GOTY 2023

Twenty Twenty Three. What a season. What a season.

Although none of the big tent-pole releases really interested me, there were still a lot of great smaller releases that I loved. And, as is the situation with every year, you just can’t play ‘em all. But, hopefully, I’ll get around to playing Chants of Senaar and Slay the Princess at some point next year.

And then there’s Starfield - I was gonna give it a go while I was on the Game Pass juice, but I never even bothered to download it. Maybe one day in the future I might consider actually playing it, let’s give it a couple of years.

So, anyway, let’s see what I did play. First, the…

Runners up

• System Shock - It’s System Shock 1 - but modernised (for better or worse). This would be somewhere near the top of my list, but I felt it’d be a bit disingenuous putting it among the fresh 2023 releases.
• Viewfinder - A pretty good first-person puzzler, but not quite top-10-worthy for me.
• Stuffo the Puzzle Bot - Just a solid, fun, puzzle game. Also, it took a while, but I eventually ended up loving the soundtrack.
• The Finals - I didn't play a huge amount of it, but what I did play of it was pretty fun - mainly, I just love playing as the heavy class and hitting things with a sledgehammer.
• Puzzmo- It’s extremely hit or miss (particularly the crosswords). But I have been playing it every day for the last few months…

The List

This year, I’m gonna try doing the backwards list order thing. I've heard it’s what the kewl kidz do.

10. Amnesia: The Bunker

The first of many Game Pass games on this list…

Honestly, Amnesia: The Bunker is pretty weak by Frictional’s standards (I doubt they’re ever going to make something as incredible as SOMA again…), but in the overall scheme of things, it's still a well-above-average survival horror game.

I appreciate that they tried something a bit different with the Amnesia series. The Bunker is smaller in scope than the previous games and it introduces combat mechanics - something Frictional haven't done since the original Penumbra. I was very skeptical at first, but they actually did a great job of still keeping the tension high whilst also giving you access to guns and explosives.

9. Planet of Lana

A very good cinematic platformer with nice visuals, enjoyable puzzles, and a cute…cat…blob…alien…thing :)

8. STASIS: BONE TOTEM

Probably the best of the Stasis games so far. They definitely succeeded in making this as disturbing and unsettling as they possibly could - and in no small part due to the extremely vivid purple prose flavour text; a staple of The Brotherhood's games.

One of the most evocative examples from the game:

"visible knots of quivering organs and viscera pump crimson liquids and meat clumps through a digestive maze, slowly processing it into jaundiced slime."

7. Hi-Fi Rush

This game has styyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyle.

I was initially reluctant to play Hi-Fi Rush because it’s ostensibly a rhythm game (I'm definitely towards the rhythmically-challenged end of the spectrum). But thanks to a bunch of people convincing me to check it out anyway, I checked it out anyway. And a good thing I did, because this game is a lot of fun and doesn’t actually demand a whole lot from you in terms of rhythm gameplay.

6. Atomic Heart

The epitome of reach exceeding grasp.

This game really tries so hard. And for the most part, it ends up being pretty good. In fact, sometimes it's amazing. But, other times, it just feels like a broken and janky mess.

5. PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Maybe not quite on par with Kotaro Uchikoshi’s creations (which almost certainly were an inspiration for this game), but it’s still a top-tier visual novel with some fun twists & turns, as well as a nice presentation - as long as you ignore the distractingly sloppy background art…

4. My Friendly Neighborhood

Quite likely the most friendly survival-horror game. It does a great job of treading the line between being disturbing & unsettling and being charming & whimsical.

3. Cocoon

I guess this is 2023's day one Game Pass puzzle/adventure set in a gorgeous-yet-unsettling biopunk world that, for some reason, has very questionable boss fights...

But really, aside from the boss fights, which mostly just annoyed me, this game is fantastic. It has some very clever puzzle mechanics and a truly astounding sense of style.

2. Sea of Stars

I’m not going to say the game’s always great; the story’s largely rote, and I thought the characters were mostly dull. But what it lacks in the narrative department, it definitely makes up for in aesthetics. The music’s top-notch and there’s some excellent-lookin’ visuals.

As much as the game deals heavily in clichés and obvious homages, it also manages to pull out some interesting surprises. One of which is Wheels - a mechanised tabletop minigame that incorporates collectible figurines and slot machine mechanics. It’s kind of hard to explain if you haven’t played it, but the point is that it’s a lot of fun. I’d say it’s almost up there alongside KotOR’s Pazaak in terms of enjoyable RPG minigames.

Overall, Sea of Stars just happened to really scratch that 2D JRPG itch for me, which, apparently I need to have scratched every so often.

1. The Talos Principle 2

Before this year, I didn’t even think it would make sense to have a sequel to The Talos Principle. But, yet, here we are in 2023, living in a world where not only does an excellent sequel exist, but it also feels like the perfect logical follow-up of how the first game ended.

It’s basically the best anyone could ever hope for from a sequel. It greatly refines the formula & expands on the original in meaningful ways, as well as being different enough for it to have its own unique identity.

As you’d expect, the game has a lot of clever and well-designed puzzles. But, in a way, it feels like that takes a back seat to characterisation and world-building. Some of the greatest moments in the game are just existing in the world and hanging out with your philosophy-loving robo-buddies.

The Talos Principle isn’t just my favourite game from this year, but I’d also consider it to be among my all-time favourites. It’s the kind of game that I was hesitant to finish; I just didn’t want my Talos adventures to be over...