Ludonarrative Dissonance

This is where I write about games, game culture, and my backlog. Some years I only have time to post my GOTY list, but hey, that's life, man.

[ludonarrativediss]

I played this game Easy Delivery Co. last year and I love it and not enough people have played it so I made this little video about it.

I'd love to make a bunch of these this year. I want to kind of iterate and perfect a short-form way of showing people cool video games to help with discovery of smaller games. I also have some ideas for long-form videos too, but I'm not talking about those yet.

[ludonarrativediss]

Game of the Year 2025

Photo by Anthony Dixon

2025: A weird year! I think I've been introducing every one of these lists for the last decade with "a weird year!" it'd be crazy to stop now. You know, unless we actually got a year that wasn't weird. 

Maybe we've only got weird years left.

2025 was indeed another weird year, and that carried over to video games. We got a new console launch that only sort of felt like a new console launch. We got a big pile of great games, many of which were surprising and new, but nothing really stuck around in the discourse for very long. Every week came with new layoffs, studios shutting down, and other consequences of previous years' unchecked consolidation and private equity garbage.

Perhaps as another symptom of all the bad things happening in the industry—I didn't love all the great new games. Don't get me wrong, I thought so many of them were good, but they didn't light that spark in me that I've felt in years prior. I bounced off of things I should love. I trailed off of games that I did love, returning instead to games from years past. If a friend was telling me this, I'd say these were probably symptoms of a deep depression and not truly reflective of the state of the industry, but it's me I'm talking about and my new years resolution to be more self-aware doesn't start until I'm done writing this list.

Either way, when December rolled around I found I had a list of games I had played, many of which I had enjoyed quite a bit, few that I had played to completion, and absolutely no desire to rank them in a traditional top 10 list. So this year's list is a little different. It's going to start with my game of the year, and then just talk about the games I played and what I thought of them. I want to focus on the smaller things you might've missed, the big things you might've ignored, and the older games that deserve a look. Let's get started.

My Game of the Year

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

This is my game of the year. I know it's also almost everyone else's game of the year, and that that's a little boring to just agree with the masses, but no game made me feel like Clair Obscur did this year. Beyond that, I think the story of its development, budget, scope and success shows a path out of the current untenable state of AAA video games.

If you haven't played it, Clair Obscur is an RPG that takes inspiration from modern turn-based Final Fantasy games while infusing the parry mechanics of Souls-like games, all while being very very French. It presents a unique world with well thought out, refined mechanics. It invests in everything it needs to invest in to be a great game, and smartly cuts corners with everything else. You can see the things that they loved and put their full hearts into, and while you're engrossed in those things you don't notice the things they ignored because who cares. My hope is that it can show other developers that going the Rockstar or Naughty Dog route of trying to create a fully realized open world is wasteful. Art is about working within limitations and creating the strongest work that makes people feel things, and in a technical field like video games that's about making choices about how to spend your time, money, and resources.

At the end of the day, though, Clair Obscure hit for me because it tells a very human story about loss and sacrifice. It values community and found family and does not end with a little bow tied around everything, offering two equally depressing but complex conclusions. Also, let me tell you, when you hit that parry just right it feels so good.

The Switch 2 Launch

The Switch 2 launched this year! Right? It's hard to remember. Pre-ordering it was a nightmare, but I managed to secure one. There was a great nostalgia in getting that console at a midnight launch and coming home and playing it until too late. The weird thing about the Switch 2 launch, though, is that despite a nice handful of really great games, none of them hit that hard for me. The thing I enjoyed most about my Switch 2 was loading up old Switch 1 games and seeing if they played better on the faster hardware. I got more enjoyment out of the better running Hyrule Warriors, Breath of the Wild, and Pokemon Scarlet than I did any of the new Switch 2 titles that came out. That's weird! But maybe it just points to how all consoles are kind of just little computers now and even a new Nintendo launch can now be compared to that feeling when you build a new PC and load up all your old games to crank up all the graphical options you previously had to ignore.

Mario Kart World

Number 1 Mario Kart fan logging on. Love me some SNES Mario Kart, bought an N64 the day Mario Kart 64 came out, many hours put into Mario Kart Wii. Mario Kart World is great, it looks amazing, plays amazing, has all the old stuff I love in a Mario Kart along with new weird open world shenanigans (which are maybe only fine, but that's okay). The issue, I guess, is that I'm not who I was when I played those other Mario Kart games. I'm older, I'm not having middle school friends over for birthday pizza parties or trying to beat time trial times to get my name in Nintendo Power or playing with a fake plastic wheel attachment with the girl who would later become my girlfriend. My social life has changed, what I need in a video game has changed, and so this Mario Kart was never going to suck me in fully. Instead, it made for some fun races at the launch of the Switch 2, and it'll be something I load up from time-to-time to feel nostalgic but in 4k.

