So now that we are at the end of the year and the final games I have interest in and would put into consideration for this year have come and gone, I think I can sit back and look back to review the year in video games that was 2023. This year I'm not going to run through my top and bottom's of the year and instead just sort of categorize games into where I think they fit in the hierarchy of the year's releases. I will say this year should have been stacked with games with some real powerhouse titles....only for them to fall really flat in my opinion. That combined with the titles that were expected to be lame made the list of releases this year a lot weaker that it otherwise looks on paper.
The failures:
Let's start with the stuff that I don't think anyone expected to be good and as predicted were everything they were cracked up to be.
Forspoken - A "modern" take on the Alice in Wonderland with a cringey attempt at Joss Whedon style writing set in a boring open world with an unbelievably unlikable protagonist. Forspoken is a shiny game that was rushed out the door without a good enough anything to keep you playing. Combat sucks, enemies variety sucks, traversal is ok but held back by an empty uninteresting world. Somewhere deep down Forspoken could have been a pretty good game, but during development they made every wrong decision possible to leave us with a waste of a game.
Redfall - In a year that the long hyped up new release from Bethesda was coming out, and several years of a lack of anything new from Microsoft, boy did these studios need to drop a winner to build back some consumer confidence. Redfall comes from Arkane who's last game got 10/10's from several outlets (not me I thought it was shit) so Redfall should have been the next Xbox hit. Instead Redfall was so bad Phil Spencer declared Sony the winner of the console war and that Xbox can't focus on making great games anymore. You know your game is shit when the CEO of the parent company has to throw the fucking towel in.
Diablo 4 - Blizzard continues to learn nothing from it's past mistakes and proves that arrogance will be their downfall until the very last WoW player unsubs kicking and screaming. Diablo 4 learns nothing from previous Diablo games, learns nothing from the current leaders in the ARPG space, and instead thinks they know better than everyone by making a generic hallow ARPG who's only saving grace is a decent story campaign. No endgame, far too many useless stats including some that don't work, a complete lack of build diversity for classes, no endgame, no unique items to chase. Diablo 4 is a shit game, however it's a shit game that in two years will be pretty okay.
Gollum - What the fuck happened here. I'm convinced this game was a fucking scam. Some developers tricked somebody into thinking that they could make a hit Lord of the Rings game, and ending up making....whatever the fuck this was supposed to be. A ugly broken stupid mess of a game that isn't worth the price of the discs it's printed on. The fact that this sold at all was mind boggling, but the fact that they wanted $50 for this bullshit is a crime.
King Kong - Actually Gollum wasn't that bad if you give it a chance.
The disappointments:
So 2023 wasn't really a year of horrible stuff, most of the games that weren't great also weren't bad. Things just didn't plan out the way one would have hoped for a lot of games that I personally was hopeful for this year.
Final Fantasy 16 - I just wanna get this one outta the way so I can never think of it again. This game should have been fantastic, instead it was a shallow on-rails adventure that made zero fucking sense. I don't know what went wrong with this game in terms of why it came out this way, but every design choice just feels incredibly undercooked. The lack of a party, the lack of good characters, the lack of a consistent story, the lack of RPG elements from the biggest RPG franchise in the world, everything about this game just falls short of the markers I think they wanted. It feels like an adventure that went far too wide for the scope of the action game they were trying to make. This is probably the most painful game to list here for me.
Like a Dragon Ishin - This game is great, really. But it's simply too heavy on the Japanese history for me and it makes the story hard to follow. Almost explains why it originally never left Japan since it's PS3 release.
Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen - God I want a good Souls-like again. Not an open world, not a crazy twist on the formula, just a good-ol decent Souls knock off. People love Lies of P, I don't understand why because I found the controls and the actions of the enemies just incompatible with the style. The focus on parrying as the best and really pretty required way to play always sits poorly in souls games. Lords of the Fallen suffers from poor level design, far too many junk enemies, and bland bosses.
Spider-Man 2 - Great game, bad sequel. They just don't do anything with this game to take advantage of Spider-Man's huge library of villains, nor do they incorporate any real reason to swap between the two Spider-man, nor any missions where they use both Spider-men to take out a bigger foe. It's just a smaller game despite the bigger map, less activities, less side missions, it's got less content than the first game in pretty much every way which is not how you should be doing a follow up game.
Starfield - I debated on whether I should even mention this game because it isn't disappointing, it's even better than I expected. But that doesn't make it good and I feel like i should at least bring it up since it is arguably the biggest release of the year in terms of hype and scope. To Bethesda's credit the game is much better made than previous games in their recent line-up in terms of bugs. Starfield is buggy, but it's not Bethesda buggy. It is however exceptionally bland and outdated in terms of design. In an era of gaming in which the loading screen is becoming extinct, Starfield bucks that trend by having more loading screens than a Playstation 1 game. The vastness of space travel is nothing more than a fast travel menu which yields into more loading screens. Each planetary visit is a fishbowl of random things all set miles away from your landing position, but with no land vehicles you are forced to hoof it leading to long periods of time in which you do nothing. But it's Bethesda so it ultimately has fans that'll love it and a mod community that'll do all sorts of shit to it.
