Alan Wake II without much reservation. My only knock on the game would be that it isn't any fun to play on Normal difficulty, but then I found Story mode to be challenging enough on its own (I still died to a boss or two, and was still running out of flashlight charges sometimes) so that's more of an ego thing. More accurately I'd say I just don't think the combat, particularly the bosses, is designed very well other than capturing the "feel" if Resident Evil 2. It just whiffed hard on the balance.

Otherwise, I spent most of my time, according to the Playstation Wrap, in CD Projekt Red land, something I'd have never expected prior to the start of the year. The PS5 upgrade to The Witcher 3 is incredible from a graphical standpoint, instantly making that game one of the premier ray tracing benchmarks for the system. Sadly, the game is a little more broken than it was at the end of its PS4 run, particularly the Blood & Wine DLC, but the base game was something I marveled at for another hundred-plus hours, for better or worse.

Likewise, whatever you've read about Cyberpunk 2077, I agree. And I figured I might never touch that game again after getting in on the ground floor with the PS4 version. But it's a rollicking good time; worse than anything, after I beat the game, it took all of a week before I started a new save just to grind out the mindless NCPD fodder and spend more time in that city (the world building sucks but the world is incredible, if that makes sense).

I'll skirt through the rest of my actual 2023 nominations, because again I think whatever you've heard about these games, I mostly agree:

Resident Evil 4: It's one of the best games of all time, with just enough FF7R type tricks up its sleeve to feel fresh. I haven't finished it, and am not sure when I will, but it's a blast whenever I fire it up.

Spider-Man 2: Game feels amazing to play, as usual. The only games I play on the most ultra hard difficulty. Story was a let down in a lot of ways, but I wasn't thinking about that at all until it was all over. Turns out, it's apparently just that Web of Shadows game from the PS3 era?

MLB The Show 23: If my username is notable to you, you know I can't help but mention this game every year. Perfect for podcasts, perfect difficulty modulation, full of flaws but nowhere near as bad as its sport sim peers. Just a reliable 500-ish hour time sink through the spring and summer year after year.

Street Fighter 6: I recently reinstalled this game and Mortal Kombat 1 has fully destroyed my memory of how this game plays, but World Tour was awesome and the Battle Hub was hilariously fun until my casual buds dropped off. It's clearly a perfect fighter, or at least could one day be SFIV: AE's equal.

Jedi Survivor: I thought the boss battles in this game, like Alan Wake's, were terrible, and like Vinny I can't say I wasn't a little blasé about the plot. But I thought the level design was constantly interesting and the combat outside the boss fights was just as fun as the last time around. Just good fun video gamin'.

Mortal Kombat 1: I'm better at this than Street Fighter, and the actual story mode means this is more my type of game generally. I dutifully reinstall with each new Invasion arc and grind mindlessly through it. The monetization is the stuff of nightmares, sadly, so despite being the 1A of my 2023 Fighter Renaissance in my heart it can't possibly get that respect on a GotY list.

FFXVI: This is mostly just here because I barely finished ten games actually from this year. I enjoyed the combat, I thought the music was exceptional, the voice acting was generally pretty top notch...but I really don't get what all the fuss over Active Time Lore was (like, I really don't, it seemed quite flawed) and the meat and potatoes of this game, it's story and the structure of it, is hilariously bad. It also never ends. Yet I played almost 60 hours of it. So fuck me.

Baldur's Gate 3: I love how much others love this game. Like Alan Wake II, for me the combat on the easiest difficulty is intrusively difficult, except that it also takes so damn long to finish a fight that it's all I can think about with this game. I'm also not creative at all - talking to my sister over Christmas, she mentioned throwing grease on the ground then lighting it on fire, and I was baffled - so I mostly just whack my way through like it's XCOM. I've dropped this game more times than I can count, but I also put in 35 hours into just the first area of Act I over two different saves. So I know that it can be good, I just don't think I can let it be good.

Armored Core VI: Because I needed ten games from this year, and because I know if I'd kept playing it I'd have kept having fun with it. I just didn't keep playing it, I quit at the boss with the cauldron for a head.

Lastly, special shoutout to Tears of the Kingdom, which I played for over 70 hours and really remember nothing about other than really loving the approach to the sky kingdom boss fight and the guy with the sign. Like Baldur's Gate 3, this is a game about creativity, and I never played with Legos or action figures as a kid. That I played as much of this game as I did is a testament to the heft of my desire to love a Zelda game as much as I loved Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time back in the day, but this is not a game for me at all. I spent enough time with it that it has to get an 11th place honorable mention though.