So another year has passed. During that year, a lot of has changed. One thing remained the same, I played a large amount of games. Below is a record of those games with some personal commentary on them. Some of them were good, many of them were not. I finished some games, but most I did not. If I finished a game, I put a *** at the end of the entry. If it’s a game that you cannot “finish” but I really honestly played it a lot, I put that *** at the end as well. If you read all the way to the very bottom, you can see some honourable mentions for games that didn’t met my stringent criteria.

My stringent criteria are:

The games on this list must be have been released (or re-released) in 2023
I have to remember playing them

That’s it. Please enjoy the list.

The list:

Persona 3 portable (Xbox) - It’s a re-release of an old game. I was a big fan of the PS2 original, and this is sort of that game. Teenagers in a monster tower!

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On - A weird game about playing solitaire and racing horses. The original was great, this version less so. Best horse card game of the year.

Hi-Fi Rush - A cell shaded music rhythm game. Kind of like playing a Saturday morning cartoon.

Dead Space - Another remake of a classic horror game. Space is a terrifying prospect even without horrible creatures eating you alive. Less than ten minutes into the game “cut off their limbs” is written in blood on a wall, so that’s the vibe.

Tomb Raider Reloaded - A vampire survivors inspired Tomb Raider game. Stretches the concept of fun, in a bad way. ***

Atomic Heart - Explores some alternate history where everything has Soviet styling. Visually appealing, but it’s also an alternate history where games have lacklustre performance. Not a great game and it really drives home that making Bioshock is hard.

Tetris Effect: Connected - Tetris a perfect game. This is a sublime version of that game. Giant neon space whales swim around while you clear blocks. They keep releasing new versions, so I’ll keep reviewing it. ***

Terra Nil - I really want to like this game, but it doesn’t really seem like it’s the game I want it to be. Sim City but ecology remains a good idea.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I still can’t believe this is real. Best game where Sonic the Hedgehog gets murdered of the year. ***

Ghostwire Tokyo (XSX) - How could a game about spirits and the paranormal set in Tokyo be bad? Try this game and find out. Boring, and repetitive.

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp - What a title. A remake of two great GBA games. I read the Will Wright used to play this game every morning, so I suspect I’m a genius now too.

The Last Case of Benedict Fox - The first time I played this game was also the last time.

Redfall - I love Arkane so I gave it a try even though the reviews were bad. The reviewers were almost too kind. A huge disservice to this studio that this game was so visible, because it doesn’t represent the quality of their studio. Woof.

Darkest Dungeon II - A sequel to a spooky rogue-like RPG that I barely scratched. It’s the same but different. I have once again purchased a game I suspect I’m not going to play much of. That’s on me. The narrator has a great voice.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - It is an unreal game. They’ve probably gone ahead and made the best version of this type of Zelda game possible. I probably didn’t even see 25% of this whole game. Probably best game of the year? ***

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon - Ehhh. I need to give it another shake, but it didn’t exactly move me.

Connections - The new hotness when it comes to NYT word games. Fun, approachable, good. ***

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - They remade it! Best game where you’re a ghost solving a murder, and also there is a tiny dog. Great soundtrack and a true classic.

The Queen’s Gambit Chess - What if chess wasn’t fun?

Baldur’s Gate 3 - Larian Studios has shown that it’s possible to make a modern CRPG that is fun and accessible. Amazing game that feels boundless. Maybe game of the year?

Overwatch 2 - I play it every day. People hate on it for whatever reason, but it’s a fun FPS that is loaded with personality. Obviously the monetization sucks ($20 skins, anyone?), but it’s no different than the rest of the horrible F2P practices in the market. ***

Quake 2: Enhanced Edition - Finally I can play Quake 2 at 60FPS in 4K. Still a great game that clearly helped setup the future of FPS games.

Sea of Stars - A nice tribute to 16bit JRPG classics. It’s not completely absorbing, but it’s fun. Graphics and music are very good.

Chants of Sennaar - A very approachable puzzle/platform game where you set out to decipher languages you don’t speak. A nice visual aesthetic too! ***

Starfield - This is easily the biggest letdown of the year for me. I expected to be swept away by the usual Bethesda formula, but instead I’d generally just prefer to sweep this game into the garbage. The story is clunky, and the game is largely just fast travelling back and forth from one spot to another. The space aspect is not utilized in an interesting way. A big game, clearly, does not make for a good game.

Counter-Strike 2 - It’s Counter-Strike, but with a 2 at the end.

Cocoon - What if you were a bug man? What if the bug man carried around the universe in his hands? What if there were multiple universes and you could carry them in and out of each other? Great puzzle game with an almost undersold premise.

