Games I Beat in 2023, Ranked
I was finishing the song list thing before I got this one finished so here’s this also a bit later. It’s a shorter list due to getting sidetracked by everything, including work taking up most of my usual days due to the general corporate movement to end remote work for the most part at least (though at least I managed to keep something for that to use sparingly). Clearly this has been an up and down year in gaming. If you play games, there have been many highly-anticipated and sometimes actually great ones released, some of which I may have played a bit of but probably have yet to beat, but also some of the worst in recent years have come out, mainly some oddly-timed licensed cash-ins, outside of the oddly-timed licensed games that actually turned out decent. If you make games, this was more than likely one of the worst years for games ever, given about half of everyone total across many companies being laid off and I expect this to continue through all of next year at least if not end up in some kind of total industry crash. Not sure where games will go from here either, but going further into that topic would be a different sort of post, and this one’s meant to focus on what I beat last year.
As usual, this one is a countdown to the one I liked the most. It was a tricky list, and this was without beating all the big releases from 2023, and only playing a handful as well due to my lack of jumping on games as soon as they come out. It was more hard to pick exactly how one game stood out more than another from what I did beat for the most part, though they were all at least generally fine. A lot are from Game Pass again while I still have that, though I’m anticipating letting that run out later this year due to the costs being jacked up and effectively ending that Gold conversion discount as well, plus how I tire of the onslaught of streaming-like presentation of games gradually getting removed from the service in exchange for others, even if the games can still be installed locally for the most part.
- Disney Dreamlight Valley (XB1, Game Pass)
This is a game that was originally supposed to be a free-to-play mobile kinda game, and the microtransactions present generally follow that rule, but at least aren’t horribly intrusive, but after its early access period, because I’m not sure why this needed an early access period for how corporate this is, it just stayed a paid experience. Of course since I played through Game Pass I didn’t pay any extra here. Anyway, this is a game that kind of emulates Animal Crossing but with established characters as well as an established history for the player character. And there’s also a lot of grinding in general, mainly just having to gather things and harvest crops and whatnot to get friendship levels with the various characters high enough to progress their storylines as well as the main one. It’s a sort of game to just zone out to for unwinding, provided one doesn’t get tired of doing all the various tasks and things. And then at some point there’s a weird moment in the story later on that kinda lampshades that and I just found that a bit off. I mean it’s nowhere really near the extent of the developer company pushing a bunch of corporate responses to negative reviews of a game at least, but that was a bit presumptuous. However the game overall is fine and WALL-E is still an adorable cube. So naturally I maxed out his friendship level first.
- Goat Simulator 3 (PC, Game Pass)
I played through pretty much everything on the original game, and didn’t have any plans to check out the oddly numbered sequel here until it showed up on Game Pass. Long story short, it’s more of the same, but instead of having several moderately sized maps, it’s just one big one, and there’s actually an end goal to progress toward by raising mayhem through various quests, culminating in some weird event that goes on for a while. Overall, another thing to unwind with, though the “main quest” is fairly short if that’s the main goal to strive toward. Then there’s completing everything if one really wants to, but I had enough fun with getting through the bulk of things.
- The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC, Steam)
This was an odd thing released as sort of a joke but also not, more of a lighthearted adventure kind of, aside from the title protagonist being dead for a lot of it. Instead the player character is this nameable creature who I called “Ohsi” if you can understand why. Most of the game is a visual novel that crosses over with a sort of running action minigame that gets increasingly difficult, though at least has some optional assists attached to it. Apparently the minigame is balanced for people who are “experienced” with Sonic games, and I’m guessing that means “ready to deal with constant nonsense found in a number of modern games”. Not the best idea to play this while tired late at night then, but at least the assists are there to push through as needed. In general it’s a fun little experience that explores interacting with a handful of the extended cast as some random outsider which doesn’t take itself too seriously while also having a proper plot of sorts.
- PowerWash Simulator (PC, Game Pass)
Another one of those simulators that gets more unhinged as it goes, but the main gameplay generally remains as cleaning off strangely filthy items and locations with a pressure washer that manages to not break windows, yet can send garden gnomes flying and also unbroken somehow. There’s also a story to this one while going through the various things and places to clean. I wonder if the story was sort of designed the way it was because they didn’t anticipate people to actually get that far before quitting and came up with the reward of “here’s increasingly weird stuff happening”. And then some free and paid updates came along to add more things and places from various other properties, and it’s not like that’s much wackier than the base game as it was, just more licensed, doing things like cleaning Lara Croft’s estate or various spots in Midgar. Note how those are both Square Enix properties, as they’re somehow the publisher of this game. Still, it’s weirdly relaxing to the point where if I’m even remotely tired when I play it, I’ll practically fall asleep. And that’s with music I’ve put on in the background, which this game mostly lacks to instead focus on the white noise of the whitewater coming from the hose. This game was oddly enjoyable, not sure if oddly satisfying though. I also went for most of the base game achievements, which call for some pretty strange conditions at times which can run against the otherwise relaxing mood of the game.
