Tin’s Top Ten Games of 2022
Here are ten video games from this year that probably don’t suck.
10. Needy Streamer Overload
This is the game for you if you’ve ever wanted the experience of having a mentally ill streamer GF. You can moderate her stream chat, make her overdose on drugs, and accidentally softlock the game by having sex with her too much (among other things). Her frequent text messages and not-twitter posts are really well written, and read exactly like you’d expect from someone with questionable mental stability and somewhat abusive tendencies. It’s particularly interesting to see the dichotomy between her streamer and private not-twitter accounts. The game’s vaporwave Windows aesthetic is great, too.
My main complaint is that after the first playthrough, there’s not much new or randomized content to explore beyond the specific steps required to unlock each ending. Given that there are more than 20 endings to find, it can be pretty repetitive to try and get all of them. That being said, Needy Streamer Overload is still a great little psychological horror experience.
9. Sonic Frontiers
As someone who thinks that Sonic 06 is better than Sonic Generations, my opinions on 3D Sonic games are probably worthless. When I was playing the game, I felt that it was the best main-series Sonic game since Sonic Adventure. Sonic’s 3D movement feels the best it ever has, and running around the worlds and finding collectibles is very fun, if not a bit mindless.
Upon reflection, however, my opinion of the game has become slightly less positive. The world designs have a Nintendo-hire-this-man energy of realistic environments mixed with cartoony characters, which is hard to ignore and makes each world feel same-y and unremarkable. Additionally, the action stages feel very unoriginal with their reuse of level themes that have already been reused before in other Sonic games. Overall, it’s a fun Sonic game, probably the best one in a long time, but it lacks enough character to be truly memorable in the long term.
8. Spark the Electric Jester 3
Oh look, it’s a Sonic game that has enough character to be truly memorable in the long term. It’s not actually a Sonic game, of course, but it’s so clearly inspired by that style of gameplay that it might as well be. Spark’s movement feels great and the level designs are well thought-out. The car driving stages are really cool, probably because they feel like they were pulled straight out of the developer’s canceled game, XF Racing Institute, which I loved the demo for way back in the day. There are also several awesome moments where the game and its cutscenes turn into something completely unexpected, especially towards the end of the game.
Some elements of the game feel a bit half-baked, like the level select screen and the plain black HUD design, but that’s understandable given that this is mostly a one-man project. Spark 3 is significantly shorter than Sonic Frontiers, but it’s a more thoroughly enjoyable experience, and the one I think I’ll look back on more fondly.
7. Nintendo Switch Sports
Wii Sports is one of the most popular video games of all time, so it makes sense that Nintendo would want to create a new entry in the series, despite the Wii brand being gone now. For what it is, Nintendo Switch Sports (some people call it Switch Sports, but it doesn’t like that nickname) works quite well. The returning sports from Wii Sports, bowling, tennis, and golf, are easily the best ones in the collection, and feel just as good to play with the joy-cons as they did in the original game. Chambara and soccer are fine, but volleyball and badminton feel too similar to tennis to warrant their inclusion as unique games. Online multiplayer is great, but the variety of online modes per game is limited, so it gets repetitive after a while.
The not-Mii characters are super cute and I love them, and while you can still play as a Mii if you want to, they’re really starting to show their age in 2022 when compared to the new characters. Collecting accessories for the characters is cool too, although I dislike the unnecessary FOMO-ness of every accessory only being available for a limited time. The motion control craze Wii Sports started may be long past dead, but Nintendo Switch Sports is still a lot of fun.
6. Ballygon
Ballygon is another one-man effort that’s arguably superior to the source material it’s inspired from. Super Monkey Ball clones live or die on the ball-rolling movement and the level design, and this game succeeds on both of those fronts. The ball moves snappily and never feels sluggish, which is something a lot of similar games struggle with. The camera isn’t perfect and often ends up at a slight angle relative to your movement, but it’s something you get used to fairly quickly. The level designs are fantastic, having the perfect length and difficulty for this type of game (which is to say, short levels which are challenging but not unfairly difficult). The music made for the game is also really catchy. Out of all the Super Monkey Ball-like games I’ve played, Ballygon is easily the best one.
