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 It was the best of years, it was the worst of years. 2023 is unique in the sheer number of great video games that were released. We are talking indie games, new IP games from the big studios, new installments in existing franchises and even remakes and remasters of existing classics. As consumers and enjoyers of video gaming, we were utterly spoiled. 2023 will be thought as one of the best years ever for games released, goodness I think it has a great shot at claiming the bestest year ever right now! It is just me flying solo this year. (I am not the wordsmith that Rarity is and goodness we are all lucky that this is not audio dictated and that spell check grabs stuff). As such, the results will be a little into January - probably Saturday the 6th at the earliest if all goes well! Definitely no later than Saturday the 13th. I will start at 2:00pm UK time whichever Saturday it is! Firstly The Thread Rules: quote:1. Any game that you have played in 2023 is eligible. And so, to begin we must start this year’s thread knowing that what we got this year was unique. A holdover from the great hiring deluge of the pandemic which also backed up the release schedule allowing everything to flow at once. 2023 is a year that will live alongside 2017 and 2001 and 2000 and 1998 as a time when those who game were given not just a bit of everything, but a TON of everything. Every single person who played a game released this year would have had their tastes met and then some. I expect 2023's thread will have more variation on the amount of games than any thread before it and I genuinely do not have any clue which game could take the #1 spot. There are so many great experiences that people have been gushing about in so many threads that it really is anyone's chance to take home the top spot! However, this year has not been 100% rosy for Video Games the career. We have sadly seen huge numbers of developers and other colleagues in the industry wholly responsible and incredibly vital to making these games being as good as they are get fired or let go from their positions and whittling the numbers to the bone. There's no real need to fire these people (except Bobby Kotick) at all. They will say cost saving or the like, but really it is to avoid bonuses or full time workers benefits or just greed. To echo a previous thread's loudest rallying cry: Unionise. I am no industry exec, but if I had teams responsible for making the sheer number of critically and commercially successful games released this year, I would not only keep them all but also build a 'fallow' year into the working pipeline for extra polish and allow for people to avoid crunch and/or being worked to death. Video Crops, if you will. It worked for 2023! Speaking of 2023, what did this year bring us? Let us travel back 11 months!  Notable releases:
Well, I am writing this in November - prepping early - and right now, despite not having played the majority of games released this year, I have seen the discourse. And it has been wild. I have never seen so many glowing pieces of praise for so many games in one year. Month after month things have been stuffed to the brim and people have been snapping them up and being surprised time after time. This may partially trail into the first quarter of 2024, but I think this is probably a once in a blue moon year for releases. Google Stadia permanently closed on the 18th of January. There was never any doubt it would die as it was a product made by google and somehow doing worse in a pandemic when all that was needed was an account and an internet connection than consoles with supply issues had the writing not just on the wall, but on every wall and every floor and even the sky. Fair play to google however as they refunded everyone who bought things on their platform, which was a surprise. If you were one of the seven people played, and liked google stadia, then godspeed you! Maybe one day streaming games as a primary source will become dominant and google can try again. (For two years before they return to the graveyard).  Notable releases:
The United States also gets its own Super Nintendo World on the 17th of February. Now you can physically attend a theme park, rather than playing Nintendo Land on your WiiU! Of course, to take full advantage of this means living in the USA, which you know. Returnal came to PC allowing even more people to experience one of the most frenetic games out there. Housemarque absolutely have my attention for whatever they release next.  Notable releases:
E3 2023 also officially cancelled on the 30th. With 2019 being the last in person E3 and 2021 being online only this seemed to solidify everything. There are even reports that E3 2024 will not go ahead either and instead stating that 2025 will be a complete reinvention for the event instead. We shall see. At least we will always have the Doritos Pope to tide us over. Nightdive studios are acquired by Atari. Atari let them continue to do what they do best and we, the game players, were rewarded with more easily playable versions brimming with content for Rise of the Triad, Quake II and Turok 3. Plus, the reveal that next year we are getting an updated version of Dark Forces and then at some point further down the line we can expect a newer version of System Shock II (they redid the first extremely well) as well as the incredible doom killer; SiN. Nightdive fast became one of my favourite studios and the updated version of Quake II is the absolute best way to play one of the best quakes - load up some bot matches and go to town!  Notable releases:
So who got what? Epic, known for Unreal Tournament 99, bought Brazil based Aquiris, known for Horizon Chase. No revelations about what they will be doing for the FPS creator as of yet. Focus Entertainment, known for the Trackmania series, bought Dovetail Games, a British outfit known for the Train Simulator series. I know I would like to see a mashup of the two; perhaps the Flying Scotsman doing loop de loops around the quarries of Wales? Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Firewalk Studios - a mostly multiplayer technology based company. Thus beginning a plan for Sony to make a number of Live Service games that would unravel before the year ends. And finally, Legendary Entertainment acquired the TV and Film rights to the Street Fighter series from Capcom. The idea that anyone thinks they can do better than Raul Julia as Bison is laughable and will be as forgotten as last Tuesday - not at all like the new Super Mario Brothers movie staring a Crisp Rat and a Winning Casino hand. (I saw it and had a really good time. Everyone was trying and the references rocked. Then again, I also think the Bob Hoskins movie is fantastic and have seen it multiple times including release day in Leicester Square when I was a kid. My uncle gave me tickets.)  Notable releases:
Remembering how game changing Breath of the Wild had been all those years ago, Daedalic entertainment took the gaming world by storm and grabbed every headline, every news outlet by creating a game that was certain to go down in history and never being equalled before or after. Possibly the most genre pushing game of the century. Tears of the Kingdom could only hide in the shadows of these two juggernauts. My uncle at Nintendo told me they are worried and working on the Switch 2 as we speak for fear of losing again. I cannot speak much more of it because of special NDAs but it is going to surprise everyone.  Notable releases:
This was also the month that Embracer finally hit the fan. Embracer, for those unaware, had been relying on a two billion dollar deal with a Saudi group and in anticipation of their partnership had spent multiple years buying as many different game companies as was possible. The end goal? Perhaps a small video game empire funded by Saudi money that would grow to encompass everything that Microsoft had yet to purchase? No one knows. The Saudi’s pulled out and with it Embracer were suddenly on the hook for all the debts. Even now, months afterwards, Embracer are still laying off folks from their many acquisitions. It really sucks. At least we won with the first mainline Final Fantasy game and new Street Fighter in seven years. Also a new Diablo that does not contain Diablo? Is this the real world?  Notable releases:
In keeping with the long gaps between video game series, Nintendo releases Pikmin 4. Pikmin 3 being a 2013 WiiU game (though later re-released for Switch) and showing that Nintendo are still annoyed at losing out May to Redfall and Gollum. They are going to release bangers for the rest of the year, just to show the gaming world that they really are the best publisher/console maker.  Notable releases:
Another victim of Embracer’s bungled Saudi deal led to Volition (the developers of the Saints Row series) being shuttered. Again, it really sucks that a whole studio that made some great fun games and even had a former goon, who sadly passed away two years ago, working for them is just gone and all his work gone with it. There was always the hope that his work on making Saints Row II function on modern PCs might one day see the light. Quake II enhanced, not to be confused with the RTX version released a number of years ago to prop up the Nvidia RTX 2000 series cards, was released this month by wonderful remasterers Nightdive Studios. Not only did it include all expansion packs, along with the ability to take advantage of the functionality of modern systems (such as widescreen resolutions) but it came with a brand new expansion campaign made by MachineGames (makers of the new Wolfenstein series) and new deathmatch maps. ALSO it came with full configurable bots. Basically I feel like I am back in 1997 again and spending all my time coming up with rivalries with basic AI. Finally those FromSoft fans who, like me, only know them from the Dark Souls series onwards get themselves completely owned by the first new Armored Core game in ten whole years. As is the case with all FromSoft games, it is beloved and occasionally misunderstood, but copies the immense popularity of Elden Ring, official SA game of the year 2022, to become the highest selling of the entire Armored Core series. I wonder if next year the Elden Ring DLC release sees the game take home all the SA awards again. Right now, based on what I have seen around games I think it might be Baldur’s Gate III, which seems to be such a labyrinth story where for the first time in a triple A game that choices genuinely matter and have varied outcomes and utterly destroys general triple A developers who claim that only climbing towers to uncover map icons is possible with the amount of time spent making games.  Notable releases:
In continuing the loss of jobs, Epic fires nearly %17 of its entire workforce. The independent music website Bandcamp, that Epic bought for reasons no one can articulate, are part of the over 800 employees to lose their livelihoods. Bandcamp is truly one of the best websites and I hope it manages to survive Tim Sweeney. The greatest piece of self immolation in the gaming industry occurs this month and gaming historians in the future will look at the choices made and realise that it is roughly fifty eight times the oddness of Epic buying Bandcamp. I am of course talking about Unity and its snatching of defeat from the long jaws of success. Unity, probably the most popular gaming engine for indie developers (and non indie developers) who want to release on the most platforms, announces its desire to rework their licensing fee. Unity would now be requesting royalty fees per installation and collected monthly. Not only that but it would now be applied retroactively. No one in charge understood how this would utterly destroy the trust the indie developer community, as well as how this would work for simple things such as demos and even uninstalling and reinstalling games owned by single users. John Riccitiello, the former CEO of Unity and former CEO of EA games, is known for such great ideas as micro transactions for bullet magazines in call of duty. The whole story is so incredibly stupid that if you give it more than any ten seconds of thought your brain would short circuit on how the plan would actually function in real life with real technology. The outcry was so loud and the damage so wounding that they walked it all back a week later and John Riccitello was fired, left to fail upwards to some other studio. I hear he wants to try a streaming game service called Stadiums.  Notable releases:
Microsoft completes their intended acquisition of Activision/Blizzard following the holdout by a UK regulatory body. We have yet to see what happens with Microsoft owning such a huge chunk of well known video game studios but the amount of mainstream IP that now belongs to them is wild. Destiny 2 has been underperforming and in response Bungies tells Sony that they know how to run live service games and that they should cancel Factions 2 before firing over 100 of their own employees. Fans of the Factions multiplayer are understandably upset. Sony also downsizes their intentions of having twelve live service games active to six. Again, none of those six appear to be Factions 2. Metal Gear Solid 1 2 and 3 are now available on modern hardware. What a thrill. Speaking as someone who only recently played them last year on original hardware they need to be experienced if you have never touched them and now you cannot even use the excuse of being unable to fit a PlayStation 3 and a Playstation 5 in the same area code.  Notable releases:
Nintendo finally gave its fan what they wanted. Geno in smash. Well, the potential at least. Re-releasing Super Mario RPG, a game I have heard is the whole reason the paper Mario series exists and one of the weirdest collaborations between Square and another company I look forward to playing it immensely. Ubisoft fires a great number of its workforce, choosing mostly to focus on Canadian employees as part of the continual ‘cost cutting’ that publishers seem to be obsessed with doing this year; this also includes Amazon game studios and Humble Games laying off their employees too. I fear 2024 will bring even more of this. Two handheld devices also release this month, one an OLED version of Valves steam deck, the first truly successful gaming on linux device. The other the PlayStation Portal. A dual sense cut in half with a small LCD screen placed between the two sides and designed for streaming from the PS5 only. Sony remade the WiiU only now allowing you to mirror your console from more than seven inches away.  Notable releases:
We do have the The Game Awards 2023 but with the added note that Geoff Keighley has increased security, so anyone hoping to jump on stage and announce they have information on the Clintons again needs to find a much sneakier way of doing so. Perhaps they could pretend to be Hideo Kojima? Anyway, this is more than enough waffle from me. I, and everyone else, wants to see your top tens and not those of the Game Awards. Games, the forum, is the most unique trafficked forum here (thanks for doing the mathematics on that Jeff!) and no doubt there are going to be so many random games that you might not have even thought of that someone here played and loved. Will a game reach the highest highs of last year’s Elden Ring? (5 times the points of the next game!) Will Disco Elysium sneak into the top three a third time? Will everyone manage to submit their results on time? Hall of Fame      Which 3 games are next to be added to the roster of greatness?  CLICK HERE TO GET TAKEN RIGHT TO THE RESULTS
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Dec 3, 2023 12:10
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I think that all games are the game of the year. Please count this as one vote for every video game in existence. (placeholder)
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Dec 4, 2023 00:14
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I can't believe VG stole my thread
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Dec 4, 2023 00:14
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Hell yeah it’s good thread time (big) mutha truckers (2)
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Dec 4, 2023 00:17
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Horizon zero out of ten
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Dec 4, 2023 00:18
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Merry Gotymas everyone!
