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chlomo

Going to be working my way through a few new reviews over the next week or so :)

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Best Games Played 2023

It's that time of year again for the most prestigious award show on the face of the earth, and no, not the game awards show, that's for chumps. I'm talking about The Golden Doof awards 2023, where we answer the question on everyone's lips... what did Chloe play this year.

Well, since you probably skipped what I wrote here and looked down the list first, I played those things.

I have a lot to play in the upcoming year to sink my teeth into, and making these lists always makes me more determined to beat more games.

List items

  • I mean, in terms of the game I played the most this year it's probably TTT2, this was my year of Tekken, I mained Hwoarang, then shifted to Jaycee, Anna, then finally my girl Asuka. I've played like 600 games this year (of Tekken that would be wild if I'd played full 600 games) and it's just so intoxicating to come back and school/get schooled in Tekken Tag 2.

    I just put it on whenever I'm bored or waiting for something/someone and I'm there, glued to the spot for an hour or more, buying new customizable items for the characters I love or trying my luck at ghost battles, but still to chicken to play online.

    I can't pretend I'm not disappointed that Tekken 8 has come out instead of another Tag game, because 2 player co-op ladder is the main reason I still think Mortal Kombat 9 is the best. And maybe the real Tekken was getting slammed, railed, pounded and thoroughly fucked by final boss Jun Kazama, or maybe the friends I made along the way. Asuka <3

  • I often look back fondly at the time I nuked Japan like 15 times because they, my stalwart ally, decided to turn against me. ME, with NUCLEAR FISSION and them with 18th century muskets and even after I obliterated one of their towns, THEY REFUSED TO SURRENDER.

    Civ 5 was honestly the most surprising development in terms of games I like this year, though playing it with a dear friend must have alleviated it's daunting appearance. I thought it was boring and stuffy and for turbo nerds who like to roleplay world leaders, but it turns out that it's just a silly game where you can call your city "Fartopolis" and then fail to bully smaller countries because your line of site sucks and there's a mountain in the way.

    Truly one of the games of all time, but still after playing Civ 6, I still think 5 is just way more fun. Over 100 hours of it this year and my fingers still itching for some more world domination, or just a nice quiet game of science victory that was interrupted because Genghis Khan couldn't keep his warhammer in his pants.

  • This game got me into classical music and cars with anime girls on them. It reminds me of home with my existence in South England lovingly recreated by the game and I just like driving about. It's fun, I did every available event and was almost sad it was over, I don't have a lot to say about this game but I did really, really enjoy it.

    This one time I was doing a mission and turned on "Timeless FM" because I thought it would be silly and this song; 'Jupiter' by Gustav Holst came on the radio, some jaunty, fluttery piece of music. Luckily, the mission was so long as I raced along the rainy English coastline that the song got the chance to keep on morphing and changing as the road flew by, and at this mid point, it changed entirely into this slow, emotional movie-like piece that happens half way into the song, just as the sun crested along the tip of the lighthouse I was speeding towards and I realised that even the most unassuming video games could be beautiful. It's visuals were planned, but it's auditory beauty was a total accident that I'm very grateful I got to experience.

    Holst is on my playlist now.

  • Ah Kiryu is back baby! I was so pleased to finally after what felt like forever, have a game where it's just me and him. The main story was fantastic, it felt lacking in a lot of other ways but it felt like (ironically in hindsight now) a pretty good way to end his saga even if I really didn't want it to end, at least the worst didn't happen.

    I wish more characters returned and there wasn't so many things that felt like they were being written out of the series, like Majima. Though I guess it makes an unoriginal story if Kiryu kept on relying on the same people to bail him out, like the Tojo Clan had to for him.

    The substories were alright, the minigames were pretty impressive even if they weren't the most fun to actually play. I feel like it was an improvement over 5 which felt really bloated.