Weird side take: I think Nintendo could've added a lot more modern social features and live-game things like leaderboards, battle passes, etc that would've made me play this daily, but that those things would've ultimately created a worse game, so I'm glad they made this one that I don't feel motivated to load up that often.

Donkey Kong Bonanza

Donkey Kong Bonanza takes everything that Nintendo has been doing with recent 3D Mario games and multiplies it by a factor of ten, while also providing the player freedom they have been experimenting with in recent Zelda games. Every level is full of collectibles and puzzles and things to explore. It made my brain sizzle to move DK through that destructible environment, tearing it all apart, climbing across every surfaces, getting a banana collectible on average every two and a half minutes.

Visually it is a striking, fully-realized world that I unfortunately thought "felt kinda gross." That combined with the feeling of my brain sizzling from too much straight uncut positive play made my sessions more stressful than I expected. The game was "too much" for me and I stopped going back to it after fifteen hours. I still really respect it and expect I will return, but maybe that team got too good at making 3D exploration platformers and need to chill out a little.

Pokemon Legends Z-A

Every time a new Pokemon game comes out I get tricked into buying that new Pokemon game because "this one is different" and well it happened again here just like I'm sure it'll happen again next time. This one does feel different enough with its real-time battles and it does look great on the Switch 2. I guess ultimately I'm always looking to be sucked back in fully like I was in the mid-00s with Pokemon Emerald and in reality I'll never get there again, and I need to decide if playing a Pokemon game casually for 20 hours every year is worth the current $70 entry fee.

Metroid Prime 4

This one hurt. It's got all the great Metroid Prime stuff in there, so for hours at a time I was able to forgive its offenses and just enjoy exploring an alien world and scanning things, but eventually it had burned its good will over and over again until it was just me and a pro controller on a pile of ashes, mad that I had played through the whole thing.

This game feels so 2005, with its space marines and corny dialogue and boring open world. In a way its charming—a PS2 game out of time—but the problem is that these new things actively work against what is great in a Metroid Prime game. The open world nature makes backtracking awful, there feels like little need to return to places to collect items, so the very nature of a Metroidvania game feels missing, and that's before you talk about the tone-ruining dialogue of the the space marines.

I don't know, I wish Nintendo of all people would feel okay about not reinventing the wheel. Just make a game like that game we loved twenty years ago again. Instead this game has a bunch of new stuff that somehow makes it feel even older.

Small Games You Should Buy Now

Without a Dawn

This is a beautiful, fascinating, and very dark experimental narrative game that I played through in one long sitting. I won't spoil anything about it, but it is worth its few bucks cost and an evening of your time.

Easy Delivery Co.

I love this little gem. Love its music, love its art style, love its whole deal. It's a delivery game almost like Death Stranding, but with Animal Crossing characters, a PS1 aesthetic, a lo-fi beats soundtrack, and almost Silent Hill like vibes. Do yourself a favor and play this one when you get the chance.

Ball x Pit

I love bouncing the balls and making them hit guys, I love making myself stronger to be better at the ball bouncing, and I love that every character you unlock has insane mechanics that make it feel like a new game.

Keep Driving

This is such a hard game to describe. It's kind of like Oregon Trail, but you're a young adult going on a big roadtrip in your first car. There are game mechanics that are almost puzzle like, but mostly you're making decisions about how to spend your time and enjoy your adventure. Despite an extremely lofi aesthetic, the art, sound design, and music all come together to really make you feel like you're on the road.

The first time I played this I picked up a hitchhiker in a wedding dress who had ran away from the altar, had some beers with her to make her feel better, than got pulled over by the cops and spent a month in jail before my parents bailed me out and ended my roadtrip. A+ game.

Hades 2

Hades 2 is incredible. It has everything that was great about Hades 1, with even more of all of those things. I'm still relatively early in—I think I've done about 20 runs and finished one route once—but I look forward to many more hours messing with its unique combat and making conversation with its amazing characters. The only knock against Hades II, and why it didn't hit me in the same way as Hades 1, is simply that another Hades game already exists. And well, why should we be that mad that one of the best games ever made got a follow up that is also one of the best games ever made?

