After Cyberpunk I decided to be done paying $50+ to take up a quarter of my disk with a highly-acclaimed game that turns out to be the same old cookie-cutter 3D game with an expensive makeover. Anymore I mostly just play small indie games that friends recommend, and generally have a way better experience for it.
This was back when it was new - my thoughts the entire 30 hours I was playing were things like:
“Johnny Silverhand is more annoying than Jar Jar and I will do anything to not hear his stupid fucking voice anymore”
“this ‘hacking’ is one of the worst minigames I’ve ever seen”
“the setting is ripped straight from PK Dick and doesn’t feel like it really lends anything to the story besides ‘high tech stuff that looks flashy on screen’”
“oh the background i spend ten minutes consiering before choosing does fuckall about shit except slightly reword a few dialogs”
“my god, every single character is insufferable”
“oh wow, my inventory is full again already, and not a single thing in it is worth fuck for shit”
“these physics are just as shitty as that Witcher 3 game I wasted money on last year”
“this button feels really awkward to press when i need it but i don’t feel like editing the config by hand again”
“holy shit when will this cutscene be over? There we g- DAMN IT THERE’S MORE? STFU ALREADY”
It was buggy but the bugs were the least of my worries. I came away feeling like I was promised Mexican food and then was given a cold soggy leftover Taco Bell burrito, and frankly after having basically the same experience with the super-awesome totally-finished fully-patched all-dlc-included GotY version of The Witcher 3 I really don’t trust CDPR to fix shit.
Pikmin 4
Baldur’s Gate 3
Spider-Man 2
Street Fighter 6
Mortal Kombat 1
Dead Space and RE4 remake
The Talos Principle 2
And I didn’t even get around to Alan Wake 2, which everybody’s been raving about. Or that Dave the Builder thing. Or Lies of P. Or Jedi Survivor. And I guess I’m not counting the new Prince of Persia because that’s this year, technically. And I’m not into 2D Mario games, so I’m guessing skipping Super Mario Wonder makes me a bit of an outlier.
Look, I know it feels good to be jaded and edgy and cynical, but… yeah, no, it was an all-time great year for games in 2023. And a terrible year for the games industry. But the games? So good.
… your list is basically all “20+ year old franchise/licensed property”. bruh if there’s that little that’s fresh or origninal then I’ argue that’s a terrible year for games.
Talos Principle 2 does demand my attention though, the first one was stellar and still looks gorgeous.
So let me get this straight, Street Fighter 6 is a “20 year old franchise” so not fresh and original (it is maybe the biggest redefinition of the series since SF3, but hey). Somehow The Talos Principle 2, a direct sequel to a 10 year old game… not that.
But also, Dave the Builder, Sea of Stars, Hi-Fi Rush, Life of P, Lethal Company, Terra Nil, Humanity, Against the Storm… even going by new IP alone it’s been a great year. Not that I accept your premise, sequels and licensed games can obviously be, and indeed have been, fantastic and innovative.
I am very confused and you are either being disingenuous or so comitted to arbitrary requirements that any year is an equally good year.
“the nth iteration of sold-out BRAND that’s older than most people reading this that belongs to a genre so niche only its dedicated fanbase can tell what the hell is even different from the last entry is at least as fresh and original as the sole sequel to a one-off game that was actually made in this century” and “looking forward to an original game you liked getting a single sequel makes you a hypocrite for not also thinking the 2893598th BRAND niche game most people can’t tell from its predecessor is equally exciting” strike me as outright bizarre things to say and it’s weird and sad that when you reach for “fresh and original” the thing you come up with is [moldy franchise] [#].
I said one thing on that list sounded interesting to me and you’re having a tizzy because i think the rest sound like the brand cash-ins they are. Sorry I don’t think “they made another DnD CRPG and a Spider-man game the way they’ve done thrice a decade for forty years” makes it “a great year for games”.
It’s also weird that you take time to dissociate BG3 from the rest of the series despite the number, and then go on to pedantically assert that I should care about spider-man 2 as much as talos principle 2 because number (I think that was your point anyway, it’s not very lucid). I’m tired of elves and wizards and superheroes and fucking remakes dude, it’s so fucking stale. It’s not fun to me - sorry for being happy about the puzzle game I liked getting a sequel while being shit-tired of grindy crap and dead genres.
how dare i say that I’m glad the weird existential puzzle game got a sequel while not also simping over FRANCHISE that I was bored of by the time I hit puberty like a good consumer?
man are you still crying because I said I don’t give a fuck about the billionth entry in a forty year old franchise, but was glad about a sequel to a puzzle game? get a fuckin life you loser.
Too bad pretty much everyone, including Larian, Owlcat, all of these “we’re doing it for the game and for the fans” adherents have also fallen for the “Rush to Market, Fix It Later” mentality. Been deep-diving Rogue Trader for the past weeks and playing through rough Beta content really isn’t fun when the game is considered launched and complete. Same for Baldur’s Gate 3, I binged it at launch and had to stop in Act III because most of my quests were soft-locked, or displayed incorrect information in the Journal.
