Grumpy Gamers: Game of the Year Picks 2022
November and December have continued to be stacked with quality game releases, so we’re not quite there yet with confirming our GOTY picks! But we’ve highlighted 9 below that we’ve really enjoyed ahead of finalising our top 16 picks to battle it out. Don’t forget to tune in on 28th December to hear us perform our own stunning, unbiased, wholly objective and completely definitive system to return the worthy winner. Available from all your favourite podcast providers!
Elden Ring - Pete
I mean, what really needs to be said? Elden Ring was the gaming world for the first half of the year, and content creators everywhere are still producing more and more on it even now, after all the late year releases. Grim, bleak, and beautiful, the Lands Between will remain with us for a long time to come – especially whenever FromSoft release DLC. Elden Ring is the first Souls game to achieve such a wide popularity, and made a whole lot of new fans for the series – with every single one having to learn to get good. Death is just another lesson.
Total War: Warhammer III - Pete
The grand finale to a seminal strategy series released back in February, and despite a rocky start and some glaring issues, it lives up to both franchises that created it. With the release of Immortal Empires mode in August, we now have the largest and most intricately detailed map ever seen in a strategy game, and the huge diversity and creativity available within it makes this a game that can steal days, if not weeks of your time. The fact that there will no doubt be dozens of DLC packs added only serves to increase the scale and scope of an ambitious, and well realised, grand strategy.
Pentiment - Pete
It is not often that a game comes like Pentiment comes along. Quirky, strange, and completely out of sync with the modern standards of gaming, Pentiment has shocked many of us with its addictively good writing and satisfying gameplay loop. Step into the shoes of a medieval illustrator turned detective and explore a hugely detailed and varied world in the Bavarian hills. The developers believed that without GamePass, this game could not exist, but if anything that just shows us all how grateful we should be for allowing Pentiment to be inked into the gaming lexicon.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet - Ben
Terrible performance, bad textures and no voice acting… but the best Pokemon game in years. A lot of the improvements seen in Arceus have carried over in the first Pokemon open world game. This is what we imagined as kids, and once you look past the bad, you find so much good. The gameplay loop is as addictive as ever, and with 3 main storylines, there’s so much to do even before raiding, Pokedex completion, shiny hunting, breeding and creating a competitive team! Pokemon fans are in for a treat despite the bad press. If Game Freak can sort things out going forwards, there is a framework here to develop some truly incredible games in the years to come.
Splatoon 3 - Ben
Shooter games often get released half baked. Splatoon 3 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does build on the success of Splatoon 2 and provide an experience with a hell of a lot of content. As ever, Nintendo’s answer to shooters on other platforms is just pure joy. There is a full single player campaign and standard online turf war battles, but the real test is in the competitive multiplayer. The game modes are varied, and ranked battles now culminate in a singular rank, whichever game game mode you’re playing. A number of quality of life changes make this an easy improvement on the fantastic Splatoon 2 in every way. Oh and Salmon Run is not time bound… success!
Endling: Extinction is Forever - Ben
The most emotional video game of the year, and the only one to make me shed a solitary, manly tear. Simple mechanics coupled with creative, heart-tugging storytelling provides a hook for you to want to see where this one goes. You play a fox mother looking after her cubs in a basic survival/adventure game with beautiful visuals. It may only last about 5 or 6 hours, but whichever ending you get will be sure to leave a mark! Indie game of the year for me.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 / DMZ - Eddy
Being such a lontime and hardcore PUBG fan, its difficult to say this, but Warzone 2.0 is the best battle royale game ever made. It brings the awesome gunplay from the COD games, and throws it into an ultra realistic, infinitely fun multiplayer game. It’s not without its bugs, but when you have a game on such a vast scale, with such excellent attention to detail, then this is expected upon release. The best bit however, is the DMZ mode, an almost ‘Tarkov lite’ game, where you find yourself playing ‘one more round’ until the sun comes up. My unapologetic game of the year.
Keplerth - Eddy
Anyone who follows the ‘Grumpy Gamers Podcast’ knows of my LOVE for the game Rimworld, and I will fight and die to defend it. Well, Keplerth is very similar to that, enough said? This is a rather rugged looking 2D sandbox RPG, but as I tell my girlfriend, looks aren’t everything! It’s a survival, base builder, farming, fighting, exploring game, with just enough hooks to keep me interested. With all these aspects done well, and few extra things thrown in, like cloning and hospitality, this makes it this year’s indie darling.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Eddy
Some very observant people may tell me that this game came out a few years back, and I even nominated it for Game of the Year 2020, but luckily for me it came out on full release, including on consoles, this year – so I can nominate it again! Bannerlord is a strategy action game where you role play as just another person in a fictional medieval world. The idea of the game is to either be a lord, and gain favour of your king and his people, or just start your own kingdom, but one of the beauties of this game is you can do whatever you want. You can of course be a lord or king, but also a bandit leader, trader, tournament champion, smithy, or even a party leader who just serves the king who pays the most. Where this game stands out the most though is in the massive, epic battles. Some of the most heated moments of my life have been on the battlefield with a few remaining men trying to thwart the 14th charge of heavy lancers, or chasing down the last archers who are slowly kiting my men to extinction. Not sure if that emphasises how impressive this game is, or how tragic my life is, but my point is… this game is incredible.
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