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Dec 4, 2023 00:23
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gently caress yeah, let's GOTY. Look at that beautiful OP.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:24
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At last, it has arrived once more.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:32
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I'm gonna do my writeup tomorrow but I have Fifty! games on my list and it's not even everything I played this year. And it's a ton of bangers. Just for a small teaser, final fantasy 2 pixel remaster is at the bottom of the list.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:32
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video games
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Dec 4, 2023 00:33
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EDIT: MY LIST IS LOCATED AT https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4048665&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=29#post536875258 Marking out my spot... this month is gonna be crunch time lol. I am a Year Purist and only put 2023 releases on my main list. This is where I stand this year. Old Games Played: Aperture Desk Job, Spyro the Dragon, Dino Crisis, Bell Park Youth Detective, Dead Cells, Legends of Runeterra, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Frog Detective 3 Corruption at Cowboy County, Elden Ring, DANCERUSH STARDOM, Synth Riders 2023 Games Played: World of Horror, The Roottrees are Dead, Gunhead, Super 56, The Making of Karateka, Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party, El Paso Elsewhere, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, Armored Core VI Fires of Liberation, Yeah! You Want "Those Games" Right? So Here You Go! Now Let's See You Clear Them!, Final Fantasy XVI, Astra and the New Constellation, Street Fighter 6, Hi-Fi Rush, Baba Files Taxes, Backpack Hero, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, Yakuza Gaiden The Man Who Erased His Name, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, The Banished Vault, Chants of Sennaar, Venba, Jusant, A Highland Song, Games I need to finish or start this month lol: Kirby's Dream Land 2, Games I played some of but will not finish this year: Humanity, Stellaris Ghost Signal VR, Wallace and Gromit in the Grand Getaway, The Lamplighters League, Asgard's Wrath 2, Persona 5 Tactica, Tren, Mobile Suit Baba, Dune: Spice Wars Games that are being pushed to next year: Octopath Traveler II, Baldur's Gate 3, Rogue Trader, Spider-Man 2, Super Mario RPG Remake, Pikmin 4, Jedi Survivor, In Time and Stars, Vampire the Masquerade Justice, Pizza Tower, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Alan Wake 2, Thirsty Suitors, Against the Storm, House Flipper 2, 7th Guest VR, Last Train Home, Cocoon, Lies of P CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Dec 4, 2023 00:34
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Hell yeah, haven't had much time to post lately but I've been looking forward to making a list. Probably need to get around to Alan Wake but I think otherwise I'm pretty set on my picks
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Dec 4, 2023 00:43
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Baldur's gate 3 is easily my game of the year. I've played it the most I love everything about I and each new patch just makes it better. Not only my game of the year not only my crpg of the decade but my favorite rpg of all time.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:43
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Game of the Year is 2017's Night in the Woods. Congratulations
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Dec 4, 2023 00:54
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My top games of the year are: 1. Star Wars Jedi Survivor Can't praise this game enough. My absolute favorite title of the year. Great characters, and story that adds onto the previous game and grows the returning characters and world. Adds so much to the Star Wars universe, and the quality reaches and even surpasses the movies in many ways. This isn't just Star Wars dressing, it thoughtfully improves the universe and at no time feels like fan service. Channels the best of Star Wars, and improves upon it in ways that Lucas Films under Disney has been unable to do. Respawn has crafted a very approachable and player friendly metroidvania like world as well. 2. Super Mario Wonder Shigeru Miyamoto has always claimed that Mario was based on things he saw in nature when growing up, with some not so subtle hints to drug use. Mario Wonder goes full mask off on the drug use. Such a wonderful fun and outrageous game that blows my expectations away on what a Mario platformer can be. Takes everything best about Mario, and amplifies it 10 fold. 3. Final Fantasy XVI FINAL FANTASY IS BACK! I was very nervous about this one. The series has gone downhill so hard over the last few console generations, except for Final Fantasy XIV. But between this, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, we are eating well as fans. The soundtrack, characters, graphics, world, and story. All of it is perfect. Was worried about the game being only a party of 1, but that ended up not being an issue at all. The combat, based on Devil May Cry, was perfect, and felt amazing. At no point did I ever get bored. 4. Forspoken Under appreciated gem. The marketing for Forspoken was SO loving TERRIBLE. It did this game absolutely no favors, and it was unfair to the devs who made this gem. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but what Forspoken focuses on doing, it does really well. Modest open world, and thoughtful story that the marketing failed to convey and set the game up for failure. Very approachable, with industry defining accessibility, fun characters, and straight forward story that doesn't try to do anything crazy or overwhelm the player. 5. the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I don't think too much needs to be said here. Tears of the Kingdom creates such an incredible, fun to explore, and rich open world. Really not even just one open world, BUT THREE, and does it on a Nintendo Switch, a console that is using mobile Nvidia hardware from 2015. One of Nintendo's most ambitious video games they have ever created. An absolute masterpiece filled with so much thoughtful content. Everything matters, everything is carefully placed, and the game lets you engage with as much or as little of it as you want, making it one of the most approachable and accessible Nintendo games to date as well. 6. Armored Core 6 My new favorite FROM Software game. I love me some big robots, and this is by far the best Armored Core game to date. Immersive world, and just incredibly responsive combat that feels fair but challenging. Perfectly balanced difficulty. Every encounter feels like a puzzle that you can approach in so many different ways. Lots of freedom to craft your mech however you want. 7. Cyberpunk 2077: Phatom Liberty Cyberpunk 2077 at release was my dream come true open world sci-fi RPG. I was so disappointed though at how broken and buggy the whole experience was. CDPR though has redeemed themselves here. Listening to feedback, and then doubling down and fixing drat near every single player complaint, and adding tons and tons of new content and activities. Not only is a smaller section of night city added, but the rest of night city is added onto as well, with an overwhelming amount of new missions, and side activities to do, all of it feeling really fun to take part in. The world feels alive, and the new endings added, address some of the issues with the main story and V as a character. Its a fantastic finale to this 200+ hour long RPG. 8. Lies of P This was an absolute surprise hit, and ranks among my favorite souls-likes. Another victim of bad marketing, and the premise just seeming not very interesting, but it actually takes the premise of a well known fairy tale story, and turns it into a meaningfully well done and fleshed out dark and oppressive world. Lies of P does not necessarily do anything interesting with the combat, its competent and works really well. The world design is perfect as well, at no point did I get lost, something I feel like a lot of souls-likes have a problem with, is over designing their levels and being too confusing, I find the most challenging thing of souls-likes is knowing exactly where you're suppose to go! The ending credits to Lies of P, sets up the next game and I couldn't be more excited for it. 9. Spider-Man 2 Takes everything Sony has made over the last 10 years, along with everything great about Spider-Man, and Miles Morales, and combines them to make one of Sony's best games to date. Massive open world that feels perfectly designed for the premise of being Spider-Man, with a thoughtful story that perfectly captures the comic books. Peter, and Miles, are two characters that always have internal conflicts, and how do you tell their stories with that main premise, and still do it in a way that is unique, thoughtful, and feels approachable to newer fans, or those unfamiliar with the source material? Spider-Man 2 does that. 10. Dead Space I am not even really a fan of horror, even in the sci-fi space. But the original Dead Space was so approachable, fun, and intense. I loved it a lot, and it stood out to me as a really good action sci-fi horror game that was up there with Resident Evil. The Remake addresses the few glaring issues with the original, namely the graphics, and makes it an incredible looking game that feels brand new and unique. Perfect length that does not overstay its welcome, Dead Space is what I expect from remakes now in 2023 and going forward. 11. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line 12. Fire Emblem Engage 13. Quake 2 Remaster 14. Wo Long Fallen Dynasty 15. Like a Dragon Gaiden: the Man Who Erased His Name 16. Assassin's Creed Mirage *VG just shave off everything after 10! Action/Adventure: Star Wars Jedi Survivor - Runner Ups: the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Assassin's Creed Mirage Story Drive Action: Like a Dragon Gaiden: the Man Who Erased His Name Platformer: Super Mario Wonder Role Playing: Final Fantasy XVI Runner Ups: Baldur's Gate 3, Super Mario RPG, Octopath Traveler 2, Star Ocean Second Story R Open World RPG: Forspoken Runner Up: Starfield Strategy RPG: Fire Emblem Engage - Runner Ups: Disgaea 7 Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat 1 Racing: Forza Motorsport Sports: MLB the Show 23 Action: Armored Core 6 DLC: Cyberpunk 2077: Phatom Liberty Retro Game: Quake 2 Remaster Adventure Game: the Expanse Visual Adventure: Goodbye Volcano High Open World Action: Spider-Man 2 - Runner Ups: the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom First Person Shooter: Quake 2 Remaster - Runner Up: Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Remaster: Quake 2 - Runner Up: Persona 3 Portable Best Soundtrack: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - Runner Up: Goodbye Volcano High Best Rhythm: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line Most Disappointing: Diablo IV - Runner Up: Starfield, Splatoon 3 Remake: Dead Space - Runner Up: Star Ocean Second Story R Souls-like: Lies of P - Runner Up: Wo Long Fallen Dynasty Sequel: Star Wars Jedi Survivor - Runner Up: Kirby's Return to Dreamland, the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Armored Core 6 Story: Star Wars Jedi Survivor Immersive Open World: the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Voice Acting: Star Wars Jedi Survivor Accessibility: Forza Motorsport Difficulty & Approach ability: Forza Motorsport Graphics: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Best Game of the Year: Star Wars Jedi Survivor All games completed as of December 3, 2023 (end credits were reached on January 1, 2023 or later): Witcher 3 Forspoken Dead Space Remake Homeworld Homeworld 2 Fire Emblem Engage Returnal Theatrhythm Final Bar Line Aliens FireTeam Elite Octopath Traveler II Edge of Eternity Sakura Wars Wo Long Fallen Dynasty Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun Syndicate (2012) Like a Dragon: Ishin! Phantom Brigade Uncharted 4 Catherine Full Body Hogwarts Legacy Terminator Resistance Kirby's Return to Dreamland Starfox 64 3DS Fire Emblem Fates - Birthright Fire Emblem Awakening Gotham Knights Fire Emblem Fates - Conquest Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order Greedfall Panzer Dragoon Zwei Resident Evil 2 Remake - Claire Everspace 2 Persona 3 Portable Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 Yakuza 0 Granblue Fantasy Versus Redfall Daemon X Machina Marvel's Midnight Suns Star Wars Jedi Survivor Xenoblade 3 Future Redeemed Final Fantasy II Grand Theft Auto V Final Fantasy III Final Fantasy IV Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun the Last of Us Part 2 Prodeus Diablo IV We Heart Katamari The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Final Fantasy XVI Final Fantasy V Front Mission 1st: Remake Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire Grimaces Birthday Orcs Must Die! 3 Exoprimal Armored Core World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Sacred 3 Baldur's Gate 3 Tomb Raider (1996) Quake 2 Quake II 64 South Park 64 Quake (Saturn) MLB the Show 23 A Short Hike Armored Core VI Starfield Mega Man X Dive Offline Mortal Kombat 1 Lies of P Blazing Star Goodbye Volcano High King of Fighters 95 Metal Slug Shock Troopers 2 Nam-1975 Aero Fighters 2 Die Hard Arcade (MAME) Metal Slug 2 Metal Slug 3 Time Crisis the Expanse Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty ToeJam & Earl Sonic Adventures DX Disgaea 7 Assassin's Creed Mirage Forza Motorsport (2023) Spider-Man 2 Left Alive Super Mario Wonder Star Ocean Second Story R RoboCop Rogue City Aliens: Dark Descent Like a Dragon Gaiden: the Man Who Erased His Name Achilles Legends Untold Call of Duty 2 Call of Duty 3 I said come in! fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 01:11
