Non-2023 released 2023 Games Ranked
Did not finish all of these, but all listed I played enough for them to leave a sincere impression.
A companion to my other list.
A companion to my other list.
35 Games
Cromulent enough VR gaming, I guess. It says something that this is the system-selling killer app, but it is just nice to see Valve stretch these muscles again.
I played two chapters this year, and that's about as much as my annual tolerance of this design can take. An excellent look into what AAA games can be like with any desire to include meditative, interstitial moments of contemplation. Uses its abhorrent scale to better effect than almost any other games I've played, uses its missions to lesser effect than almost any I've played.
STILL THE BEST 1973
Only gets better with time, both for being able to even further stew on its fantastic themes and character writing and being granted the mercy of mostly forgetting how fucking miserable the dungeons and inventory management really are.
A tier below top-shelf RGG due to a frustratingly conflicted second half, but I am very interested in what they do with the next action RGG game. Really appreciated this game's philosophy with side content compared to just dropping an Amon fight in my lap.
The upside of being intensely depressed is that I got to replay a game I played for 500 hours less than a decade ago basically for the first time. Brain fog has its perks!
Extremely, extremely impressive for its era and I pine for the days of AAA design being this willing to constantly explore new things. Everything between the two Sniper Wolf fights was not very fun at all and that's like half the fucking game. Probably much more fun on a replay when the controls and levels are more comfortably understood, but the experience of going up the comms tower without knowing that you can move while shooting makes me never want to touch this again. 2's status as a self-aware quasi-remake makes me feel like even if I wanted to replay this, I could get 90% of what I wanted from that game while also playing something that controls like sex.
TSLCRM is an extension of this game itself - janky, desperately in need of both an editor and more development to flesh out parts of what's there, but an utterly absorbing understanding of little moments and idiosyncrasies of tabletop and computer RPG design. A triumph of narrative and catharsis even in its compromised state. Absolutely essential, and it made me remember why I love Star Wars.
It's mid....
Installed a hardtype mod that made it my favorite action game since Bayonetta. Check out my friend Rex's writeup, because he explains its appeal and strong design better than I ever could.
It's a fun meat and potatoes CRPG. The DLC practices really make the entire game feel rotten and empty, and there's few standout moments for my sensibilities, but it's a pretty cool time and I dig just enough of the character writing to think it's worthwhile.
Please send help my beautiful girlfriend has like a thousand hours in this game and sends me into shotgun loop hell
Turns out that you can make an entire video game about reloading guns and keep me enthralled for hours. I should probably schedule a few screenings once I get insurance. I would love if he licensed these mechanics to a team that put this in, like, a real video game.
I was always vaguely afraid of checking out this pillar of action gaming and I shouldn't have been. Stellar. Makes me want to make games.
One of the games ever made. I can only write a sentence or an essay about this game, with absolutely nothing in between. Just read the damn review.
mhw so good when you don't got a bitch in your ear (sadly the bitch in your ear is in the game itself and you can't escape her bullshit AAAisms)
So fucking scary, dude. Even something so barebones and stripped-down from its inspirations is lent massive, massive amounts of immersion and excitement from the intrinsic fun and terror of inventory management and stalking in VR. I hope the sequel eventually implements something as satisfyingly systems-driven as STALKER's factions.
A fascinating look into how 9/11 cooked people's brains for an entire fucking decade. I truly don't see the vision on any other level.
Was probably funny in 2010.
I literally don't understand this game's appeal and the decision to make the sandbox require a gazillion unlocks. I've played some "advanced" VR titles since like Hellsweeper and somehow somersaulting and wallrunning makes me feel less lightheaded than this game's platforming and sliding walls.
I like it! Jake Solomon probably spent a hundred million dollars so that he could make a self-insert OC go on a date with Magik!
An excellent time capsule into the philosophies of early-mid nineties tabletop RPG campaigns. I truly appreciated the idiosyncrasies that result, but I fucking hate low-level AD&D wizard gameplay and stupidly chose that, lol.
Constant crashes can't hide that this was the best CRPG writing of an almost-decade. This closed a door that Disco Elysium opened.
sobbing and crying as i struggle to strike martial arts forms and remember what it felt like to learn how to do a 236p for the first time
This is probably how neurotypical people feel when they play Dante's levels in DMC4.
Aged shockingly well in all fronts. Very worth checking out.
GOES HARD AS FUCK
I really should've kept this in my childhood memories.
Talking about this game's systems w/r/t rivalries, Hawke's personality, and its dogged efforts to make sure you are not a legend despite Hawke's upward ascent makes me sound like how a glory kill defender sounded when the only game on the market that did it was Duke Nukem Forever.
Chris Avellone's MGS4.
Very funny how the datalogs turn this plot from incomprehensible proper noun soup to ploddingly, tediously repetitious. Just a badly-delivered narrative no matter what, and IMO the combat needed to be faster and rely less on mob encounters. FF7R makes me understand the vision, but I think making it a full-on action title lets them be so much freer with its design.
Has the same combat designer as God Of War (2018) and it kind of shows. Each person in this is like 70% of the way to carrying an entire video game themselves, and that is the strongest thing felt throughout. It's easy to see the money and effort, and even easier to see that this is the worst possible form for any of it.
