I went to see Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City the other night. In the bar on the way in, I confidently said to my partner, “immersive theatre is video games”.

It isn’t.

I had a really great year in 2022. I also played fewer games in 2022 than maybe any year previous. I don’t necessarily want to think about what that might mean, thank you very much.

I’m genuinely impressed that 2021 managed to be a generally worse year than 2020, for a variety of fun reasons. It had some high highs but also some very low lows. It was a year in which I mostly quit social media (a positive change!), which means I was out of The Games Discourse for the last third. Do I miss it? Like hell.

2020 has been hot garbage. It has had very few redeeming factors and I am not appreciative of it at all. 

Some great games, though.

I finally got around to picking up Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC. This was a very big step for me. Let me explain.

Virginia is one of the best films I’ve played this year.

In my early teens, after experiencing my first death in the family, I developed an odd fascination with the preservation of spaces.

I love games. I love playing games, I love reading about games, but I’ve realised that what I love most is talking about games, as anyone who’s spent time around me can attest.

What a great year, eh? OK, so 2016’s been fairly appalling, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some great films, games, albums and a bunch of other stuff. Here are my top Things this year, from as many genres of Thing as I can be bothered.

This isn’t really going to be a game review. Taken purely as a game, and ignoring its wider impact, Pokémon Go is not very good. It crashed frequently before a recent update, there’s nothing to do outside populated areas, the drain on battery and mobile data is high, and it’s incredibly hard for new players coming in to the game a few weeks late to catch up.

It’s been a little while since I was really excited for the release of a game. The last time was probably Halo 4’s release this time three years ago (for the record, it was disappointing), and the last time I pre-ordered a game was, I think, Mass Effect 3, six months earlier.

The game development landscape has changed significantly over the last few years (understatement of the century, but whatever). One of the most significant of these changes , especially for game developers - though it’s one that often goes unnoticed - is the rise of screen resolution and aspect ratio fragmentation.

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m not really a huge fan of the beautiful game. I am, however, quite into gaming, and so thought that it was only fair this latest upgrade get a review. I’ll look at a few different sections. Without further ado…

Before I begin, I should point out: Uplift isn’t dead. The Kickstarter for Uplift is dead. Sensationalist title, I know. Let’s pretend I’ve been learning how to be a journalist. Because having a blog definitely makes me a journalist, right? Ahem.

Polytron’s XBLA hit (and personal favourite of Mojang’s Notch) has finally made in onto PC in the last couple of weeks. I downloaded the game yesterday and finished it this morning, after a small delay - I saw the sunrise creeping at my window and decided I’d better get some sleep. FEZ is absolutely fantastic.