Lumines Arise

I love Tetris Effect. This is Tetris Effect but with Lumines. I love jamming out with the tunes and making blocks disappear to the beat. It's great to play in VR or on a big tv or even a handheld device. The only difference between this and Tetris Effect is that I am good at Tetris and very bad at Lumines, but it's still a blast to play.

Keeper

Double Fine does it again, in their uniquely Double Fine way, this time with a walking lighthouse and a helpful bird. Keeper has some issues with camera control (you don't control it) and not every sequence lands, but together as a whole experience, Keeper is not to be missed. Just when you're getting bored of a mechanic, it will introduce a new one and you'll have a whole new game to explore. Although, perhaps explore is the wrong word—the way to get over the camera issues is to think of Keeper not as a game you explore, but as a game you follow in awe.

Big Games You Shouldn't Ignore Just Because They're Popular

Arc Raiders

I'm a latecomer to Arc Raiders—only got it during this holiday break—but I'm about 15 hours in and surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. I love running into strangers, emoting with "hello!" or "don't shoot!" and hoping I get a similar response. What's been great is that almost everyone has been friendly. I think I've been killed by other players only twice in that 15 hours, and each time it was like "haha, okay, you got me" before hopping back in.

Assassins Creed Shadows

I like Assassins Creed games and this is a good Assassins Creed game. I played near fifty hours of this thing and I'm not sure I'm at all close to finishing it, which I think maybe is a thing they should figure out, like how to make me able to finish the game in fifty hours. The game looks great, the characters are interesting, I like being able to play as two protagonists even if I wish that there was more separate content and experiences for each as opposed to making everything completable by either. I will keep going back to it here and there until I wrap up the story. What's nice about these modern Assassin's Creed games is that even on normal difficulty they have so little resistance, you can just push forward and feel like you're accomplishing a lot, which eventually makes them boring, but also makes them great for coming back to when you need that.

Death Stranding 2

I played 40 hours of Death Stranding 2 and pretty much loved every moment of it. The game really expands on the mechanics of the first to give you more freedom to plan out routes, make deliveries, and rebuild infrastructure. I have no idea how far into the story I am, because I spent so many of those hours driving a big truck full of supplies to deliver to various outposts. The wacky story is still there—maybe even wackier, and a great cinematic time—but my favorite moments were just driving a truck around and making the residents of Australia happy with my deliveries. I probably have another 40 to 80 hours of that to look forward to in 2026.

Ghost of Yotei

I almost didn't pick this up because I already had my big ancient Japan open world game of 2025 with Assassin's Creed Shadows, but ultimately I'm glad I did, because despite being made of roughly the same pieces, it is a very different experience. It's a beautiful game that puts its open world exploration somewhere between Zelda Breath of the Wild and Assassins Creed. Major events create waypoints on the map, but you can also just explore, finding something interesting in the distance and just riding your horse to it. It's a game I expected to just mainline, but twenty hours in and I've become very distracted with just vibing in the open world and finding sidequests.

Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition

I'm a fan of all the Xenoblade games. My standing recommendation is to start with 3—the most recent game that kind of gets everything right—and then move onto the others if you finish that one. Despite owning it on Wii U, I had never really gotten into Chronicles X, so this rerelease was really nice to have. I'm maybe 25 hours in and still don't have the mech from the cover, but I'm enjoying doing way too many sidequests and leveling up the many weirdos I can have in my party. The only thing that stopped me from putting more time into this game in 2025 was the hope that it would get a Switch 2 patch, which now going into 2026 I am still waiting on. Even without, though, the game plays fine on the Switch 1 or 2, and I expect to put a whole lot more hours into it next year.

Friendslop Corner

Schedule 1 and Abiotic Factor

I don't get a lot of time to play games with friends. I'm bad at scheduling and even with my besties I can have anxiety about setting up play sessions. That said, I did get to play a good chunk of both Schedule 1 and Abiotic Factor with a friend, and had a great time with both. They both succeed at being silly looking and playing, while having complex upgrade systems so you always have new goals to reach with your buds. In 2026 I need to get over my anxieties and find more time to play games like these with friends.

Survivors Corner

Soulstone Survivors, Warriors Abyss, Megabonk, and Deep Rock Galactic Survivor

Ahhh, Vampire Survivors clones. Maybe we're calling them Survivor games, maybe we're calling them one-stick shooters, maybe we're calling them bullet heavens. I don't care a ton, but I keep playing them. My standout this year remains Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, which was on my list last year but only left early access this year. It's still just as good as I was raving about in 2024, but now with a better progression system, a full loot system, and amazingly fast load times on Steam Deck.

