2023 has been an interesting year for gaming. Now that the year is almost halfway through and our big June releases are out I’d like to discuss the best games you’ve played this year, but feel free to also mention your big disappointments this year.
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.
Interesting, but 4/8 of the games you list are remakes/rereleases.
Despite the traversal / shader compilation stutters, I’ve been really enjoying Dead Space! The ambience and graphics are top notch and the seamlessness of the world is really nice for exploration and backtracking. It would be great if they improved performance over all, but it seems like it’s mostly been abandoned and the last patch was quite a while ago…
Hi-Fi Rush and Hogwart’s Legacy so far for me.
In the “disappointments” category, has to be Redfall. I don’t think anyone expected anything from Gollum.
I know it’s a small title, but #PlanetOfLana is maybe the best game I’ve played this year so far.
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.
Undoubtedly TOTK and RE:4R. Both amazing single player experiences but Zelda is really in a class of its own.
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.
I’m enjoying Boltgun a lot, but the year was so jam packed I couldn’t fit it into my list.
If you liked Boltgun I’d recommend checking out Cultic: Chapter One, it’s probably my favorite overall ‘boomer shooter’.
I’ll be sure to! I’ve only heard good things about Cultic. Last real “release” I played in the genre was Hrot and I didn’t really finish it since work got more intense. Seems like a golden time to jump back in, however.
