What are your personal games of the year for 2023? (or 2013 for Brian)

[ZedClampet]

For games that entered either early access or full release during 2023.
(If you are an avowed Cheap Gamer (TM), you may use the year 2013)

GOTY: Big Ambitions
Survival/RPG/Colony Sim/City Builder: Medieval Dynasty
Sports: Super Mega Baseball 4
Strategy: Total War Pharaoh
Puzzle: The Talos Principle 2
Shooter: Remnant 2
Remake: Resident Evil 4
Co-op/Multiplayer: Lethal Company

 

[Colif]

ARPG - Diablo 4 only as its only game in that category released so far... Last Epoch is in early access but has been for a while
City Builder - Panorama, it was more fun than Pile Up
I didn't play many new games this year. I was more entertained watching train wrecks... good year for those

 

[D10S]

Alan Wake 2 is my favorite, as you may probably know. I dont usually play recent games until they're below 30eur, so I can't say I player more big titles this year

 

[Pifanjr]

The only games I played that I know released in 2023 are Barotrauma and Diablo IV and neither were very good.

 

[ZedClampet]

The only games I played that I know released in 2023 are Barotrauma and Diablo IV and neither were very good.

Have you played Diablo IV since all the updates? PCG has been pumping it up lately.

 

[Pifanjr]

Have you played Diablo IV since all the updates? PCG has been pumping it up lately.

I haven't. I have to clarify that I didn't have any problems with either game, I just didn't care for them much.

I'm not sure which game I enjoyed playing most this year in general. I'm not even sure which games I played. I know the Steam games from the recap, but I played a bunch of games on Epic as well.

 

[DXCHASE]

Diablo 4 for me. Played through the campaign and stuff with my wife and son and nowadays i just spend my time helping others beat bosses, clear high level content, get uber unique gear etc. It has a lot of problems and, for this genre, there are games coming that will pull me from here, but Diablo 4 was/is my game for 2023. Even with the problems, i still have had a lot of fun.

Have you played Diablo IV since all the updates? PCG has been pumping it up lately.

Theres a lot those D4 pieces missed though, imo Diablo 4 still has a LONG way to go before its in a good place.

 

[Johnway]

Christ almighty, this year has gone fast. I'll need to go back and dig up what i completed this year and name my top games i played.

An honorable mention would certainly go to hypnospace outlaw. i can't explain it. The game is boring as hell, yet i can't stop thinking about it as away from the work like experience lies a wonderfully fleshed out digital world that borders on voyeurism. it scratches many itches on games i want in a game. if you're clever can discover some interesting things. most challenges have more then one way to complete them, sometimes you may have to pay a high fee OR you could go into the bowels of hypnospace outlaw and solve the challenge for free. plus there are multiple actions you can take to decide the fate of key members on hypnospace and even save a few lives.

 

[Brian Boru]

Happy XMas to me—been a long time since I made headlines!

I don't see a way to sort GOG by release date, so a lot potentially missing here—it's limited to Steam & BigFish, since Epic store wasn't a thing in 2013, and I'm not going to struggle with Amazon, EA, or UBI.

GOTY: Buy My Next Shiny Release Simulator—fascinating story-driven RPG melee on 24/7 stream.
1st Runner-Up: Buy my Wouldn't This Be Great If I Ever Finished It? Simulator—never-ending Fantasy.

Biggest Let-Down since Emily—Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Brain Pain—Europa Universalis IV
Diseased Cow Chucking—Age of Empires II HD Edition
I'm So Cool—Deus Ex Human Revolution – Director's Cut
Let's Try This Again—SimCity
Look At Me Mom—The Stanley Parable
Sport For Couch Warriors Only—Rugby Challenge 2
The Boring Company—Papers, Please
There You Are!—Sniper Ghost Warrior 2

Dishonorable Men Shuns

4X—Civilization V Brave New World
Board—Terra Mystica
Builder-Adventure—Adelantado Trilogy Book 3
Hidden Object—Death Upon an Austrian Sonata
Match 3—Paradise Quest
Path Clearing—Northern Tale 2
Puzzle Builder—Royal Envoy Campaign for the Crown
Puzzle—A Series of Unfortunate Events
RTS—Company of Heroes 2
Story—The Novelist
TBT—XCOM Enemy Within

Just Pick One

Choice from:
Adelantado Trilogy Book 3
Paradise Quest
Royal Envoy Campaign for the Crown

Adelantado Trilogy Book 3!

 

[Brian Boru]

hypnospace outlaw

Hey look, a game about being a mod! Thanks John

 

[Colif]

Diablo 4: Have they fixed the inventory problem yet? That is biggest reason I haven't bothered returning yet. I might wait until next season now or for the expansion pack.
No point playing if I don't have any space to put anything. That and I have to delete characters to make any new ones

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Away from home still, but the only games I think I played more than a little from this year are Atomic Heart, Dead Space Remake, Baldurs Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, and Lies of P. Lots of games I havent touched that might have been contenders

Tough call between Alan Wake 2 and Baldurs Gate 3. Obvs very different games both a lot of fun, both have excellent technical optimization, were made with love and do stuff other games that came before havent to the same degree.

