2022, the year we had more Prime Ministers than hot dinners, energy firms continued to make record profits as people struggled to afford their heating, and Messi finally got his World Cup. It’s maybe just my imagination but it seemes like a rather weak year in terms of new games, at least on Xbox. In saying that however, Xbox Game Pass continued to be a great investment for an eclectic mix of indie games and all the best Microsoft and EA releases (and the £1 renewal trick still works, so I’m locked in for another 3 years). So what’s been on my Xbox for the past year?

There’s a long-running belief in both the video game and movie industries, which is that films based on games (and usually vice versa) just don’t work. Yet many video games are extremely deep, story-driven experiences with a wealth of material from which to draw inspiration. So where does it keep going wrong?

So, 2020 is over. What a weird year. The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe, impacting everyone in different ways. While some claim it’s a hoax, others have cut off all human contact. Personally, I’ve been in a fortunate position and it’s not been too bad, and I’ve managed to keep playing games, including taking in some good new titles and the launch of the new console generation. It seems like lately the only posts I actually get round to are these “best of” ones! As with previous years, these are only titles I’ve personally played, and only covers Xbox, with a couple of non-demanding PC games thrown in for good measure. Also, personal opinion only of course, happy to hear what others have enjoyed via the comments below.

A couple of weeks ago TrueAchievements published #MyDecadeOnXbox, a nice infographic for each user detailing the highlights of their achievements over the last ten years. This prompted a massive surge in registrations for the site as people scrambled to get their own infographic from TA. And honestly, who doesn’t love an infographic? In this post I (once again) take a quick walk down memory lane and pull out some personal highlights from my own summary.

It’s that time of year again where we’re recovering from eating and drinking too much, and looking forward to the new year filled with exciting opportunities and a chance to do better. Who knew that an arbitrary point in the Earth’s orbit round the Sun had such power? I’ve definitely neglected the blog this past year or so (I’ve been a little more active on my dev blog, but only just) and I’m contemplating just migrating all the content from this site over to picnicerror.net and focusing my efforts on one site. Anyway, I digress. I think my last post on this site was looking back (very belatedly) at my favourite games from 2017, so it seems kind of fitting that my next post is this one.

I did it last year, so it’s time to do it again. Actually, it was time to do it again about six months ago but life got in the way. Here are my top games from 2017. Caveat: This list is only from games I’ve played myself in my limited available time. There are plenty of other great games that I just haven’t got round to yet.

The biggest adjustment with having a kid is just the sheer amount of time they take up. And I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. Especially after they start walking and needing constant supervision. I regularly find myself recalling pre-child times and wondering just what the hell I did with all my time. The following tips are just a few things that I’ve learned throughout the last year and a bit, that are mostly common sense. I thought I’d share them anyway. Some of you may relate, some may find inspiration, some may be able to add more!

Video games are based on rules. To quote my man Morpheus, “what you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken.” The more that a game attempts to give you, the more variables are introduced, and the greater the scope for bugs and other general weirdness.