Phaseknox’s Top 10 Games of 2022
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:52 pm
The following are the 10 best games that I played and finished this year (2022):
10) Tormented Souls
This is one of the better classic style survival horror games that I’ve played. It’s most similar to the original Resident Evil with a creepy mansion setting, methodical gameplay/combat and key item puzzles. The story is completely bonkers, but still somewhat entertaining. My only real complaint with it is that the puzzles can be obtuse at times, and I had to look up the solutions to them a little more often than I would have liked.
9) Ion Fury
This is a classic style FPS similar to Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior in look, gameplay and level designs. It’s a love letter to 90s FPS fans which I am. It was made using the same graphics engine as Duke Nukem 3D to make it authentic to the time period, and that gives it part of its appeal and charm. It’s a fast paced action packed thrill ride the entire time only brought down by its brief and unsatisfying ending.
8) Valkyrie Elysium
The combat in this game is some of the best that I’ve experienced in a third person action game, but unfortunately just about everything else about it including its story, characters, graphics and levels are kind of average. It’s pretty much a linear action hack ‘n slash game that would have benefitted from some adventure elements, platforming challenges and environment puzzles. It’s tightly paced and fun, but a little too basic and repetitive in terms of overall design.
7) Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
I enjoyed this game more than I was expecting to based on its negative reception by critics and gamers alike at release. I played as the female archer Catti-brie, and found her to be an appealing character in terms of appearance, voice actress, gameplay and combat. This is primarily a linear third person action game/dungeon crawler light on story and even lighter on characterization, but the levels are varied and fairly well designed, the combat and platforming are fun and the challenge is just right. It would have benefitted from some adventure and RPG elements, but it’s still a solid third person action game for the most part.
6) Ys: Memories of Celceta
This is a retro style action RPG that originally came out for Vita. It has an isometric view, and I kind of label it as an anime Diablo since it has a colorful anime aesthetic and characters with you primarily traversing somewhat linear and narrow environments battling mobs of enemies. It has towns and villages as well where you interact with NPCs, and visit shops. It’s a little repetitive and longwinded as the levels can drag on a bit, but the story and characters are charming and the combat is a lot of fun.
5) Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider are a couple of my favorite games from the past decade, and while this one isn’t quite as good as those it’s still a really good third person action adventure platformer with puzzles. The graphics are impressive, the levels are well designed, the gameplay is tight and there’s a lot of exciting scripted events and set pieces. The story isn’t too strong and reminds me a little of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but it’s still good enough to drive the gameplay. There’s some open-ish town and village areas that breakup the action, but I found them to be a little out of place and slowed down the pacing a bit.
4) Saints Row
I’m a big Saints Row fan, so I was looking forward to this reboot. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out quite as good as I was hoping for, but I still had a really good time with it despite its shortcomings. While the story and characters aren’t very good, the world and gameplay are. It’s a fun third person open world action game with on-foot shooting, and vehicle traversal. The story missions are fairly varied, and there’s some good side activities as well. Some of the side content isn’t the best, but you don’t have to do all of it so I simply ignored doing the stuff that I didn’t really like. My biggest problem with the game were its bugs, there were quite a few annoying ones that unfortunately hindered my enjoyment a bit.
3) Asterigos: Curse of the Stars
This is the most ignored, overlooked and underrated game of the year IMO. It’s one of the best games that I played this year, and probably the best indie game of the year. It’s a third person action RPG with a fairly entertaining Greek mythology story, an adorable main protagonist, an appealing art style, varied well designed levels, fun combat and a lot of content. It looks good, plays good and is a lot of fun. The character interactions and dialogue can drag a bit at times and it lacks platforming and environment puzzle elements that would have added to the overall experience, but other than that it’s a charming and endearing adventure throughout.
2) Darksiders III
I’m a fan of the Darksiders games, and this is the best in the series IMO. Fury is a badass character with a blade whip, and this game has everything that I like in a third person action adventure game including a great art style, varied well designed levels, solid gameplay, fun combat, cool upgrades/unlockable attacks/abilities/skills, platforming and environment puzzles. It also has an interconnected Metroidvania style world design. I enjoyed every minute of it, it was fun from beginning to end and had a fairly entertaining story, cast of characters and satisfying ending.
1) Far Cry 6
Far Cry 3 is one of my all-time favorite games, and this game is the closest that the Far Cry series has come to matching it since it. This is one of the few games that I played this year that felt like a big budget AAA game with a lot of money and people behind it. As much as I like AA games and indies, I also like big grand games like this that take advantage of all of the bells and whistles of current hardware. Sure I played it on PS4 so it’s technically a last gen game, but it takes full advantage of the PS4 hardware which still produces good looking games IMO. I’ve showed my mom plenty of games over the years and they all pretty much failed to impress her, but this game did. She said that it looked real, and the world does kind of look real. It might not be photorealistic, but it’s extremely detailed and realistically designed. It looks and feels like a real place, and for a first person open world game like this that’s important for immersion. And I got really immersed into this game. I really liked the main character Dani, and I enjoyed going on this action adventure with her that was full of thrills and spills. And explosions, lots of explosions. The story and characters in general were pretty good, and it was a huge open world with varied locations, interesting missions both main and side and a lot of fun gameplay both on foot and in vehicles.