    The new characters went from these oafish brutes to completely endearing and it's a shame that a lot of them will be self contained in this game, the final battle sticks with me fondly but it's still a very good game, but in the scale of the other games in the series, it's not that high up there.

  • I bet you were wondering if you'd see a game from this year on the list. Lethal Company has quickly become *the* game to play with friends as it's combination of horror and side splitting, unscripted, unplanned comedic gold is just perfect. It's both one of the scariest games I've ever played and one of the funniest.

    All it is, is procedurally generated environments, some spooky enemies and the goal of finding things to sell, but there's so much slapstic comedy and a miasma of ways to die that every forray into the abandoned factories is an *adventure*, and their execution of the in-game voice chat is *chef's kiss* mwah, perfect.

    You're screaming at your friends to run away cos a giant monster is directly behind them, but they can't hear you, because your microphone got cut off earlier when you stepped on a landmine you didn't hear because you were blasting tunes on the beat box. They get picked up, eaten and you watch helplessly as the ship flies off without you. Perfection.

  • It's just Tetris. No really, It's just Tetris, but I've never really gotten into Tetris until it was a fever dream of sights and sounds and to date I think I've found from software bosses easier than the last level of Tetris Effect...

    But it just WORKS, it's so satisfying to play and get right and it's one of those games where you don't realise how badly you've screwed up until it's too late. You're at the mercy of fate, constantly trying to make the best of a bad situation, it's so desperate, so mesmerizing, that it's a rush when you win, but it's sad when it's over.

  • It's Max Payne and Tony Hawk, with a killer analog synth soundtrack and cell shaded graphics, it's like the pinnacle of niche games and god damn do I suck at it, but it's something that I can't look at in the PS4 game list and NOT want to play.

    "When it's good, it's really good", is a phrase you hear a lot, but in this games case it's "When I'm good, it's really good" where the better you get at the game the more fantastic a lot of the things seem, perfect dodging enemy snipers and shooting dudes with a grenade launcher to the ankles as they take a swing at you, the do a roll and dodge 5 missiles coming at you, then rail grind and shoot them in the head. It's just so *ugh* perfect when you're in the zone.

  • Welcome comrade, to this super weird and oddly specific brown-tinged game, that is Hrot. Where you can drink yourself back to health and use your attack dog to defeat hordes of rats. I tripped a car down the stairs and fought an attack helicopter which was just a giant face.

    It's a soviet-era style boomer shooter with a some really silly gags and Serious Sam style pranks where a horse in a gas mask will burst out of a wall and attack you, but has the Duke Nukem style intractable's where you can ride a motorbike to run people over. So you know it was a game made for me.

    It's really weird game but I enjoyed it a great deal, the combat is pretty hard for a old school shooter, but the weapon selection was pretty great, I really reveled in coming back to this day after day to beat another level here and there. It's very obvious that the final boss was meant to be Rootin' Tootin' Putin' but because of his dwindling popularity, he has a facsimile instead. Really though, Hrot was just a lot of fun.

  • I have to be honest, after the first Phoenix Wright game, the others in the series introduced a lot of mechanics I wasn't fond of with a lot of twists that I sort of saw coming, but this (at least the first game, I've not played the second one yet) has been a breath of fresh air with enough twists to keep me guessing where things are going, with some great endearing characters and writing that feels lightyears better and more interesting than some of the cases presented in the later Phoenix Wright games.

    I loved the 'Course Correction' sections where you take what Britain's greatest detective, Herlock Sholmes deduces and basically make it make sense, there's an added sense of drama and panache to a lot of it and it really is entertaining to watch.

  • Skinwalker Hunt is one of those spooky games where you feel the real 'You vs. The Monster' things, this incredible isolation and foreboding sensation you get from a large map with a killer on the loose.

    The game has some giant maps and totally enchanting atmosphere's, really fun to try and use traps and find things to gear yourself up to defeat the Skinwalker, and just spending time in these brutal encounters to slowly chip away at it's huge health bar is just richly rewarding for me. I love it.
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