I have a lot of feelings about video games in 2023. A lot of feelings about the state of the industry and the treatment of the people making the games we love to play. I’m hopeful that the industry will pull together and unionize and collectively fight to not be wildly exploited by the companies they make profitable through their talent, creativity, and tremendous work. We see you and we see what’s being done to you and it sucks fucking ass.
I played a lot of games this year and it’s been a good ass year for gamers. There are games that are supposedly amazing that I haven’t even had time to touch. There are also a number of games I’ve started, that I want to get back to, that I haven’t had the chance to finish yet. Out of all the games I’ve had the pleasure of playing, these are the games I enjoyed playing through the most this year:
When Breath of the Wild released in 2017, it became one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. The sense of wonder, exploration, and discovery were unrivaled. When Tears of the Kingdom was revealed to take place in the same world and as a direct sequel, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I expected a fleshed out DLC type experience. Instead, it leap-frogged over everything its predecessor achieved and built upon it in a way that’s uncommon in video game sequels. While the bones of Hyrule were the same, everything in it was changed in interesting and material ways. The raw discovery from the first game was replaced with the vague familiarity of returning to a city you used to live in. It had been over six years since I last visited Hyrule and the amount of time that had passed in-game was about the same. In addition to revisiting old haunts, Nintendo introduced wholly new areas in the forms of countless floating islands as well as an underground world that was the same size as the original landmass of Hyrule. They stacked numerous new systems that let you feel so clever and powerful that sometimes you’d wonder if you’re breaking the game in ways the developer didn’t expect you to. They created a Legend of Zelda playground and tucked little surprises and rewards into every nook and cranny. They included a great story that built up the characters beyond what they’d ever been before. And somehow, through dark Nintendo magic, they made the game beautiful. I played Zelda alongside PS5 and Series X games like Dead Space and Jedi Survivor and despite the immense raw hardware performance capability gap between current-gen consoles and three gamecubes duct taped together, I found myself being more impressed and moved by the images being generated on a fucking Nintendo Switch. Falling from the sky, high above Hyrule, during a sunset, in awe of the view.
Resident Evil 4 was very good when it first came out on the GameCube, but as time passed, and it was re-released over and over, it became good, then okay, then something you’d load up for the sake of nostalgia but not play for more than a few minutes. With this remake, it is now, once again, very good. It’s surprising just how good it is considering how closely they seem to have followed the blueprints of an almost 20 year old game. It’s not doing anything new or exciting. It’s just executing the modern day Resident Evil formula to perfection. RE4 was when the series shifted from survival horror (and all the item scarcity that came with it) to a 3rd person action game. It’s Evil Dead becoming Army of Darkness (Reference to a horror series from the late 1900s). The story is absolutely absurd, but it’s played with a straight face that’s refreshing to see when every other game nowadays is doing the “Well THAT just happened” style of dunking on itself. This is a video game ass video game that you blast your way through while solving distinctly Resident Evil “puzzles” and soaking in a B movie plot. It almost didn’t make the list due to my feelings on it having waned since it came out in March, but playing through the Separate Ways DLC solidified its place in my list. By the way, the DLC is also fantastic and feels like a speedrun of the main game.
I played through a couple games this year with my daughter and Pikmin 4 was by far the one we enjoyed the most. We’ve played other co-op games where she had more agency over what was going on but she was happy to direct me where to go, tell me what to do, and provide support with her cursor through tossing items and throwing pebbles. Again, using wild ass Nintendo knowhow, the game looks great and full of character. The addition of the dog creature (despite its name being Oatchi, we called it Mochi) was also very fun. The game is Pikmin and Pikmin is a good time. My daughter was a red pikmin for Halloween this year and she also asked me to make her a Pikmin birthday card (You can see it here if you’d like) We were both enamored with this game and it’s hands-down one of the best gaming experiences I had this year.