5. Trombone Champ
I hope that one day I can make a game as entertaining as Trombone Champ.
4. Grid Legends
Grid Legends had the unfortunate timing of releasing one week before another racing game you’ll see on this list soon, so I didn’t play it much when it first came out. But after the first DLC was released, I got into it more and spent dozens of hours playing through the lengthy career mode. The career mode is structured very well, with a few sets of races for every category of car in the game. There’s a large variety of cars to drive, and a lot of them are cars you won’t find in many other games. They’re fun to drive too, with an arcade-y but responsive handling model that feels much more lively than it did in the previous series entry.
The game’s major selling point, its story mode, isn’t actually the career mode, instead being a relatively small and separate mode in the game. While the story is very cheesy, it’s oddly compelling at the same time. Perhaps it’s because it’s sort of a sequel to the story in a 20-year-old racing game that most people don’t even remember (even if that game, ToCA Race Driver, is technically part of the same series), which is the type of racing-game obscurity that I love. Grid Legends is easily the best game in the series since the original Grid back in 2008, and arguably Codemasters’ best game in over a decade.
3. Gran Turismo 7
If I had to tell you one video game franchise that I love more than any other, it would be Gran Turismo. I don’t know why I’d be in a situation where I had to tell you that, though. Am I being held at gunpoint? Why does the gun pointer want to know that one specific piece of information? Are they just curious? Do they want to hear a specific answer? If so, should I lie and say that my favorite franchise is Call of Duty, Just Dance, or Garfield Kart to increase my chances of survival? Why does the gun pointer feel the need to hold me at gunpoint to ask me a question that I’d happily answer without any guns being pointed at all?
Can you tell I’m putting off talking about Gran Turismo 7?
Gran Turismo 7 is my most anticipated game of the last half-decade. It’s easily the game I’ve put the most time into and gotten the most enjoyment out of this year, yet I cannot justify putting the game any higher on my GOTY list, because it’s also by far the most disappointing game I’ve played this year. GT7 is fundamentally very similar to its predecessor, Gran Turismo Sport, which is probably my favorite game of its console generation. Virtually all of the cars and tracks from GT Sport are carried over into GT7, and the in-race UI was barely changed at all. The graphics and driving physics, while clearly improved in GT7 compared to in GT Sport, weren’t changed massively either.
This isn’t a problem though, as those aspects of GT Sport — the car and track selection, the UI and graphics, and the physics — were what made that game so good. The problem is that nearly everything that has been changed in GT7 feels like a downgrade from GT Sport.
The single-player career in previous games in the series presented you with a wide variety of available events, requiring you to buy and upgrade cars to meet the requirements for each one. In GT7, to progress in the career, you’re forced into doing specific races in a specific order, using cars that you’ve already been awarded (apart from one instance). Sure, you can still buy and upgrade your own car, but the requirement is no longer there, and the feeling of owning your own car that you race and upgrade over time is now mostly gone. That’s not to say that the career mode is bad, as there’s still a lot of enjoyment to be had with it while it lasts, but it’s shorter than in most previous Gran Turismo games, and once the main career is completed, there’s not much left to do.
Then there’s the multiplayer, which for months following the game’s launch was borderline unplayable. Multiplayer lobbies were glitchy and clearly unfinished at release, with features such as selecting a different track being completely absent, let alone things like qualifying and quick chat messages (all of which were in GT Sport), although these features have slowly been added back in updates. Lag between players was terrible at launch, making close racing extremely difficult, even though this wasn’t a problem in GT Sport at all. While this has been mitigated via updates, the lag is still generally worse than in GT Sport. Curiously, races in the game’s Sport Mode lobbies (carried over from GT Sport virtually unchanged) never had any lag issues, presumably because they’re hosted on servers instead of a peer-to-peer connection. Most of the Sport Mode lobbies don’t support PS4-PS5 crossplay, and given that Sport Mode is the only ranked mode available in the game, it’s a pretty big issue, and one that still hasn’t been resolved.
