Andi Hamilton's Videogame Newsletter - Issue #47 [Game Of The Year 2022]

Here it is! My Game of the Year list for 2022. I actually think it's been a pretty pish year with one massive highlight and a handful of other very good titles but the AAA space might be the worst it has been in some time. Sony didn't even give us a Returnal to help the fucking medicine go down this year, either.Anyway, cheers for reading this newsletter over the past year and extra cheers for sticking around through the whole 'Revue going in the bin' thing. Appreciated.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2022

10 - SifuA game that got dragged kicking and screaming into a difficulty debate that completely missed the point of what Sifu was all about and was less about accessibility and more about this horrible trend of wanting to bend and shape every game into a big, homogenous mass that suits the completely made up idea of the game someone has in their head of the game, based on their experiences with AAA games. Sorry, nearly went off on one there.Anyway, Sifu is a finely balanced combat game that has a brilliant built-in difficulty system (or at least did, before they patched in the ability to circumnavigate this entirely) where you get older every time you fail and you start the next level at the age you were when you first got to it. So if you're at death's door and need a few more "lives" to tackle a particular level with, you need to go to the previous ones and master them, so you don't die as much, and you make it to the level you were stuck on at a younger age. As you play through the game, you'll also find keys and items that actually can be used on those earlier levels to make things simpler, or unlock shortcuts straight to the boss fight, again making finishing the level with fewer deaths a little easier. Every little helps and all that.Ultimately, most of the complaints around Sifu came from people falling in love with its wonderful style and wanting to see how this tale of revenge panned out. Well, I can tell you - it's fucking shit. No one should care. The only thing you need to care about in Sifu is getting good enough at the combat to beat the game. It's a game designed around a system that makes you feel like a badass AFTER you've earned the right to feel like a badass, which is extremely satisfying.

9 - RollerdromeSometimes, the simplest ideas are the best ideas. Hear me out, right - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater with GUNS. Smash TV with ROLLERSKATES. All those fucking excellent retro-future game shows like The Running Man or Death Race or, of course, Rollerball but you can actually play it and it's really, really good. Simple. Effective. Excellent.The two key parts of Rollerdrome work as intended - the tricks and skating feel like a solid extreme sports title and the shooting has a good selection of weapons, each with their own specific strengths and weaknesses and interesting ways to utilise them but it is the way that Rollerdrome effortlessly mixes the two elements together which makes it really sing. There's a shared ammo pool for all weapons which can only be recovered by performing tricks, so you can't just concentrate on shooting up the goons and dodging missiles - you HAVE to do it with some style! I love the element of mastery that this game requires from you too. Sure, finishing every level is fairly straightforward once you've got the hang of things, but can you hit certain score thresholds? Can you perform specific tricks when blasting away at enemies? Can you find the five items hidden around the stage and get out alive? Much like classic Hawk, it is in finishing these objectives that unlock new levels, not simply passing a stage. Rollerdrome, like all the best games, gives you all the tools you need from the word go and then encourages you to get better and better and better with them.In fact, the only thing that disappointed me about Rollerdrome is when you finish it you an extra hard new game plus called Out For Blood mode and upon finishing a level, pop an achievement called 'WELCOME TO ROLLERDROME'. I have to agree, I wish there was just an option to start on that difficulty from the word go because it is so, so intense you're practically holding your breath while you hang on for dear life and it really does feel like the intended way to play the bloody thing. I've only got one life, lads, I can't be spending it all on a game I've already seen the credits for.

8 - SignalisBefore I get into the stuff I loved about Signalis, a little warning. There are some people out there who are absolutely over-hyping this one and I think it is best to keep your expectations in check a bit. The art style is hit and miss, looking great in-game but the cutscenes have this horrible, amateurish, Westernised anime 'DeviantArt Original Character Do Not Steal' look about them, the locations are extremely repetitive for large amounts of the game and the intentionally vague and oblique nature of the puzzles and narrative might be off-putting to some (although that wasn't an issue I had with it), so keep this in mind before you settle down for some Signalis. I've seen it compared to Silent Hill 2 - fucking settle down, alright?However, Signalis delivers a really solid classic survival horror experience. You have to take care in every combat situation, constantly manage your ammo and recovery items, solve puzzles that overlap and give you part of the solution to a bigger, overarching puzzle and even make strategic decisions as to which enemies you choose to permanently remove from the game, stopping them from periodically resurrecting and causing you bother while you explore the areas. Hell, it is SUCH a classic style survival horror game, I even made it to the last boss with a frankly astounding amount of high level curative items and an abundance of ammunition for the strongest weapons in the game because I spent the whole game hoarding it - as it should be. The vibes are IMMACULATE too, with the vague storytelling combining with the world design to create a really creepy, unsettling almost dreamlike setting. If you're going to compare it to any Silent Hill game, it has the vibe of the original game, rather than the sequel.Classic survival horror has dried up a bit in lieu of a lot more action/horror or walking sim/immersive narrative titles, so fans like myself have been starved of it for quite a while and although we would be accepting of scraps at this point, the fact that Signalis fell onto our plates like an (itchy) tasty survival horror steak and reminded us all that there's a reason that this was the genre that dominated during the era of the early 3D consoles.

