back up at some point this year & got hooked on it again for another couple of weeks or so. It's basically Peggle given the Puzzle Quest treatment, and it's fantastic. There was some substantial free DLC as well, and that's always appreciated.
SkateBird - "Hey, they call Tony Hawk the Birdman, so let's make a skateboarding game where you play AS a bird! That'll be clever, right? ...right?" No, not really - not a heck of a lot of fun, either.
The Witness - Puzzle games aren't fun when the puzzles are so obtuse that you are almost required to look them up. Brilliant design, not so fun.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 - I was really enjoying this game until I guess I built what they asked for slightly further away than they wanted? For being so strict about where you have to build, they don't really give you any indication WHERE that is. I didn't want to tear it down & re-do it, plus something else had just released (Elden Ring I think?) so that was that.
Horizon: Forbidden West - Open world burnout + not really that different from the last game. Sound familiar? It sure is pretty.
A Plague Tale: Requiem - Man, after APT: Innocence, this one was really a let down to me. With all of the glowing reviews, I thought I was going crazy until I watched a guy I like who said with the sequel they went less the original game & more Uncharted. That sums it up pretty well from the first few chapters I played. Not sure if I want to go back to it or not. At least it was on Gamepass so I didn't have to spend money to be disappointed. :-\
Omori - So I love indies because they are the passion project of a small group of people who really love what they're doing and are able to make whatever they want. I also sometimes hate them for the same reason. This is the dreariest slog of a mess of a game I have had the misfortune of playing. It's ok to make a game about a subject to convey a message, but you need to keep in mind that it's still a GAME and needs to be at least marginally enjoyable. This one is not.
Ghost Song - Not EVERY game needs to be a Souls-like. Such as this one. This one didn't need to be.
Gungrave G.O.R.E. - This one was dumb fun until the train level, which was just dumb. And then it decided to start crashing. I had meant to go back to it when/if it got a patch, maybe kick the difficulty down for that one level & see if I could wrap it up, but we'll see.
Battletoads - This isn't a BAD game, but I made the mistake of playing it after the new TMNT game, and it absolutely does not stack up. That and I always thought of the Battletoads as a cheap Turtles knock-off anyway. Again, it's OK, but if you haven't played either definitely play Shredder's Revenge first.
Powerwash Simulator - Definitely not top 10 worthy, but more fun than you would expect. Oddly satisfying. A great relaxing game to play when you just want to zone out.
The Pedestrian - This is a game that looked like a REALLY cool idea in the trailer, but in practice it felt like more of a chore. You control the little stick figure guy from a street sign and you have to navigate from sign to sign. Just didn't click with me, so I moved on.
The Gunk - A boring and aimless game that on top of that has a bunch of woke-isms crammed in for good measure. I bounced off of this one fast.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon & Xenoblade 3 - Last but not least, I'm combining these two because I fully intend to finish them this year. I really enjoyed what I have played of both, but got sidetracked for one reason or another. Both would have most likely made my top-10 this year if I had finished them, and I decided not to try to include them because I really can't judge them fairly before I have completed them.
Games I finished but didn't make the top 10:
Disney Dreamlight Valley - I started to put this in unfinished, but it isn't a game you really CAN finish and I put a lot of time into this one and did all of the major goals, so...here it is. Like Animal Crossing, it's an amusing distraction but it's not really a GAME.
Inside - Interesting, but the story was a letdown to me and thinking back on it all now it was somewhat forgettable (I honestly HAD forgotten it until I looked back over my achievements earned for the year to see what I had played).
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - I only finished this one because I could "cheat" using the save states that they added in the port. This was a very poorly balanced and designed game, definitely one of the worse Castlevanias I've played. Looking forward to playing at least one of the others from this GBA port collection this year, which are both supposed to be much better than this.
Unravel Two - More like Unravel 1.5. It's...fine. Didn't really add a ton to the experience of the first game, and the levels felt too long & seemed to drag.
Glass Masquerade 2 - I thought a digital jigsaw puzzle game would be something nice & relaxing for when I just want to zone out. I still think that, but this game isn't it. Just poorly executed. I finished it purely out of stubbornness.
Infernax - This was a decent throwback side-scrolling platformer with some very light Metroidvania elements. I enjoyed my time with it, but it didn't make a big enough impression to make the list. If it looks interesting to you, I'd say it's worth a playthrough.
Superliminal / Gorogoa - Combining these two because they are very similar in concept. They are both puzzle games that deal with perception, it's just that Superliminal is 3D and Gorogoa is 2D. Both are excellent, and neither overstay their welcome. These are puzzle games done right, and I highly recommend both - they just didn't quite make the list.
And now, without further delay...
Argyle's Top 10 of 2022
10. Sonic Frontiers - Squeaking into the #10 spot is the latest Sonic game. Definitely not perfect, it could have stood to have some more variety and probably could have been a touch shorter. Still, there was a lot of fun to be had in this and it was nice playing a good Sonic game again. I can definitely see them expanding and fleshing out some of these ideas further in a sequel, and I hope that happens.
09. Iconoclasts - Fun fact, exactly half of the games in my list this year released in 2022, the rest were older titles that I either picked up last year or just finally got around to in my backlog. This was a backlog title, and probably the oldest backlog game on the list. Really glad I finally got around to it tho, since it's a fantastic game that was somehow made by 1 guy. A Metroidvania with some great pixel art and a fantastic story that also throws in some well-done puzzles for good measure. Games like this make me wonder what other gems are hiding on my shelves...