Ill say Baldurs Gate 3. But im torn between playing that or AW 2 again first.

 

[ZedClampet]

Happy XMas to me—been a long time since I made headlines!

I don't see a way to sort GOG by release date, so a lot potentially missing here—it's limited to Steam & BigFish, since Epic store wasn't a thing in 2013, and I'm not going to struggle with Amazon, EA, or UBI.

GOTY: Buy My Next Shiny Release Simulator—fascinating story-driven RPG melee on 24/7 stream.
1st Runner-Up: Buy my Wouldn't This Be Great If I Ever Finished It? Simulator—never-ending Fantasy.

Biggest Let-Down since Emily—Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Brain Pain—Europa Universalis IV
Diseased Cow Chucking—Age of Empires II HD Edition
I'm So Cool—Deus Ex—Human Revolution – Director's Cut
Let's Try This Again—SimCity
Look At Me Mom—The Stanley Parable
Sport For Couch Warriors Only—Rugby Challenge 2
The Boring Company—Papers, Please
There You Are!—Sniper Ghost Warrior 2

Dishonorable Men Shuns

4X—Civilization V Brave New World
Board—Terra Mystica
Builder-Adventure—Adelantado Trilogy Book 3
Hidden Object—Death Upon an Austrian Sonata
Match 3—Paradise Quest
Path Clearing—Northern Tale 2
Puzzle Builder—Royal Envoy Campaign for the Crown
Puzzle—A Series of Unfortunate Events
RTS—Company of Heroes 2
Story—The Novelist
TBT—XCOM Enemy Within

Just Pick One

Choice from:
Adelantado Trilogy Book 3
Paradise Quest
Royal Envoy Campaign for the Crown

Adelantado Trilogy Book 3!

Papers, Please was fun for awhile. There's actually a 2023 game that you can play next decade that has the same general idea, but has actual graphics. There's also a flat-out rip off roaming around somewhere, but I can't seem to locate it this morning.

If by Emily, you mean "Emily is Away" then I hate that game with an everlasting passion.

Hmm, in retrospect, I should have picked Pumping Simulator 2 in every category.

 

[Zloth]

"Game of the Current Year" and "Most Anticipated" are the same category for me. I'll go with 2013.

Now 2013... let's see... XCOM showed up in 2012. I bet the Long War mod was 2013, though, which certainly deserves a mention.

Bioshock Infinite was really good, especially the ending. There was some dumb stuff mid-story (uhh, it's a surprise to you that you can't drag a printing press around!?), but overall great. You still can't get the music for the game.

Saints Row 4 was pretty fun, but not as fun as Saints Row: the Third. Stanley Parable was great but short. X: Rebirth showed up in an absolutely terrible state, but eventually clawed its way back to fun after a few expansions.

Overall, 2013 was a pretty terrible year.

 

[DXCHASE]

Diablo 4: Have they fixed the inventory problem yet? That is biggest reason I haven't bothered returning yet. I might wait until next season now or for the expansion pack.
No point playing if I don't have any space to put anything. That and I have to delete characters to make any new ones

I agree there needs to be more space but inventory has been the least of my concerns. By some point you have so much gold, materials and half your build is uber-uniques, theres really no reason to collect even legendary loot (materials sell for millions), which is apart of a much larger problem that D4 still has when it comes to gear.

 

[BeardyHat]

Christ almighty, this year has gone fast. I'll need to go back and dig up what i completed this year and name my top games i played.

An honorable mention would certainly go to hypnospace outlaw. i can't explain it. The game is boring as hell, yet i can't stop thinking about it as away from the work like experience lies a wonderfully fleshed out digital world that borders on voyeurism. it scratches many itches on games i want in a game. if you're clever can discover some interesting things. most challenges have more then one way to complete them, sometimes you may have to pay a high fee OR you could go into the bowels of hypnospace outlaw and solve the challenge for free. plus there are multiple actions you can take to decide the fate of key members on hypnospace and even save a few lives.

I've been trying to complete that game for years now. I've started it three or four times and each time I basically make it to the time skip and then lose steam; probably somewhere it starts to become more self guided in finding violations, I get bored of hunting around for stuff.

Love the aesthetic though, reminds me heavily of being a teen in the mid to late 90's and having a blog.

As for my games of the year, I'm not sure any of them came out this year.

1. Pentiment - I adore this one. It'll forever be stuck in my brain and I need to actually play it again.

2. Return of the Obra Dinn - Didn't click with it at first, but powered through and it ended-up becoming one of my favorite experiences in gaming.

3. Shadows of Doubt - Needed to force myself to stop playing this one, since it's in Early Access and I don't want to totally ruin myself on it before it's "feature complete." Such an interesting game and I can't wait to see what else the developers come up with for it.

 

[Brian Boru]

Overall, 2013 was a pretty terrible year

Only for CGI—Corridor Gamers Inc.