7 - Weird WestI wasn't that arsed about Weird West when it was first released. The immersive sim elements sounded amazing and the setting - part Wild West, part horror fantasy - was very appealing to me. However, the combat just felt a bit... off? Obviously far too fast-paced to be strategic but far too twitchy and inconsistent to feel like a satisfying action game. Sure, perhaps I could've stuck with it but it wasn't immediate at all, a few deaths occurred that were a direct result of controls fucking me off and I shelved Weird West for the foreseeable future.A few months later I see a link to a dev blog outlining a considerable patch that was about to be released. It stated that there was to be a lot of new options added to the game that would allow you to tweak the combat to your tastes - potentially eliminating my main issue with the game instantly. The patched dropped, I fired it up again and with a bit of tweaking, turned the game into something that had a more slow-paced, cerebral combat system that I felt fit the style of the game much, much better and before long, I was fully into Weird West. The game is split into six sections, each one has you playing as a different character going through their own unique story, with the final chapter tying everything together. Four of the five are absolutely brilliant - somehow both quirky and utterly grim tales dragged from the bowels of this strange world with lots of meaningful decisions and ways to approach scenarios.The final two chapters try to tie everything together in some overarching cosmic prophecy shite that simply isn't anywhere near as interesting as the individual stories for each character so it doesn't quite stick the landing but at the same time, it certainly doesn't detract from what is a really smart, creative title that I think went massively underappreciated this past year. If you bounced off it at launch, like I did, I promise it is worth revisiting.

6 - Gran Turismo 7I've always enjoyed Gran Turismo's sort-of simulation stylings but this seventh mainline instalment of the series does something really wonderful with the presentation and structure that makes it more than just a traditional racing game. It is, of course, a truly fantastic racing game - great variety of tracks and cars and with a solid physics model underpinning the satisfying and rewarding driving - but it is a better museum. To call Gran Turismo 7 a 'racing game' is missing the point a bit. It's a car game. About cars. Racing is just something you can do with them.It makes a really good case for videogames as a means of presenting historical information. The amount of cars from throughout automotive history is impressive in itself but each one has at least a page of detailed information - not just statistics - that give a bit of background on that particular motor. Little facts or reasons why certain features came to be. It's all presented against the backdrop of the Gran Turismo Cafe, a relaxing menu interface that acts as the hub where you take your next objective to guide you through the game. It's remarkably chilled out, even when the on-track action heats up. I'm not particularly arsed about cars but jumping on, finishing a few races for the cafe menus and then having a little read about them has been a nice way of winding down this past year.A little mention here needs to go to Atari 50, which can't get in my GOTY list because its a compilation of old titles and I have RULES but for my money, it falls into a similar category as Gran Turismo 7. Both contain genuine history that uses the key thing that separates videogames from other media - the interactivity - to present it in a compelling and fun way and offers you a chance to actually have some kind of experience of the subject matter. I'd love to see more of this.

5 - Card SharkSomething I really like in a game is when a developer manages to use the controller (whatever that may be) to make you feel like you are performing the interaction going on in the game, or give you a feeling closer to that of the character you're controlling. I reference it a lot, but I'm fairly sure it was Chris Schilling who said Donkey Kong's Jungle Beat, controlled by the Gamecube's bongo drum controller, added to the overall feel of bounding through the jungle knocking the shit out of things as a gigantic ape. It's cool as fuck.Anyway, Card Shark! Card Shark has you cutting about pre-Revolution France committing a series of card-based robberies on unsuspecting marks. As you play through the game, you learn loads of different card tricks and cheats that you can utilise to, quite literally, stack the deck in your favour and make off with some ill-gotten winnings. Unless of course, you get caught, which at first usually means getting unceremoniously kicked out of the pub in which you were hustling but as the plot moves along and the stakes begin to rise, you could easily end up shot or stabbed in the heart by an angry opponent. Performing the tricks is really just a series of minigames that become more and more complex as the game goes on but it is the way that you perform these actions using the sticks on the control pad that make you feel like you're performing some real magic. Tapping down to fake shuffle a deck before quickly, seamlessly tapping left to mark a card and continuing to tap down after to complete the shuffle really does feel quite authentic, made even more so if you're using a PS5 Dualsense, as the haptic feedback is implemented extremely well. Successfully pulling off a complex and long series of tricks to dupe a man who is making you gamble with your life, without slipping up and drawing attention to the cheating going on, is one of the year's most satisfying gaming moments.It looks and sounds great, the story is actually remarkably good with some well-written characters and a few genuine laughs - I can't recommend giving this a playthrough enough.

