| Hi everyone, it's Jason. Today we're exploring the best games that 2022 had to offer, but first... This week's top gaming news: The video game industry at large may be struggling due to post-pandemic habits and a lack of big-budget releases, but for gamers, there was no shortage of options this year. As big games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield slipped to 2023, smaller-scale and independently developed games reigned supreme. As is annual tradition, we've rounded up some of the year's best games, from obvious heavy hitters to a tiny gem made by just one person. Here, in no particular order, were my favorite 10 games of 2022: Elden Ring Not just one of the best games of the year but one of the best ever made, Elden Ring is well-deserving of all of the accolades it has received. One could rave about many aspects of the game: the smooth combat, the satisfying exploration, the fascinating lore (crafted in conjunction with Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin). But what really ties Elden Ring together is how bizarre it is. Where else could you run into characters with names like Fia, the Deathbed Companion or The Loathsome Dung Eater? And what other game would take them seriously?  The Case of the Golden Idol Source: Playstack The Case of the Golden Idol Look past the disconcerting art-style in The Case of the Golden Idol and you'll discover one of the year's most innovative experiences, a mystery game that forces you to use reason and deduction to unravel its many secrets. Each of the game's dozen chapters is a freeze frame of the moments after a murder, and as an omniscient observer, it's your job to figure out what happened. You can comb through people's pockets, look for context clues, and then use a Mad Libs-style interface to fill in all the blanks. It's a brilliant game — plus, the art is actually pretty cool once you get used to it. Tactics Ogre Reborn You wouldn't think that a remake of a 1995 Super Nintendo game would be a highlight of 2022, but here we are. Tactics Ogre Reborn takes the high politics and grid-based strategy of the original game and spices them up with modern graphics, an overhauled interface, and new options like a fast-forward button. The result is one of the year's best games — a medieval fantasy story about good people making difficult choices combined with moment-to-moment gameplay in which you have to make your own difficult choices. Triangle Strategy Like Tactics Ogre, this is a grid-based strategy game with a political story set in a dark fantasy world. But this one is brand-new, and full of interesting ideas that its predecessors haven't explored. For example, the story will take different branches based on your choices, but instead of making those choices yourself, you have to do it democratically. As the leader of a ragtag army, you have to go around and convince all of your generals to see things your way. It's a cool game with some heart-rending twists.  Return to Monkey Island Source: Terrible Toybox Return to Monkey Island Thirty years ago, PC gamers were charmed by a "point-and-click" adventure series called Monkey Island starring a wannabe pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. The series took a long hiatus but came back this year with Return to Monkey Island, and it feels very much like a game whose creators have gotten older. Return is just as sharp and funny as any of its predecessors, but it's also surprisingly poignant, exploring what it means to keep chasing your dreams even after you're past your prime. A more experienced but slightly weaker Guybrush is just as irresistably charming as he was three decades ago. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero The Trails series of Japanese role-playing games is as straightforward as it gets. You play as a group of young heroes on an adventure, battling in turn-based combat and going on a rollercoaster ride of plot twists along the way. Trails to Zero stars a young police officer named Lloyd Bannings and his three other companions in the Special Support Section, a group of oddballs and misfits in the police department of Crossbell, a massive city reminiscent of Hong Kong. As the adventure goes on — and as it continues in Trails to Azure, a sequel coming in March — Crossbell turns into a character of its own, full of charm and sleaze and a criminal underworld to rival any other. The Quarry If you've ever watched a campy teen horror movie and thought "I'd make better decisions than them," The Quarry exists to prove that you're wrong. It's a cinematic adventure game in which a group of teens is trapped in a terrifying summer camp and have to try their hardest to survive the night. You'll rotate between the characters and make decisions for each of them, like where to hide out or who should have that conveniently placed gun. It's the perfect game for people who don't play a lot of video games — there's even a couch co-op mode that encourages you to pass the controller back and forth every time you swap characters. Live A Live Here's another Super Nintendo remake! Live A Live first came out in 1994 but was only released in Japan. The 2022 remake, with overhauled graphics and a new English translation, allows us Westerners to play (legally) for the first time, and boy, what a strange and fascinating game this is. There are seven main chapters, each set during a time period, and you can play them in any order. One is a Wild West showdown in which you have to set traps to protect an old-timey town from a marauding gang; another features a robot stuck on a spaceship that's been taken over by an evil AI system. They all culminate in an epic medieval fantasy story that ties the whole game together.  Chained Echoes Source: Deck13 Chained Echoes While Chained Echoes never came out for the Super Nintendo, you'd be forgiven if you thought that it did. This indie game — made almost entirely by a single guy — is open about its inspirations, which include Super Nintendo classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. But it's also resoundingly modern, with clever mechanics like an ever-shifting "Overdrive" meter that requires you to think carefully during combat. The English writing in Chained Echoes is stiff and clunky, but everything else is sublime, from the twisty story to the bouncy musical score. God of War Ragnarok Four years ago, a reboot of God of War blew fans away, transforming series protagonist Kratos from a violent cartoon caricature into a real person with serious intimacy issues. This year's God of War Ragnarok continued the story, adding more of everything: more side quests, more combat options, and a seemingly never-ending amount of banter. It's a good game if not quite as revelatory as its predecessor, but it's really on this list because of one guy: Richard Schiff, who plays the villainous god Odin. His Toby Ziegler-like performance takes this game to the next level. Honorable mentions: Marvel's Midnight Suns, which would probably make the list if I had been able to play it more. Wordle, which took the world by storm and is still part of many people's daily morning rituals. Patrick's Parablox, a clever puzzle game that requires some mind-bending box pushing. Thanks for your support and we'll see you in 2023! | 
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