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This is legit probably my favorite thread of the year, thank you as always every year to those who run it, sorry there is no Rarity this year but great job on the OP, VG! Anyways.... I might have gotten a little carried away so uhhh, click here to skip all these  and go straight to JUST the list. It was an incredible year for great games, and there were many fantastic ones that came out this year that I haven't even had a chance to play yet, let alone great games from previous years. This is a good problem to have!https://i.imgur.com/BNeg5nJ.mp4 10. Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020): Gameplay wise this isn't all that different from 2018's Spider-Man game (another favorite!), though Miles does have some abilities that Peter Parker doesn't. Really, what you're getting is more of the same from that previous game, which was just fine by me, but it's the story that really makes it all work. Miles coming into his own as a superhero, getting out from under the shadow of Peter, and the acceptance of the community which embraces him as "their" Spider-Man tells a complete story in a relatively compact experience that doesn't outstay its welcome. It's not without its faults, particularly around the central villain, but all in all it captured that sense of a sweet-natured young man trying his best to make his little part of the world a better place, and there's nothing more Spider-Man than that, whether Peter Parker or Mile Morales. That on top of beautiful graphics, the incredible sensation of the web-swinging, the Arkham-lite combat in a beautifully rendered slice of New York City, and the strong mix of comedy, drama and action makes this an easy recommendation, particularly if like me you're stuck waiting for the PC version of Spider-Man 2 to eventually come out. https://i.imgur.com/4r8QNvh.mp4 9. Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019): Not a goddamn thing about any of this makes sense. The fallen city, the design of the police station, the puzzles that are frankly baffling if you take a moment to consider them from a "real" world perspective, or the giant underground lab or really anything. Doesn't matter, game loving rules. It's absolutely gorgeous, the graphical makeover from the original 1998 version doesn't always quite mask the by now somewhat primitive game design but I was having too much fun to really care. It's a game with a ton of replay value, as you're "ranked" on your performance, and completing the game unlocks new paths you can take as well as playing with different characters who have fundamentally different experiences. Leon and Claire go to the same places and fight (largely) the same enemies, but things take divergent paths that also completely change the plot at points (the Tyrant monster that constantly stalks Leon in his game getting easily slaughtered on Claire's path by HER stalking monster was a wonderful moment to experience for the first time), and while playing either/or gives you a complete story, doing both paths fleshes out the entire experience. In 2023 you'd think the zombie genre was well and truly exhausted, but somehow a remake of a 20-year-old game in that genre manages to breathe fresh life into it. I can't wait to play the remakes of Resident Evil 3 and 4 and see what bat-poo poo crazy thing that makes no goddamn sense happens next! https://i.imgur.com/Uw5poUq.mp4 8. Hi-Fi Rush (2023): In January of this year, Bethesda announced they had a new game.... now! Developed on the quiet by the makers of The Evil Within, this was a game quite unlike those. Bright, cartoony, full of music, and coming completely out of the blue, Hi-Fi Rush caught most everybody by surprise, but a pleasant one! It's a simple game with a simple concept executed at a remarkably high level. It's a rhythm game that somehow I could play despite having none. It's remarkably funny, in a way that doesn't feel forced or cringe-worthy (at least to me). It's gorgeous to look at, designed to look like a cartoon, taking place on a giant corporate campus the size of a city in a fictional near-future where robots are ubiquitous (meaning you don't have to beat up a bunch of poor exploited workers... well at least not human ones!) It's a simple enough plot: beat several evil bosses to get their pass-codes to stop the evil program by the evil CEO to do evil things. But that's also all it has to be. Where the game shines is in the action, the gorgeous art, character, level and sound design, and perhaps most importantly an impeccable sense of comic timing. It's funny, sweet at times, and knows exactly when to ramp up the tension and when to undercut it: a secret ending from playing on past the main climax of the game is masterfully handled and sums up the game's own approach to itself. It isn't taking itself too seriously, and it's having a drat good time doing it, and I had a drat good time playing it. https://i.imgur.com/uH842dJ.mp4 7. Half-Life: Alyx (2020): How good was this game? So good that it tricked me briefly into thinking that VR gaming might actually be feasible. I was quickly disabused of that notion in my attempts to find other games, ranging from fine (Star Wars Squadrons) to making me feel immediately nauseous to the point I couldn't last in the game longer than a couple of minutes (Half Life 2 VR mod, Hitman VR). But Alyx just made everything work, designed from the ground up to make the absolute best out of the technology in a way that also made it playable. Graphically it's incredible, I spent a good 30 minutes just standing in the opening room wowing over how "real" everything looked, picking things up and examining them, writing on glass with a marker pen, just in utter awe. Then the rest of the game is that same level of stunning fidelity, dropping you right into the middle of the Half Life world, with all the associated imagery and sounds of the setting but now being experienced in the closest thing to reality you can get to. But it's also a good game! It's easy, REALLY easy, because for as much as Valve worked to make this both virtual reality AND a game, that same level of difficulty would probably be too much of a roadblock in this environment. But that ease doesn't work against it, in fact it just makes the game that much more enjoyable and accessible. I had given up on ever getting a Half Life 3, and as I played I found myself thinking,"Hey, if this is it, then great! It's a really fitting way to get to experience the world one last time and say goodbye to the setting even if it isn't a full sequel" and I was just happy with that, it was a nice unexpected bonus. Then I got to the end. Now my horrible, loathsome hope has been reignited. I'm CONVINCED we're getting Half Life 3, you can't take that from me! The ending of the game will be cruel if we don't... not quite as cruel as the ending of Half Life 2 Episode 2 was given I thought that was the end of any further Half Life games, but cruel nonetheless! I ended the game on a high, absolutely buzzing about the experience, willing to explore an entire new branch of technology I thought it was kicking off. That didn't come to pass, in the end it feels like a historical curiosity, a dead-end on the gaming evolutionary path, but an absolutely fascinating one I'm glad I got to experience, and which I strongly recommend everybody else try to experience for themselves as well too. https://i.imgur.com/gqo0ESA.mp4 6. Hitman: World of Assassination (2016-2023): I keep putting Hitman on these lists, and it's because the game just keeps on delivering! From Hitman in 2016 through Hitman 2 in 2018 to Hitman 3 in 2021 (but really 2022, thanks Epic) the game has delivered me hundreds of hours of fascinated Hitting Mans in wildly weird and different ways. Each game has included a complete version of the previous game in it, giving each one enormous value, and in 2023 everything got repackaged as simply Hitman: World of Assassination. But it wasn't just a rebranding exercise for a complete trilogy, the game(s) continues to be supported, with new Elusive Targets, challenges, community generated contracts for contests etc. But it wasn't just more of the same, because in 2023 the game also finally added the completed version of what was only available as a brief test run in 2022: Freelancer Mode. I've sunk I don't know how much more time into the game since Freelancer was added, at least another hundred hours for sure if not more. It revitalized the game for me at a point where I was feeling I might have finally seen and done everything. Which is ironic, since Freelancer essentially just plops you into pre-existing maps with the same characters doing the same things as always. The difference being it also adds in new targets doing their own things on top of all that, adding a new twist to the complex clockwork puzzle of a Hitman map as you seek to wipe out enough members of an underground crime syndicate to draw out the leader and assassinate them. Kill enough leaders and you wipe out an entire Syndicate, building resources to expand and develop 47's frankly beautiful house somewhere in presumably Scandinavia, as well as building a frankly terrifying arsenal of weapons and tools to use in your various murder puzzles. Except if you fail to kill a target, if you get shot, if you screw up, you lose what you have on you. If you blow it against a Syndicate Leader, you lose all your carefully assembled tools and have to start all over again from scratch. How any of this works doesn't really make any sense (I assume Diana is doing this whole thing as some bizarre enrichment exercise to keep 47 from being bored, and sneaks into his house to throw out his stuff and make him rebuild it) but it doesn't really matter, because it works to raise the tension, to find a balance between risk and caution, and also finally shook me free of my constant need to "perfect" a level and achieve nothing but Silent Assassin rankings. Now I'll go loud, or attack witnesses, or use explosives as distractions, or make use of any of the many other tools at 47's disposal to achieve my goals. It's true that if you play enough of the game (and I have played WAY too much) then even this Freelancer variation eventually becomes a "solved" "problem" as you figure out exactly how to game each Syndicate/level and offset the risk, but getting these took me a long and very enjoyable time. Now that I've basically achieved all but the most insane associated Freelancer challenges (killing hundreds of Syndicate Leaders and thousands of Syndicate Members) you'd think I'd finally had enough Hitman... but I haven't! Something about the game keeps bringing me back, and there are also mods that further expand Freelancer to maps not available yet in the official mode. There's every chance this'll be on my list again next year, it really is just the game that keeps on calling me back. https://i.imgur.com/zsA54tf.mp4 5. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017): Not having a Nintendo console as a kid, I'd never played a Legend of Zelda game before. I'd always figured when I had the time I might try and play through the games consecutively, but who ever has that time? Nah, far better to just pick one game, that way I wouldn't be investing too much time into things. A couple hundred hours later, I wrapped up Breath of the Wild and I was completely hooked on playing more Zelda games  It shouldn't be as compelling as it is. It's an open world game made in a period where open world was already somewhat old hat. It's simple, designed deliberately for wide appeal but obviously also to be accessible/appealing for kids/young teenagers. It doesn't really do anything I haven't seen in any other game, even the various powers are just variations of ones I've seen in many other games. Even the "you, the hero, have amnesia!" plot is a painfully ancient trope! No, Breath of the Wild is just taking a lot of pre-existing gaming elements and putting them all under the banner of a well-known IP. It's incredible. I can't explain WHY it works as well as it does, it just does! From the opening and the initially limited exploration of the Plateau to the game opening up to almost unlimited exploration, the sense of scale can be almost overwhelming. Link can go anywhere and do anything at any time, even to areas that clearly signpost you should be coming back later with some extra precautions prepared. Having not played previous games, there is no nostalgia explaining why the trials and tribulations of the people and the setting resonated so strongly with me, they just work through a combination of atmosphere, simple but effective characterization, and the slow uncovering of Hyrule's last century of history simultaneously for both the player and Link as a character. Exploring a world that survived but hasn't quite rid itself of a (literal) calamity offers a sense of both melancholy but also resilience. People live ordinary lives, happy lives even, but everybody knows there is a sickness at the heart of Hyrule barely contained by forces they don't really understand, with a half-remembered history of what it was like before then. Ruins dot the lands, the sites of old battles, abandoned forts, mysterious machinery that may be destroyed and ruined but might also still be semi-active and lethal. Monsters roam the world, containable but never ending, those killed returning with every blood moon, waiting for the inevitable return of the Calamity when Zelda's power finally wanes. That Link simply experiences all this and just rushes headlong into it with naive enthusiasm and a devotion to a charge he no longer fully remembers is wonderful. The character never truly speaks, making him somewhat of a blank slate for the player to project onto, but I like to think he's just a guy who has a sense of right and wrong and is determined to do the right thing no matter how difficult it is. Which isn't to say he's isn't full of personality, it's remarkable how much Nintendo makes him likeable, whether it's his reactions to things he sees and experiences in the world, or just his happy little humming as he cooks food, you get the sense that this is a character who loves life and never says no to anything or anybody (unless they're evil!). By the time I finished Breath of the Wild, I was incredibly invested in a character and a series I'd never experienced before beyond cultural osmosis. It's easy to forget just how big an impact this game had when it came out, what a remarkable achievement it was, how it made something so simple so compelling. I'm so glad I played it, so mad I waited wo long to do so, and desperate to play more Legend of Zelda games past, present and future to chase the high that this one gave me. https://i.imgur.com/DufyhWy.mp4 4. Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon (2020): Having finally caught up with almost all of the Yakuza games with Yakuza 6, I thought I was finally in a place where I'd never fall behind again once I played this one. That was only last year and there have somehow been like 6 new games since then! That's not a problem, I love these games, but they're also HUGE, I'll be playing these forever (again, not a problem!). Like a Dragon marks a break for the series, with a soft transition from the title Yakuza to Like a Dragon for the series (the latter was always the name in Japan I believe), a change from a real-time single character brawler to turn-based party combat, and probably most importantly shifting from eternal main character Kazuma Kiryu to Ichiban Kasuga. Luckily Ichiban is more than up to the seemingly impossible task of replacing Kiryu. While there are a lot of base similarities - an orphan who wrapped up his identity in a mentor in the Yakuza for one - Ichiban is definitely his own character even if like Kiryu he is a beautifully stupid and wholesome idiot. He sees the world and his job through the filter of the Dragon Quest games he loves to play (good taste!) and that is effectively what Like a Dragon does, it turns the Yakuza series somehow into Dragon Quest! Complete with "monsters", a party with specific roles including "magic", a jobs system (involving a literal employment agency!) and even dungeons! It's remarkable how much of the classic Yakuza remains in the game while also adopting this "new" approach, and just how well it pulls it off. On top of that is a story that, in typical Yakuza fashion, makes no drat sense at all but is extremely stylish and compelling, while also exploring in fairly shallow (it's still a Yakuza game after all) depth different social issues including sex work, unemployment, poverty and homelessness. Ichiban is an orphan raised in a brothel, who became devoted with all his might to the Yakuza mentor who selflessly made a sacrifice for a dumb kid (Ichiban) whose own big mouth had gotten him into trouble that was none of the mentor's business. So Ichigan's seeming betrayal by that mentor hits hard after serving 18 years in prison only to emerge into a modern Tokyo where everything he knew and understood about the Yakuza was turned on its head, leaving him betrayed once more and dumped like literal garbage in Yokohama. From there he embarks on a quest to discover the truth while also unwrapping mysteries, making friends, and of course walking directly into a bunch of warring crime faction bullshit... because this IS a Yakuza game after all. Kart racing, real-world Pac Man, arcades, cabaret clubs, magic summons involving crawfish and chickens, gambling, underground fighting, collect-a-thons, missing cats, puritans, a satsuma that must NEVER fall from a tree or else a little girl will die, a homeless man turning a sweet shop into the most prosperous business in Japan in a week, cameos by people who are absolutely 100% dead what the gently caress is even going on here, Pokemon but with various human weirdos on the street, kimchi so spicy it makes true love happen, and of course plenty of cutscenes of surprisingly ripped middle-aged men. It's ALL there in this game. It IS a Yakuza game after all, and long may they keep coming. I'll play them all. Eventually. https://i.imgur.com/XtCzF20.mp4 3. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon (2023): At the start of this year I played Titanfall 2 and I thought that no matter what else, that was DEFINITELY going to be best giant robot game I played all year. Boy was I wrong. Having never played an Armored Core before but being willing to give anything FROM Software makes a try, I assumed that this would be an amusing sideline involving relatively slow combat from lumbering behemoths. Boy was I wrong. Instead I got a game that reminded me more of Sekiro than Dark Souls, even though mechanically they're nothing alike, and of course the mission structure is nothing like either of those games. I can't explain it, it just feels more "like" that than any of their other games! Surprisingly fast-paced and also deeply customizable, Armored Core 6 looks and sounds beautiful, and though some of the missions felt a little bit like slamming my head against a wall at times, once I got through to the end and the rather bittersweet finale I felt I had definitely gotten my money's worth. Surely though there was no need to play New Game+ though, all that would accomplish would be playing the same game again with access to better gear. Boy was I wrong. What they've done with the story is remarkable, with three distinct endings based on mission choices made, some of which are only possible with two or three playthroughs of the game, each with different perspectives based on the relationships you build and the choices you make. While that might sound unwieldy, the game offers so much variety and customization that you can play the same mission a dozen times and have an entirely different experience each time. Also, the difficulty curve of the game effectively flattens out on a second playthrough and even more on a third. It is the distinctly new missions that offer the challenge of adapting to having the familiarity of repeated missions turned around on you by alterations that can be minor or completely change the entire final chapter of the game. As you play, you meet or are contacted by a wide variety of characters, and somehow despite the fact you never once see a human in the game, are never heard responding or talking to anybody, and each character might only talk to you a half dozen times at most (aside from a couple of key characters) their personalities, alliances, trustworthiness or otherwise are all communicated with astonishing depth. Rusty and Snail in particular stand out for how efficiently their voice actors make you feel a certain way (absolute kinship with Rusty, utter loathing for Snail), but every character does a remarkable job: Chatty, Michigan, Iguazu (poor, pathetic Iguazu), Red, Swinburne, Carla, Ayre, even ALLMIND and Invincible Rummy! Plus of course Handler Walter in particular stands out. They show you more of the world you've dropped into, or draw you in to the insane politicking and maneuvering happening in the ashes of the planet Rubicon as corporations and rebels vie for control of what remains of the valuable but volatile "Coral" that wiped out an entire solar system in the past. The sheer scale of the game's environments is extraordinary, the soundtrack is superb, and the use of sound in general is incredibly well executed, with perhaps the standout moment coming when Rusty declares I won't miss!" which is so, so, so unbelievably cool. The robots feel somehow both fast and responsive but also weighty and massive. The more you play, the more familiar you become, handling your Armored Core becomes like second nature. I rarely bother to fully S Rank mission-based games but I couldn't stop myself with this one, and the sheer speed and efficiency with which you can rather naturally just dominate a level that you initially struggled and fought to clear never failed to astonish me (just as the ones that seemed to be stuck at A Rank no matter how well I handled it frustrated me!). Somehow this game about giant robots whacking each other in the face with anime swords got me feeling feelings, and by the end of my third playthrough and unlocking the final ending I wrapped up my playtime feeling immensely satisfied and with a brand new series by FROM that I am eager to play more of. I thought they could only make fantasy sword 'n' sorcery games. Boy was I wrong. https://i.imgur.com/YnBBahV.mp4 2. Baldur's Gate 3 (2023): What if a game... but too much!?! It feels almost weird to say it, but maybe Larian didn't have to go as hard as they did? I'm glad they did though! After what seemed like an eternity in Early Access, Baldur's Gate 3 was released and to say it was a phenomenon is a massive understatement. But it's also so. much. loving. game. Every single screen, every location, every space is just cram-packed with details, and while you could be a psycho and NOT take the time to drink it all in, it felt like a game laser-focused on giving me exactly what I wanted from a Baldur's Gate sequel. If it was all pointless filler it wouldn't have worked, but almost everything felt like it had a purpose, all of it helped make each of the major areas for all three acts feel lived in and with a rich history. Graphically it was beautiful, and it was amazing that zooming right in to drink in all the details close-up or pulling out to get a comprehensive overview of the area you were moving in were both entirely viable options. But all that detail needed a strong story and strong characters to work, and the game had those too, with multiple party members (most of which could be your main character if you chose) having their own plots, motivations, backstories etc. Sure, some of them were a little over the top or grandiose, but it was doing what the game set out to do: recreate the sense of playing an actual D&D Campaign complete with a GM and perhaps party members a little too cock-sure about their privileged status in the world, and giving you plenty of freedom to experiment and play around with different ways of approaching the myriad events, battles and conversations you would uncover over the course of the game. Chances are, if you can think of a way to approach a battle, the game will let you do it, including something as simple as shoving an overly loquacious enemy boss off the side of a platform into a bottomless pit and bypassing the first phase of his battle! All of course with the ever-present threat of the tadpole in your brain as your personal motivation to continue beyond the political, metaphysical or simply "human" ramifications of the main plot if only to (hopefully) save yourself. Also, without spoiling anything, The House of Hope is one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had in an RPG. There is simply too much game to detail it all, Act 1 alone is massive and took me longer than some games to complete, and Act 2 is similarly packed followed by an astonishingly mammoth Act 3 that to the best of my knowledge nobody got to see before the game came out even in Early Access. The game became something of an obsession for me as I played it, and I certainly was far from the only one (and some obsessions ran deep, with people onto their 3rd deep-dive playthrough when I was still in Act 1 of my first!), because it really did carry me away in the best way. It had been a good twenty years since I last played Baldur's Gate 2, and then along came this astonishingly high-budget sequel that made me feel like I'd never been away. There are plenty of links to the original game (I'm frankly baffled by some claims that it bears no similarities to BG1 and 2 outside of the name) but it stands alone as its own thing too, and gives you a chance to wrap yourself back up in a fantasy world that people have been roleplaying in for decades now both through the games but also of course the tabletop experience. It's not without flaws by any means: the epilogue was a bit of a mess for one, though it's been continually patched and added to since release; the dice roll gimmick was cool but sometimes very overused for minor things; and Larian kind of chickened out of making the growing access to Illithid powers have any real trade-off to give you pause before taking them, when it should have been a huge deal. But getting to the end of a monster of a campaign and immediately thinking to myself,"So what am I gonna do when I play this giant-rear end game AGAIN?" speaks to just how incredible a job Larian did. If I didn't have so many other games in my backlog I'd be deep into the middle of another run through, and I certainly plan to do one again sooner rather than later. This is a game I think is likely to win Game of the Year for 2023, just because of how huge it was on release and what an incredible long tail it had. It certainly would have been mine... if it hadn't been for one semi-mute twink with a heart of gold (you can play one of those in this game too, if you like!). https://i.imgur.com/fNyX0HJ.mp4 1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023): What can I say? Breath of the Wild made me realize what I'd been missing, and Tears of the Kingdom just solidified that I needed to experience more of Link, Zelda and Hyrule. Having poured a huge amount of time into BotW, I thought it would be sensible to hold off on TotK to avoid burning out. But the idea of there being MORE of that world to explore was too much to resist, and when I loaded it up and started playing I came to a stunning conclusion: this game blows Breath of the Wild out of the water. Yes it's the same (mostly) map, and (mostly) the same characters, and pretty much exactly (maybe?) the same villain, so you'd think this would just be more of the same. It is. But it's more than that too. Even putting aside the addition of verticality to the game in the form of the Sky Islands and the gigantic black depths beneath Hyrule, this game is a true sequel to BotW that continues a story that seemed completed, and in so doing succeeds extraordinarily in telling a complete story of its own that absolutely nails the ending in one of the most emotionally satisfying ways I think I have ever experienced. The bookending of the game, from Link's failure to catch Zelda at the start of the game to him succeeding when it counts and catching her as they both fall at the end is masterfully handled. But that latter spoiled section comes as a capstone to an incredibly cathartic final sequence that is mechanically straightforward and simple but emotionally a masterpiece of design. Where BotW was a world of melancholy but also resistance, TotK is a story of rebuilding (literally in some cases). People have moved on from The Calamity, the world is progressing, things are getting better... and when Ganon appears to try and take that all away, the reaction of almost everybody in Hyrule is to say,"Nope, gently caress that!" and take up the fight to keep what they've gotten back. At the forefront of it all is, of course, Link, and the game somehow manages to figure out a way to both maintain the urgency while also giving you the freedom to let Link just absolutely gently caress about doing weird, wholesome or outright bizarre things. Link becomes a guest lecturer at Hyrule's only kid's school! Link takes time to help reunite a band! Link sneaks into a Woman-Only City and gets thrown in jail! Link becomes a newspaper reporter! Link fights All the old abilities from Breath of the Wild are replaced with new ones, and while that was a bit of an initial learning curve (I kept forgetting early on I could literally make Link shift his body upwards through solid objects) I came to love them, particularly the Fuse Skill that lets you build an astonishing variety of vehicles, make-shift weapons and even rudimentary robots. Also, if you are far, far, far cleverer than I am, you can create stuff that I can't even comprehend how it works! This is a game that has taken what was considered by many an absolute modern classic and, in my opinion, improved on it in every single way. It's an incredible accomplishment, you can absolutely see why it took six years to complete it despite getting to work with what was already developed for BotW. That this game exists as it does on the Switch is another thing that blows my mind, and who knows what Nintendo will have in store for the next game in the series? I'll be there playing it for sure, after the 1-2 punch of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I somehow STILL want more Legend of Zelda. While Baldur's Gate 3 was also an incredible experience, I never once wavered in my certainty that Tears of the Kingdom is my Game of the Year for 2023. Edit: Fixed some minor typos and formatting errors. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 22, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 01:16