4 - CulticI love a good retro FPS. The combination of satisfying weapons, varied enemies that keep you on your toes and some fiendish level design will just never get old for me. I'll always find some fun in trying to find my way through a map while I'm peppered from all sides by enemy attacks, requiring skilled use of movement and shooting to stay alive. Good job too, because there's hundreds of the fuckers these days.Although there's a significant amount of legendary Build Engine game Blood in Cultic's DNA, what with the endless swarms of cultists to murder and a focus on throwable explosives at the core of the combat, but once you actually get into the meat of Cultic it is clear that its biggest influence is Resident Evil 4. Cultic is quite happy to have moments of quiet to build tension and fear before the next action sequence, where all hell breaks loose and you're in that brilliant sweet spot that all the best retro FPS games regularly put you in. Hordes of enemies, all different types with attacks that weave together to create a web of death that you need to evade by utilising all the movement options you have at your disposal, the whole time switching between an arsenal of useful weaponry, either for the best tool for the job or just because you're out of ammo and needing to freestyle a little. Bliss. All weapons can be upgraded too, doing that cool thing where the final upgrade basically turns them into some ludicrous superweapon.The whole thing is remarkably well paced, knowing when to cool things off and when to turn the screw and there's a surprising amount of variety squeezed from the single setting. Like all good shooters, the couple of bosses are a bit pish and its unfortunate that it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (part two is set to arrive in 2023) but there's very little as thrilling as instantly thrilling as Cultic released in the past twelve months.

3 - DrainusIf Konami aren't going to give me more Gradius then I'll have to get it elsewhere. Drainus has plugged the gap in my life I've been trying to plug since Treasure's incredible PS2 classic Gradius V - a brilliant, inventive and also, somehow fairly straightforward horizontal shmup. Drainus manages to be all these things and adds a few cool things of its own into the mix, making for a very, very strong title.It's the systems that really make a game like this and Drainus has several excellent ones. First of all, there's an upgrade system - much like Gradius - but you spend the points in a menu to create a much more flexible 'build'. There's far more variety in what you can end up with in Drainus than a lot of other shmups, so you can really tailor things to your preferred style of play. Taking a hit essentially levels you down and when you're down to the absolute basic shot type, another hit will kill you and also, force you to start building up again from scratch. The real genius though is in the ability to put up a temporary shield that will absorb all incoming enemy laser fire and allow you to fire a volley of homing missiles in return. It's super satisfying to see a wall of plasma death heading your way but instead of having to navigate it with care like you would in a bullet hell style shmup, you just charge into it head-first and suck it all up, launching powerful attacks back at all on screen. The levels themselves are full of creative and challenging sequences, it all looks and sounds great and, most surprisingly of all - has a fairly decent narrative that ties everything together and actually creates a canonical reason for a second run through the game. Admittedly, this is lifted wholesale from Gradius V, but I'll forgive it that because it is a pretty cool trick.The whole thing can be punted through in an hour and unlike a lot of the more hardcore shmups that require you to hit the ground running, Drainus is actually a relatively easy ride but one that you can get really good at and it feels damn good to do so. Probably the most underappreciated game of 2022.

2 - Vampire SurvivorsOh boy. I really put off this one for a while because it was so obviously going to be like getting on the muck. It looks like it has been perfectly crafted to make you always think you should just give it one more go. You know, just to see what you unlock. Just to see if you can get a bit further. Just to try out a new build or tactic. Just for any reason, honestly.It's a dead simple game. You just move around, automatically attacking the hordes of enemies, picking up experience gems and selecting upgrades when you level up, slowly putting together a build on the fly to keep you alive as the enemies start to come at you in bigger numbers and in tougher variations. Keep going until you die, unlock a bunch of permanent upgrades and go again. There's just ALWAYS something to unlock, be it stat upgrades or new characters or whatever - when you play, you leave with something. A quick single session or several good runs all contribute to your overall progress. Eventually, you start to unlock modes where the enemies and weapons are all hyperpowered and the whole thing turns into a screen of total chaos. It's fucking amazing. Collecting a health power up just before you drop dead or using the garlic power to carve through a wall of vampire bats is so satisfying. Once you've got your head around everything, you can start trying to best some of the boss enemies or uncover some of the game's secrets. There's so much to Vampire Survivors - it is DENSE with content and the recent DLC only adds more cool stuff to play with.Over the course of the year, since I started playing this, it entered my top ten games of the year and just slowly but surely moved its way up the list until it ended up here. It's basically the best game I played in 2022... except for one.

1 - Elden RingWell, obviously. Elden Ring is the best game of 2022 by some distance. I wrote a big old thing about it earlier in the year and my thoughts haven't changed. It's a stunning achievement, the pinnacle of the stuff From Software have been putting out since Demon's Souls and a refinement of almost all the systems they've had in those games over the years.Read my previous newsletter talking all about it and let me go back to enjoying my Void Week.

THANKS FOR READING.Please consider chucking a couple of dollars at my Patreon page if you like this or any of the other things I do.patreon.com/andihero