Hello and welcome to video games. 2023 was a bad year for me but a good year for video games. Here is a list of the ones I liked this year.
1. Alan Wake II
Having played it this year, I think the original Alan Wake is mostly quaint. Coming to it 13 years later, you can see all the ways it was salvaged from an open world game they couldn’t make work. What’s left is a string of repetitive combat arenas bookended by some of that good Remedy schlock. I don’t think it’s a particularly great game, but it’s the kind of thing that was on the acceptable side in 2010. American Nightmare feels like a better approximation of the combat loop from the original, but it’s also a $15 XBLA game and three hours long. It’s also of questionable canon? Maybe?
Alan Wake II dares ask: “What if Remedy made a video game for me, ArbitraryWaterman” instead of a thematically enjoyable but mechanically intolerable third person shooter. Which is to say it’s sort of a survival horror game. While it certainly plays more closely to the kind of stuff I like, the real draw of Alan Wake II is the realization of Remedy’s house style. Their entire history has been one filled with goofy FMV nonsense, musical interludes, and a general stylistic inclination towards making weird television. This feels like the best melding of that with an actual competent video game, complete with an extended rock opera sequence, a bunch of weird love letters to Remedy’s Finnish homeland, and an inexplicable spiral of metatextual nonsense best seen for oneself.
If I have any serious complaints, they’re mostly superficial. Saga’s actress’ inability to hold onto her American accent for more than one sentence at a time is distracting. Sometimes navigation can be a challenge, and sometimes the enemies feel a bit too agile for the kind of tools you have at your disposal. It also ends in such a way that doesn’t resolve a whole lot, but honestly at this point I’m fully on board with whatever they do next. Control 2? Alan Wake 3? Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I’ll check it out.
2. Age of Wonders IV
You know me. You know how I like them hexes. I like them 4Xs with hexes. Age of Wonders IV is one of said games that has both 4X and hex (combat) and does both very well. The biggest improvement in this one is the focus on customization and modularity, letting you goof around with different tomes, spells, units, cultures, and ancestry in a way that allows you to RP or mechanics together whatever fantasy faction you feel so inclined to make. The tactical combat, on the other hand, is as good as ever.
One of Triumph’s greatest strengths as a developer is their skill and agility at making their games better over the lifetime of support. Age of Wonders 3 and Planetfall greatly benefitted from patches and expansions and the same is true here. Even in just six or so months, many of the smaller, more annoying issues I had with the game at launch have been addressed (victory conditions, AI quirks, some performance issues) and by the time they’re done Age of Wonders IV will already be better than it is now.
3. Resident Evil 4:
I’ve said this before many a time: they did not need to remake Resident Evil 4. Unlike 2 and 3, with their “tank controls” and “old graphic,” the original version of RE4 is still mostly in line with modern video game sensibilities despite being old enough to vote. However, what I did not count on was that current-era Capcom is an exceptional video game developer, especially when it comes to making video games specifically for me. While I still think the inevitable RE5 remake is a terrible idea and they should instead try and fix Code Veronica, those cowards, there’s no doubt in my mind that the RE4 remake nails it.
A lot of this is built on the success of the modern games, Village especially, but you can tell the designers thought a lot about what people liked about RE4 and focused on that. Unlike 2, and especially 3 remake, it’s still the same beats as the original, but shuffled around and tweaked in ways that help pacing or play with the expectations of people like me who’ve played the original too many times on too many different consoles. It’s familiar, yet different! Finally, something I can support! What narrowly edges it onto this list over the Dead Space remake (which is also fantastic) is probably that creativity in execution.
I should also mention I was genuinely impressed by the Separate Ways DLC. While the original Separate Ways in RE4 is a bit of a boondoggle, the one they did for the remake actually manages to stand on its own. Once again, they should stop while they’re ahead and not actually do RE5.
