Best:

• Hi-Fi Rush: Holy crap, I didn’t expect Shinji Mikami to make the best character action game since DMC3. From the soundtrack to the gameplay to the artstyle this game really stands out as something amazing.
• Pizza Tower: I’m gonna be honest, I missed the hype train for this game. I knew it was coming but I didn’t play any of the betas or follow the community, but once it released I was pleasantly surprised by its blazingly fast and addictive gameplay loop.
• RE4 Remake: I prefer the oldschool tank control RE games, but this is a pretty fantastic remake that stays pretty faithful to the original game.
• Dead Space Remake: GOATed. Reimagining the game as one giant open area instead of locked off mission zones really opens up the exploration aspect, and the random scares you’d run into while re-treading old environments caught me off guard every few hours.
• Street Fighter VI: I didn’t expect Capcom to hit it out of the park so hard. After the disaster of SFV leading to me quitting fighting games for a few years and eventually discovering Tekken/Guilty Gear I never thought I’d be back to playing good ol’ Street Fighter, but the systems are really well thought out and deceptively deep.

Disappointments:

• Diablo IV: I might be a little salty since it’s so recent but I’m not really jiving with D4 right now. The game feels like busy work, the scaling feels wrong and it just doesn’t have the QoL I expect from a billion dollar company. Maybe it’ll open up later, but with Path of Exile 2 around the corner I don’t need this game to be great.
• System Shock: The game is probably great. Issue is I bought it on Deck and the controller support is extremely half baked to the point where I am just going to shelve it until they update it.
• Last of Us 1 (Steam): It just doesn’t work.

I know it’s a small title, but #PlanetOfLana is maybe the best game I’ve played this year so far.

Tears of the Kingdom for me

Best:

Zelda: TOTK: I don’t have much to add to the convo about this game. In terms of technical achievement and player discovery it’s an all time great game.

**Dead Space Remake: ** Great remake of the original. They did some good changes to the story that make it make more sense at the end. Also liked how they changed up the boss fights. Really hoping they remake 2 after this.

RE4 Remake: Another all time great. Played through it 4 times when it came out. They took out all the dated stuff from the original which was welcome. Loved the new knife fight with Krauser and the section where you control Ashley.

Metroid Prime Remastered: Probably my favorite Gamecube game. I forgot how hard the soundtrack goes in this game. Having played a lot more of the 2D games since I first played Prime gave me a better appreciation for how they translated it all to 3D.

Diablo 4: This is scratching my Diablo itch and that’s all I really need. I’m only lvl 37 and I don’t know if I’ll care enough to go hard on the endgame but I’m having fun just cutting swaths of monsters in half. I’m digging the darker tone of this game as well. I didn’t hate 3 but it was much more cartoony so this is a nice change.

Disappointing:

Destiny 2: Lightfall: As an avid Destiny player since D1 this expansion was a mixed bag but mostly negative. On one hand the new power (Strand) is excellent and the combat encounters in the campaign were really good, but the story was such a colossal fuck up for what is supposed to be the penultimate chapter of a 10 year saga. Destiny’s story has always been very mid but last year’s expansion really upped their game and then we got this half-assed filler story that they’re trying to stretch over the entire year. The game has also had a ton of technical issues since this expansion. It feels like Bungie has moved on to Marathon and put Destiny on cruise control which is disappointing. I still play the game a bit every week but it’s become clear that after The Final Shape I’m probably done with Destiny.

Jedi Fallen Survivor: I like everything they added to this game and clearly a lot of good work went into it but the story is really putting me off to the point where I don’t think I care to finish it. I can’t get into details without spoiling it. The game is also runs like shit. I’d be fine if it maintained a stable framerate but in either performance or quality the frames constantly drop.

Others I like but haven’t finished:

Like a Dragon: Ishin Advanced Wars 1+2

For me I have one game that actually fits both of these categories: Jedi Survivor. It’s the best game of the year in terms of story, gameplay, and lore for me personally as a Star Wars fan. However, it’s also the worst game of the year because it was rushed out the door and my PC can barely run it smoothly despite having a Ryzen 7 3700X and an RX 6800 XT.

Tears of the kingdom and Hi-fi rush were bangers

Humanity was perhaps the biggest surprise. It’s not much of a looker, but I just couldn’t put it down until I had 100% completed it. The puzzles are really addictive.

Lone Fungus has been the only new game (as in released in 2023) I’ve bought so far but I wholeheartly recommend it to anyone who’s fond of the Metroidvania genre.

I’ve only really played two games that have come out this year, Street Fighter 6 and HiFi Rush. Both are GOTY-material if you like action.

Oh and Warhammer 40k Boltgun. Fun old-school FPS in the style of Duke Nukem 3D and co. Highly recommend it if you enjoy either the license or a satisfying shotgun or two.