You think I'm joking? I'm not. Okay, okay. It's not a game but I'll get to that in a moment. The Steam Deck has transformed everything about gaming for me.
At the risk of people pointing out how I'm repeating myself, and how I've likely said all this before in various places: yes I probably have but I'm going to bore you with it again because I can.
The freedom the Steam Deck affords is just a constant reminder of how I hate being sat at my desk for most of the day, the feeling of being shackled to it sets in quite quickly if I start up a game on my actual desktop PC now. I would much rather unhook my Steam Deck from the charger, and go be a potato on the sofa with it. There's just something about the feeling of being that much more connected to the gaming experience too when you have it all there in your hands. I'm certain I'm not alone in that feeling either.
Valve had a great year with it too and I'm ridiculously excited for what 2023 brings.
What's my actual game of the year for 2022 though? Well, this might surprise and even shock you but it's Vampire Su…just kidding. It's actually not the very good Vampire Survivors. While it has sucked away many hours from me, and again it is very good, it's not my game of the year.
Despite many good games released across this year, and a lot of high profile releases too, I ended up being sucked in by something small. The majority of my time actually gaming now being on a Steam Deck either handheld or docked in various rooms, can easily be part of the why on this too.
My GOTY for 2022 is: Brotato.
Similar in many ways to Vampire Survivors, but I honestly like Brotato so much more. Brotato is a frantic top-down arena shooter roguelite set in a small arena (although certain characters can change the arena size). You pick a character from a growing list, each with their own pros and cons, and run around as a potato shooting at everything else that moves.
When you level up you choose from various power-ups and pick from multiple weapon types that you also get to upgrade. It becomes absolute madness once you get a good few waves into it and that's also what I love about it, the timed waves let you know clearly how long you've got left until you get a breather again. Your characters changing visually based on your weapons is a thoroughly nice touch too, some of them really make me laugh.
Here's a previous video I did on it:
Direct Link
Love it. Madness.
Over to you: what's your GOTY 2022?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
For me the Deck really made me relax with World of Warcraft on the couch. Past-15-yr-old-me would FAINT if they knew I'd be running dungeons on the couch, the toilet, in bed..
The whole portability of having a PC in my hands still blows me away. I play on my Deck every single day since April and I'm a guy in his 30s with a pretty sick gaming rig.
It is hands down the most excited I've ever been, and after launch still am, for a device, ever.
Honourable mentions:
Darktide
Noita
Rimworld Biotech
With a fixed inputs community layout and some simple setting changes it plays perfectly, the trackpads and the Deck's screen suit the game incredibly well.
Though I suppose I could count the new Steam Input configurator as my 2022 released "game" of the year, for how it lets me control games and other programs in whichever way I please.
A somewhat extreme example of this is Vintage Story, which after making a complex layout for it on Steam Deck plays better there than with M+KB.
If we're calling Linux Distro's games too, Garuda Linux is my pick.
Expected to hate it will the over the top G4M3R default aesthetic and OS tweaks I was uncertain about, but after giving it a chance on my main desktop earlier this year, it became my preferred distro.
Though I've also read the rules and don't plan to start a distro fight here, nor will I give my favourite an absurd amount of praise for things other distros do as well too.
But I don't have an actual game released in 2022 which I would call my favourite, I mostly play older games or am active on Steam Discussions, Discord and YouTube on my Deck.
They never kicked anyone out of R Online for using Proton, either, which makes me hopeful that we'll see R 2 end up Steam Deck Verified with no problems.
Last edited by Pengling on 21 December 2022 at 12:01 am UTC
But the best game that actually came out this year is probably Stolen Realm. Multiple honourable memtions to Brotato, Trials of Fire, Soulstone Survivors, Spellbook Demonslayers and Wandering Village.
Last edited by Avikarr on 21 December 2022 at 12:51 am UTC
Another strong contender is Persona 5 Royal. But I prefer not to judge the game until I've finished it, and I'm still less than halfway through it. Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying it as it has pretty much everything a good JRPG should have.
2nd GOTY is the Steamdeck lol. I love it and want to marry it.
chickenb00 Dec 21, 2022
But I'll also pick a GAME GOTY, and the one from 2022 for me was probably Elden Ring overall, though Tunic and Stray and Quake Arcane Dimensions and HL Entropy Zero 2 and FF7 Remake and Eastward all deserve the top nomination.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me