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A simple version of my Top Ten without all the 10. Spider-Man: Miles Morales 9. Resident Evil 2 Remake 8. Hi-Fi Rush 7. Half-Life: Alyx 6. Hitman: World of Assassination 5. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 4. Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon 3. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon 2. Baldur's Gate 3 1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
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Dec 4, 2023 01:16
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goddamn lookit those fine rear end gifs
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Dec 4, 2023 01:24
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I'm hearing early reports that Paranormasight will likely break the points record previously held by Elden Ring, congratulations in advance
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Dec 4, 2023 01:34
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1: PIZZA TOWER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlq6fFOqI28&hd=1 - Incredible music. Like legit, one of the best game soundtracks in YEARS. Every single stage has incredible music, and the final boss theme is an all-timer. - Excellent gameplay, extremely fast and rewards being able to combo into movement tech, from diving to understanding Peppino's momentum, speed is important but understanding that speed is doubly so. - Visual style perfectly captures a 90's/early oughts cartoon vibe like Courage the Cowardly Dog or Ren and Stimpy, without using grossout humor. - Animations are unbelievable, Peppino has literally thousands of frames of animation   - perfect game loop, make your way gradually through a stage before reaching the support column at the end and having to escape as fast as you can going backwards through the stage - taunt is also a parry, very useful but not necessary to enjoy the game - has ranks for comboing and speedrunning stages but I'm not really into that, but it's cool it's there for those who are - did I mention the music is loving INSANELY GOOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7gGacb8cO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiCTsIsvcK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m34Cls1Vmd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bB0FNGlrEs one of the best games to come out this year, and it didn't even get nominated for Best Indie because Geoff Keighley is a hack who doesn't know what indie games are.  ------------------------------- 2: HI FI RUSH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgd4aU56Kig&hd=1 - came out of loving nowhere, shadow dropped during a microsoft event, they played the trailer and then were like "YOU CAN PLAY IT RIGHT NOW". ballsy, and I think worked really well for them. - EXCELLENT soundtrack, both licensed and unlicensed for streaming purposes! It even has Invaders Must Die! I actually like a lot of the unlicensed stuff more than the licensed tracks. - Phenomenal visual style, definitely the best style and designs in a game I've seen in a while. Perfectly captures a cartoony aesthetic despite being a pretty visually spartan game. Has amazing onomatopoeia effects explode off enemies as you hit them, and I like the main character designs a lot. - EVERYTHING IN THE GAME moves to the beat, your character, your UI, the environment, the enemies, EVERYTHING. This is a Devil May Cry-style game mixed with a rhythm game, and it works amazingly well. - Your robot cat, 808, is a reference to the Roland TR-808 and all her noises are from that, it's great - Combos and extra moves flow seamlessly, and you can refund moves for like 95% of the purchase price, so you can experiment as much as you like. Very much appreciated. Game's real fun and can be very frantic, most enemies are great fun to fight, the only ones I'm not a big fan of the Samurai robots though. great design, but their final attack is a real pain in the rear end on a level no other enemy, including most bosses, is. - The story is simple but effective, it gives you everything you need and doesn't really break the mold, but it's still very enjoyable. - EXCELLENT voice acting. They all knocked it out of the park, I even liked Korsica's VA despite the hilariously bad scottish accent - The humor is top loving notch, got multiple genuine belly laughs from me many many times. seriously excellent jokes throughout, the villains are hilarious, the references to things are spot on, CNMN has so many excellent lines, and Chai is a perfect dingus. ------------------------------- 3: HOLOCURE  every single one of the characters in the above image is a playable character with unique super moves and character-specific items! and the dev is planning on adding like 40 more!!!! I have not played any of the "Bullet Heaven" genre pioneered by Vampire Survivors until the last couple days when I finally gave Holocure a shot, and then proceeded to put like 8 hours into it over the course of two days. I don't really like how Vampire Survivors looks, though I did buy it since it's only two dollars. but do you know what's better than two dollars? ZERO DOLLARS! Holocure is a fangame of the Vtuber agency Hololive, developed almost entirely by Kay Yu, who previously was the animator for River City Girls. And it shows, the spritework in this game is excellent, it's soft and cutesy but powerful and punchy when necessary.   Kay Yu made this as a fangame and has ADAMANTLY REFUSED to accept money, whether it be to buy or as donations, for this game. it's kind of infuriating, really. I understand his reasoning of not wanting to accept money for it because that would make it into less of a passion project and more of an actual obligation, but still. LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY GOD drat IT   as expected, this game becomes a clusterfuck towards the end of a stage/as endless grinds on, to the point it can be hard to see your character amidst the sheer amount of enemies and poo poo flying around nonstop on screen. but it wouldn't be a Bullet Heaven without that honestly.  the music is phenomenal mostly renditions of existing hololive music turned into fantastic chiptune bops that perfectly fit into the endless levels, especially the first stage's theme, Suspect, and the second stage's theme, Candy-Go-Round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_GAxGs88jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt9xG8w5_qg the enemies are basically all representations of a given talent's fans, and the bosses, items, super moves and honestly most other things are generally representations of memes from the various talents. the bosses in particular are great, you get a big warning circle when they arrive and then something like these slams down to cause trouble   also, there's an entire Stardew Valley-alike(I think?) as a side game that he just kinda crammed in there as a bonus, which you can use to either just play on its own as a chill thing or get buffs for the main game. And also apparently the fans you can catch as "pets" have names of actual subscribers of their given talent, which is an honestly neat touch. also, you can pet the dog.  ------------------------------- 4: SLAY THE PRINCESS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W4cOiqHxG4&hd=1 - Game is best gone in as blind as possible. If you need further encouragement to try it blind, a minor description from the devs: it's a visual novel with Stanley Parable vibes and a dash of Disco Elysium. - One of the biggest surprises of the year and would be #2 if not for Hi Fi Rush. Had never heard of it until I encountered a discussion on a podcast about it. - Made by the husband and wife duo, Tony and Abby Howard. - also voiced by two people, Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight. The voice acting is nearly perfect, with a few spots I'd say they could've done another take, but it's honestly not a big deal. Most of it's amazing, and both of them did an incredible job doing like 20 different variants of their respective voices - Storyline choices are fantastic, I greatly enjoyed many of the routes. My favorites were The Adversary, The Razor, The Damsel, The Witch, and The Specter - I like the pencil sketch artwork. It's usually pretty simple, but boy when they wanna go hard with it, they sure loving do - Surprisingly good music, very fitting in basically every instance. - I love the finale and everything that goes down. It's not often you get a dialogue boss fight - I have seen this type of story before, for sure, but this one was exceptionally enjoyable for me. ------------------------------- My two "I post these every year because I still play them every year" games 5: MINECRAFT Needs no explanation. I play it heavily modded, but for survival and exploration variety, rather than technological complexity or RPG bullshit. With multiple mods adding dozens if not over a hundred biomes both above and below ground, there's certainly a far more vibrant amount of things to see over vanilla MC. 6: MAGIC THE GATHERING: ARENA Magic is still the best card game ever made. The new sets have largely been fantastic, even if I'm currently taking a break from it, the latest set looks quite fun and the few drafts I've done of it have been super fun. edit: added Holocure at #3, bumped Slay the Princess, Minecraft, and MTG Arena down a spot each 1: Pizza Tower 2: Hi-Fi Rush 3: Holocure 4: Slay the Princess 5: Minecraft 6: MTG Arena Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Dec 30, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 01:41
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The clock is ticking for me to finish BG3... Hopefully this will be motivation enough when added to the fact I desperately need to delete it from my hard drive
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Dec 4, 2023 01:45
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I finally finished Disco Elysium this year so everything else is fighting for 2nd place.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:45
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Page 1 and you fuckers are already doing them in ascending order
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Dec 4, 2023 01:46
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I only want to post games I've finished so I'll be waiting until the last few days to drop my list, even though nothing I'm currently doing has a chance of taking a top spot.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:48
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Regy Rusty posted:Page 1 and you fuckers are already doing them in ascending order
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Dec 4, 2023 01:56
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I just noticed pizza tower is not in the OP for notable january releases. I regret to inform VG that I will be confiscating his star, as he is clearly not skilled enough to handle this important task
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Dec 4, 2023 02:07
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Void Stranger was the only game I played this year that really felt like a stand out title. Lots of pretty good games (and high profile disappointments) but nothing else really wowed me. I haven't tried Pikmin 4 yet though, I should probably get on that. Pizza Tower also looked great but I have no interest in the actual gameplay so I didn't buy it.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:18
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My son's game of the year: Pizza Tower. This might the first game I ever saw him really sink his teeth into. He's six.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:19
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We can close the thread, GTA VI is GotY
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Dec 4, 2023 02:49
