2023 in gaming

Games yet to play:

• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Games yet to buy:

• Wild Hearts
• Like A Dragon: Ishin
• Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
• Resident Evil 4 Remake
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

• Hi-Fi Rush
• Terra Nil
• The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story
• Dredge
• Tchia
• Cassette Beasts
• Humanity
• Convergence: A League of Legends Story
• Planet of Lana

List items

• 

  1. Spin Rhythm XD

  Guitar Hero was my first rhythm game craze, I got so hooked on it that I wound up buying a real guitar and learning how to play, eventually even going to university to study music and working as a gigging musician and a music teacher. All this to say that I REALLY got into Guitar Hero. I've always looked out for more rhythm games to capture me the same way it did back in the day, but I haven't found one that does that. Until Spin Rhythm XD.

  Instead of guitar-centric rock and metal tracks, this game features a ton of EDM, wubs and warbles and all of that. Not to mention the insane amount of custom tracks available - it seems like the game is garnering a pretty small albeit very passionate community.

  Playing songs in this game feels very satisfying in a way that's very hard to describe, and even hard to convey in videos. This game might just become a mainstay in my rotation for the foreseeable future.

• 

  2. Hogwarts Legacy

  While sitting here and writing this review, I'm having a hard time articulating why I enjoyed playing through this game eventhough most of its components fell short for me.

  The combat is serviceable, if somewhat messy at times due to the amount of spells you unlock and the few buttons you have available to map them on to and opponents frequently ambush you from off-camera.

  The open world activities sprinkled in through the map, of which there are entirely too many, are mostly uninteresting. Overall, I think my main gripe against this game is that there is too much fluff. The main story is enjoyable enough, as are the relationship quests you take on to get to know your fellow students better. But there is so much meaningless filler that I decided pretty early on to ignore most of it, and the experience got a whole lot better after that.

  Although it seems like my opinions on this game are pretty sour, I did enjoy the parts that were good about it. It just felt like it had a little too much filler tacked on.

• 

  3. Tron: Identity

  While Tron: Identity is a pretty brief experience, it certainly has a lot going for it. The characters were pretty well written, the art is fantastic and the story was interesting enough, but I felt like just as I was getting really into it and getting invested in the plot it just kind of... ended.

  It does feature several branching paths and different possible outcomes, but I didn't feel compelled enough to play through the game again to see those.