4. Baldur’s Gate 3:
Honestly if not for a handful of things, Baldur’s Gate 3 would be #1 on this list, easily. It’s understandable why this hit as hard as it did for the video game mainstream. Am I still baffled and shocked that goddamn normal people are into a 60+ hour CRPG-ass CRPG? Yes. But it’s also proof of Larian’s ascendancy from “weird Belgian dev who made a handful of moderately received Eurojank RPGs” to “Industry Standard-Bearer.” This is an arc I’ve witnessed firsthand over the last 10ish years, and BG3 feels like a well-deserved payoff. Sure, I wish I’d waited a few months for patches to come out and Act 3 to not be constantly on fire, but even with a compromised experience it was a good time.
It’s the combination of the expertise gained from both Divinity Original Sin games, plus a blank check from Wizards of the Coast which really make this possible. I mean it in a positive way when I say that you can see where the budget and dev time went, and where three years of early access paid off. D&D 5e is a ruleset I find increasingly staid as time has gone on, but the changes they make for the sake of making the video game better are all smart ones. It’s a monumental accomplishment, and also very much an exception in the increasingly precarious, unsustainable world of AAA video game dev. We should treasure it.
Unfortunately, I replayed both Pillars of Eternity games this year and I’m still going to be that asshole in the corner. BG3 has some charming characters, excellent performances, and cool environments. But ultimately, it doesn’t go as far into sicko territory when it comes to games like these. It’s too good, too normal, too approachable by mortal ken. I might roll my eyes a bit when “the youths” are still making memes about Astarion like four months later, but it’s undeniable that BG3 has worked for and resonated with a much larger group of people than I would’ve ever expected. Let me be salty about this.
5. Lies of P
If you had told me the goddamn Korean Pinocchio Bloodborne was going to be on my list I would’ve said “yeah sure, that makes sense.” This is where we’re at. Here’s the thing though: Lies of P is very, very, very good. I’ve played a lot of Souls, a lot of games that are sort of like Souls, and even a couple games that are only vaguely like Dark Souls but people continually compare to Dark Souls because our shared vocabulary is limited and cursed. I’d like to think I have a strong enough grasp of what does and does not work for the genre.
Lies of P is up there for me with Nioh and its sequel in terms of non-From soulsy games. Instead of subsystem hell, Lies of P chooses the path of focused precision; somewhere between Bloodborne’s focus on aggression and Sekiro’s emphasis on parrying and stance breaking. More importantly, it understands the importance of level and encounter design in a way a lot of soulslikes don’t. It’s hard and demanding in ways that can be a motherfucker at times, but once the systems “click” you can see the level of thought and craft that went into the way Lies of P moves and the way that works towards it as a coherent product.
Furthermore, it’s much better at stylistic and emotional trappings than you’d expect from, once again, a game where you are a public domain hot boy puppet doing bloodborne things to evil robots and eldritch monstrosities. The unblinking sincerity with which it treats its premise is actually a positive.
6. Remnant 2
Remnant 2 is a sequel that fundamentally understands what made the first game work and then expands upon it in so many smart ways. It’s still a game best experienced with friends, possibly with a guide to find hidden stuff, but even alone you can see where a higher budget and more dev time paid dividends. It’s difficult, but rarely overbearing (at least until some of the later boss encounters, which are decidedly *hard*) and offers a lot of good and interesting character build possibilities between classes, items, and weapons. Don't really have much to say about this one. It's Remnant, but moreso.
7. Turbo Overkill
As the “Retro Throwback Shooter” space becomes oversaturated with stuff that may or may not be any good, it’s important to single out and celebrate stuff that is doing more than just “what if Doom or maybe Quake???” Namely, Turbo Overkill, a game whose ultra-violent pixelated neon aesthetic and claims of “you have a chainsaw leg” suggest a level of embarrassing 90s ‘tude it thankfully avoids. I’ve said before, but if there’s one way to make me wish for death, it’s attempting to recapture the spirit of Duke Nukem 3D like that isn’t the saddest fucking thing imaginable.
Instead, it’s a fast-as-shit hyperkinetic take closer to something like Doom 2016, which is to say that most big fights take place in bespoke arenas rather than untethered levels. The weapon roster feels nice and powerful, with plenty of meaningful and interesting alt-fires, but the real star is just how mobile your acts of violence can be. In addition to the aforementioned chainsaw slide, you can dash, grapple, and wall run, which all allow you to zip around like a particularly angry cyborg cuisinart. It’s a very satisfying endeavor, made more satisfying by some solid, varied level design and fairly consistent pacing.