Runners up are Soulstone Survivors, Warriors Abyss, and Megabonk, all games that give their own twist on the genre. Megabonk got a lot of attention this year—it's third-person behind the shoulder Vampire Survivors—so I don't feel like I need to talk it up much, but if you're looking for another one for some reason, check out Warriors Abyss, which is a Dynasty Warriors take on the genre. You hit a lot of buttons in this one to attack, but it's still very Survivors like, and has a ton of weird characters to unlock from different Koei Tecmo franchises.

Match 3 Corner

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion III, Spirit Swap, Puzzle Quest Immortal

I'm a simple man, I still like matching gems and watching them disappear. This year I got a new meta-take on it with Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion III, which takes the Puzzle Quest match 3 formula and puts it in a self-aware package where you're a character inside of a broken video game trying to fix it. It's got a great sense of humor and fun matching.

Likewise, Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match 3 To is a cozy match 3/narrative combo with fun characters and mechanics.

And lastly, once you try those two new ones from cool small indie teams, please don't sleep on the re-release of Puzzle Quest, the game that arguably started all of this almost twenty years ago. The rerelease has all new art, new quests, and that same classic match three action. Hope it sells well enough for them to do a remaster of Puzzle Quest 2, I can never have too much matching.

Old Games

These games came out last year, a few years ago, or forever ago, but I played them a lot this year so let's talk about them all briefly.

Balatro

I'm still playing Balatro! It might've been my most played game in 2025 still! I love making those Jokers shake!

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth

Game still good! I finally finished it after over 80 hours! Ichiban is still maybe my favorite character in anything!

Final Fantasy X

I started a replay of this in 2025, having not played it since the original PS2 release. I'm about 25 hours in and surprised by how much this kicked off the modern Final Fantasy style. The story also feels very poignant today. I hope to finish this one in 2026 and move on to the fun dress-up of X2.

Persona 3 Reload

Buckled down and finally finished this after starting Persona 3 maybe 4 or 5 times across multiple platforms and rereleases. It really holds up, I love the remake treatment it gets, and I really enjoyed my time with it. Of course it did that thing that all Atlus games do to me where I'm like "oh I must be close to finishing this, better really buckle down" and then I had another 40 hours somehow.

American Truck Simulator

I still like doing the occasional trucking! I maintained my election day ritual this year of putting the 24-hour news on one monitor while doing long haul deliveries on the other. It's the only way to mainline the awful politics of our nation!

Marvel Midnight Suns

I've been leisurely doing a new game+ replay of this one with the DLC characters. This game remains great, I'll be forever depressed that it didn't hit and we aren't about to get another one with even more weird Marvel characters in it.

Grand Theft Auto 4

As a big Vice City and San Andreas fan, I always despised this one. It felt clunky and full of itself and was missing the whimsy of the previous games. This year I started a replay on Steam Deck, and with where open world games have gone in the last twenty years, it now lands completely differently for me. It feels quaint and personal, a fake New York that I can hold in my brain. I didn't make it that far, but I'll continue to go back to it this year as we wait for the next big one which I will probably hate for 20 years as well.

No Man's Sky

I still love goofing around in space! They still continue to add so much new stuff for free! I picked up the Switch 2 port which is also convenient!

Fortnite

I think Fortnite had a lot of good seasons this year. I had the Crew pass for most of it, and it was fun to play casually, unlock a bunch of battle pass items, and always have something to play. I do think that this playtime adds up, ultimately taking away from other things I could be playing, so I'm making a conscious effort to disengage a bit, only playing when friends want to play. That said, I'm sure at some point in 2026 they'll have some insane partnership that brings me back in full.

The Last of Us Part II

Prior to starting season 2 of The Last of Us tv show, I decided I would try one last time to play through all of the second game. I had originally stopped playing when I found that I was having to kill a whole lot of dogs (which is not a thing you should have to do in a video game imho), and just had never come back. Well, I am happy to report that I did finish it, and did enjoy a lot of my time with it, even if ultimately I think it is thematically very gross and is not a game that should, well, exist, and if it does have to exist, it should end like a whole lot earlier than it does. Also, I never even finished season 2 of the show, haha.