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This year I decided to compose a medley of songs to hint at my #1 for this year. You can listen to that here, if you want, as you read the list, though obviously if you can piece together how the songs fit, it'll give away the winner: https://soundcloud.com/morallyobjected/2023-goty-winning-medley Games I Played This Year (bold indicates I finished it): Alan Wake 2 Death's Door Final Fantasy: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy 2: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy 3: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy 4: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy 5: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy 6: Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy XVI Forspoken Ghostwire: Tokyo Goodbye Volcano High Haven Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores Jurassic World Evolution 2 Kirby and the Forgotten Land Metroid Prime: Remastered New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals Pokemon Trading Card Game Rayman Legends Sackboy: A Big Adventure Sea of Stars Spider-Man 2 STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE Stray Gods Super Mario Wonder Tactics Ogre: Reborn The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom The Talos Principle THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE This Way Madness Lies TReN Unpacking Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty -------------------- ========================== The Honourable Mentions ========================== 15. Haven (PS5) - The Game Bakers | RPG | 2021 This was a bit of a surprise to me. I wrote up my Top 15 at the end of November because I don't generally get new games in December until post-Christmas, which is after I put my list together, and of the releases I saw, I wasn't picking any of them up anyway. However, this one was on PS++ and I vaguely remembered hearing decent things about it, so I figured "Why not?" and gave it a download. Going into it knowing very little, I will say it was great that you can choose between a number of different gender combinations for the protagonists (who are in a relationship) just based on personal preference without changing anything else about the story. It would be cool if more indie games did that (when gender was not an important factor in the plot). The basic gameplay loop is that you zoom around a bunch of islands looking for supplies and slowly cleaning up the landscape from a material called Rust. You come across enemies that you have to fight in order to pacify and clean them up as well, so you're not killing any of the local inhabitants. You gain access to more mechanics along the way, such as crafting, to make your healing/battling easier, as one might expect of an RPG. The voicework was a big factor in my enjoyment as well. With the writing and the performances, it wasn't hard to believe that the two characters cared about each other and were truly committed to making the best life possible with one another. 14. Death's Door (PS5) - Acid Nerve | Action-Adventure | 2021 Tried this one out on a whim as part of PS+. Turns out it's a fun.. whatever this genre is. Isometric adventure combat? I called it Action-Adventure above, but I think that was just the one I pulled from Wikipedia and it doesn't really fully describe the kind of game it is. You get abilities that improve your movement and allow you to explore new areas. You fight enemies and bosses. You find secrets, upgrade your magic/health, and save the world as a crow who works for the afterlife. I don't really have anything bad to say about it. The aesthetic is charming, the writing is fun, and it's a decent length without feeling padded or too long. 13. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (PS5) - Team Ninja, Koei Tecmo | RPG | 2023 Wo Long is very much like an evolution of Nioh 1/2. The overall structure (different "eras"/regions with levels) is the same, the loot system feels the same, and the combat feels very similar in a lot of ways, even with the addition of the Morale system. This isn't a bad thing--if you like Nioh 1/2, then I can't see why you wouldn't enjoy Wo Long. Morale is kind of like a power level: the higher yours or your enemy's, the tougher you/they are. You have a base Morale level that increases as you find more major and minor flags (similar to temples from Nioh), to a maximum of 20, but you can also gain it by killing enough enemies. However, if you die, it resets to your base, which is why you want to find all of them in the level. A nice addition is being able to respec at will (I think you have to get to a certain point in the story, but after that you can change as much as you want). More RPGs would be improved if you could switch up builds all the time, I think. Ultimately, it felt perhaps a little easier than Nioh 1 or 2, but maybe that's just because I had more experience at that point. Team Ninja games do remain good games for co-op, and I had fun playing through levels with other people for free (I like their system more than From games, though with Elden Ring, they at least made it trivial by having it be ridiculously easy to craft the co-op items). There's a lot here to like, especially if you've already bought in to the system. 12. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores (PS5) - Guerilla Games | Open-World/RPG | 2023 Honestly, I think the only reason this is down here so low is just because it's a DLC, which I by default tend to put lower in terms of priority. In previous years, I didn't even include them at all in the ranked section, so the fact that it's in here at all tells you how much I enjoyed it. Burning Shores gives us a look at post-Forbidden West Aloy as she's in the beginning of preparing for all that was revealed at the end of the base game. She travels to a new area, meets new people, and has chemistry out the wazoo with one of them and it was all fantastic. The setting is outright beautiful--a screen capture I took is my computer background, even now. It's a great capper to my 2022 GOTY, and it has me looking forward to the next game (and hoping we see a lot more of a certain character). 11. Sea of Stars (PS4) - Sabotage Studio | RPG | 2023 This game was, for me, basically the perfect blend of Paper Mario and Chrono Trigger. The character writing and sprite work was wonderful, and with so many opportunities to sink into cynicism, the game constantly chooses the optimist's path, mostly through the vehicle of Garl, who is by far the soul of the party. The battle system has that turn-based Mario RPG action battle style that rewards you for timing button presses/other actions correctly, which helps it stay engaging, in addition to an Octopath-like mechanic of breaking enemies' defenses based on their weaknesses to interrupt their actions. It turns battles into little mini-puzzles in a way that isn't tedious like Origami King was. The balance of money was nice, as well, which is not always the case in RPGs. You get enough to buy gear for most of your characters, and you might find some equipment in the following area, but you don't often get to just clear out the shops; however, neither do you have to scrimp and save just to buy a single sword or armour piece. Your main source of healing items is from cooking ingredients that you find all over the place, and you're limited to a certain number in your inventory at once, so it encourages you to actually use them for once. I still definitely hoarded on occasion though. JRPG Disease is real. Also the slots mini-game was a blast. Wheels Champion 2023. -------------------- =========== The Top 10 =========== 10. TReN (PS4) - Media Molecule | Puzzle | 2023  TReN was developed by Media Molecule entirely within their game creator Dreams, as a showcase of what's possible within their systems. The basic idea is that you control a toy train on various tracks backwards and forwards to solve puzzles and get to the end, and it's honestly impressive how much they managed to mix up that formula and create levels that are challenging but that rarely seem unfair. Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that most of the levels are timed (as long as you want 3/3 stars, anyway), so you're frequently in a race against the clock to execute perfectly, which of course leads to errors. I used this as a side game to give myself a change of pace and it worked really well for that. If you have Dreams (which was given away for PS+ this year), it's worth checking out. 9. This Way Madness Lies (PC) - Zeboyd Games | RPG | 2022 I've played a few Zeboyd games in the past--Rainslick Precipice of Darkness, Cthulhu Saves the World--but it had been a while at the point when I first heard of this game in last year's GOTY thread. I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan, but I am a fan of magical girl anime and JRPGs, which this draws heavy influence from. You play as an all-girl theatre troupe who gets sucked into the worlds of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, where you must rescue the inhabitants from demons and monsters. The combat works essentially in cycles. Each girl has up to 4 slots you can equip with moves at any given time, and one used, a move cannot (usually) be used again until you spend a turn resting. Each turn also build's up a girl's Hyper meter, which, once filled, causes the next move to have a different or augmented effect (sometimes it goes from single-target to multi-target, sometimes it deals more damage, etc.). You don't have a choice about whether to use the Hyper effect, so you have to plan your moves and rests accordingly. Then the meter goes back to 0 and you start over again. There are also difficulty options if things feel too spongy. The writing is fun, both in dialogue and in terms of enemy names:  It's not overly long, so it doesn't outstay its welcome. The only real downside for me is that it doesn't really have anything in the way of sidequests or exploration, really. It's pretty much on rails to do the story (you wander around the various areas, but only in service of advancing the plot), other than finding about 1-2 items per area. However, this is a matter of personal taste, in the end. The game plays just fine without any additional content to pad it out, especially since it's on the cheaper side anyway. 8. Forspoken (PS5) - Square-Enix | RPG | 2023 https://i.imgur.com/8dm48Hb.mp4 At its core, what I can say about Forspoken is that it's just fun to play. The movement abilities make it a joy to move around the world of Athia, and the fast travel, being made for the PS5, is very fast, so it's generally not hard to get where you're going. You can only fast travel when you unlock the places to do it to, so you'll be exploring the world on foot for a large part of the game anyway. Even after I unlocked fast travel locations, there were plenty of times I chose to just run to places without them. Or times I forgot to be going somewhere because I just got distracted zooming around. The combat is decent enough--some families of moves are definitely better than others, and it can be a drag when you're forced to use some of the less good ones to attack weaknesses, but it's very stylish and the good moves are very good--and the story is serviceable. The pacing gets a little off at the end, but overall it never took me out of the game. I feel like a lot of people pre-judged the dialogue writing because of the trailer, but all of that is done within the first like half hour, and the rest of it isn't any worse than your average game. It's unfortunate that it didn't sell well compared to the budget/expectations, because that means we'll probably never see the conclusion to the larger story. 7. Super Mario Bros Wonder (Switch) - Nintendo EPD | Platformer | 2023  (in retrospect, it's amazing that Nintendo catered to chubby chasers and inflation fetishists with this game) Speaking of games that are fun to play, we have the best 2D Mario ever made, at least as of today. This game won me over with the second level (Piranha Plants on Parade), which is still probably my favourite one, but the whole game is littered with moments of similar wackiness and character. There's a large variety in the stages, with break times, badge challenges, regular levels, and timed battle challenges, which keeps the experience fresh as you go through all the worlds. The Special World stages provide an extra challenge, even if they're easier than the special stages of Marios past. Really the only complaints I have are that: (a) I wish there were more content (which is not a bad problem, really, to have with a game--"I wish I could play it more"), and (b) The badge system is a little clunky, in that they're really not utilised outside their respective stages, and the invisibility badge can gently caress off But otherwise, I think the game is a no-brainer for anyone who likes Mario games or platformers, especially after the disappointing decade-plus of New Super Mario Bros games. This game is for them perhaps what Galaxy was for 3D after Sunshine. A breath of fresh air and return to form. A reminder that they do still know how to make a good game in the genre. 6. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet (Switch) - Game Freak | RPG | 2022 I don't have some of the problems that other people do with the more recent entries in the Pokemon series. I stopped playing after Gold/Silver until Sword/Shield (other than some of the Gen 1/2 remakes, which I don't count), so I didn't have a huge collection of Pokemon to be carrying along, and I had zero idea which ones were new and which ones were reused from Gens 3 through whatever--they were all new to me. I also don't have any fatigue for the series (I did take 20 years off, after all). The open-world nature of Scarlet/Violet traces a direct line from the Wild Areas in Sword/Shield through Arceus, and while I liked a lot of things about Arceus, it honestly feels better implemented overall here. Arceus treated battling like an afterthought and focused heavily on the exploration, which is not a bad thing necessarily--I liked crafting my own Pokeballs, for example--but it wasn't quite what I was looking for in a Pokemon game. Scarlet/Violet only truly half-embraces the open-world genre, since gym leaders and such don't scale levels to your own, meaning there's still certain towns/quests you'll want to do in suggested orders, but it's at least refreshing to have three main questlines that you can switch between. Plus, they brought in some good features from the newer entries, like being able to swap moves on the fly instead of using a Move Tutor. The story is there, certainly, but I did like the academy setting, and Nemona is probably my favourite rival in the series. Really in general these characters are the best.  