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Bonus Video: Game of the Year 2023
🕑 Added 2023-12-14 16:08:51 +0000 UTCHello Patrons!
It’s that time of year again. Time to look at this year’s massive crop of new games, and pick out my 10 favourites. As always, I can’t play every game that comes out, so there may be a few things missing. And this is just my personal opinion.
Hope you dig it! Let’s jump in. As always, you can watch this as a video above, or read it as an article below.
Resident Evil 4 Remake
I can be very fussy with remakes. A slight change to a line of dialogue, or a texture, or a game mechanic can feel like a blasphemous attack on a favourite game.
So you can imagine that I went into the Resident Evil 4 Remake - a remake of one of my all-time favourite games - with some amount of trepidation.
But, I loved it! And I think it’s because Capcom changed RE4 so much that it felt like a completely different game. Not a rehash with a few meddling changes, but a sort of weird parallel universe version of the original. It was endlessly fun to see the stuff I’m familiar with, and also really fun to see the new stuff and unique twists.
And all of the changes Capcom made were carefully balanced so as not to ruin the spirit of the original game. Like - the big one is that Leon can now move while aiming. Which could have made firefights a doddle… but now enemies are twice as vicious and mobile, so it goes right back to being tense and challenging.
Oh, and there were a few bits that were removed entirely, which was a bit odd… only for them to resurface in the Separate Ways DLC. Maybe it’s cheeky to move those sections into a paid patch for the game, but it didn’t matter to me. I actually found that some of those sections - like the infamous laser beam hall - actually made more sense when playing as secret agent Ada Wong, than Leon.
Anyway - Resident Evil 4 is a rip-roaring pulpy action adventure game with incredible combat sequences and an unbelievably sharp sense of pace. I love the original. I love this remake. I’ll be playing both, for years to come.
Shadows of Doubt
This one is technically still in Early Access. But I’m going to bend the rules for one of the most engrossing games I played this year.
Shadows of Doubt is an absurd combination of things I like: a detective game, a procedurally-generated storytelling simulator, a super systemic immersive sim. It doesn’t always mesh those things together well - but when it does! Hoo boy, it’s a trip.
So - the game randomly generates a city block, filled with people who have homes, relationships, jobs, and daily routines. Then, at some point, one of them will do a murder. And it’s up to you to find the killer.
At the crime scene you’ll find all sorts of clues - footprints, fingerprints, CCTV recordings, bullet casings, and whatnot. And you collect it by putting it, manually, onto a caseboard. Complete with pins and red string.
And then you… work the case. You’ve got the killer’s fingerprints, sure, but you don’t know who they belong to. So you follow leads. Who did the suspect work with? Let’s go to their office, break into the employee database, and go door-to-door questioning every coworker.
It can sometimes devolve into pretty mind-numbing police procedural work. And I love it! Where many detective games - like L.A. Noire - practically lead you by the hand, Shadows of Doubt is completely hands off. That can be frustrating, sure, but when it works it’s the most satisfying thing you’ll play all year.
It’s still super wonky and needs lots of updates. But even in this early state it is a treat. Loved it.
Viewfinder
A long time ago, Valve was working on a sequel to Portal that focused on cameras. You could take photos of stuff and then spawn them into the world with a Polaroid. That game got scrapped in favour of a more traditional Portal follow-up. But this is perhaps the next best thing.
Viewfinder will, initially, wow you with its technical brilliance. In this game you can take a photo, and then place the picture into the world - essentially opening a 3D rift to an alternate dimension. It is a bonkers moment the first time you do it… and that feeling doesn’t really ever go away. It is just a marvel.
But with that aside, this is also just a really tight and fun puzzle game. The levels are just the right level of difficulty. It’s constantly introducing, exploring, and then discarding mechanics. And there were enough “aha” moments to carry the entire thing.
I will say… I found the story stuff just… annoying. There’s a big trend at the moment for talkative protagonists and NPCs. From Alloy in the Horizon games to Atreus in God of War, to the lady from Forspoken, video game characters can’t seem to shut up. And Viewfinder suffers from that too. Luckily… you can just turn the speech volume slider to zero and play the entire game without issue. A highly recommended setting!
Pseudoregalia
How about this for a pitch: a 3D Metroidvania, which looks like an N64 game, and has movement tech that would make a speedrunner blush. That’s Pseudoregalia.
Moving in this game is just a constant joy. Each room is a puzzle to solve: and the solution is a mad combination of jumps and wall runs and corner clips.
And the game doesn’t have anything as basic as a double jump. No - instead you’ll have to do things like chain a ground pound into a tall jump. Or kick away from walls. I especially love that the wall kick is limited to just, I think, three kicks before landing. It can’t be infinitely spammed - you have to use it carefully and with skill.
The game is not without its flaws. Combat is bad. It’s janky. It probably needs a map. But no game this year made me grip the controller in wide-eyed concentration like this weird retro throwback.
Spider-Man 2
I’ve become a bit weary with Sony’s blockbuster games: Horizon, Tsushima, God of War. They are all slick and polished and… if I’m being perfectly honest, a bit dull.
But Spider-Man 2 is not dull. It is constantly changing. Constantly coming up with new ideas. New set pieces. New characters. The story shifts and turns. The mechanics change to match the narrative. There’s a new set-piece at every moment.
Like, the game begins with a crazy cinematic fight against Sandman. You swing through sand-covered buildings, drop down to beat up sand-covered enemies, and then fight a giant boss. It is slick. It feels like the entire budget might have gone into making this initial fight.
And yet… the rest of the game is like that. Every story mission is an event. It always surprised me - and changed so much that I never got bored.