The Best:
Okay enough depression, let's talk about the good shit. This list is small than I would have liked to see given the actual games that came out this year, but no use crying over spilt milk.
Hogwarts Legacy - Okay gameplay wise this game isn't anything to write home about. Combat is fairly plain and the quest design is super simple. However Hogwarts Legacy manages to capture the magical whimsy of what I think attracted millions of people into the wizarding world. There is a magic in this game that is shown throughout the incredible detail of the world, which makes the ease of the rest of game not important. I think this is probably the best Harry Potter game ever made and the geeky fuck isn't even in it.
Street Fighter 6 - I'm not a big fan of fighting games generally so it is quite surprising to find two fighting games on my "best" list. SF6 wins over with a simply incredible value of content, between the story mode, and the vast amount of versus modes available throughout the arcade and tournament modes. It's great fun and it's cool to see a fighting game mix so well with RPG elements.
Mortal Kombat 1 - Netherealm continues to make creative fighting game modes with the Invasion mode in MK1. A boardgame explorative game with secrets, puzzles, and fights, the mode is just so much fun to progress through that I forgot Megan Fox was in this game and she's terrible. The twist on the MK universe reboot I think was really well done and I hope they continue to expand on this new continuity though without relying on too much time traveling bullshit.
Baldur's Gate 3 - My GOTY for being the game that did everything it promised on the box without needing extra purchases, DLC or season pass content. Here is an expansive D&D campaign in video game form and the sheer number of decisions the game takes into consideration is unbelievable. The amount of freedom and play choice on display here makes BG3 easily one of the most replayable games I've ever touched. It's hands-down fantastic pretty much without exception.
Hi-Fi Rush - Gets an honorable mention because I know it was great, I just didn't play it.
The Honorable REmakes:
I wanted to give a special mention to great games that do not appear on the lists and those are the Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Remakes. These games are fantastic remodernizations of the original games. But I don't quite think they are good enough to appear on the top list, and they also lose points for kind of being the same game as each other because I'm petty.
That all being said, who knows if we're gonna be around next year. If this is the end of the site and the forum I just wanna say it's been fun arguing with all of you. Despite the differences in our options, it's been nice to have this board to come to and rant about video games or whatever. I loved doing impressions and reviews here to have that outlet for what I thought about games as they came across my desk. Perhaps we'll gather again somewhere else soon enough.
Take care everyone. And if I don't see ya, "good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight."
The failures:
Let's start with the stuff that I don't think anyone expected to be good and as predicted were everything they were cracked up to be.
Forspoken - A "modern" take on the Alice in Wonderland with a cringey attempt at Joss Whedon style writing set in a boring open world with an unbelievably unlikable protagonist. Forspoken is a shiny game that was rushed out the door without a good enough anything to keep you playing. Combat sucks, enemies variety sucks, traversal is ok but held back by an empty uninteresting world. Somewhere deep down Forspoken could have been a pretty good game, but during development they made every wrong decision possible to leave us with a waste of a game.
Redfall - In a year that the long hyped up new release from Bethesda was coming out, and several years of a lack of anything new from Microsoft, boy did these studios need to drop a winner to build back some consumer confidence. Redfall comes from Arkane who's last game got 10/10's from several outlets (not me I thought it was shit) so Redfall should have been the next Xbox hit. Instead Redfall was so bad Phil Spencer declared Sony the winner of the console war and that Xbox can't focus on making great games anymore. You know your game is shit when the CEO of the parent company has to throw the fucking towel in.
Diablo 4 - Blizzard continues to learn nothing from it's past mistakes and proves that arrogance will be their downfall until the very last WoW player unsubs kicking and screaming. Diablo 4 learns nothing from previous Diablo games, learns nothing from the current leaders in the ARPG space, and instead thinks they know better than everyone by making a generic hallow ARPG who's only saving grace is a decent story campaign. No endgame, far too many useless stats including some that don't work, a complete lack of build diversity for classes, no endgame, no unique items to chase. Diablo 4 is a shit game, however it's a shit game that in two years will be pretty okay.
Gollum - What the fuck happened here. I'm convinced this game was a fucking scam. Some developers tricked somebody into thinking that they could make a hit Lord of the Rings game, and ending up making....whatever the fuck this was supposed to be. A ugly broken stupid mess of a game that isn't worth the price of the discs it's printed on. The fact that this sold at all was mind boggling, but the fact that they wanted $50 for this bullshit is a crime.
King Kong - Actually Gollum wasn't that bad if you give it a chance.