All of these multiplayer issues meant that the groups I enjoyed playing GT Sport with so much mostly gave up on GT7. In the year leading up to GT7’s release, I played GT Sport with friends from a Discord server nearly every Thursday, but after GT7 came out, these sessions stopped and never regularly resumed. Several streamers I watch who played GT Sport moved on to mostly playing other games, such as iRacing or the well-known racing game Destiny 2. Many Gran Turismo racing leagues went on hiatus, and lots of them have yet to resume racing in GT7. GT Sport was a game I made friends with, a game I could play competitively, a game that became part of my identity. I hoped that GT7 would expand upon those feelings, but it largely did the opposite.
I could go on and on about the things I don’t like about GT7, like how the in-game economy is set up so that you have to grind one or two specific single-player races over and over again, as multiplayer races reward you with maybe 5% of what would be a fair amount of credits, or how the used car dealerships use real-world pricing data, which means that the price of cars keeps increasing over time (and is generally much higher than the price for the same car in GT Sport), or how sometimes real-world months go by without being able to buy certain used cars, or how updates don’t prioritize multiplayer fixes and add content at roughly one-third the rate as GT Sport’s updates. But I won’t, because I value your time as a reader, at least a little bit. So I’ll say this to summarize the game: Gran Turismo 7, at its core, contains the best and most enjoyable racing simulation ever made, but it fails to progress or actively regresses the series in so many other areas that it ends up being an overall disappointment.
2. Splatoon 3
Fortunately, I don’t have nearly as much to say about Splatoon 3 as I did about Gran Turismo 7. In fact, I don’t have much to say about it at all. Splatoon 3 is very similar to Splatoon 2, but unlike another game on this list that’s very similar to its predecessor, Splatoon 3’s changes are mostly improvements to an already-great game. The new single-player campaign is a standout addition, incorporating all of the best parts of Splatoon 2’s Octoling Expansion DLC, such as having a larger number of shorter levels, with unique weapons for each of them. My main gripe is the switch to a season pass format for unlocking gear and other items, which I’m not a fan of in general. I love Splatoon 3, but I feel like I’m about splatooned out for one lifetime, so I didn’t end up playing it nearly as much as the first two games.
1. PowerWash Simulator
I don’t even own this game. I simply paid $1 to get Xbox Game Pass for a month, and played through the game with a friend in co-op mode. And yet of all the games I played this year, it’s the one I liked the most.
Why did I enjoy PowerWash Simulator so much? The title of the game, much like the hips of Shakira or the mouth of George Washington, does not lie. This is a game that simulates the act of powerwashing. Have I ever powerwashed before? No. Is it something I would actively seek out doing in real life? No. Common sense and logic should tell you that I would not like this game, and yet I did.
Perhaps it’s because the gameplay is so easily understandable? You powerwash things that are dirty until they aren’t dirty anymore, oftentimes known as “clean”. Sometimes you can buy upgrades to your powerwashing equipment, to improve the speed and ability at which you can powerwash. That’s it. There’s nothing else to do.
Perhaps it’s because the game is really comfy? It turns out that powerwashing, at least in the way it’s presented in this electronic video game product, is quite the zen experience. Hearing the calming white noise of the sound of the virtual powerwasher spraying virtual water for actual hours is relaxing, especially when combined with the variations of sounds caused by spraying particular types of objects in particular ways. Trying to find the last morsel of dirtiness on any given object, and seeing it flash of cleanliness once you’ve found it, is super satisfying.