You could have figured that out in the century it spent in Early Access, I suppose.
Honestly, yeah, I do think devs need to reassess what is a showstopping bug and what isn’t. Not much question on that. But also, I have seen worse. I even played a ton of Cities Skylines 2 at launch. Which paid off weirdly, because once they fixed the balance (or at least improved it) my starter city is now an insane utopia.
In any case, my backlog is enormous, I can wait for games to be actually finished before I play them. In BG3’s case, I think there was the one quest that didn’t pop once, but I spent a hundred hours on it just fine… and then had to go live my real life, so I still have to do the last act at some point. I’ll get to it.
None of that changes that this year had banger after banger, from studios large, medium and small. You can complain about many things relating to the business, but man, the skill, creativity and artistry from game developers of all stripes is nuts.
I couldn’t get behind Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what it was, just didn’t draw me in. Couldn’t keep at it. Put in 10hrs and haven’t picked it up in…3 months?
Part of it for me was that the people you meet in the first game don’t reference the first game. Like pyrah for example has a massive crush on link in BotW yet in TotK she acts distantly to him. Also I felt it was repetitive, especially when I’ve already done similar if not the same things in BotW like korok seeds.
I’m curious considering it’s currently at 96% positive, what about the reviews drove you away? For me, the game captured the feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time (Heart Gold) again. It was similar enough on a basic level to draw me in, but all the fundamentals and mechanics are totally different and bring a wave of fresh air to the stale Pokemon formula.
If you’ve played Pokemon on the DS and didn’t like it, this game probably won’t be your kind of thing. If you did though, Cassette Beasts has a lot going for it. It has creative monster designs, a cast of unique side characters with their own story quests, a very memorable soundtrack (including my most played song of 2023), a not-overwhelmingly-massive open world with plenty to do, and just a smidge of analog horror.
It’s not great! 2023 games that I have really enjoyed this past year have been Tears of the Kingdom, Cassette Beasts, and Hi-Fi Rush.
After Cyberpunk I decided to be done paying $50+ to take up a quarter of my disk with a highly-acclaimed game that turns out to be the same old cookie-cutter 3D game with an expensive makeover. Anymore I mostly just play small indie games that friends recommend, and generally have a way better experience for it.
After this supposed stellar update dropped that overhauled the game or when the game initially came out?
This was back when it was new - my thoughts the entire 30 hours I was playing were things like:
“Johnny Silverhand is more annoying than Jar Jar and I will do anything to not hear his stupid fucking voice anymore” “this ‘hacking’ is one of the worst minigames I’ve ever seen” “the setting is ripped straight from PK Dick and doesn’t feel like it really lends anything to the story besides ‘high tech stuff that looks flashy on screen’” “oh the background i spend ten minutes consiering before choosing does fuckall about shit except slightly reword a few dialogs” “my god, every single character is insufferable” “oh wow, my inventory is full again already, and not a single thing in it is worth fuck for shit” “these physics are just as shitty as that Witcher 3 game I wasted money on last year” “this button feels really awkward to press when i need it but i don’t feel like editing the config by hand again” “holy shit when will this cutscene be over? There we g- DAMN IT THERE’S MORE? STFU ALREADY”
It was buggy but the bugs were the least of my worries. I came away feeling like I was promised Mexican food and then was given a cold soggy leftover Taco Bell burrito, and frankly after having basically the same experience with the super-awesome totally-finished fully-patched all-dlc-included GotY version of The Witcher 3 I really don’t trust CDPR to fix shit.
Thanks for the write-up, sums up my experience with both games
Oh, man, I had forgotten those were this year.
My list also includes:
Pikmin 4
Baldur’s Gate 3
Spider-Man 2
Street Fighter 6
Mortal Kombat 1
Dead Space and RE4 remake
The Talos Principle 2
And I didn’t even get around to Alan Wake 2, which everybody’s been raving about. Or that Dave the Builder thing. Or Lies of P. Or Jedi Survivor. And I guess I’m not counting the new Prince of Persia because that’s this year, technically. And I’m not into 2D Mario games, so I’m guessing skipping Super Mario Wonder makes me a bit of an outlier.
Look, I know it feels good to be jaded and edgy and cynical, but… yeah, no, it was an all-time great year for games in 2023. And a terrible year for the games industry. But the games? So good.
… your list is basically all “20+ year old franchise/licensed property”. bruh if there’s that little that’s fresh or origninal then I’ argue that’s a terrible year for games.
Talos Principle 2 does demand my attention though, the first one was stellar and still looks gorgeous.
That is a very weird take.
