I find myself alone. I am the only person left in the treehouse right now. I think it's the first time this has happened. It is interesting to consider that I could try to wipe the website, delete loads of articles, do something to burn down my job. I don't particularly want to, but the coiled potential to do it exists, because I am unsupervised. There is no other member of staff between me and all of you. The great filter is removed. Any typos are on purpose. How you> doin'?

This gives me a great opportunity, because I get to have, in a sense, the final word on RPS this year. There are a lot of posts coming up (if we include the Advent Calendar posts that have already gone, we have 50-ish bits of hashtag seasonal hashtag content this year, which I think is the most I've had to schedule for a Christmas break yet), but almost everything after this point is a scheduled post, made of time travel words written days or weeks ago. I'm live and uncensored, baby. I'm going to fire up Among Trees. Let's go and be alone together. But don't worry, I take my responisbility seriously, so I'll make sure the final word is a joke.

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It's a well known fact that there are "Too Many Games"(TM) these days. I have not done the maths, but I've seen enough graphs, tweets and analysis from people who have crunched the numbers to know there are more games coming out on Steam every day than a site like RPS could ever possibly hope to cover a single month, let alone every week. But gosh darn it if we don't try our hardest all the same.

Inevitably, though, time does get the better of us sometimes (or, in my case at least, maybe my eyes are just too big for my gaming stomach), and certain games end up slipping further and further down our to-do lists until they eventually fall away entirely. Not through any fault of their own, mind. Just... time. But as a final parting shoutout for 2022, I wanted to memorialise all the games that fell of my> personal to-do list this year and say, "I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN IT, I PROMISE!" (For real, though, I still want to talk about all of these at some point. Maybe January...? Please don't hate me)

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Serious racing games are not, as a rule, my thing. If the goal is to repeat a course 20 times to trim 0.2 seconds off a number, and not to cackle like a petty chaos gremlin as you slam someone off the track at a tight corner, I am probably not going to enjoy myself much.

Rush Rally 3 isn't all that serious, but it's still on the wrong side of the tracks for me, I thought, before accidentally playing it for 3 hours. This is an excellent bundle of rally trials, challenges, and simple circuit racing with a cheerfully mid-2000s feel. I might prefer the messy nonsense of Trail Out, but if you value actual driving skill more highly, this is well worth your time.

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Last week I spoke to Larian's founder and director Swen Vincke about the latest big update to Baldur's Gate 3, and the road to 1.0 release. But also it was December the 16th, so I saw fit to waste his time asking a bunch of fun seasonal questions that blended the love and goodwill of Baldur's Gate 3, with the companion-wrangling and clutch strategy of Christmas. D'you see what I did there?

My questions are in bold, and Vincke's answers are undeneath - and they are both amusing and instructive. I for one hope that Wyll's romcom visit home becomes a future winter DLC.

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Behind today's RPS Advent Calendar door is a game that was only just beaten into second place. Luckily, after said beating it can just pop back to life at the last Site Of Grace it visited and then dive back into the fray again.

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Can you hear that gentle rapping, tapping at your chamber door? 'Tis some visitor tapping at your chamber door - only this, and nothing more!

No it isn't. It's the Nate Files bonus podcast, funded by our supporters supporters, and we have an egg for you. Quoth the egg "Yolk!"

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December always feels like a good month for VR gaming. Perhaps it's because Christmas and VR headsets go together like mangers and Messiahs, or perhaps its because virtual reality is the only place I'm likely to see sunlight before March. In any case, if you're giving or receiving a pair of magic goggles this festive season, I'll be recommending a couple of stocking fillers to go with it at the end of this article.

First though, it's time for a more general bit of stocktaking. 2022 was a big ol' shrug of a year for VR gaming. Which is not to say it was bad, plenty of fun and interesting games launched in the last twelve months, one of which I'd probably put in my personal top ten. But from both a hardware and software perspective, nothing released this year is likely to shift the needle.

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Nope, you don't need to get your eyes tested. Alt254 is a minimalist action adventure game that plays out on a small (albeit greatly enlarged) map that measures just 21x26 pixels. In this tiny space, you, a black dot, must venture forth, solving puzzles, deciphering the strange, colourful world around you and piecing together your broken memory along the way. It's a very enigmatic little game, but one that's instantly charming in its old-school vibes and artfully constructed world. Its soundtrack is a bit of a corker, too.

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Nvidia's marketing team this week announced an Nvidia-branded shower gel and deodorant as a PR stunt for social media giveaways. As far as I can tell, their Sphynx Ampere toiletries do not smell like new graphics cards, so who cares? However! This does make me wonder: which PC gaming smells would you like as a shower gel, perfume, deodorant, aftershave, air freshener, or such? What are the good smells of PC gaming? Which would you eagerly accept as a boxed toiletry set from your aunt this Christmas? I'll go first.

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As we enter the end of year and awards season, it would be remiss not to revisit FMV match-cutting three-movies-in-one detective game Immortality, one of the most innovative and thought-provoking games I played this year. But given the game's subject centres on the depiction of women on film, and their exploitation in the film industry by male creators, it felt appropriate to examine it from the extremely talented femme members of the team. That means not just the star Marissa Marcel herself, played by the award-winning Manon Gage, but other women and non-binary creatives who played different roles in bringing this game to life.

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