Last December I did an end-of-year recap thing that got a lot of fun comments. Thought Iād do it again this year! What games did you complete (or just play a lot of)? What did you think about them? Highlights? Lowlights? Might be a good chance to find some hidden gems while the Steam sale is on too.
I finished a surprisingly large number of games this year. Sorted by date completed, oldest firstā¦
A Short Hike | 8/10
Cute, short, and fun. Perfect game to start the year.
Inside | 8/10
Limbo was the very last game I completed in '23, and I definitely preferred Inside overall. I liked the atmosphere, visuals, and puzzles more here.
Hook 2 | 7/10
NABOKI | 6/10
Up Left Out | 6/10
I bought these three as part of a bundle. Short and fun puzzle games, nothing super memorable.
Firewatch | 7/10
Definitely an enjoyable time, great voice acting, but the ending was kind of underwhelming.
Cyber Hook | 7/10
I really like this style of 3D platformer, but there arenāt a lot of them. The only other one I can think of is Grapple, which was hugely underrated.
Lunistice | 6/10
Cute art style, but I remember the controls feeling a little bit janky.
Slay the Princess | 8/10
Fuckinā weird, I love it.
Unpacking | 6/10
I was disappointed that I didnāt vibe with this one very much. Telling the story through the items you own is a super cool idea, but I just couldnāt get myself to really care about where to place the items which is the entire gameplay loop.
Hades | 10/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
I donāt like roguelikes, so I skipped Hades for a long time, but I finally gave in. I LOVED my time with this. The meta progression was done well enough that I felt like I was still making progress overall so the roguelike-ness never bothered me, and every other aspect of this game is perfection. My highest rated game of the year because I cannot find a reason to take a point away.
Trail Out | 7/10
Something something imitation, something something flattery. This is a Flatout game, but itās honestly a pretty good one. I had a fun time with it, but Iād never take this over Flatout 2.
art of rally | 7/10
Iām not a huge fan of top-down racers but with some tweaks in the camera settings itās bearable. What really hurts this game is the penalty/recovery system, itās so eager to reset your car the moment you go off the track, even if only by a hair, it destroys the flow. Graphics are beautiful though.
Hot Wheels Unleashed | 6/10
Itās fine. Super repetitive, lootbox-esque progression is stupid, but itās mechanically sound. I would only recommend if youāre desperate for arcade racers like I am.
Loddlenaut | 7/10
I love how cleaning games have become a genre. This is a short and sweet game about cleaning the ocean, I had a good time with this one on the Steam Deck.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 | (the PS2 one) | 9/10
Thereās a decent chance this was the first video game I ever played. If not the first, itās at least among the first couple. Iāve started so many saves but never actually finished the career mode until now. Aside from the career structure being a bit boring, itās still a highlight of the franchise for me. Beautiful tracks, beautiful cars, top tier early '00s soundtrack, great handling, I love this game.
Gear.Club Unlimited 2 | 6/10
Look, Iām really desperate for arcade racers, okay? This one isnāt a live service, isnāt always online, no lootboxes, no battle passes, Iāll take it.
Toem | 7/10
Cute, but there were several times throughout my playthrough where it felt like what shouldāve been the solution wasnāt, and the actual solution made less sense than what I was trying to do, which was a bit frustrating.
Hi-Fi Rush | 9/10
The score went up an entire point when The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die started playing. I really hope this gets a sequel.
Burnout Revenge | 9/10
Another game Iāve started many times and never finished. NFS:HP2 may have been a nostalgia-driven 9/10, but this is a genuine 9/10. Absolutely puts everything from the past 10 years of this genre to shame.
DiRT 4 | 6/10
Painfully dull. DiRT Rally is a way better sim, DiRT 2/3/5 are way better arcade racers, there is no reason to ever touch this. I finished it because I am desperate for racing games.
Ghostrunner II | 7/10
This one didnāt vibe with me as much as the first, and Iām not really sure why. The bike levels were a bit janky but were still fun for variety, and I still liked the game overall, but Iām more likely to replay the first than this.
SPRAWL | 9/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
If SPRAWL didnāt have a soundtrack, it would be an 8/10, good time, recommend. However, I have had this goddamn soundtrack on repeat since playing it. This is my favorite video game OST and itās not even remotely close. This is a neurofunk album with a video game tie-in.
Blur 8/10
The fact that when I first played this I instantly got a message from a friend I hadnāt talked to in years asking āHOW DID YOU GET A STEAM KEYā says so much about the legacy of this game. It existed for such as short period of time and was horribly underrated. (I wish I owned this game on Steam, but it was a non-Steam copy.)
Webbed | 7/10
Cute platformer, donāt really much about it at the moment besides skateboarding spiders.
Bastion | 8/10
Played after putting many more hours into Hades to see where Supergiant came from. I was impressed by how well it holds up, fun to see earlier concepts that Hades would perfect.
Old School Rally | ?/10
Technically an early access game, but I finished all the available career events. Very promising PS1-style rally game.
Stories: The Path Of Destinies | 8/10
You ever have one (or hundreds) of those games you got in a Humble Bundle 5 years ago and just never touched? This was one of those, I randomly decided to play it, and it was great! Fantastic voice acting, fun story, fun combat, I wish I played it sooner.
Exo One | ?/10
I donāt know whatās going on and at this point Iām too afraid to ask. I think I launched a marble at Jupiter?
Hardspace: Shipbreaker | 8/10
This was my podcast game for a while. Not very deep, but itās fun to gradually tear ships apart. Definitely recommend playing on the lower difficulty, having to worry about O2 and stuff kills the vibe.