My main wishes would be just more clothing customisation--that was a big drop off from Sword/Shield and Arceus--and maybe more little side quests to do. I do understand this game was probably rushed out the door though. All in all, it's the most fun, I think, that I've had with a Pokemon game. I'm probably even going to pick up the DLC once everything's out. My final team: Meowscarada Oinkologne Oricorio (Fire) Garganacl Pawmot Gardevoir 5. Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) - Square-Enix | RPG | 2023 Final Fantasy.. is good? Really though, I don't think I've played a Final Fantasy I didn't like. At worst, they're okay, but this one was very good. Clive Rosfield is a big dummy who finds himself at the center of a resistance movement for plot reasons I won't mention here, but one of my favourite things about the story is that the main villain is also a big fuckin' dummy lmao. Seriously, every time Ultima is like "Surely, this time the power of friendship will not prevail", followed by "gently caress, the power of friendship prevailed. How does this keep happening??". The world of Valisthea is dense, with a ton of background political lore, but the game has a lot of ways to give you a chance to sort it all out. One of them is the Active Time Lore, wherein most of the time you can pause and get a summary of most of the major characters and settings; it's a seriously useful feature and all story-based games should adopt it. Another is to talk to your good buddy Loresman Harpocrates, who will open up the game's version of a datalog. The final way is to talk to your strategist, Vivian who will show you a continental map where you can track through all the world's major events complete with a diagram showing the relationships between nations through the historical dates and events. It's the best implementation of this kind of background exposition I've ever seen, for sure. The battle system is somewhat contentious, as it espouses pretty much all ties to traditional FF systems and goes for a complete action system--even more so than FFXV or 7R. For the regular battles, there are no menus to manage during battles. There are only abilities, cooldowns and items. You create "builds" based on which abilities you want to load out with, which of course get unlocked over time. Then there are the giant gently caress off anime kaiju battles, which follow their own rules and are, generally speaking, all more awesome than the last. Also the game looks real pretty:  The only real complaint I have about the game is the sidequests; pretty much all of them follow the same pattern, which is "go to a place, kill some things, and come back". There are no minigames to speak of or optional dungeons. It all kind of makes sense when you know it was made by the FF14 team, in that there are a lot of MMO-feeling inspirations, but a little disappointing nonetheless. There are rumours they're making a story DLC, so we'll see how that pans out, if it happens. But, either way, we have FF7Rebirth to look forward to for that kind of stuff. 4. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (PS4) - Capcom | Visual Novel/Puzzle | 2021 I came into this series with the Ace Attorney trilogy last year, and despite loving it, I wasn't sure how I felt about picking up Great Ace Attorney. I became very attached to the characters in Ace Attorney and wasn't sure if I'd form the same kind of narrative bond with a completely new set of characters. However, I am happy to say that all that worrying was absolutely stupid and unnecessary, because this game is every bit as charming and batshit insane as the others.  Despite a number of different dynamics from the original, the world of Ryunosuke, Gina, Susato, Herlock, and more all captured me just as before, and I'm deeply sad we don't have more of it. There were new spins on investigations and examining evidence, the justice system is just as hosed up as Japanifornia's, and everything is just such a trainwreck in the most fascinating ways. I definitely played this one late into the night on multiple occasions just to continue the story because I couldn't put it down, and if that isn't an endorsement, what is? 3 Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - Insomniac | Action | 2023  I was always looking forward to this game, but I'm not sure I expected it to be as good as it was. The original rated highly, to me, though it was before I ever ranked games or contributed to the GOTY threads. Miles Morales came in at number 9 back in 2020, as a smaller entry which I felt was not as strong, overall, though obviously still an enjoyable time. Spider-Man 2, however, vastly outshines both previous entries in terms of both gameplay and story. I won't go into story spoilers, but suffice to say I was surprised to see just how many characters they were able to fit into the game without it feeling bloated or unnecessary. The lines are superbly acted, the gameplay is basically just a refined version of what worked in the past, and they made the city feel alive. NPCs on the street have random conversations you can listen into, where the voice actors were told simply to improv on a topic to make it seem natural, and it works so well. There's one where two women talk about their nannying jobs and one admits she lied on her resume and had never held a baby in her life before she got it. You can go do yoga in the park. A reporter will ask you to weigh in on whether a hotdog is a sandwich. And this is just the incidental stuff. The main story is full of A+ character moments, references and cameos from characters I never expected, and a story that kept me wanting more. They set up a ton of possible plot threads for the next entry or a DLC and I have zero doubts about whether I will be picking those up. Spider-Man has always been my favourite superhero, and after a long time of middling-at-best entries following the original Spider-Man 2 back on the PS2, I'm so glad that he's found a home for now at Insomniac, who have done the character justice AND matched the feeling I used to get in 2004 of just swinging around the city waiting for poo poo to happen. It's just unfortunate you can't pile drive anybody off the Empire State Building anymore. P.S. The way fast travel works in the game is loving insane and the best I've ever seen. 2. Goodbye Volcano High (PS5) - KO_OP | Visual Novel/Rhythm | 2023  Goodbye Volcano High is a lot of things all at once. It is a visual novel and a rhythm game (briefly, in spots); a story about what the past and present mean when you have no future; about being selfish, then learning how to adjust to the needs of your friends. It asks, “What does it mean to create something beautiful in the face of total, apathetic destruction?”. And the choice of setting–high school, where for many people every new choice felt like the most important one they’d ever made in their lives–was completely apropos. The game’s juxtaposition of the typical contradictory nihilism and care-so-much-about-everything-ism inherent to teenagerdom fits well against the backdrop of an actual apocalypse. The story is told through Fang, a non-binary pteranodon and leader of a band comprising them and their two best friends, Reed and Trish. Through choices you make, you discover, as one of the characters puts it, the “connective tissue” between them and the rest of the cast, which expands beyond the three leads, but never so much that it feels hard to keep track of. You can choose to learn more about the student population at large, both through a couple pauses in the action where Fang will give a one-to-two sentence summary of people she knows at school and through the regularly updated social media feed, which adds character to the community and feels very much like it came from the minds of high school students in the bodies and lives of dinosaurs–a tribute to the writers. In the end, both you and Fang end up trying to pick up the pieces of something that feels like all it wants to do is fall apart. In terms of gameplay, there are two main ways to interact: One is through narrative/dialogue choices and the other is through the music minigame. The former was a fresh take on a system most of us are already familiar with. In certain places, when Fang is nervous or upset, the dialogue choices will shift as you’re trying to pick them, representative of their state of mind. Boxes will split, or light on fire, or become hard and crystal, letting you know where the choice will take Fang’s emotions and the conversation. The music game can end up surprisingly challenging–unlike a Guitar Hero/Rock Band-like there are three basic mechanics to juggle involving button presses and moving the analog sticks around, which can happen simultaneously. Later songs will have a lot going on at once, giving you a lot to keep track of. Speaking of the music, it fits the vibes perfectly. Written and performed by Dabu and Brigitte Naggar, each in-game song, in addition to the background score, has that certain angst in both lyrics and instrumentation, embodying a certain nostalgia and regret for events that haven’t even happened. At the beginning, Fang sings: quote:Whatever happens to me now, But of course, they don’t even know the world is ending at this point, so far from obvious commentary about world affairs, this is instead just the ramblings of someone who spent a lonely summer missing their friends. It is then somewhat ironic that one of the possible sets of lyrics for the ending song (and the ones I chose) contains much more optimistic overtures: quote:We won't sit around and let the world go by The music adds to the experience beautifully. At a narrative level and as a meta-experience of playing it, the game simply and quite literally could not exist without it. Truly, I think the most basic and fundamental thing I can say about this game is that I cared about it. I cared about the characters and their hopes and dreams. I cared about what they lost and had to leave behind. I cared about the connections they made. When the end came, I felt sad, both for them and for the experience coming to a close. I wanted to hear more of what they had to say, but I never will. Games interact with their stories in different ways. For some, the narrative is essential; for others, you could remove it and no one would even notice. While I enjoy both ends of the spectrum, I think games with heart that have something to say will always have an edge. If this game doesn’t hit for you, then that’s fine–-no story is going to reach everyone. I feel like this story was created for me to consume though, and I can’t say I’ve felt that particularly often. 1. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (PS4) - indieszero | Rhythm | 2023  Keeping in mind what I said one entry up about how I love games with hear that have something to say, it may seem contradictory that this is the number one entry. However, that's just a testament to how good this game is. I never had a DS or whatever the earlier games in the series were on, so I had been waiting for a console entry for years by the time this one was announced. I played the demo and immediately knew I was going to pick it up as soon as it came out, and I went all in for the deluxe edition that included all the future DLC. I have zero regrets. If you don't know what it is, Theatrhythm is a rhythm game that uses music from Square-Enix's vast catalogue of incredible music. The largest percentage goes to Final Fantasy games, as you'd expect, but the tracks for Theatrhythm include, also, Octopath Traveler, Live a Live, Nier, Chrono Trigger, and Xenogears, just to name a small selection. There are 385 songs just in the base game, but the DLC and deluxe version tracks pump that up to 523. You use the analog sticks and buttons in various ways to hit triggers in rhythm to the songs, and you build parties of up to 4 characters of various classes to take out enemies based on how well you do it. There's a Series Quest mode where you move directly through all the tracks that the game has for each series, each one having an optional objective to complete as you go (this is also how you unlock tracks). There's an endless mode where you keep playing through harder and harder tracks until you lose all your hearts. There's the mode where you just play whatever songs you want for fun. The game is packed with content and four different difficulty levels (though not all tracks go up to the highest one--some cap out at the 2nd highest), and I have beaten every single track on every difficulty level that they offer. There are 100 in-game achievements (called Feats) and I got all those too. If you like rhythm games and Square's music, there's just simply zero reason not to pick this game up. Even if you don't get it on sale, it's absolutely worth it. I have over 200 hours in it this year. I wish they'd make similar games for other developers, like Nintendo. But for now, this is all we have, and even then, it's perfect. I did try out Melody of Memories or whatever the KH one is, but the gameplay just isn't good enough for me. They got the formula down for this one. Even with too many versions of Battle on the Big Bridge. I knew this would be my game of the year back in April and here we are. By the way the list of songs used in the medley I included at the top of this post was, in case you couldn't get them all: 1. NiER - Song of the Ancients/Devola 2. FFX - Zanarkand 3. FFXI - Vana'diel March 4. FFXIV - On Westerly Winds 5. FFXIII - March of the Dreadnoughts 6. Octopath Traveler - Main Theme 7. Final Fantasy - Main Theme -------------------- Easy list: 10. TReN 9. This Way Madness Lies 8. Forspoken 7. Super Mario Bros Wonder 6. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet 5. Final Fantasy XVI 4. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 3. Spider-Man 2 2. Goodbye Volcano High 1. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line morallyobjected fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Dec 29, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 03:03
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Your list is so good, Morally. I used the soundtrack. 
