I’ve always considered myself a voracious reader. This year, however, I don’t think I’ve finished more than half a dozen books. There are a lot of reasons why, but outside of writing my own, the biggest one is because I spent most of my free time playing video games. In my defense, I tend to play games that have strong narratives, so it’s not like my life is without stories, and crawling out of Covid seems to have necessitated, for me at least, a huge shift in habits.
So, with that in mind, let’s kick things off the best games I played this year, starting with The Last of Us Part I & Part 2. I’m not sure I’ll ever experience stories as impactful as these two brutal, beautiful games, especially playing them back to back. It’s rare that I feel like replaying games, but I will absolutely return to these two on a yearly basis.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is Elden Ring. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one the best games I’ve ever played, but after devoting over 150 hours to it, I’m not sure how often I’ll be diving back into the Lands Between. There are far too many other games calling out for my attention, like God of War Ragnarok, which was equally amazing and a great way to cap off the year.
As for books, I’m a sucker for stories set in gritty cities. Throw in a magic system built on deranged gods and manic saints, add in a badass thief and a heaping handful of stunning prose, and I’m in book heaven. If that sounds like something you might be into, then look no further than Gareth Hanrahan’s The Gutter Prayer. It’s one of the most immersive, imaginative fantasies I’ve read in a long, long while.
If heartfelt and funny is more your bag, then I highly advise checking out Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. Imagine your favorite rock band coming out of retirement and embarking on the most amazing tour of their career, only instead of a rock band it’s a group of grizzled mercenaries carving their bloody way through a fantasy world that feels both comfortably familiar and altogether new. That’s Kings of the Wyld.
Outside of games and books, I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching (surprise, surprise) loads of gaming channels as well as the current campaign of Critical Role. I also finally caught up on The Boys, and just finished the first season of The Peripheral. I highly recommend both.
While I have no doubt that gaming will continue to dominate my free time, I’m definitely looking forward to making a dent in my TBR pile. Chuck Wendig’s Wayward and Tamsyn Muir’s Nona the Ninth are at the top of the list for sure, as well as Nicholas Eames’ Bloody Rose and Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief. In more personal book news, I’m crossing all my fingers that I’ll have some new projects to announce soon. Here’s to 2023!
Bio:
Ron Walters is
the author of Deep Dive, an adult sci-fi thriller, and Calix and the
Fire Demon, a middle grade fantasy.
8:00 AM | 
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Łukasz |
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3 comments:
Thanks for the Gutter Prayer reco - I’ve just ordered it and can’t wait to read it.
Naturally, Elden Ring's world design does an excellent job of facilitating this, with environmental and creature design that will have you pushing new frontiers of exploration just to get a better look at something unusual in the distance. I'm hesitant to reveal much more so you can discover the bizarre animals and beautiful world design for yourself in Elden Ring, but I can say that the payout was almost always worth it, especially when combined with the occasional "What is that?! " that was a little too spicy to repeat here. While repetition can start to creep up pretty early depending on how and where you explore, it doesn't really become a huge issue until much later in the game. Well, until later in the game, when I started to become desensitized to even some of the oddest monsters after seeing them so many times. One of my major complaints is that the game's excessive use of recycled adversaries makes the experience feel cheap by adding unnecessary layers of obfuscation to the data players have already gathered.
That stands out even more against world design that is frequently really intelligent (not that I would expect anything less from this team, to be honest), quietly directing you towards new locations to get lost simply by making use of the environment. This wrecked region is an amazing joy to explore, whether you're pottering around the crumbling ruins of the opening section or threading amongst the abominations that dwell beneath Caelid's blood-red sky, and there's an incredible sense of variety to Elden Ring's locales. This is going to be even more impressive when the map continues to grow; it's only going to keep getting bigger and bigger, leading to even stranger, older, and riskier locations to explore. It is possible for it to become somewhat bizarre at times as well.