8. Street Fighter VI
This is once again an admission to the world that I, quite frankly, don’t have the temperament to play fighting games on a regular basis despite loving them. I get just a little too intense and a little too involved and I fucking cramped my leg multiple times because I wanna grab a guy and spinning piledriver him into the ground. I don’t get this way about any other competitive game, but throw me into the meat grinder online and I will destroy myself. It’s probably why, after getting myself to Gold rank with Zangief, I decided to take a break. That break will probably end at some point, after which I will once again prove myself slightly too sweaty a gamer for this specific genre.
Oh, and to be clear, Street Fighter VI is a much better game from the onset than V was on every level. I’m at the point where robust single player offerings in fighting games not made by Netherrealm mean very little to me, but the World Tour mode is at least more comprehensive and less embarrassing than SF V’s story. But it’s actually mostly down to one thing: the netcode is very good. I’ve played against people halfway across the world in like, the fucking Netherlands, with 200ms ping and had an entirely playable, mostly smooth experience. Being able to approximate something resembling a community is fun and enjoyable, and it even led to me seriously “learning to play the video game” instead of the usual half-assed grasp of systems and characters I usually embark on with this genre.
9. Fire Emblem Engage
For as much as I appreciated Fire Emblem Three Houses, replaying that game to see all four of its routes is an exercise in tedium. Half the game is the same regardless of which house you pick, and the school management aspects are even more tedious the second, third, and fourth time around (I only managed one and a half playthroughs. Me! Man who likes Fire Emblem!) It’s also just… really easy sometimes. Maybe one day I’ll give the DLC mini-campaign a shot, take a look at the new classes they added post-release, but I’ve become increasingly tired of Persona-lite structures as time has gone on.
Engage, by contrast, is a Fire Emblem game with the lightest, breeziest, and most E for Everyone anime nonsense storyline underpinning a far more involved tactical experience than 3H. It’s the first Fire Emblem game in more than a decade that feels built around perma-death instead of treating it like a legacy feature (i.e. you get a ton of units and most of them are pretty good) but more importantly the maps are distinct, bespoke, and crafted in a way that a lot of 3H’s open fields weren’t. Also you summon old Fire Emblem heroes as stands and that’s fun.
10. Jagged Alliance 3
God be praised, the mid-budget Eurojank game is still trucking along despite the Embracer Group’s recent troubles of “not getting two billion dollars in Saudi oil money after buying every mid-sized developer known to man and also the Lord of the Rings license” Jagged Alliance 3 is a triumph for one reason and one reason alone: Unlike the other four attempts at rebooting SirTech’s beloved “XCOM with mercs,” they made a new Jagged Alliance game in the 21st century and it was good, actually. They did it. Not since Crash 4… three years ago has a late-numbered sequel actually lived up to that ambition
Now to be clear, Jagged Alliance 3’s characters and general sense of humor are irritating at best and cringe-worthy at worst. It’s the kind of writing that would be a deal-breaker for a lesser tactics game, but thankfully JA3 is not a lesser tactics game. The focus on modern, conventional firearms and the removal of any specific to-hit chance gives more of a sim-y bent than most other XCOM-adjacent tactics stuff. That last bit is a bit controversial (you can turn it back on, if you’re boring) but I found that the tension of not having that number in front of me actually forced more interesting play. Having to get a “feel” for what is and is not a viable shot is fun! It’s not like XCOM wasn’t brazenly lying to you anyway.
Other Games of Note:
HROT, Dead Space remake, Armored Core 6, Against the Storm, Lords of the Fallen 2023, Aliens: Dark Descent, My Friendly Neighborhood, Super Mario Bros Wonder, Darkest Dungeon II, Lunacid, The Last Spell, Barotrauma, Lethal Company (early access), Tales and Tactics (early access), Wartales, Stranded: Alien Dawn, Battlebit Remastered (early access), and probably even more stuff I’ve spaced on.