The Lamplighters League - I thought it would be X-Com with a paranormal Indiana Jones setting. It was sort of that, but much less fun than you’re currently imagining.

Forza Motorsport - I wanted to like it, but really I didn’t. It’s a car racing game, but it doesn’t feel as fun at Forza Horizon, and it doesn’t feel as enjoyable as Gran Turismo. I get it, but was it really a good idea to make users run practice laps before they can jump into a race?

Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Finally, Mario can get a power-up that turns him into an elephant. A much more challenging 2D Mario game in some respects, and I liked it! I 100% this game. Best talking flowers of the year. ***

Cities: Skylines 2 - Unpopular opinion, but I feel like the original has never been as good as classic sim city. The way that roads lay and zoning is done have never felt right to me. Snap roads to grids, let me zone areas that aren’t just jammed up against roads. The sequel seems to continue with design decisions I don’t enjoy, and unfortunately adds a bunch of truly terrible performance issues. Maybe check this out in a year and it will be good.

Jusant - The walking/climbing simulator you didn’t know you were waiting for. Beautiful music, visuals, and environmental storytelling. I got a little choked up at the end. ***

The Finals - A really interesting team based shooter. It came out at the tail end of the year so I don’t have too much to say about it yet. But it seems fun.

Sonic Dream Team - It’s kind of the more regular old 3D Sonic. You run around and bounce into things and whatnot. Gotta go fast!

Puzzmo: Cross|Word - One part NYT mini, one part full-size crossword. It’s a modern and approachable crossword puzzle. ***

El Paso, Elsewhere - Takes the gameplay of Max Payne, mixes in its noir-core writing, and fuses it with vampires, and PS1 era graphics. It works way better than it should. It’s a slow motion vampire slaying romp.

Dave the Diver - What if you played a sort of rogue-lite diving game where every 5-10 minutes a new gameplay system emerges? What if that game had incredible pixel art? Within a few hours the game has me diving, exploring, being an archeologist, running a sushi restaurant, managing staff, and running a fish farm. This is a great game. Best 2D/3D tuna of 2023.

PARANORMASIGHT: The seven mysteries of Honjo - This a visual novel of sorts with spooky things going on. I just finished reading a horror novel recently, so this is maybe a little too fresh for me at the moment.

Final Fantasy 16 - Final Fantasy is a series that I love and hate. I play every game in the series, and each game has about an equal chance of being one I love or hate. FF16 is more of a love than a hate. It’s a little weird that the characters swear and that blood is flung everywhere, but it is its own thing.

Slay the Princess - A weird twisted game where you’re an amnesiac who is being narrated to. Much like the Stanley Parable, an unseen narrator speaks to you and tells you your task. Walk to a cabin in the woods and slay a princess inside, or the world ends. Strange atmospheric horror storytelling. I didn’t finish this one, but the narrator should be familiar to anyone who has listened to the Magnus Archives.

American Arcadia - It’s like the Truman show, but a video game. It’s fun, but not really the most polished thing I’ve played this year. If you know what shader compilation means, you’ll know there are some technical issues with this game.

***Honourable Mentions***

Final Fantasy 13 - This was somehow one of my most played games of the year. It has bugged me for 14 years that I have never finished this game. I was near, what I assume, is the end of the game when my PS3 died along with my save file. I was just starting to really enjoy the game when it died, and I didn’t want to put the time back into it. I decided this year to finish it. I am just past where I was 14 years ago, and I still only sort of like the game, and I have no idea where or what I am supposed to do next. I am looking forward to beating this game and then likely never playing it again.

Vampire Survivors - This game still rocks. Endlessly satisfying and dead simple.

The Messenger - I finally put some time into this game and it’s pretty fun. I am at a part of the game where I don’t really love the progression mechanic, and I will probably just start turning to the internet to push through.

Desperados 3 - This game is unreal good if you loved the old Commandos series. You play as cowboys in a stealth real time strategy game. Also you have a mission where a giant burly dude lays down a rake for enemies to step on. Best rake 2023. ***

Neon White - Still a great speed running and precision shooting game. Somehow it tells an interesting story about a group of hitmen/thieves who die and end up fighting heaven and hell? Or something like that? Great game.

Hades - Speaking of hell, this game remains stylish and fun all these years later. Diverse cast, great writing and performances, incredible art, memorable soundtrack. I am beyond excited for the sequel to begin in 2024.

Person 5 Royal - Back in 2006, when I was but a young lad, I really loved Persona 3. The weird story about high schoolers living their lives, but knowing that there was a horrible secret world that others couldn’t see, completely captivated me. Now almost twenty years later I still enjoy that story, but now everyone is an acrobatic thief. Best tuxedo cat.