Steam sent out my gaming replay. I was NOT surprised by these stats at all, as I became obsessed with Dead by Daylight this year and played games on Tabletop Simulator weekly. Finding online friends for a regular gaming group makes a huge difference!

What really surprised me was that I played 24 games this year and Steam said the average is 5. FIVE?!?! Does everyone just play the same game over and over? I guess with games similar to Dead by Daylight, with online rankings and what not, it is easy to just play one game all the time. But still…I am just surprised.

Disco Elysium should really be on this list but I played it with Tim. I picked it up on sale in March and sort of hit a wall, then it came up in a discussion a few months ago and I told Tim he should try it using our Steam Family set-up, and then we sort of started playing together, him navigating the game and me chiming in with choices and decisions for Harry. Once we got into it, I understood the hype. It is the most story-driven game I have ever played. We read up on it afterwards and found out the creator had tried to write it as a novel first, then as a ttrpg, and then it transformed into this video game, and all that narrative work before really made a huge difference and create what is essentially a work of art. I could see giving this as an example when people say “are games art?” because, yes, Disco Elysium is a work of art.

Other games I played on Steam that didn’t make the fancy graphic above but that I wanted to mention:

• Resident Evil 2 – played through as Leon and Claire
• Slay the Spire – had this game since 2019 and JUST NOW actually slayed the titular spire.
• Hero Realms – backed this on Kickstarter, it’s a deck building game and I have it on Steam and for iOS and it’s a fun one to pick up during a 5 minute brain break.
• Inscryption – Kacey’s Mod came out this year and for awhile I was sucked back into this dark deck building puzzle game.

Apparently Xbox could not be bothered to send out gaming stats for this year, which is annoying because with Game Pass Ultimate, I played a LOT of games this year! Just a quick glance at my achievement list, I can see some of the titles that I enjoyed in 2022:

• Journey to a Savage Planet – got this for Christmas last year and played it a LOT at the start of the year. Got stuck at one point and really need to go finish it, but it was a lot of fun. Every time I saw a trailer for the obnoxious “High on Life” game that just released, I thought about playing this instead. Humorous but also solid game play.
• Bugsnax – originally a PS exclusive, this finally released AND on GamePass. I played through the entire game and it was a blast. Perfect balance of story and puzzles.
• Carrion – another game I played because of GamePass, this was hilarious as you slithered around the base as the unleashed science experiment. Nothing as satisfying as eating the soldier that trust tried to kill me. OM NOM NOM.
• Two Point Campus – long awaited sequel to Two Point Hospital, another fun sim management game that was about setting up a college that focused on wacky degrees – like being a professional clown or knight. I spent a LOT of hours on this one when it was released Day 1 on Game Pass.
• Tinykin – a short and fun puzzle game about a very tiny explorer in a giant (well, to him) house.
• Beacon Pines – cute point and click with a pretty dark storyline about the end of the world. Played through the entire story and it was a nice break from zombie chases.
• Return to Monkey Island – a delightful return to one of my favorite franchises. Still full of goofy humor and puzzles that makes just enough sense to solve but also weird enough to make you roll your eyes when you figure out the whole thing.
• A Plague Tale: Requiem – I’ve only just started this one but I has been great so far to revisit this world. I’m garbage at stealth though and watching poor Amicia being attacked when I flub up a sequence can get upsetting so I had to take a break for a bit.
• Pentiment – unique point and click about solving a murder in a monastery. I’m enjoying this one a lot, though I am taking my time. I bounce between playing it on PC and on my tablet (yay Game Pass Ultimate! Cloud play is amazing).

As for Playstation, it was pretty much just Horizon: Forbidden West. That was it. I played it a LOT but eventually I lot the main story thread and got bogged down in side quests and ended up distracted by a shorter game. It’s like reading a 600 page book versus a graphic novel – sometimes I WANT to read a book in a day. Other times, I’m in the mood to dig in, but H:FW just didn’t hook me the way the original did. I still adore Aloy though.

Same for Nintendo Switch – I picked up Mario Golf, played it for awhile, but then it went back on the shelf. It’s not a bad game, but just didn’t call to me like so many others did.

Honorobable mention goes to Marvel Snap which I installed after listening to Luke ramble on about how much he loved it in a recent OutsideXtra video and I tried it and yeah it is addictive. I’m garbage at deck building but it’s a lot of fun, especially when I actually win!

And that is what matters most is that I had fun! Perhaps I’ll try better to keep a gaming journal and record me thoughts on these games a little more in-depth in the future so I’m not struggling next December to remember all the things I have played or tried to play.

What games did you play this year? Any stand-out games? Was it Elden Ring? Because everyone apparently loved that game but I just don’t have the strength to put myself through it. (Spoilers: Luke picked it as his GOTY, but also so did everyone else on Oxboxtra…)