To the Moon | 5/10
Explaining why I donāt like this game involves major spoilers. To keep it vague, I really donāt like how they handled one of the characters in the story. If youāve played the game, you either understand or think Iām insane because apparently this is a masterpiece.
ExoCross | 6/10
Very basic offroad racer. Used to be named āDRAGā but then the developers were bought by iRacing. The game seems like it was frantically rushed out of early access after that. The native Linux port is excellent though.
RUINER | 7/10
10/10 vibes, 5/10 gameplay.
Furi | 8/10
āThat final boss sure was easyā¦ oh? oh! OH FUCK!ā followed by many deaths until I finally won.
Pseudoregalia | 8/10
10/10 movement/controls, but the environments felt a little bland. Thereās an accessibility option to put pants on your character.
Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition | 6/10
Itās fine, but nothing especially noteworthy compared to other metroidvanias Iāve played.
Redout II | 9/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
(I played with the assists off because I am a stubborn bastard, I have no idea how the assists change the gameplay.)
Redout II will repeatedly punch you in the face until your brain wraps itself around controlling these 2700km/h deathtraps. But trust me, once you get good, itās euphoric. One of my favorite gaming experiences this year was missing out on a gold medal in a time trial by several seconds and thinking āhow the fuck is this possibleā? And then I tried again. And again. Going faster, and faster, until I had beaten the gold time by several seconds. Every time you think you canāt go any faster, youāre wrong, just be better.
Crayon Physics Deluxe | 5/10
Great idea for a puzzle game, but the janky physics made it more frustrating than fun.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | 7/10
Itās fine, but doesnāt really feel like it lives up to the hype surrounding it.
Mini Motor Racing X | 6/10
Painfully dull career mode, but Iām desperate for arcade racers.
Parking Garage Rally Circuit | 7/10
Short but fun.
Minecraft | ?/10
I havenāt beaten Minecraft in probably 10 years, so I started and new save and beat the game again for the hell of it. Iām not sure how to rate Minecraft out of 10 at this point.
Jusant | 9/10
Super beautiful and chill, I recommend avoiding spoilers and just playing it.
Dome Keeper | 7/10
Trying to keep the Hades āmaybe I donāt hate roguelikesā thing going, so I got Dome Keeper. I feel like itās too easy and thereās not enough variety in runs, but I still had some fun with it.
Dead Cells | 8/10
And finally, one more roguelike. Iāve ābeatenā the game, as in Iāve reached the credits, but only 0BC. Still playing it, but wonāt be chasing 5BC or anything like that. I do wish there was more meta progression with this one, a lot of runs feel like a complete waste of time which is my main problem with roguelikes, but the core gameplay is excellent.
Iām so happy I didnāt know that song was in the game. I personally rate it 10/10, a perfect blend of gameplay, story, and soundtrack, with bonus points for managing to toe the line between goofy and sincere. That part at the end (āI am a rockstarā) had me bracing for someone to point out how cheesy it was, and no one does. I love a piece of media that doesnāt make fun of you for getting invested.
I realize I need to finish more games. The only four I beat this year were
Baldurās Gate 3 | 8/10
Iām gonna be real, the replay value is not really there for me. My wizard and my co-playerās paladin are the big damn heroes, and I have trouble getting into another character. Iām not gonna get a better ending than the one I got with _______ and ____, and it feels weird being as into Karlach as I was, and then just pushing her aside and dating someone else
Outriders | 8/10
The world needs more games like this. I love that everyone recognizes that the Outrider is essentially a god. The Russian roulette scene alone brings this up from a 7, but the rather unsatisfying ending brings it down from a 9. I donāt love that they imply some big war between the altered humans, and then ditch that halfway through. The fact that Moloch is introduced as a BBEG and then you kill him in an optional endgame side mission is disappointing. The DLC though, that kicked assā¦ Right up until the rather unsatisfying end, again. Itās certainly much better than the main game, which isnāt really that bad to begin with. I just want to know what the Outrider learned in that ancient vault.
Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand | 7/10
Donāt get me wrong when I say 7/10. Itās one of my favorite games Iāve ever played, and I want more games like it. Itās hard to explain why exactly I like it so much, but I think I can sum it up with: many other games are rather exhausting, either mentally, or emotionally. This game doesnāt expect a lot from the player, except for proficiency with the simple combat system. The story is simpleāthereās an evil god, you find a magic gauntlet that can maybe kill that god, action ensues. I can count on one hand the number of characters that I feel like the game wanted me to remember or care about.
Itās a fun game, solid 30 hours to 100%, 7/10 absolutely recommend.
Hellblade 2: Senuaās Saga | 7/10
It wasnāt as good as the first game. Or maybe itās that it wasnāt as better than the first game as it could have been. A large part of why the first game was so engaging to me was the loneliness. It was just me and the furies, and the puzzles we were solving. Senuaās Saga introduces a few primary characters, and villages full of people, which dampens the furiesā affect on me. The game was also much more confusing. In the first game, itās entirely nebulous what was real and what was in Senuaās head. You can interpret it as a literal descent into the underworld to attempt to reclaim her loverās soul, or an entirely figurative descent into her own psyche to overcome the grief of losing him, or somewhere in between. Ironically, this makes it easier for me to parse, because thereās no apparent contradictions. The sequel makes it explicitly clear that Senua is engaging, at least somewhat, in real life. This makes it more confusing, because
Hellblade 2 spoiler
the >!giants are also explicitly a result of peopleās negative emotions. So are the giants really giant? Is everything literal? I need to read some analysis.!<
Let me know if the spoiler tags didnāt work in your client. I think combining the ::: and the >!!< should cover all bases