Bandai Namco

Forget your wands, dismount your mythical creatures, and step into the only magical crucible that matters: a Tarnished fight to the death. Getting magic right in games is hard. You want spells and the art of the arcane to feel satisfying and visceral, but at the same time you want it to evoke all the feelings of lofty knowledge and insight – a feeling both unknowable and unhuman. You want to feel, via your pad of choice, the tingling of magic in your fingertips, the surging of mana in your veins. Simply holding down a trigger button and whispering out…

Sometimes picking out a best game each year is a painful, difficult choice. Sometimes it’s easy. This year, it’s… sort of both? Let me explain. There is no denying that Elden Ring is the best game of 2022. That’s my pick, by the way. I actually think anybody who picks anything else needs to give their head a wobble (though I respect their opinion, of course, and suggest aspirin for the bumped head). Alex on why Elden Ring is a particularly special Game of the Year pick. But then, at the same time… gosh, there’s some games I really admire…

My picks are vanilla ice cream, but it’s the posh stuff that has the little black bits of pod in. Haagen Dazs at the very least. If my year in gaming was one of those Spotify Wrapped things that people like to crow about like music taste isn’t the most subjective thing in the world, my top artist would be Ed Sheeran with Taylor Swift in second, and I’d be in the 50th percentile of listeners. But even if my picks are vanilla ice cream, it’s the posh stuff that has the little black bits of pod in; Haagen Dazs…