For us less constricted 'overall' PC gamers, there were at least 3 top-class picks, as per my post.

PS 'Inc.' means incapacitated

 

[Colif]

I agree there needs to be more space but inventory has been the least of my concerns. By some point you have so much gold, materials and half your build is uber-uniques, theres really no reason to collect even legendary loot (materials sell for millions), which is apart of a much larger problem that D4 still has when it comes to gear.

I know. I was ignoring legendary drops as I knew they just magically show in my inventory anyway. I probably do a massive fire sale when I return so I can delete some characters and make other classes. The lack of inventory is why I have 10 Necromancers now. No room to think about making anything else.

A lot of my inventory space is uniques. Funny, super rare until second last difficulty and then they fall all the time and become like candy.

items are meaningless. Only so many are really amazing, rest are just random rolls of stats.

 

[Johnway]

I've been trying to complete that game for years now. I've started it three or four times and each time I basically make it to the time skip and then lose steam; probably somewhere it starts to become more self guided in finding violations, I get bored of hunting around for stuff.

Love the aesthetic though, reminds me heavily of being a teen in the mid to late 90's and having a blog.

yeah its why i m,ade it an honorable mention and not a GOTY material. The TLDR on my opinion of the game was that its more an art piece / passion project and as a game its pretty boring.

The webpages does invoke the 90s feel of geocities and early webpages down to the tedious slow loading of pages (you can speed it up by jiggling the cursor!). But at the same time its incredibly garish and headache inducing at times. Especially irratating when the game is a literal search for a needle in a haystack. hell, sometimes i would have the answer already in my possession and not know it!

But i think the problem is that much of the good stuff is hidden too well and/or require some thinking. This youtube video pretty much sums up how good hypnospace outlaw is.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIkdvGMG4gY


Will i get hypnospace outlaw 2? Absolutely.

 

[Johnway]

ok after going back through my list, i can confirm just two of the games i played in 2023 was worthy of my GOTY (well, the best or most outstanding games i played as opposed to being released in 2023):


yakuza 2 Kiwami

Hollow knight.


Everything else? Either fell in the "meh it was alright" or "fun, but not outstanding enough to deserve my GOTY accolade"

Christ. my 2023 has been a bit rubbish. Just like my work career in 2023.



i suppose i will give another honorable mention:

Steamworld dig 2 - liked the first one and the second improved on it. Nothing special, but i enjoyed it a lot.



What about the doom wad front? Tbh i only played the best stuff, cacoaward winning stuff so all of them are winners in my book. Bu the ones that standout the most in my memory are

Ray Mohwak 2 - plays like a bad 80's action movie and its more awesome for it.

pirate doom - more then just a pirate theme reskin. Actually filled with creative maps, ideas and you get to face off against le chuck from monkey island. A fantastic wad.

 

[Brian Boru]

hypnospace outlaw 2

Named Dreamsettler.

You know about their June 2023 Boomer Shooter Slayers X?

There's a game Broken Reality which may have a similar vibe.

plays like a bad 80's action movie

You might like the standalone expansion Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

 

[Johnway]

You might like the standalone expansion Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

yep got that as well. I enjoyed the DLC, it a breath of fresh air compared to Far cry 3 and for a DLC a pretty fleshed out effort.

You know about their June 2023 Boomer Shooter Slayers X?

i know that one too. made by that edge lord kid that i banned in hypnospace for harassing a girl* and being a nuisance. he died in my game.

*incidentally i also sent a warning to the girl for providing the evidence of his activity. We can't have profanity and sexual content on hypnospace! even if its to prove of others infractions! oh and for the money.

but i digress, i want to get it but i'm in no rush to play that boomer shooter. maybe too edgy, black emo for my tastes. even if its ironic.

There's a game Broken Reality which may have a similar vibe.

now that looks like something i want to play. Will add to my wish list. thanks for the tip off!

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I don't play games very quickly, so I don't get a ton played in a year. But my favorite 2023 games were these, in order:

Tears of the Kingdom
Starfield
Cocoon

As for older games that I played in 2023, I absolutely loved Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Immortals: Fenyx Rising. I absolutely did not like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It was a huge step back in a lot of ways from Odyssey.

 

[Zloth]

Biggest Let-Down since Emily—Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon

You might like the standalone expansion Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

Now wait a minute.... clearly Brian<>Johnway, but there's got to be some explanation!

Best game I played for the first time this year (i.e. don't count X4: Foundations or No Man's Sky)... nominees are:

• Marvel's Midnight Suns
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Solasta
• Cyberpunk 2077

Jeeez, I hope Cyberpunk can beat out the other three in the next few days, because I'm not sure I could choose between them.

 

[Brian Boru]

there's got to be some explanation

I was expecting sth like FC3, but BD is very different—like say Dead Living Zombies is very different from FC5, despite being a DLC for it.

But BD has a devoted following among those who want what it offers, which seemed to be what Johnway likes.

Capisce?