The pandemic and its related issues with game development are well and truly over with 2022 seeing a HUGE amount of games coming out all through the year. While not every game was a banger (I’m looking at you Saints Row 2022), we did get enough that it made 2022 a year where we weren’t looking at the latest FIFA or Madden as a go-to game at any time. Now that we are at the end of the year, it’s time to look back and see what games I personally thought were the best of 2022.
10. WWE 2K22
Release Date: March 8th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Starting out the list is the return of a wrestling favorite. WWE 2K22 brings back all the action from those men and women in spandex after the disastrous release of WWE 2K20 and WWE Battlegrounds. Built from the ground up by 2K Games after Yukes left during the development of WWE 2K20, WWE 2K22 has become the great blend of simulation and arcade action that the series was many years ago. Giving something for newcomers and veterans alike, WWE 2K22 has shown that there is still life in the old springs of the wrestling ring… Till they get some actual competition with AEW: Fight Forever next year, then there’ll be a big fight to see who is King of the digital ring.
9. CAPCOM Fighting Collection
Release Date: June 24th, 2022
Review Score: 3 out of 5 Stars
If there was something that started to become a bit too common in 2022 it was compilation games based on nostalgic arcade classics. First, we saw a lot more Arcade 1Up cabinets hit the market, then we saw things like CAPCOM Fighting Collection appear in digital stores. CAPCOM Fighting Collection gave us the return of a lot of 90s Arcade fighters like Darkstalkers and Red Earth for the first time in years, but seeing a lot of these appear again in CAPCOM Arcade Stadium 2 a few months later made this feel like a quick cash grab than a proper labor of love for fighting games.
8. SIFU
Release Date: February 8th, 2022
Review Score: 3 out of 5 Stars
It was rare to see brand new IPs in 2022 when the landscape has become cluttered with remakes, remasters, collections, or sequels. SIFU tried to do something different with its own story based around a kid looking for revenge coupled with the very interesting mechanic of when you die in the game, you age older, gaining new techniques, or enhancing your skills in each stage. However, SIFU quickly brought back the old issue of gaming sites “needing” to finish games before finishing reviews due to many reviewers not getting all the way through SIFU due to its extremely high difficulty and learning curve. SIFU is a highly recommended game for players of Dark Souls who might crave a lot more Gong-Fu in their action games instead of Shields and Swords.
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
Release Date: August 30th, 2022
Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Yep, as I previously mentioned, this year was taken up by a few things: One of them being collections like this one. While most collections that have come around are just the base games emulated to be played on modern machines, TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection was made by the amazing team at Digital Eclipse, the team behind the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection and other great collection titles. This means that TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection is a must-own game for collectors of TMNT merchandise since you will find some of the best games from the early days of TMNT games, along with one of the biggest collections of behind-the-scenes media and other goodies. There is nothing like busting Foot Soldiers’ heads all over again with some online co-op of the 2 best TMNT games, TMNT and Turtles in Time on the Arcade… Unless you own the Arcade 1Up version, that’s the only one that beats playing those games via PC or console.
6. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Release Date: March 25th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
I actually got Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands on PC while I was away on my honeymoon with my newly married wife. So that might be why I was a bit distracted while reviewing the game. While I enjoyed the humor of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands with my friend TJ, it just didn’t hold up to other Borderlands games, especially the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC which spawned this game. If there were more RPG elements to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands than there were Borderlands staples, then we might have had a Top 5 contender on our hands, but we didn’t, so that ended the campaign a lot quicker than the Dungeon Master herself expected.
5. Gran Turismo 7
Release Date: March 4th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Driving simulation games aren’t really my thing, but this year I actually played more of them than I thought I would. Starting with Forza Horizon 5 and its foray into open-world racing, and then jumping into the hardcore simulation of Gran Turismo 7, was like playing two very different games. Gran Turismo 7 was the first game this year to really make me gasp in amazement at how realistic the graphics were and how smoothly the PS5 handled those graphics. The controls for Gran Turismo 7 were so good that my wife, who isn’t a huge gamer, spent many hours playing the game herself trying to beat the trial records of Keith and myself to the point of obsession. This shows that Gran Turismo 7 has a lot of appeal from the hardcore racing enthusiast to the casual learner driver.
4. Bayonetta 3
Release Date: October 28th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Honestly, I didn’t play many Nintendo Switch games this year. For some reason, they didn’t publish anything that I felt I needed to pull my system out of the layers of dust it has gathered over the last 12 months in order to play. Now that we are at the end of the year, it seems that Nintendo is wanting to get a late Christmas push going with Bayonetta and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet coming out. But since Pokemon is a glitchy mess, I gave Bayonetta 3 a go. Even with all the controversy surrounding the story choices in Bayonetta 3, it was still every moment as good as the previous two entries in the game were. This a true testament to the idea of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I spent many hours getting my flashy combo on with the sexy witch with the very weird costume from beginning to end, something that I came to expect from this series. However, my bias does show when I say its time for this series to be released from the Nintendo exclusive contracts (I know they funded the game in part) and let us get the whole trilogy out on all consoles so that this magic can be shared with everyone regardless of what console they own.
3. God of War Ragnarok
Release Date: November 9th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Oh, now I’ve done it. Not only didn’t I give God of War: Ragnarok a perfect score like so many other sites, but I’m not giving it Game of the Year either. I can hear the keyboard warriors clacking away now telling me that “You don’t get it, you’re a shit reviewer”. Sorry for not kowtowing to Sony in this instance, but I stand by what I said. God of War: Ragnarok isn’t a huge leap, or even a short leap, from God of War 4 years ago. There was too much that felt like it was an upscaled version of the 2018 game to ignore for the sake of pleasing the online gaming community. I expect more from a studio that already set the bar high for themselves, and a beautiful lazy effort like this isn’t going to cut it for something that is meant to be so great.
2. Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
Release Date: October 28th, 2022
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
If you’re a common reader of this site, you would know that I love Horror games and Resident Evil is my favorite franchise in that genre. When CAPCOM made the decision to make some DLC for the really good Resident Evil Village that added more to the story as well as a third-person mode that the franchise is known for, then of course I was going to play it till my hard drive burnt out (It didn’t, but I played the game A LOT post-review). The excellent Shadows of Rose story gave me more fright than what the main story did and did it in the traditional style that I love. This is how you use DLC to add value to the overall package, something that many developers have forgotten as their management tries to push profits over player experience.
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Release Date: June 16th, 2022
Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
My 2022 Game of the Year! If there is something that I love more than Resident Evil, it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My first real obsession gets an amazing new game done in the style that captured many people’s hearts and quarters back in the day. Replicating the Arcade look and feel of the original 2 TMNT games, Shredder’s Revenge gives a huge dose of nostalgia wrapped in a modern online co-op experience that led to chaos and mayhem during almost 20 levels in some of the best group gameplay that I had the pleasure to experience in a long time… Plus this was the one game where we had many members of The Outerhaven staff playing at the same time that people loved to watch via our YouTube channel, something that we don’t do often enough these days.
