2023 was one of the strangest years I’ve experienced for gaming, lots of great game releases coupled with a huge amount of unrest and job losses for the people actually making the games. We also had the completion of the Microsoft takeover of Activision Blizzard which, at $69b is one of the biggest deals the business world has seen, let alone the game industry.
There were a few titles I wanted to shout out that have been started but not finished – Sea Of Stars, which is an old school Zelda-like adventure game, Inscryption, a truly bizarre game in which you must try to defeat a faceless enemy at his own tabletop game and Alan Wake II, which I got for Christmas and am still too early to consider for this year’s round up (it is absolutely excellent so far though!).
With that said, I did finish lots of great titles in 2023 – so let’s get stuck in!
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The Devil In Me (2022) continues Supermassive Games good run with the Dark Pictures Anthology. A choose your own adventure style title set in a deranged recreation of a serial killer’s hotel, this is definitely up there as among the best in the series. The Medium (2021) had a really interesting parallel view mechanic, whereby your character was in the ‘real world’ and the ‘spiritual world’ at the same time. The screen would split and you would move the two characters at the same time. It was the story of a Medium who was investigating a mystery in an abandoned institute. Prey (2017) was a real treat, a first person shooter with a good story and interesting gameplay. An alien ‘mimic’ takes over and you have to survive long enough to escape!
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I found Tchia (2023) to be a wonderful game, a third person adventure set in a fictional land inspired by New Caledonia. You play as Tchia, a young girl whose father has gone missing. It has a brilliant art style which contrasts with how off the rails the story goes in the late game. You can traverse with a glider or alternatively use Tchia’s power to jump into birds or fish and get around that way. Great fun. I’ve never been to Japan but Ghostwire Tokyo (2022) showcases the city with a vivid recreation of Tokyo. Albeit one with empty streets after a freak supernatural event sees almost everyone disappear! All that’s left are ghosts and spirits prowling the streets. You need to fight them off using hand motions inspired by Kuji-kiri to cast spells.
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No Straight Roads (2020) was a blast to play – a music based third person action adventure game. Indie rock duo Bunk Bed Junction must save the city from it’s EDM overlords. With some memorable boss battles and some awesome songs, this was definitely a fun title that clocked in at around 6 hours. Short but sweet. I also really enjoyed Kena: Bridge Of Spirits (2021) a lot more than I thought I would. For a start the game looks gorgeous and I loved exploring the world. Unfortunately the platforming and some of the puzzles let it down a bit but I would still recommend this one for sure.
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In terms of online gaming, I’ve loved jumping into Deep Rock Galactic (2022) with friends. It’s a first person space mining game in which you play as a team of Dwarven miners, landing on various planets and fending off giant spiders while trying to do your job! Great fun. Of course old favourites Overwatch 2 (2022) and Battlefield 2042 (2021) both continue to be updated with new maps, game modes and (in the case of the former) new characters. Both are still a blast to jump back in for some ‘comfort’ gaming 🙂
My favourite new multiplayer discovery has been The Finals (2023). A ‘Ready Player One’ type gameshow / first person shooter in which teams of three try to secure and bank cash from across the map. It has huge destructability and lots of different abilities for the characters to use. It’s free to play, so definitely give it a try!
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Back on the single player front, I had a great time with Dead Island 2 (2023). I hadn’t played the original but that doesn’t matter here, you survive a plane crash in L.A at the outbreak of a Zombie apocalypse. From there it’s about trying to get out of the city – meeting a colourful cast of characters along the way and thinking up creative ways to kill hordes of the undead. Most fun, but playing solo during boss battles there were times you could tell the game was made to be played as 4 player co-op. Frustrating but not enough to stop me recommending this one! Callisto Protocol (2022) was almost my game of the year, telling the story of a wrongly imprisoned space courier – similarly to Dead Island, you must escape the prison when a deadly virus infects most of the population. The graphics here are some of the best I’ve seen and I liked the characters and story a lot. Sadly they reuse some of the bigger enemies over and over, which felt a bit hollow at times. Having said that it’s a pretty polished experience and if you liked Dead Space, I would definitely advise you to check this out.
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I was pleasantly surprised by Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart (2021) which had a fun story and a lot of brilliantly designed weapons to use against the hapless enemies. Graphically it was stunning, a real showcase of the PS5 and while the Portal traversal was more limited than expected, I still thought it was a really cool mechanic. Goodbye Volcano High (2023) tells the story of Fang, a high school dinosaur whose life is turned upside down by the news of an impending comet. Can they get their band to a gig before the end of the world? I thought the art style was phenomenal and the music, original songs by the band, really was great. Think shoe gaze/boygenius vibes. It’s pretty short at 5 hours but I thoroughly loved this one.
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However, my favourite game of 2023 is Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023). Based on the mechanics of real life DnD the game is a fantasy set adventure full of elves, orcs and demons. You play as one character but control a party of up to four in battles, which take place in a turn-based setting. The thing that has blown my mind with this game is the flexibility of the systems and gameplay. You can pretty much do whatever you like and your in-game choices actually have consequences, which is quite a rarity for games. Not only that but every character you encounter in the world is fully voiced. While this is a sprawling title with tens of hours of story I would definitely recommend it to most people – it honestly has to be played to be believed.
So there you have it, 2023 is in the rear view – roll on 2024!
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GregHorrorShow 