08. Two Point Campus - A few years back a new indie developer, Two Point Studios, put out a game that was a love letter to the classic Bullfrog game Theme Hospital. They absolutely nailed the feel of that old PC game while still updating it with modern graphics, new features, and a ton of content. It was the sequel to Theme Hospital we never thought we'd get. Not content with that, this year they put out Two Point Campus, which is the same sim take directed at college life. I have a soft spot for the subject since I work at a college, and I had an absolute blast playing this game. I still haven't finished it but I made it a LONG way in - that's ok tho, this is the type of game you can pick back up & be right back in it at any time. Bullfrog perfected the balance of sim, gameplay, and humor in their classics and Two Point carries on that tradition perfectly.
07. Fran Bow - Izzy had talked this one up a couple years back or so, and when he did I added it to my Good 'Ol Games wishlist. Then I forgot about it. One slow day at work last summer I stumbled across a sale on Humble Bundle's site and noticed they had Fran Bow for $4. I remembered the praise Izzy had given it, so I grabbed it and fired it up. I didn't get very much work done for the rest of that day or most of the next.
Fran Bow is a fantastic game in the point and click adventure genre. The story constantly keeps you guessing and doesn't just grab you, but holds you and forces you to keep playing to see what happens next. The puzzles are the perfect balance of difficulty, making you think without being overly obtuse. I loved this one from beginning to end, and it's a great example of why we should all listen to Izzy more often. 
06. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge - If you played Turtles In Time in the arcade back in the day & have fond memories of it, then the simplest way I can describe Shredder's Revenge is that it IS the game you remember TiT being through your rose-colored glasses. It's quite possibly the perfect beat-em-up. It doesn't feel cheap, controls great, has awesome graphics and music, and tons of challenges to complete after you're done with the main story. Whether you're a Turtles fan or not, this is a must-play.
05. Darksiders III - A couple of years ago I played Darksiders III and got a long way into it - at least 2/3's of the way through the story - and then quit. I got sidetracked by something and put it down, fully intending to go back to it. Except by the time I finally did, I had forgotten how to play. So I shelved it. This year, I decided that I wanted to play through it and finish it, so I started it over from the beginning and did just that. It's a testament to how good the game is that I enjoyed every minute of it, even tho most of it I had already played. The areas are brilliantly designed and the combat is always fun. The different weapons you get are all a blast to use and switching between them given the situation is easy and adds enough complexity to keep things interesting. Possibly the best water stage in any game I've played, thanks to the unique way they approached it. The story is over-the-top fun like all of the Darksiders games, and the art style is the same - very comic book-y. I want to play the 4th game, possibly this year, but I know it's a different style of game. I hope we get a 5th game tho, the one we were promised in the beginning that would bring all 4 of the Horsemen together.
04. Journey to the Savage Planet - Metroid Prime + a great sense of humor. That's the formula for this game, and man does it work. Bright, colorful graphics make up a very creative alien planet and the dry sense of humor really gives this game a great unique feel all its own. This one was criminally overlooked IMO - it came out in 2020 as a budget release and got a little attention at the time but not a ton, then it was quickly forgotten. A very impressive game that stands toe-to-toe with the big budget releases, and even more impressive that it was the developers first (and last) game - they were acquired by Google, then shut down when the Stadia predictably died. Not to be outdone, they have reformed as a new studio - Raccoon Logic - and I can't wait to see what they do next. If this is any indication, it will be great!
03. Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart - Can Insomniac still make a good Ratchet & Clank game in this day & age? Yes, yes they can. A Rift Apart is classic R&C goodness and charm, with stellar graphics and a really fun story that mixes things up a touch and makes it all feel fresh. I definitely hope this isn't the last we've seen of the lombax & his robot friend now that Insomniac is making Marvel games, because they clearly still have a lot more to give us with R&C.
02. A Plague Tale: Innocence - Another game that had been languishing in my backlog, the news of the impending release of the sequel prompted me to fire this one up & finally give it a go. And I was instantly hooked. The story in this isn't just good, it's absolutely phenomenal - the way they handle the characters is very grounded and really pulls you in so that you actually care about them - ALL of them. The gameplay is stealth based, but they handle it in such a way as to make it more about using the environment in a puzzle-like fashion to avoid guards than just trying to stumble around without making noise & trying to memorize their pathing. I found it very hard to put this one down, and any other year it would have been my GOTY. It's a shame they took a different approach with the sequel, but that doesn't take away from how good this one is.
01. Elden Ring - It was never going to be anything else. This game absolutely consumed my free time for at least a couple of months, possibly longer. I was obsessed with this game - so was Tam - and we traded notes on our discoveries and strategies we figured out to defeat bosses. An open world game unlike any other I've played, it puts the focus squarely on exploration. And this isn't "exploration" as in "go to the next icon on the map", this is true exploration - go and discover what's there. You might die - ok, you'll probably die - but that's a part of it. It adds to the thrill, you never know what's around the next corner. And soon you learn that dieing isn't the massive punishment you think it is at first. As you start to get more powerful & feel more comfortable, you slowly expand where you're exploring. You're constantly finding new things, and that in itself becomes addictive. The story slowly reveals itself to you in the world itself, and the glimpses you see are unnerving. Watching YouTube videos about the lore becomes a bigger addiction than looking up gameplay strategies. I could write essays about how deep and engrossing this game is, how near-perfect it is in almost every aspect - and I feel like I have already. It's one of those rare games that just demands your time and you don't even notice how much it's taken. I beat it the first time at around the 180 hour mark, and I immediately started a NG+ run and made it all the way back to the final boss before finally putting it down. It is definitively my GOTY by a wide margin.
I'll throw my rankings on here since we agree on No. 1. (All these are worth playing, IMHO.)
Now my brain hurts. 