I also really dug the storyline. It did the whole “Peter Parker gets the symbiote and becomes a douchebag” arc much better than the Spider-Man 3 movie. And I think it did a great job of delivering impactful stories for Peter, and Miles… and Peter and Miles together!
It really is just a tour-de-force, and I have no idea how they’re going to top this with the inevitable third game.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Like literally everyone on Earth, I was bored of the New Super Mario Bros. series. Since 2006, “2D Mario” has basically been the exact same thing, over and over again. Show me a screenshot of one of the four games and I’d have trouble identifying which one it came from.
Not so with Wonder!
The game has a beautiful new art style - from the expressive characters to the painterly backgrounds to the gorgeous colours. It’s got talking flowers, who have some of the best comic timing all year! Mario is an elephant now! That happened!
And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that Mario level design formula. You know the one: introduce a new mechanic. Explore it in every weird way possible. And then throw it away and never mention it again. Until the special world, obviously.
It’s just not possible to get bored when the mechanics are this wild. A bird that shoots a flagpole out of its beak. A birthday cake platform that squishes while you’re stood on it. A giant hippo-ball that turns into a trampoline. Popcorn kernel enemies that pop when they get too hot.
And if that wasn’t imaginative enough: the wonder flowers change the level entirely! Gravity might change. Or time. Mario is now a Goomba. Daisy is now a blob. The entire world is chasing you. Nintendo said they had 2000 ideas for this game. I believe them.
I played this entire game with a big grin on my face. I loved it.
Chants of Sennaar
I really wanted to love the game Heaven’s Vault. The idea of translating an ancient alien language by using contextual clues just sounded amazing. But it got bogged down in a boring story and endless backtracking.
Chants of Sennaar is the game I was hoping for. This is a tight, sharply designed puzzle game that’s just all about translation.
You wake up in a strange tower where everyone speaks in gobbledygook and the signs are written in scribbles. But you slowly piece the language together. You find clues, make assumptions, and just generally logic your way to victory.
And it feels wonderful every time! The game does an incredible job of making you feel super smart - even if the puzzles aren’t actually all that challenging. Still: you figured it out, and have gone from being completely lost to being almost fluent.
There’s some annoying cruft here and there. Stealth bits and throwaway puzzles. But aside from that, this was just a cozy little weekend treat, and I loved almost every minute with it.
Jusant
A long, long time ago, I made a GMTK video about how crap the climbing is in the new Tomb Raider games. Well they’re not new now. But they were then. Basically: the entire act of scaling a mountain was reduced to pushing up on an analogue stick.
I wanted a game that made rock climbing real, and mechanically interesting. And while there’s been a few good examples to point to, nothing has come as close as Jusant.
In this one, you control the character’s arms separately using the left and right analogue sticks, and grip with the left and right triggers. You can place pitons - which act like checkpoint, but also let you abseil down and swing to other handholds. You have a stamina bar.
It’s not so fiddly that it’s tedious, but it’s just involving enough that you have to pay attention to each bouldering problem and think through all your moves, one by one.
And then the game mixes things up. Moving handholds. Wind that blows you back. Extreme heat that drains your stamina.
It’s still not the game I have in my head. The devs were definitely going for something quite simple, zen-like, and accessible. But it’s an awesome first step. I really enjoyed my time with it, but also hope that other developers are inspired to take this a few steps further.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
I have to say, Tears of the Kingdom was initially a little disappointing. As soon as I touched down in Hyrule - which uses the exact same overworld map as the previous game, Breath of the Wild - I was put off.
So much of the joy of Breath of the Wild was in the discovery. Not knowing what was around the next corner, over the next hill, or at the top of that mountain. In Tears, though, this was all familiar. There’s a desert over there. A snow-capped mountain range over there. A village down that road.
And that is a shame - but there’s also something very fun about taking a familiar space, and exploring it in a whole new way. To get to the top of a mountain not by climbing, but by swimming through the ground like a weird sand worm. Or by building a goblin glider and zooming up to the top in a matter of seconds.
And I loved the building! Any quest involving an army of enemies was an opportunity to build some crazy death machine or tank and then watch the Switch’s framerate drop to single digits as I lay waste to my Moblin enemies.
And it’s not like the world was completely familiar! The sky was a joy to explore - a whole new area, and a whole new challenge to traverse. And then there’s the depths - what a wild twist on the overworld.
This is such a massive game that I couldn’t possibly explain it all in a single list entry. But let’s just say that Tears made me feel inventive, clever, powerful, and in control. I adored it. Breath of the Wild will always be my favourite of the pair, but Tears is very close.
Venba
I think games can be a wonderful way to explore a different culture, a different time, a different way of life. Take, for instance, Venba.
This is a game about the immigrant experience of an Indian family living in Canada. The story is touching, heart-wrenching, and lovely. But the thing I took away from it most, was the experience of making food.
Each chapter has you crafting some tasty-looking chow through a series of simple mini-games. And each one is meaningful in some way, advancing the story or telling you more about a character or relationship.
I dunno - there’s not much to say on this one. It’s so short, so simple. But it has stuck with me all year. Proof that games can be a powerful medium of expression.
Honourable Mentions
I really liked the new Freelancer mode in Hitman, which turned the game into a roguelike. I had a great time playing Disney: Illusion Island in co-op with my wife. Blasphemous II was another cracking Metroidvania. And Cocoon was a really strong puzzle game.
That’s it! Thanks for reading - have a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it, and see you in the new year for more bonus videos!
Comments
Game Maker's Toolkit
I’ve done a bit! Planning to take it up fully in 2024!
Ddgr
Mark are you a rock climber?? Sounded like it when you were talking about Jusant!
Dalen W. Brauner
Get well soon!!