The disappointments:
So 2023 wasn't really a year of horrible stuff, most of the games that weren't great also weren't bad. Things just didn't plan out the way one would have hoped for a lot of games that I personally was hopeful for this year.
Final Fantasy 16 - I just wanna get this one outta the way so I can never think of it again. This game should have been fantastic, instead it was a shallow on-rails adventure that made zero fucking sense. I don't know what went wrong with this game in terms of why it came out this way, but every design choice just feels incredibly undercooked. The lack of a party, the lack of good characters, the lack of a consistent story, the lack of RPG elements from the biggest RPG franchise in the world, everything about this game just falls short of the markers I think they wanted. It feels like an adventure that went far too wide for the scope of the action game they were trying to make. This is probably the most painful game to list here for me.
Like a Dragon Ishin - This game is great, really. But it's simply too heavy on the Japanese history for me and it makes the story hard to follow. Almost explains why it originally never left Japan since it's PS3 release.
Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen - God I want a good Souls-like again. Not an open world, not a crazy twist on the formula, just a good-ol decent Souls knock off. People love Lies of P, I don't understand why because I found the controls and the actions of the enemies just incompatible with the style. The focus on parrying as the best and really pretty required way to play always sits poorly in souls games. Lords of the Fallen suffers from poor level design, far too many junk enemies, and bland bosses.
Spider-Man 2 - Great game, bad sequel. They just don't do anything with this game to take advantage of Spider-Man's huge library of villains, nor do they incorporate any real reason to swap between the two Spider-man, nor any missions where they use both Spider-men to take out a bigger foe. It's just a smaller game despite the bigger map, less activities, less side missions, it's got less content than the first game in pretty much every way which is not how you should be doing a follow up game.
Starfield - I debated on whether I should even mention this game because it isn't disappointing, it's even better than I expected. But that doesn't make it good and I feel like i should at least bring it up since it is arguably the biggest release of the year in terms of hype and scope. To Bethesda's credit the game is much better made than previous games in their recent line-up in terms of bugs. Starfield is buggy, but it's not Bethesda buggy. It is however exceptionally bland and outdated in terms of design. In an era of gaming in which the loading screen is becoming extinct, Starfield bucks that trend by having more loading screens than a Playstation 1 game. The vastness of space travel is nothing more than a fast travel menu which yields into more loading screens. Each planetary visit is a fishbowl of random things all set miles away from your landing position, but with no land vehicles you are forced to hoof it leading to long periods of time in which you do nothing. But it's Bethesda so it ultimately has fans that'll love it and a mod community that'll do all sorts of shit to it.
The Best:
Okay enough depression, let's talk about the good shit. This list is small than I would have liked to see given the actual games that came out this year, but no use crying over spilt milk.
Hogwarts Legacy - Okay gameplay wise this game isn't anything to write home about. Combat is fairly plain and the quest design is super simple. However Hogwarts Legacy manages to capture the magical whimsy of what I think attracted millions of people into the wizarding world. There is a magic in this game that is shown throughout the incredible detail of the world, which makes the ease of the rest of game not important. I think this is probably the best Harry Potter game ever made and the geeky fuck isn't even in it.
Street Fighter 6 - I'm not a big fan of fighting games generally so it is quite surprising to find two fighting games on my "best" list. SF6 wins over with a simply incredible value of content, between the story mode, and the vast amount of versus modes available throughout the arcade and tournament modes. It's great fun and it's cool to see a fighting game mix so well with RPG elements.
Mortal Kombat 1 - Netherealm continues to make creative fighting game modes with the Invasion mode in MK1. A boardgame explorative game with secrets, puzzles, and fights, the mode is just so much fun to progress through that I forgot Megan Fox was in this game and she's terrible. The twist on the MK universe reboot I think was really well done and I hope they continue to expand on this new continuity though without relying on too much time traveling bullshit.
Baldur's Gate 3 - My GOTY for being the game that did everything it promised on the box without needing extra purchases, DLC or season pass content. Here is an expansive D&D campaign in video game form and the sheer number of decisions the game takes into consideration is unbelievable. The amount of freedom and play choice on display here makes BG3 easily one of the most replayable games I've ever touched. It's hands-down fantastic pretty much without exception.
Hi-Fi Rush - Gets an honorable mention because I know it was great, I just didn't play it.
The Honorable REmakes:
I wanted to give a special mention to great games that do not appear on the lists and those are the Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Remakes. These games are fantastic remodernizations of the original games. But I don't quite think they are good enough to appear on the top list, and they also lose points for kind of being the same game as each other because I'm petty.
That all being said, who knows if we're gonna be around next year. If this is the end of the site and the forum I just wanna say it's been fun arguing with all of you. Despite the differences in our options, it's been nice to have this board to come to and rant about video games or whatever. I loved doing impressions and reviews here to have that outlet for what I thought about games as they came across my desk. Perhaps we'll gather again somewhere else soon enough.
Take care everyone. And if I don't see ya, "good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight."
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