10) Tormented Souls
This is one of the better classic style survival horror games that I’ve played. It’s most similar to the original Resident Evil with a creepy mansion setting, methodical gameplay/combat and key item puzzles. The story is completely bonkers, but still somewhat entertaining. My only real complaint with it is that the puzzles can be obtuse at times, and I had to look up the solutions to them a little more often than I would have liked.
9) Ion Fury
This is a classic style FPS similar to Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior in look, gameplay and level designs. It’s a love letter to 90s FPS fans which I am. It was made using the same graphics engine as Duke Nukem 3D to make it authentic to the time period, and that gives it part of its appeal and charm. It’s a fast paced action packed thrill ride the entire time only brought down by its brief and unsatisfying ending.
8) Valkyrie Elysium
The combat in this game is some of the best that I’ve experienced in a third person action game, but unfortunately just about everything else about it including its story, characters, graphics and levels are kind of average. It’s pretty much a linear action hack ‘n slash game that would have benefitted from some adventure elements, platforming challenges and environment puzzles. It’s tightly paced and fun, but a little too basic and repetitive in terms of overall design.
7) Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
I enjoyed this game more than I was expecting to based on its negative reception by critics and gamers alike at release. I played as the female archer Catti-brie, and found her to be an appealing character in terms of appearance, voice actress, gameplay and combat. This is primarily a linear third person action game/dungeon crawler light on story and even lighter on characterization, but the levels are varied and fairly well designed, the combat and platforming are fun and the challenge is just right. It would have benefitted from some adventure and RPG elements, but it’s still a solid third person action game for the most part.
6) Ys: Memories of Celceta
This is a retro style action RPG that originally came out for Vita. It has an isometric view, and I kind of label it as an anime Diablo since it has a colorful anime aesthetic and characters with you primarily traversing somewhat linear and narrow environments battling mobs of enemies. It has towns and villages as well where you interact with NPCs, and visit shops. It’s a little repetitive and longwinded as the levels can drag on a bit, but the story and characters are charming and the combat is a lot of fun.
5) Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider are a couple of my favorite games from the past decade, and while this one isn’t quite as good as those it’s still a really good third person action adventure platformer with puzzles. The graphics are impressive, the levels are well designed, the gameplay is tight and there’s a lot of exciting scripted events and set pieces. The story isn’t too strong and reminds me a little of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but it’s still good enough to drive the gameplay. There’s some open-ish town and village areas that breakup the action, but I found them to be a little out of place and slowed down the pacing a bit.
4) Saints Row
I’m a big Saints Row fan, so I was looking forward to this reboot. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out quite as good as I was hoping for, but I still had a really good time with it despite its shortcomings. While the story and characters aren’t very good, the world and gameplay are. It’s a fun third person open world action game with on-foot shooting, and vehicle traversal. The story missions are fairly varied, and there’s some good side activities as well. Some of the side content isn’t the best, but you don’t have to do all of it so I simply ignored doing the stuff that I didn’t really like. My biggest problem with the game were its bugs, there were quite a few annoying ones that unfortunately hindered my enjoyment a bit.
3) Asterigos: Curse of the Stars
This is the most ignored, overlooked and underrated game of the year IMO. It’s one of the best games that I played this year, and probably the best indie game of the year. It’s a third person action RPG with a fairly entertaining Greek mythology story, an adorable main protagonist, an appealing art style, varied well designed levels, fun combat and a lot of content. It looks good, plays good and is a lot of fun. The character interactions and dialogue can drag a bit at times and it lacks platforming and environment puzzle elements that would have added to the overall experience, but other than that it’s a charming and endearing adventure throughout.
2) Darksiders III
I’m a fan of the Darksiders games, and this is the best in the series IMO. Fury is a badass character with a blade whip, and this game has everything that I like in a third person action adventure game including a great art style, varied well designed levels, solid gameplay, fun combat, cool upgrades/unlockable attacks/abilities/skills, platforming and environment puzzles. It also has an interconnected Metroidvania style world design. I enjoyed every minute of it, it was fun from beginning to end and had a fairly entertaining story, cast of characters and satisfying ending.
1) Far Cry 6
Far Cry 3 is one of my all-time favorite games, and this game is the closest that the Far Cry series has come to matching it since it. This is one of the few games that I played this year that felt like a big budget AAA game with a lot of money and people behind it. As much as I like AA games and indies, I also like big grand games like this that take advantage of all of the bells and whistles of current hardware. Sure I played it on PS4 so it’s technically a last gen game, but it takes full advantage of the PS4 hardware which still produces good looking games IMO. I’ve showed my mom plenty of games over the years and they all pretty much failed to impress her, but this game did. She said that it looked real, and the world does kind of look real. It might not be photorealistic, but it’s extremely detailed and realistically designed. It looks and feels like a real place, and for a first person open world game like this that’s important for immersion. And I got really immersed into this game. I really liked the main character Dani, and I enjoyed going on this action adventure with her that was full of thrills and spills. And explosions, lots of explosions. The story and characters in general were pretty good, and it was a huge open world with varied locations, interesting missions both main and side and a lot of fun gameplay both on foot and in vehicles.