Let's Chat Games 003 - (Favorite) GOTY
Time to reflect on the year and add more games to the backlog!
It's that time again, the time when you've already seen a million "best of" lists, seen your year "recapped" for you across all the services you use... you know, that tiny peek behind the curtain at all the data these companies all keep on you, tracking your every move, show watched, song played, and game not finished… and the time where I (briefly) talk about my favorites of the year. And I do mean “favorites” and not “best.”
If you’ve listened to DLC over the years, or perhaps seen some of my other writing on games from years’ past, you likely already know why I say favorite vs best, but to quickly recap for the new folks (also, welcome!) - it is important to me to frame my personal end of year lists as my favorites and not the best. I never want to imply that my preferences are more valid than yours, or any other person’s preferences for media. Could there be “objective” bests in art, maybe… but that’s not what I’m here to argue. I just wanna talk about the things that really connected with me. Cool? Cool!
Yup, it is true, 2023 was an incredible year for video games. TOO. MANY. GAMES. While DLC limits us to our 5 favorite games of the year, this newsletter has no such limitation. So, without further ado, and presented in alphabetical order, my 17 favorite games of the year:
Alan Wake 2;
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty;
Dead Space;
El Paso, Elsewhere;
Gran Turismo 7 VR;
Hi-Fi Rush;
Humanity;
Star Wars Jedi Survivor;
Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom;
Metroid Prime Remastered;
Planet of Lana;
Resident Evil 4;
Spider-Man 2;
Starfield;
Street Fighter 6;
Super Mario Wonder; and
Viewfinder.
And while I won’t give longer explanations for all 17 games, I do want to highlight a few.
Alan Wake 2 was my favorite game of 2023 hands down. It is so confident in its story and the delivery of that story. Remedy (the developers of Alan Wake 2 and the folks behind Max Payne 1 & 2; Quantum Break; and Control; among others) push the “AAA” gaming space forward in the graphical technologies they use and implement, and by playing with ways to mix media (live action, in-game graphics, music, text on screen). Alan Wake 2 is a spooky game and it has its share of jump scares FOR SURE, so I know it won’t be for everyone, but it had one of my favorite gaming sequences of recent memory and I absolutely LOVED how it played with the idea of who is, was, or can be the “reliable narrator” of the story. Alex Sulman, Phillipe Bosher, and I did a full-on spoiler chat for the game released to DLC Patrons on December 1. It’s a really fun chat all about a game all three of us absolutely loved.
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty (a dlc expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 and released alongside the game’s 2.0 update) is a standalone story you can jump straight into even if you haven’t played any Cyberpunk 2077, but it also works as new story missions you can start from within your existing save too. Phantom Liberty took me by total surprise. I didn’t hate Cyberpunk 2077 when it first released, but I wasn’t blown away by it either. I was playing on PC, but it still had some tech issues and certainly didn’t feel like the game they first promised. It also felt a little TOO EDGY, BRAH a lot of the time. Edgy for edgy-sake. The various updates over the years and the big update on building your character and how you upgrade your character in 2.0 made it a better experience. And also, the story of Phantom Liberty itself is excellent and self contained in a satisfying way. Idris Elba’s performance is fantastic and the new stuff from Keanu Reeves is incredible too. The more I thought about Phantom Liberty vs Starfield, the more I realized I preferred Phantom Liberty’s package from top to bottom. The character moments, the world exploration, the story, and the role-playing possible. I loved Phantom Liberty and if you slept on Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, Phantom Liberty is a great place to jump in.
Viewfinder is a small puzzle game that plays with perspective in really fascinating ways. It scratched that Portal itch for me. The story wasn’t as compelling, but the way you used Polaroid-style photos to manipulate the world and reach the exit for each stage remained exciting and satisfying throughout. I love when a game makes me feel like the smartest person in the world for “hacking” a solution to a puzzle, when really, that’s the conclusion the developers wanted me to come to all along.
Also, Metroid Prime Remastered is the best version of Metroid Prime and more people still need to play Metroid Prime. It does so much with so little in terms of story and world building. Just a fantastic experience that is as excellent today as it was when it first came out. And since I’m talking Nintendo, I think getting rid of the timers in Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one the game’s best features and that whole game is incredible. The creativity on display on each level is unmatched.
I’d love to know what games were you favorites this year. You can reply to this email, or you could comment on this post on Substack. So many good games.
Outside of games, a few other favorites of mine from 2023 include:
Music: Blink-182’s One More Time, Sincere Engineer’s Cheap Grills, Paramore’s This is Why
Movies: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem; Barbie; Blackberry; John Wick: Chapter 4; Talk to Me
TV: The Last of Us; Bluey season 3; Succession; Poker Face
Books: Stephen King’s Fairy Tale (it came out in 2022, but I read it in 2023, so I am counting it!); the other books I read this year are even older… sooooo…
Thanks for being here!
-C