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Dec 4, 2023 04:18
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Your list is so good, Morally. I used the soundtrack.  always love seeing the games people are playing. by my calculations, Forspoken would make the top ten at this point so let's just Stop the Count.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:36
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I surprisingly already have my list near finalized, save a bit of waffling around the top three, but I've gotta work on my writeups and figure out my visual presentation.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:44
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I reread my pre-post list and realized that I had forgotten both Armored Core 6 and The Roottrees are Dead so I'm gonna have to go in for another try.
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Dec 4, 2023 05:12
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I have a fuckton of gifs and screenshots of my #1 game but minimal/none for the rest of my picks and I feel like I should go back and get like, a couple per game just to show that I do love them, I just love #1 A LOT.
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Dec 4, 2023 05:52
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I think i've got a handle on my list with room for something i play in december somewhere in the #10-7 slot, but i still have to write out all my entries. argh
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Dec 4, 2023 06:28
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New games I played this year: Synapse, Ghostrunner 2, Vampire: Justice, 7th Guest VR, Alan Wake 2, Sea of Stars, Spiderman 2, Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil 8 VR, Gran Turismo 7 VR, The Light Brigade, Armored Core 6, Final Fantasy 16, Humanity, Red Matter 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, Jedi: Survivor, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, Wo Long, Dead Space Remake, Hi-Fi Rush, System Shock Remake, Return to Monkey Island, Lunacid, Quake 2 Remastered, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Blasphemous 2, Octopath Traveler 2, Metroid Prime Remake. Old games I played for the first time: Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo: Infinite, Black Mesa, Gears 5, Ghostrunner, The Talos Principle, 13 Sentinels, Cloudpunk, The Room VR, Trek to Yomi, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, Moss: Book 1, Moss: Book 2, The Quarry, Evil West, Jett: The Far Shore, Hob, Quake Remaster, Astral Chain, Ori and the Will of the Whisps. Games I replayed: Demons's Souls, Dark Soul 1, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Nioh 2, Devil May Cry 3, Devil May Cry 4, Devil May Cry 5, Bayonnetta, The Last of Us 2, Disco: Elysium. 66 games in total. I think that's nearly six times more games than I play most years and probably a rather unhealthy amount of hours spent (Literally, a lot of it was due to being sick for long stretches of time!). I'm going to be a release year purist for my top ten. Halo 2, Halo: Reach, and Astral Chain would have warranted ranking otherwise. As my replay list indicates, I'm going to heavily favor action games. Anyway, here they are from best to worst: 1. Lies of P A lot of games defied my expectations of quality this year, and number is the best example of that. The absurd sounding premise that looked like another incompetent attempt to cash-in on the Souls popularity wound up blowing me away. I put it second only to Nioh in terms of Souls-ish combat systems, it had equipment and RPG progression systems that had me experimenting with builds far more than any other title in the sub-genre, it has several of my favorite boss fights of all time, the level design was solid, and the mood, art design, and music were all top notch. I went from thinking it looked like derivative trash, to being open to it possibly being decent, to being blown away by the final quality. I'll look forward to Round8's future releases nearly as much as I do From's. Some will take this as heresy, but I liked the combat system enough that it diminished my enjoyment of From's Souls games during the replay I did shortly after (They're still kings of world design and exploration though, and Sekiro is still the best game ever). 2. Ghostrunner 2 This is very nearly a tie for number 1 and I'm only putting it at number 2 because I think I'll be replaying it less than LoP. Everything that was great about the first title is back and way improved, as well as a new motorcycle which is amazing. The combat takes a lot of cues from Project Hel and is a total rush. It also has the best wingsuit in games and ties into the combat in a fantastic way. 3. Jedi: Survivor I liked Jedi: Outcast well enough despite its rough edges. Prince of Persia style platforming and Souls style combat is always fun even if the execution is a bit mediocre (which is was). The two together plus some attractively designed settings made for a decently enjoyable experience. I expected the sequel to be about on par... but it was hugely improved. The massive interconnected world was a ton of fun to explore, the platforming was tightened up, and the combat especially was vastly improved. They pull out all of the stops for some of the set-pieces in the back half of the game too. Technical launch issues aside, it's an all around great experience. 4. Octopath Traveler 2 This one wasn't really on my radar at all and isn't part of a genre that I'm super into. I've liked a few RPGs from Japan in the past, but always with caveats. Typically the caveat is "I loved the combat but didn't enjoy the story." Not enjoying the story is often a huge problem because narrative segments often rival gameplay in runtime. Thankfully, Octopath 2 not only has some of the best classic JRPG styled combat around, but it's paced very well with the narrative so the latter never wears out its welcome. In fact it's frequently a bit charming. The highs of the combat and dungeon crawling aren't quite as great as Persona 5, but they're very close and I don't have to sit through hours of story I'm not interested in to experience it, so that makes Octopath 2 my new favorite in the genre. 5. Hi-Fi Rush Most character action games have always had an element of rhythm based skill in their design, so maybe it shouldn't be too surprising that throwing a bit of guitar hero in the mix wound up to be a great twist on the format. I've always liked DMC's analogue stick based attacks more than memorizing combo-strings Bayonnetta style, but when those combo strings play notes on a guitar riff it turns out I like it a lot more. It also has the best cell-shading presentation I've ever seen. The whole things looks and sounds gorgeous. It might be a bit easier than most similar games, but that's fitting since the musical aspect makes it fun to just relax and jam out (By hitting people in the face). 6. Resident Evil 4 Remake Okay, if I was only listing things based on gameplay I've experienced as of writing (like a sane person), this spot would be held by Resident Evil 8 VR. However, I'm so confident that Friday's release of RE4R's VR mode will be superior that I'm giving it the spot. If Friday rolls around and it disappoints, I'll edit this post to give it to Village... but we know it's going to rule. RE8 was my favorite VR experience ever (Yes, even better than Alyx) and RE4R is giving the same treatment to the best RE campaign. Edit: I have finished my VR playthrough and if anything it exceeded my expectations. It's one of, if not the, best VR experiences I've had. I'm somewhat tempted to bump it up in my ranking, but I'll refrain. 7. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Unlike seemingly everyone else in the world, I didn't like BotW. I found it tedious, dull, and repetitive. I certainly didn't expect to like another twist on the formula that used the same map... but I loved it. There are numerous reasons, from having more unique and elaborate dungeon/set-pieces to a slightly more directed progression. But I think the main thing was how the new three-layered world made traversal both faster and more interesting. Plotting a fast route to a new part of the map by shooting yourself up to a sky island, building an absurd flying device to make your way to another island above the destination, then diving down never stopped being fun. It took away the dullness of exploring the world and made it thrilling. 8. Gran Turismo 7 VR I'm considering the VR mode for this game to be a new release since it transforms the title so much. This was my most played game of the year in terms of sheer hours and I don't even like racing sims... except when they're in VR and this polished, I guess I do? Even if all other VR games sucked (and they mostly do) the PSVR2 would have been worth it just for this title. 9. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty With a campaign longer than many full games and a revamped combat system that makes the entire game far more fun, this DLC elevated an already great game even further. The entire Phantom Liberty segment is among the best narrative-driven ImmSims on its own. And sticking with that genre is also... 10. System Shock Remake. After hardcore action games, my next favorite genre is immersive sims, and System Shock is arguably where it all started. Nightdive executed the remake with the same level of polish as they do their remasters. Keeping what was great about the original, presenting it in a way that is both attractive in the modern era while still recalling its original vibes, and not polishing it so much that it loses its identity. The game was a classic for a reason and it's now presented in a way that is far more palatable to the modern era. Runner ups include... almost every other game on my "played" list. There were only a couple games I played that I didn't enjoy at all, otherwise even the disappointments would have been GotY contenders in a less stacked year. And of course the big missing title is Baldur’s Gate 3 because I’m waiting for the huge patches to slow down. Maybe it will be my number 1 for 2024? Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 06:38
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Captain Invictus posted:2: HI FI RUSH I had no idea, that is so loving cool! Hi-Fi Rush rules, y'all, it's a testament to how great 2023 was for games that it was so "low" on my list.
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Dec 4, 2023 07:46
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Folks it's time for games
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Dec 4, 2023 08:00
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I’m sorry but if you don’t order your list 10-1 you are literally a cop Some great lists so far! Jerusalem you know I always look forward to yours and this did not loving disappoint, it made me want to go and write mine immediately even though I still have some things I want to finish. morally is a great example of an excellent, fun to read list from someone with frequently total opposite tastes to mine (although I do wanna play Goodbye Volcano High at some point). Can’t wait to see more 
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Dec 4, 2023 08:10
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