A Draft Of Jay Castello's Games Of The Year | Winter Spectacular 2022
There’s a first draft of this piece:
In February, I 100 percented Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
I’m not entirely sure why I did this, but I certainly wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the guides. After spending so much time explaining how to fulfil NPC requests and puff up the Pokédex, I just had momentum, and it didn’t stop until I had nothing left to do in the game.
It’s not that I regret it, but there are so many other games out there. Every time someone sends me a trailer they think I’ll like, or – god forbid – there’s a hyped up advertisement stream for the twelfth time this quarter, it’s like a weight. There are so many games.
This year I played 30 of them. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, for guides. Pupperazzi, for review. Reviews might be my least favourite form of writing, but it’s a good standby when there aren’t feature ideas springing up. The Waylanders, also for review. It was bugged and I couldn’t finish, but I spent hours trying to figure how to work aroud the issues.
Some things I played for work turned out to be joyful. Elden Ring, which I never would have picked up outside of guides, and didn’t play more of than I was contractually obliged to. But it meant I got to hang out with a friend and do something weird and experience at least a bit of what is objectively one of the best games of the year, even if it isn’t to my tastes.
Pentiment. For review. It was good. Roadwarden. For review. It was excellent. Maybe I wouldn’t have made time to play them if not for the reviews. It’s hard to tell.
It’s not like work was a downer this year. It’s just that writing about games was certainly the worst part of it. I got to write about fanfic, and space telescopes, and Goku. I played one of these games, which I can’t tell you about, so that I could edit the writing in it , and it’s been a really great experience.
I played games for weird reasons. Six of the 30 games were Ace Attorney games, for a recap podcast which has consistently remained one of the most fun and rewarding parts of my year. I streamed the first part of Far Changing Tides, and then decided I did not want to do that again. Guesting on other people’s streams is great, though, and that’s how I ended up playing Bean Battles with an exhausted Jacob Geller somewhere around the halfway point of his 24 hour charity stream.
Are there games that I didn’t play for work? It’s hard to tell. I never wrote about Strange Horticulture, or Norco, or Escape Academy, but I wanted to. I never got far into I Was A Teenage Exocolonist or AI Somnium Files. Maybe it’s because I know I won’t be able to link them to work in some way. Maybe I’ll go back to them.
It’s December, and I’m 100 percenting Pokémon Scarlet.
I’m not entirely sure why, but I certainly wouldn’t if it weren’t for the guides.
Doesn’t it tell a tidy story? Doesn’t it tap into that melancholy of all games writers who have turned play into work? Isn’t it satisfying that it comes full circle, even though it makes it sad?
When I wrote it, I meant it. But then I woke up and thought about it some more and it’s kind of bullshit, isn’t it? If I wasn’t playing games for work I’d be doing something else for work which would eat up my time and energy much more than writing, which is a job that I love.
It’s also a job where it’s so easy to chase a throughline that’s satisfying, rather than complicated. After I wrote this draft I went away and played Everest Pipkin’s The Barnacle Goose Experiment and it was brilliant. Nothing to do with work (although I guess I just wrote about it, oops). But I wasn’t gonna go back and add that to the draft. It dilutes. It adds – god forbid – nuance.
The main reason I didn’t have time for a lot of games this year is because I was doing other stuff. Hiking. Reading. Making little figures from clay. Do you know how much more satisfying those things are, on average, than playing a video game?
I don’t regret how I’ve spent my time this year. Yeah, I wanna play The Case of the Golden Idol before 2022 closes its doors. But I’ve got time.
Jay Castello is a freelance writer covering games and internet culture. If they're not down a research rabbit hole you'll probably find them taking bad photographs in the woods. You can find them on Twitter @jaymcastello.
