Congratulations to Elden Ring and the people who made it on the solid win! A very fair choice.
In overall Game of the Year awards, Elden Ring now leads not only for this year, but for all time with a new record so far of 394 according to ResetEra's current tally. Impressive! Although it may be worth pointing out that its lead is smaller in Reader's Choice awards (68 versus 30 for God of War: Ragnarok) and that The Last of Us Part II still leads in the Reader's Choice all-time record at 114 GOTY picks. In other words, this was a big win for Elden Ring any way you slice it, but it's critics more than ordinary gamers themselves who are making it into an unprecedented landslide. Nothing else released this last year even came close to those two games though in awards. Everything else so far is in the single digits for GOTY selection, so it seems clear that these two games had the most impact on the gaming landscape this year.
What's more interesting to me at this moment is the fact that the VG Chartz community, by contrast, picked Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as their runner-up choice overall. While I think we know good and well that Nintendo fans are heavily represented on this site already, this choice to me is interesting in that it suggests VGC is home to a particular kind of Nintendo fan really. Out of all the games published by Nintendo this year, unless I'm mistaken, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 might've be the worst-selling entry, yet it's the most appreciated one here. By contrast, Nintendo's best-selling new game of the year, the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet versions, won the dubious distinction of Most Disappointing Game here on VGC. So while this community may feature many devoted brand loyalists, that doesn't mean it's composed of a bunch of sellouts who just go for whatever's popular. Rather, VGC Nintendoids seem often to favor the big N's single-player (and/or single-player-focused) adventures, and not just the top-selling ones with the Legend of Zelda and Super Mario labels attached to them, but also many that wind up selling fewer than 5 million copies. For example, VGC gave Metroid Dread its top award last year and has shown a lot of love to games like Astral Chain, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and Bayonetta 3. I find that interesting because it's actually more the multiplayer-focused Nintendo games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizon, and of course Pokemon that seem to sell the best and move the most Switch systems in the grand scheme of things. Says to me this is a community of somewhat older Nintendo fans who maybe harken back to the days when most video games were designed as solo escapades.
Speaking of, you know, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 really did look like something special when I saw the trailers for it. I never did wind up getting around to it for *grumble grumble* financial reasons, but something that's got me interested enough to put it on my list of titles to catch up on in the coming months is the fact that it's the game's storyline and themes that seem to be most often mentioned and discussed among its fans, which isn't a trait I associate with its genre or with previous Xenoblade Chronicles installments or with Nintendo games in general for that matter.
Well anyway, my personal top 10 favorite 2022 games so far are...
1. Perfect Tides
2. Immortality
3. Butterfly Soup 2
4. Pentiment
5. Norco
6. Freedom Planet 2
7. God of War: Ragnarok
8. Never Awake
9. Wayward Strand
10. Return to Monkey Island
I'd also like to give a shout-out to a few retro collections though, including Atari 50 above all, Sonic Origins, and TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection that were all thoroughly enjoyed! And of course, to Shredder's Revenge. 
And yes, Elden Ring. (Its win here certainly isn't unfair, IMO, just a bit unimaginative.)
Although some of the games I liked best were pretty obscure, Immortality actually managed to nab 8 GOTY awards (notably one more so far than Xenoblade Chronicles 3), Pentiment managed to get 4, and Norco a couple as well. This site provides handy links to all the GOTY award articles, organized neatly by game, and I'd like to highlight, within that, the Slant magazine top 2022 games ranking article because I liked their list of top 25 selections a lot and thought they did a good job of explaining the reasoning behind their picks. And also the argument for Immortality offered by Video Game Are Good.
I'm not finished catching up on games I've missed. I'm currently playing Chained Echoes and am looking forward to playing Neon White after that. Then I'm looking to FINALLY get around to playing Outer Wilds at long last after many delays. And then after that, perhaps I'll buy and get started on Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Alright, I guess that about sums up my thoughts.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 25 January 2023
