What has been your primary game this past month? It could have been a recent title, a new discovery, or something from your backlog. Or perhaps an old favorite you returned to years later? Honorable mentions are also welcome, these would be other games that you enjoyed this past month, but not the one you spent the most time enjoying.
For December 2022 my game of the month is:
Northgard - Finally getting around to the single player story, it has been enjoyable.
Honorable mentions:
A Building Full of Cats - HCG!
Ixion - City builder inside a space station, that moves from galaxy to galaxy. It’s like a non combat version of Homeworld meets Anno.
Remnant: From the Ashes - Interesting game , not sure how far I will get playing solo, but I like the lore I’ve found so far.
What game defined December 2022 for you? What was your Game of the Month?
I’m gonna put this one in the cauldron of Wylde Flowers on Steam.
Because, you know, it’s just a lot more fun to post about something that few players here will even try. Even though I’ve been playing it for a while, December, particularly the last two weeks, was really defined by me needing something relaxing and stress-free. This was it, and continues into January.
Ending my fourth run of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous was the primary game for the early half of the month. I’m struggling to put myself into other games these days.
Modern warfare 2, hit Prestige 5 level 250, max levelled 49 of the 53 weapons just the rocket launchers to do and 140 of 202 camos, driving my wife and kids mad 😜
Tough call this month. I’ve been on paid time off since December 8th, so a lot of gaming time.
RPG
Witcher 3
Cyberpunk 2077
Bard’s Tale (xbox)
Looter Shooter
Borderlands – GOTY Enhanced
Borderlands 2
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Gunfire Reborn (xbox)
Tom Clancy’s The Division
ARPG
Diablo 2: Resurrected (xbox)
FPS
Battlefield 2042
Call of Duty MW2
Auto Battler
Super Auto Pets
Hearthstone Battlegrounds
Despot Games (xbox)
Card Games
Hearthstone (Mercenaries as well)
Marvel Snap
Magic Arena
Tower Defense
Creeper World 3
Tactical TBS
XCOM 2 (xbox)
Aim Trainers
Aim Lab
Oblivity
Roguelike
Vampire Survivors (xbox and pc)
I probably sunk the most time into the Gearbox games playing through the final boss in Borderlands GOTY Enhanced, getting maybe a 3rd or more into Borderlands 2, and playing a bit of Tiny Tina as well. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Gunfire Reborn, and need to spend more time with it.
Up until last week I probably would’ve said one of them, and then all the talk about Vampire Survivors got me to try that on Game Pass, and dump a bunch of hours into that. Super Auto Pets also has been entertaining for myself and my older daughter. I need to get back to the Witcher and Cyberpunk, both of which I enjoyed when I played but so far I’ve only put in about 6 hours each.
Edit: How could I forget to include High on Life in the list. I haven’t gone very far into the game since I’ve only been playing when the kids aren’t around, but it was entertaining as well.
First bit of December was all Tactics Ogres: Reborn until my own incompetence at the game soft locked me and I put it down.
Fortunately this was about the time Master of Magic launched and that’s all I’ve played since, just cracked 50 hours so far and going strong (well in terms of enjoying myself, not necessarily against the other wizards).
Definitely Distant Worlds 2 - it’s most recent updates are good, and the upcoming ones (January?) should be great. I wish late game performance was better, but that’s a standard complaint in the genre. It now feels like a game I could invest hundreds and hundreds of hours in over the next few years.
Cyberpunk 2077 gets honorable mention - I’m gradually making my way through by a (side) mission a day or so. I’m a big fan, but can’t binge this type of game.
This month I was a judge in the IGF, so I played a LOT of games, including quite a few that shook up my GOTY list.
Here’s some of the games I spent the most time with:
Betrayal at Club Low - My first Cosmo D joint. This was great. And very weird.
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist - A fantastic story/character development game.
Cult of the Lamb - Didn’t end up gelling for me, but it’s a great concept and looks perfect.
Sapiens - An early access historical builder. Promising, but very early.
Plan B: Terraform - A kinder, gentler factorio-like. I enjoyed figuring it out, but am not quite sure how much longevity it has. Still early access, though.
We Are OFK - A pure narrative game. It gives you choices, but they’re expressive, not branching. So this feels like watching a tv show, and a pretty good one at that!
Return to Monkey Island - A good solid adventure game, and a nice finale for Monkey Island.
Swordship - A really unique hyperkinetic arcade game, where you can’t attack, but you can trick your enemies into killing each other.
Terra Nil - I played the game jam version of this a long time ago. Cool to see it evolving into a bigger game. Super promising.
Akurra - Based off the demo, this open-world sokoban game is next-level brilliant.
I also played Pentiment from start to finish and started Chained Echoes. While I don’t know that any of them are instant classics on the order of Obra Dinn or Hades or Outer Wilds, I sure have played a lot of incredible games this year, and many of them this month.
I spent a couple weeks playing Outer Worlds. With it finished I have moved on to a replay of Dragon Age Inquisition. I believe I have the DLC now and I have never played those.
December was my month of brushing up on as many 2022 releases as possible and I managed three, two of which were games of the year.
Case of the Golden Idol then Saturnalia. I adored both of these and was surprised that the latter also has a fair bit of sleuthing amid the horror of Gravoi’s suffocating streets. I went in blind and was constantly surprised by it. Golden Idol is just chef’s kiss.
I had a blast with Gunlocked too, which is just the right balance of ‘relaxing’ auto-shooter power fantasy snowballin’ and active bullet hell ballet for me to get really hooked. I want a full fat SHMUP now so I’m thinking Zero Ranger.
While I’ve not quite finished Halo: Combat Evolved, it’s been perhaps the biggest surprise in the twilight moments of the month for me. I’m new to Halo having never owned an Xbox but didn’t expect to enjoy it this much. What a great shooter that absolutely still holds up, without the modern “enhancements”. I also did co-op Halo: Reach and thought that was garbage by comparison.
