MMNTech GOTY Awards 2022: Best of the best
Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals. 2022 has been a wild ride for gaming. W finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel, and while we certainly had plenty of disappointing titles this year, we got some absolute bangers as well. Hopefully you were lucky enough to find some of our best games in your stockings this morning.
The best new hardware award goes to…
The Steam Deck (Valve)
It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten new hardware that I’ve felt genuinely excited about. Everything just feels like a minor incremental upgrade on the previous generation. Then there’s the Steam Deck. A system that promised to be the holy grail of PC gaming. A portable device that could run your entire Steam library at playable frame rates, with reasonably decent battery life, and without melting your palms. And all I can say is the bloody mad lads at Valve did it. Not only becoming the first non-Nintendo handheld from a major video game company in a decade, but also one of the first consumer targeted devices to run bog standard Linux. And the gaming experience on it is just absolutely sublime. One which is accessible for console players, while still offering all the tweaks and goodies the PC Master Race loves. While there are certainly other options out there in this space, with more powerful hardware, the Deck now stands as the benchmark. As the premium handheld gaming space continues to grow (largely thanks to us busy adult gamers), we expect great things to come.
The bronze medal goes too…
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shedder’s Revenge (Tribute Games)
Like many kids born in the mid-80s, I was TMNT crazy. And Shredder’s Revenge is certainly a wave of nostalgia for those of us who lived Turtle Mania. Tribute Games has managed to squeeze out one of the best games in the franchise. One which, dare I say, might even surpass the original arcade and Turtles in Time. It’s a gorgeous pixel art throwback to those classics while still keeping it fresh and modern for newer players. We have solid side scrolling beat-em-up action backed up by a kicking soundtrack by Tee Lopes. Online and local co-op multiplayer add to the fun by making for some chaotic fights against your favourite baddies. Even the original voice cast from the 1987 cartoon make a return. My only real criticism is it’s very short. You can beat it in a couple hours. Again, much like the old school entries. But as I’ve said in the past, there’s absolute nothing wrong when a game is so fun that it leaves you wanting more. And really, this is a must have for old and new TMNT fans alike.
The silver medal goes to…
Elden Ring (FromSoftware)
I don’t have a ton of stuff to say about Elden Ring, since I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet, though it is in my backlog. But everyone I know who has delved the dystopian depths of the Lands Between has said this is truly something special. One which has really managed to evolve the Souls franchise beyond something more than just a brutal test of the players’ will. Though it’s that too.
From a cultural perspective, it also shattered a lot of commonly held beliefs among Western developers and the gaming press. Namely that modern players weren’t interested in challenging video games. The media in particular had harped on FromSoftware for a long time due to the lack of an easy mode in the Souls games. Which isn’t surprising coming from a group of people who couldn’t even complete the tutorial level in Cuphead. But it seems gamers themselves don’t share that sentiment, and 17.5 million sales proved that. Though thanks to the open world design, FromSoftware has at least made things more accessible for new players, allowing enemies to be bypassed for the player to gain more experience. On top of that, we get a visual feast along with some solid world design to keep players exploring. It’s no surprise Elden Ring swept most of the award shows for 2022.
And the winner of the MMNTech Game of the Year award for 2022 goes to…
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Monolithsoft)
We’ve covered a lot of really great games over the five years I’ve been doing this. However, there’s one special category that manages to stand out above the rest. Those rare gems that manage to stick with you long after the final boss has been defeated and the credits role. Games like Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, Okami, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, etc. Where gameplay and story synergize to become more than the sum of their parts. True masterpieces of the medium. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is one of these masterpieces.
Xenoblade is one of those franchises that has flown under the radar for a long time. Nintendo has never heavily promoted it. But I think with the third game, they know they had something special. It takes a major departure in tone from its predecessor. Being more in line with the first game, but dialing it up a notch to make this one of the richest JRPG stories I’ve experienced in a while. One that deals heavily with themes like war, loss, free will, and the nature of impermanence. Making this much more like Tetsuya Takahashi’s earlier Xenosaga games, and his love for exploring Gnostic and Eastern philosophy. On top of that, we just get some really loveable, deep, and relatable characters that are backed up by some solid voice acting. It has its corny moments, like all good JRPGs, but it takes it self seriously enough for the series to really mature and blossom away from its shonen past.
Gameplay has also been improved and streamlined substantially, combining the strongest aspects of XB: Definitive Edition and Xenoblade 2, to offer some satisfying, though often chaotic combat. The unlockable job and interlink systems offers up a wide range of different strategies players can take. Which can really have you diving deep into the game’s meta if you so choose. And there’s a massive and utterly gorgeous world for you to explore, that you sometimes forget this is a Switch game.
Xenoblade 3 is one of the few games I’ve put 110 hours into a playthrough, where it didn’t feel at all like 110 hours. Simply put, it’s not only the best game in the Xenoblade series, but one of the best games of all time.