- LEGO The Incredibles (PS4)
I decided to play yet another Lego game, and it ended up being this one I’d picked up not too long ago. I was interested in it because it was effectively The Incredibles Featuring The Rest Of Pixar since there’s various points to build scenes from other Pixar movies in the hub city, which unlock their respective characters. One I found early was Dory from Finding Nemo/Dory, who comes with her own water sphere and she effectively acts as a wrecking ball, which I found funny. Aside from that, it’s a fairly typical modern Lego game experience probably comparable to their other superhero outings that I’ve not played much of otherwise outside of some Batman ones. As usual, it can be fun to mess with stuff in levels and see parts of the movies I hadn’t watched in a while be adapted with less death, more attempts at comedy, and more random detours to build stuff. Also fairly typical, recalling how some scenes were adjusted in a similar manner in the last Lego Star Wars game I played. Another odd thing is that it puts the second movie as the first playable campaign, which then unlocks the first movie as the other campaign. Probably because that was newer.
- Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery (PC, Game Pass)
This is a compilation of three short games combined into one, involving a rectangular frog fellow wandering around the environment to solve mysteries of various stakes. The art style here is simple and cute, low poly characters animated with floppy limbs and an overall humorous take on things that’s also very wholesome. I just found this fun to relax with for as long as it lasted, including poking around looking for other secrets, including various cute little bugs that can be spotted crawling around.
- A Short Hike (XB1, Game Pass)
Of course this is a short game, and I’m pretty sure I have this game from other sources on PC probably, but I decided to play on console through Game Pass. It defaults to a pixelated filter, but I decided to turn that off to experience the full low-poly cute animal goodness. The art style reminded me of a later game, Lil Gator Game, which apparently cites this one as an inspiration, so I can certainly see the connection. I also saw a playthrough of that game on a stream and it’s also delightfully adorable. Both games involve exploring around and climbing on an island, though this one features a bird looking to get a phone signal while anticipating a phone call, but there’s no rush as the island is there for a leisurely pace. There are all kinds of things to do and find as well so it’s a pretty packed island with some extras.
- Immortality (PC, Game Pass)
I’d played the previous two FMV games from this creator effectively leading up to this one, though they’re all separate stories. This game is also effectively three movies in one with some other various clips and things, and once again the task is to search through clips to find connections leading to more clips and solve a mystery that ends up getting weirder as it goes. The movies all seem like full-fledged productions as well which lends a lot of realism to this approach, including the clips all looking from their proper period. However by the time I’d looked at enough clips to piece together most of the story, it just took some extra poking around to get the ending to actually trigger, which was also weird. However I found this a neat thing once again, just general FMV stuff of pretty good quality. Also there’s a little bit of nudity given that these are films of some kind of provocative nature so I wouldn’t recommend streaming this one on certain sites that have flaky and not fully defined policies about that.
- Paradise Killer (XB1, Game Pass)
This game certainly has style, and that’s what stood out most to me. It clearly takes inspiration from Suda51 type games as well as Danganronpa and makes good use of that, with a strange cast of well-designed characters, plus adds a funky city pop-styled soundtrack with vaporwave elements over everything. I actually enjoyed the soundtrack so much I went and bought a copy on CD because there’s an official source for that as well. The gameplay is largely running around a vaporwave island slated for demolition due to demonic corruption, host to various architecture, like a Japanese-inspired urban area and some opulent colossal structures to honor those considered gods in this dimension, and finding various objects as well as where the characters are hanging out. Some items are important clues, others are random collectibles, and many are “blood crystals” which serve as currency for various things, including unlocking songs and skins for the menus as well as getting other random collectibles. Then there’s the running between the characters on the map to gather clues and ask about them and also just chat with them at times. It all leads up to a trial where the gathered clues serve as evidence to convict who the player decides to accuse, provided there’s enough to potentially set up a connection. So in general, while I found the gameplay fine overall though not quite groundbreaking, the overall style is where this game shines. That and it’s fun to run around the various architecture while the soundtrack plays out on shuffle or depending on the location. There’s all sorts of things to find on and around the island, even if most are just the blood crystals which give a popup every single time one’s found, and upgrades to mobility to get into every little crevice of the map. There’s also other side diversions like visiting vending machines to unlock things, finding the hiding spots of a bizarre cackling demon who may or may not be giving any kind of advice, and encountering a good dog. I’d say it’s at least worth looking at even if it’s not everyone’s kind of game and the gameplay isn’t exactly exciting, more relaxing aside from a puzzle or two.
And no, there’s no Baldur’s Gate 3 or any random Last of Us or Soulslikes on here. Though at least that first one I’d like to check out. As I mentioned before, this was a bit of a hard list to arrange since there wasn’t a lot that really stood out to me and a lot of the bigger things I’ve been working on had been put aside to focus on everything else that was coming up last year, so I was more able to fit shorter or more casual type stuff in that schedule.
Once I finish whatever I’m looking at on Game Pass though in terms of that having a lot of modern games, particularly meaning to focus on games I wouldn’t buy typically (generally AAA stuff overall with a few other random things), I’m putting a major focus on long-standing stuff that’s been in my general library so I can get more caught up there. I’m only potentially looking forward to a small number of games this next year as far as things I’m aware of, and I also anticipate this year’s release schedule and overall quality being generally worse as the industry potentially collapses. Or maybe that’s just society itself collapsing. I just want to get in as much fun stuff as I can while I can either way, but this also includes things that aren’t video games so I’ll see what I have time for after that.
For now, I at least have a bunch of potentially fun games on hand without having to wait around for the newest, like usual. Again, I’m not sure how people manage to string themselves along on the latest Call of Duty or Madden or whatever and that’s it, but I’m just not that type of person. I’m more the type to look at older Call of Duty games for the campaign on occasion. And older anything, really, I guess to see how well it holds up.