Hi there!
I don't creep the forums very much (I spend a lot of time on the GB Discord) but thought it would make the most sense to throw a top five list down here.
Completing ten new video games in one year is tough in and of itself, but having ten that I beat and actually enjoyed ... that's another beast. Every year, my friends and I discuss our Top Ten Games We Played For The First Time in 20XX. I imagine that's not uncommon, so that's what I'll do here!
My List, In Reverse Order
10. Dread Delusion
Dread Delusion is a love letter to Morrowind and texture-warping PS1 classics like King's Field. This game was a birthday gift to me, and the timing couldn't have been more perfect; I had just completed a Starwind playthrough - a full conversion mod to turn Morrowind into Star Wars - on the Steam Deck, and I was hankering for more. Dread Delusion provides cryptic, mildly accessible lore alongside haunting visuals and creepy vistas. The soundtrack and audio, in keeping with Bethesda of yore, have a satisfying bit crunchyness that really hammers the entire vibe home. Dread Delusion is in early access, but the developer is active and releasing updates all the time. I beat the content that was available, and I'm going to table it until it's all out there for me to enjoy.
9. Backpack Battles
If you watch NorthernLion on YT or Twitch, you know he has a type: random shops, spatial awareness puzzles, asynchronous multiplayer, pauses in the action to allow for long-winded banter. Bonus if you can throw in some card game mechanics (oh, shit, this game has that too). Backpack Battles has you buying a multitude of different stat-enhancing items from a shop, and then launches you into an auto-battler combat. You might be a witch building out a poison build and looking for DOT to seal your enemy's doom, or you subscribe to "more sword more better." The gameplay loop is satisfying but deep, with item descriptions that challenge even erudite streamers like NL. Another not-quite-finished game but the developers are releasing updates all the time and this one has a free demo on Steam.
8. Shadows of Doubt
I'm so torn with Shadows of Doubt, but overall it leaves me with a positive feeling and wanting more. It's a procedurally generated noir detective game with a voxel aesthetic. The interplay of detective elements, the city your character inhabits, and the varied crime-solving approaches left my head spinning - what publisher signed off on this?! This is a scope creep nightmare! And while it certainly does sigh under the weight of its own clunk at times, the game is beautiful when it works.
Detective Towski peels the post-it note from the bulletin board in the station. "Photography skills required. Embarrass my enemy." Shitty phone number scrawled on the side. Towski calls the number. "Zzzt - meet me at Yangstaze Pharma at 8:15 on the bench." Click. The detective checked his watch. 8:05. "Shit," he thought. "That's a hike. Better get a leg on."
Cue me ushering my character into a vent to take a picture of an NPC after I'd thrown a donut at their head. It pays the bills.
7. Alan Wake (2010)
You probably won't hear any original thoughts or comments about this one from me. I finally decided to pick it up since AW2 was coming out, I loved Control, and the lore-fiend in me just has to know the story and context before I jump into AW2. I had played the AWE expansion in Control, and that gave me some out-of-context flavor, but I wanted to know more.
I enjoyed my time in the game - but it does suffer from some poor combat mechanics, frustrating inventory resets, and areas that go on just a bit too long. That said, Alan Wake is exactly my kind of shit: Twin Peaks, X-Files, Stephen King weirdness.
Also, I was a huge fan of Barry. More Barry.
6. Suzerain
In Suzerain, you play a politician named Anton Rayne, thrust into power after a dissatisfied country erupts in civil war and ejects its long-time autocrat leader. As Anton you must manage the country, care for your family, and determine what kind of leader you wish to be. I love games that respect player choice, and this one does in extremely satisfying ways.
The gameplay is turn-based, with you steering the country's direction month by month, year by year, with scripted events popping off and requiring you answer with an iron fist or with an olive branch.
It's a short playthrough and would certainly merit replays with different leadership styles.
For Sordland!
5. Voidigo
Voidigo is a rapidly paced acid trip of an Isaac-like, Roguelite, twin-stick chaotic mess and it works perfectly. There are many unlockables, characters to pick up, and levels to explore, each featuring a nasty boss battle that roams room to room trying to tear you a new one.
If I remember correctly, Voidigo is the one where the developer was fielding ideas for weapons from their audience on TikTok: Axolotls shooting bubbles, swords holding swords. The developers really went for it and built a game that oozes style & chews up every pixel of your screen with vibrant splash.
It has an overwhelmingly positive score on Steam right now, and it's a game I tell myself constantly I need to get back to and finish. It's a great one to play on Steam Deck, and I'll be doing that this evening when I fly back from GOTY Live in LA!
4. Wingspan
My partner and I play board games together - it's how we decompress, get some quality time in, and really figure one another out. She introduced me to Wingspan in 2022 as a physical board game, and I quickly turned around and got her the expansions for Christmas that year.
My board game parlance is probably off here but, Wingspan is somewhat of a deck builder where you're laying your deck out on the board after paying for birds with food tokens. Each bird has a special ability or power, some occur every time you activate a row, and others are one-timers. You get food to play birds, you lay eggs on birds to pay for more birds, and you draw birds so that you have more to play!
The game translates to PC perfectly and is another regular rotating on my Steam Deck. My partner so far refuses to play Wingspan digitally by passing the deck, but here's holding out hope.
Wingspan the board game was designed by a talented group of women from DC, and I look forward to designer Elizabeth Hargrave's new project coming out soon, Undergrove. Mushrooms!
3. Pony Island
Inscryption was my 2021 Game of the Year. I couldn't stop thinking about it while playing it, and I couldn't stop thinking about it after I beat it. I needed more!
I had only heard good things about Pony Island for all the same reasons, and I finally dug in well after its 2016 release. All of what I've come to recognize as Daniel Mullins hallmarks are there - ethical quandaries, creepy digital occultism, fantastic pixel art breaching into a 3D space at unexpected turns.
Games like Pony Island and Inscryption really inspire me and make me feel good about games as an art form to support, not just consume. There are of course many games I could point someone to when trying to explain that "Video Games are Art, Actually" but there are some that could make the argument alone, and Pony Island is one of those.
2. Lethal Company
Streamer bait. That's what I called Lethal Company when I first saw it - one of those games that gets streamers to jump and scream and gets views on TikTok. But I'll be damned, Lethal Company recaptures some of that 2020 Among Us magic and it has every right to be a mega hit.
What makes Lethal Company good for the games industry is that it is shamelessly odd. PS1-era pixellated 3D renders in an overbaked bizarrely saturated space station environment add to the creepy hilarity of it all.
It's a rare game that can make you scream from your office chair and have you laughing in a split second afterward. Lethal Company is one of those.
1. Baldur's Gate 3
Larian is so good at one-upping themselves, from their phenomenally successful kickstarter campaigns for Diviinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 right over to launching into a license deal with Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons - the sky is the limit.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a triumph of player choice and narrative and it makes many other game entries in 2023 look like one-dimensional rides-on-rails.
I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons on the tabletop since roughly 2013, and I now have a rotating game every Friday with friends - marriages, kids, and work trips be damned. Baldur's Gate 3 is the first game I can remember where I was able to make a character I had actually played in Dungeons & Dragons, and make choices that character would make. No boolean Red Bad vs Blue Good choices here (well ... there is always shove vs no shove), only nuanced decision points with lingering effects on the overall plot.
My human warlock eschewed the safe path: exploring tomes of the occult, accepting pacts with inscrutable ne'er-do-wells, and jumping head first, asking questions later. I got to play the game how I wanted to play, and Larian has set a new bar for what it means to truly play a role in a game.
But enough of that. Time to go play a blood thirsty sociopath. Blood for the blood god!
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