Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a BAFTA nominated writer and the creative director of Strange Scaffold, who you may know this year thanks to El Paso, Elsewhere.
I try to expose myself to as many games as I can, past and present, all in the hopes of not just understanding the games themselves, but their developers. Every video game I play is a chance to connect with the human beings--and creative ideas--that spawned them.
However, the disturbing trend I'm finding over the past few years is the idea of... game-shaped objects. Projects that offer me no avenue of connection outside of roughly resembling the feature list of something I've liked before. They're perfectly competent, horribly adequate experiences, and the recent idea of a 7/10 being well-built but boring has taken me by surprise. I'm used to 7/10 being the score for a game that stretches a little further than it should; games with playability issues that nonetheless tackle deeply interesting mechanical or narrative concepts.
I mourn the games that benefit from rough edges, and seek them out, because cutting my hands on those edges gives me experiences I literally can't find anywhere else. Under the lofty heights of 10/10 lie a world of possibilities they ironically cannot touch, so without further ado, these are my favorite 7/10s that I had a chance to play this year.
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos (2023)
The latest project from ACE Team - one of my favorite developers - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos takes their experience with brawling and uses it to give life to a new, psychedelic open-world adventure. Battles operate on ritualistic rules determined through a strangely extensive board game that takes place before the punchy, customizable third-person combat. You can find small exploits organically, and go on entire self-driven adventures pulling treasure from places you aren't technically strong enough to tackle yet. Death transforms you into an effigy of yourself--and becoming this effigy is the only way to progress through several key areas, by weaving through terrifying branches that would otherwise wrench off your skin.
Clash isn't just the quiet sequel to the Zeno Clash series: it's a vibrant, violent indie take on Lone Wolf and Cub that encourages you to strain against its limitations.
Saints Row (2022)
A rough launch, inaccurate marketing, and attempting to satisfy a fanbase that fell in love with roughly 4 separate ideas of what Saints Row is on a fundamental level doomed the Saints Row reboot. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that games is worse for its reputational destruction.
Even though the developer, Volition, an entity with a 30 year history, is now closed as of 2023, this thing clearly had love put into it. Just look at how more than a year of patching and optimizing--even adding content to the game world for free--followed its launch.
Is Saints Row an open-world project filled with icons? Yes. Are there still some bugs? Sure. But the THOUGHTFUL structure of the game, where every activity does provide some meaningful benefit to your wider journey or a unique, characterful interaction down the line, continues to compel. It has consistently funny and heartfelt writing that unifies the identity of the series, given the number of disparate and flawed masterpieces that came before it. And, perhaps most importantly, it's the rare open-world game that doesn't seem like it only starts getting fun after you've sunk 8 hours into a tech tree. From the first strains of the late capitalism Starship Trooper-inspired opening, it's a sincere, joyful nugget of an experience, and one of my favorite playgrounds in years.
Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance (2005)
With its much-vaunted "World Tour" mode, Street Fighter 6 is copying the homework of a game Capcom actually developed nearly 2 decades beforehand. Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance is a open-world brawling RPG where nearly every named thug is recruitable. These characters systemically react to the narrative state of the world, as well as the other companions you've recruited. There's a disguise mechanic that reveals a pair of juicy booty shorts will make fellow criminals temporarily overlook your presence, but make the cops furious. If you want such attention, and you're confident in the strength of your fists? That notice is yours for the taking.
Beat Down is messy. I'm finding the pickpocketing mechanic impossible to use. But, it feels fantastic to play, and it's interesting, and it suggests a future for the 3D brawler that never got followed.
If we're lucky, the challenge it sets forward by existing will indeed be answered sooner than later.
Robocop: Rogue City (2023)
I didn't want Robocop: Rogue City on this list originally. I think it deserves an 8 or a 9! But, I acknowledge that it's what a lot of people would think about for a 7/10 video game. It commits to weirdly large ideas, including an open, explorable hub. It doesn't care so much about challenge as about making every step feel like Robocop--and it turns out, being Robocop isn't actually all that hard. It's a game with distinct edges... and if those edges were gone, the game would actually fall apart in the process. So, the developer, Teyon, wisely makes something deeply impressive with the box they've been given.
Committing to a fantasy for better and worse, and delivering an amibitious project on a budget, is something Teyon has been doing since Terminator: Resistance. It's not a surprise that I'm excited to see whatever they choose to turn their attention to next.
HONORABLE MENTION
Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012 (1998)
The team behind Twisted Metal 1 and Twisted Metal 2, finding themselves no longer able to work on their own franchise, made a new kind of vehicular combat game that built on all their prior experience and technology. Their new direction?
Ska.
Instead of a dark fantasy about a cursed demolition derby with an unexpected prize, Rogue Trip features a satirical post-apocalyptic setting. You can play as a decomposing Elvis impersonator, among other grotesque caricatures. New mechanics were rooted in everything from Crazy Taxi to capture-the-flag modes taking PC games of the time by storm. And, the entire soundtrack is composed of licensed ska bangers that still fill Spotify playlists today.
This is an honorable mention not because it's weird and doesn't quite work, but because everything about it works--the world simply wasn't strong enough to recognize it when it mattered. It had a full ska soundtrack. In the face of Rogue Trip, we are all made cowards and charlatans.
God forgive us.