So let me get this straight, Street Fighter 6 is a “20 year old franchise” so not fresh and original (it is maybe the biggest redefinition of the series since SF3, but hey). Somehow The Talos Principle 2, a direct sequel to a 10 year old game… not that.
But also, Dave the Builder, Sea of Stars, Hi-Fi Rush, Life of P, Lethal Company, Terra Nil, Humanity, Against the Storm… even going by new IP alone it’s been a great year. Not that I accept your premise, sequels and licensed games can obviously be, and indeed have been, fantastic and innovative.
I am very confused and you are either being disingenuous or so comitted to arbitrary requirements that any year is an equally good year.
“the nth iteration of sold-out BRAND that’s older than most people reading this that belongs to a genre so niche only its dedicated fanbase can tell what the hell is even different from the last entry is at least as fresh and original as the sole sequel to a one-off game that was actually made in this century” and “looking forward to an original game you liked getting a single sequel makes you a hypocrite for not also thinking the 2893598th BRAND niche game most people can’t tell from its predecessor is equally exciting” strike me as outright bizarre things to say and it’s weird and sad that when you reach for “fresh and original” the thing you come up with is [moldy franchise] [#].
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I said one thing on that list sounded interesting to me and you’re having a tizzy because i think the rest sound like the brand cash-ins they are. Sorry I don’t think “they made another DnD CRPG and a Spider-man game the way they’ve done thrice a decade for forty years” makes it “a great year for games”.
It’s also weird that you take time to dissociate BG3 from the rest of the series despite the number, and then go on to pedantically assert that I should care about spider-man 2 as much as talos principle 2 because number (I think that was your point anyway, it’s not very lucid). I’m tired of elves and wizards and superheroes and fucking remakes dude, it’s so fucking stale. It’s not fun to me - sorry for being happy about the puzzle game I liked getting a sequel while being shit-tired of grindy crap and dead genres.
how dare i say that I’m glad the weird existential puzzle game got a sequel while not also simping over FRANCHISE that I was bored of by the time I hit puberty like a good consumer?
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man are you still crying because I said I don’t give a fuck about the billionth entry in a forty year old franchise, but was glad about a sequel to a puzzle game? get a fuckin life you loser.
Too bad pretty much everyone, including Larian, Owlcat, all of these “we’re doing it for the game and for the fans” adherents have also fallen for the “Rush to Market, Fix It Later” mentality. Been deep-diving Rogue Trader for the past weeks and playing through rough Beta content really isn’t fun when the game is considered launched and complete. Same for Baldur’s Gate 3, I binged it at launch and had to stop in Act III because most of my quests were soft-locked, or displayed incorrect information in the Journal.
You could have figured that out in the century it spent in Early Access, I suppose.
Honestly, yeah, I do think devs need to reassess what is a showstopping bug and what isn’t. Not much question on that. But also, I have seen worse. I even played a ton of Cities Skylines 2 at launch. Which paid off weirdly, because once they fixed the balance (or at least improved it) my starter city is now an insane utopia.
In any case, my backlog is enormous, I can wait for games to be actually finished before I play them. In BG3’s case, I think there was the one quest that didn’t pop once, but I spent a hundred hours on it just fine… and then had to go live my real life, so I still have to do the last act at some point. I’ll get to it.
None of that changes that this year had banger after banger, from studios large, medium and small. You can complain about many things relating to the business, but man, the skill, creativity and artistry from game developers of all stripes is nuts.
I couldn’t get behind Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what it was, just didn’t draw me in. Couldn’t keep at it. Put in 10hrs and haven’t picked it up in…3 months?
Part of it for me was that the people you meet in the first game don’t reference the first game. Like pyrah for example has a massive crush on link in BotW yet in TotK she acts distantly to him. Also I felt it was repetitive, especially when I’ve already done similar if not the same things in BotW like korok seeds.
It did really feel super samey. I think if I hadn’t played BotW I would have seen TotK through to the end, but sadly I did.
The steam reviews for cassette beasts drove me away from it, what did you like about it? Also what’s your in game time, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m curious considering it’s currently at 96% positive, what about the reviews drove you away? For me, the game captured the feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time (Heart Gold) again. It was similar enough on a basic level to draw me in, but all the fundamentals and mechanics are totally different and bring a wave of fresh air to the stale Pokemon formula.
If you’ve played Pokemon on the DS and didn’t like it, this game probably won’t be your kind of thing. If you did though, Cassette Beasts has a lot going for it. It has creative monster designs, a cast of unique side characters with their own story quests, a very memorable soundtrack (including my most played song of 2023), a not-overwhelmingly-massive open world with plenty to do, and just a smidge of analog horror.
I have ~30 hours in it iirc.
It’s just Pokémon but if the series grew up with the fanbase instead of stagnating on the age group it did.
It’s a really good “monster collector” game with solid gameplay and a mature story.
I played ~30hrs and there is still a lot to go.
That being said, it’s not AAA by any means.