Perhaps it’s because I played through the game with a friend? A task as laborious as powerwashing could get boring quite quickly, but with my powerwashing pal, I could chat about literally anything. “What’s the weather like?” “What’s your favorite food?” “What are your thoughts on the Dancing Plague of 1518?” Then I would get a response to my question. The cool thing about someone responding to your question is that you don’t know what they’re going to say until they say it. What is the weather like? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it potato salad? The possibilities are endless. When I hear the response, the chemicals in my brain make me happy, as I have been responded to by another human being, and I now know something that I did not previously know at any previous point in my existence.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve lost it? Would any rational person put PowerWash Simulator as their Game of the Year? Will I regret this decision next year, like how I regretted putting Dr. Mario World on my GOTY list in 2019? Why did I decide that writing so oddly and verbosely about PowerWash Simulator was a good idea? Did I play too much Needy Streamer Overload and now my brain is permanently messed up? Is cheese edible? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Am I okay? Am I actually going crazy?
Regardless, PowerWash Simulator is really fun, go play it.
Bonus Awards
Tin’s 11th Best Game of 2022: WRC Generations
WRC Generations is a great send-off for developer KT Racing, as the WRC licensing rights have gone to Codemasters for future games. It’s essentially a greatest hits compilation of rally stages from previous WRC games, combined with minor refinements to the handling model they’ve used for a while, which I prefer to Dirt Rally’s.
Best Old Game of 2022: Bejeweled 3
Bejeweled 3 is my comfort-food game. I spent dozens of hours this year trying to get a high score in Diamond Mine, the only game mode that matters, while listening to weird breakcore/webcore/mikucore music. (Does the term “mikucore” exist? Well it does now.)
Best Ongoing Game: Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart
SRB2 Kart is the best kart racer ever made, and now you can have twice the number of mods in a server with the v1.6 update. Sorry for anyone who joins my server and has to download all 247 mods.
Best Use of Food in a Game: Kirby’s Dream Buffet
I like food in video games, which won’t be surprising if you’ve played either of the Steam games I’ve made. Kirby’s Dream Buffet is basically a marble-rolling game where all of the platforms are various foods, and they look so tasty, I want to eat the micro-SD card the game is installed on.
Most Underwhelming Game: The Jackbox Party Pack 9
This year’s Jackbox Party Pack doesn’t have any standout games, and while none of them are particularly bad (arguably apart from Roomerang), the premises of the games are convoluted enough that it feels like the developers are starting to run out of new ideas.
Biggest Mistake in Last Year’s List: Firmly Expecting Gran Turismo 7 to Win GOTY This Year
Oops.
Most Anticipated Game of 2023: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Jet Set Radio Future is one of the coolest games on the original Xbox, and it’s a shame that it never got a sequel or even a port. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk looks super promising as a spiritual successor to the series, and I’m looking forward to it a lot.
The “Sorry There’s No Eighth Bonus Award This Year” Frowny Face: :(
This has been a weird year for me. At the start of the year, I began doing independent game development full-time (please don’t do this unless you have a significant financial safety net). Sometimes it feels like I didn’t do nearly enough or that I just halfway took a year off, but I still accomplished a lot. I released Salamander County Public Television and its reception has exceeded my expectations. I fulfilled a dream of getting a game released on consoles, and another dream of getting into a Games Done Quick marathon (albeit in an unusual way). Somehow, the Game Grumps played both of my major game releases. I’m super happy and grateful for all of the opportunities and publicity my games have received this year.
At the same time, I feel more unsure of my future than I ever have before. Not necessarily in terms of what I’m doing as a job, but in… sort of everything. I feel like there’s so many things I could be doing with my life that I’m not doing. It’s sort of as if I’m stuck at a crossroads, unable to find the strength to choose a direction to go, or the agency to actually go there. I’m not sure what the upcoming year will hold for me, but I know that no matter what happens, even if it seems impossible in the moment, it will all turn out alright.
See you next year.
-Tin