Listen man, 2023 had a lot of good shit. I could easily write an entirely different top 10 list with the stuff I’ve listed here. Games listed in bold were on a previous draft of this list.
Best DLC Thing: Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs in Total War: Warhammer III
Total War is in a weird space these days, thanks in part to Creative Assembly’s commitment to trying to kill their own golden goose for most of this year. There’s been a lot of scuttlebutt around that company in the wake of Hyenas’ cancellation, the backlash surrounding some brazenly overpriced DLC, and the general wet thud that was Total War Pharoah. There is a level of entitlement and self-loathing in the TW fanbase I find particularly cringe-worthy most of the time, but for once they were actually in the right. This has culminated in an apology and mea culpa that is actually sort of shocking, and hopefully will be the start of more improvements to come.
Of course, now this is where I admit I’m still a goddamn sucker, because Total War Warhammer III is still fuckin great and the Chaos Dwarfs are a perfect example of what that studio (and especially the DLC team) are capable of when they’re not engaging in self-sabotage. They took a third-rate, decidedly obscure faction from the tabletop game and gave them the works, with a bunch of unique subsystems, a specialized economy, and a three-tiered roster that fits mechanics and lore. But most importantly, just an overwhelmingly stupid amount of firepower. Just shove a demon in a train and have that train drive through the enemy frontline as it fires a flak cannon. You know, good shit.
Best Game that isn’t a commercial product: Thief: The Black Parade
I make no exaggeration when I say that The Black Parade, a 10 mission mod for Thief Gold, is better than several games I paid full price for and put on the above top 10 list. As both a love letter to Thief and a celebration of the original game’s 25th anniversary, it offers some best-in-class level design from noted members of the mod community. These levels are great at both, and absolutely stand toe-to-toe with the best material from the original trilogy. See for as good as those games are, there’s definitely some filler, some cruft, and some just bad levels scattered among them. I wouldn’t say that about any of these, even if I definitely enjoyed some missions more than others.
If I have to issue a caveat, it’s that these are levels made for people with some decent level of experience with Thief 1 and 2. They’re big and intricate in a way that only stuff made by hardcore fans over like seven years can be. This is the kind of thing I’d recommend if you’re already a fan of those games, not necessarily if you’re coming into this fresh. But if you are a fan of Thief and haven’t seen these already, highly recommend.
Shame Games: Tears of the Kingdom and Hi-Fi Rush
No really I’ll get around to them I know I’ll like them both please don’t yell at me.
Most Disappointing: Wo Long
Wo Long felt like the unfortunate middle ground between a Nioh and a Sekiro, lacking the depth of the former and the precise focus of the latter. It grieves me to say this, because I was extremely on board with what they were going for, but I didn’t like it very much at all. Doesn’t help that the PC port was busted at launch, and still doesn’t run great.
Most 7/10 video game: Starfield
Starfield has become something of an inflection point amongst terminally online video game folk. Discourse around Bethesda Softworks’ increasingly tenuous and shaky philosophy of game development has been going strong for years, finally reaching something of a culmination here. The company whose games are known for scale and scope accidentally let you see the wires with this one. What could’ve been a massive galaxy is instead a series of hyper-segmented instances, a realization that perhaps a No Man’s Sky approach does not necessarily gel with “A Skyrim.” People are upset. They are writing negative steam reviews. The developers are responding in a way that is funny to look at. The cycle continues.
Free of that discourse, I’m instead here to tell you Starfield is extremely okay. Unmoored from my already low expectations, I mostly found myself enjoying Starfield and am also deeply glad I didn’t pay $60 for it. Nothing it does is exemplary; every subsystem feels like something that will eventually be made more in-depth and interesting with mods, but on the other hand it’s a dumb open world skyrim where I can do space piracy and also putt putt around with a jetpack. Would Game Pass again. Thanks Todd.
Now unfortunately, as is tradition, I have two lists. That second list will come at some point in the next week or two. Expect takes about Armored Core and probably some other bullshit. If you got this far, thanks for reading.
Log in to comment