Easy Come Easy Golf

I originally bounced off of this game because it didn't have a character creator and required you to play every hole as a different character. But this year as counter-programming to the release of Everybody's Golf Hot Shots, they released a 60fps patch for this game on Switch 2 and that made me finally give it a fair look, and I'm happy to report that I've had lots of fun cartoon golfing since.

Cuisineer

Cuisineer is a Hades-like except in between runs you take all the ingredients you got on your runs and use them to cook at your restaurant. It's a cute and cozy game that does no single thing great, but has enough charm that I kept coming back for more.

Anime Gacha Corner

Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero

I put more time into each of these games individually than I did on any other PS5 games this year. Honkai Star Rail has become my workout game—the game I put on while on the stationary bike—and sometimes I can do 30 minutes of spinning in place while only watching cutscenes. I think Honkai Star Rail's story has really lost my interest in the last year, but I still haven't given up on it. Zenless Zone Zero on the other hand is a game I was more engaged with this year. I continue to really enjoy the characters and overall vibes, and the action gameplay always gives me new things to experiment and button mash to. I also never spend more than $5 a month on these games, and so for that price I get a ton of enjoyment.

Goodbye 2025

So that's the list. Thanks as always for coming by and having a look. 2026 looks to be crammed full of even more games, but I think we both know that the layoffs and consolidation will continue until we can fully unionize and have a true shift in power. We can also look forward to the awful AI bubble continuing to grow to absurd sizes and threatening every video game related thing as RAM, SSD storage, and other components become unavailable for the regular consumer. Despite this, I think we will work to make things better for all because we have to, and I know that there will be bright lights that shine through—new small teams chasing new big dreams, stubborn cogs in huge teams forcing creativity through, and old games we missed getting the chance to be rediscovered.

I hope this list finds you and yours happy, I hope you were able to find a couple things you missed or forgot to play here, and I hope you find lots of time to play fun things in 2026.

Peace and revolution.

[ludonarrativediss]

Games of the Year 2024

Didn't we just do one of these? Personally, 2024 will go down as a liminal year for me. I spent it all very unemployed, days mostly blurring together into other days as I applied for jobs I wouldn't get and generally hid in my apartment watching the world get worse. Months were spent dreading the election—just wishing it would hurry up and happen, and then at the end there wishing it hadn't. Luckily, there were some very good video games to play. The broader state of gaming in 2024 is pretty much the same as the state of everything else: giant corporations are squeezing every last bit of money they can out of workers, and that meant layoffs, layoffs, and layoffs. But art and creativity somehow persisted through that, and so we have an especially strong list of games this year. Okay, let's get into it.

Adam Dorsey's 2024 Games of the Year

10. Palworld

It's Kirkland brand Pokemon! And a survival game that I could kind of stomach for a minute! I had an amazing month of Palworld co-op. Exploring and building and catching them all with a good friend. It was a weird buggy mess, but that was also part of the charm. At some point we stopped playing, and I expect I will never open it up again. Above is a photo from BeReal of when I was having a really great time, I guess.

9. Unicorn Overlord

Unicorn Overlord is beautiful, charming, and chill. It presents so many interesting strategy mechanics on top of its auto-battle system that my mind boggles at the millions of unit/move/party combos I can put together. My only complaint is that on the default difficulty it took about 10 hours to put up any sort of challenge that I couldn't just steamroll with my strongest units. That said, it feels like the sort of game that would be great to play through a second time on a harder difficulty when I'm more familiar with the possibilities.

8. Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade is like most bands I like: I like the music, but I could do without the other fans of the band. Stellar Blade fans online this year were the worst. Just weird, scummy, misogynist gross guys, all using their paid-for-verified former-twitter accounts to give a sequel to the thing that definitely didn’t need a sequel: Joker 2—I mean, Gamergate.

That said, Stellar Blade is just the kind of B-grade game that doesn’t get made that often anymore. It feels like a PS2 game only a lot shinier, with all the good and bad that comes with that. The story was enough to keep me interested, but also pretty vapid if I thought about it at all and a clear ripoff of Nier Automata. The main character is so empty and boring that the countless sexy outfits I unlocked for her were not sexy, but instead like putting a toy dress on one of those blank wood figures that artists use for figure drawing.

But the combat was fun! And the story was dumb but fun! And the sexy weird outfits were all dumb but also fun!? I don't know, it’s a bad game that I had a lot of fun with and that’s fine.

The cool thing about the games industry right now is that we can have a wide range of stories and characters and perspectives: we can have the family fun of an Astrobot, the horny dress up action of a Stellar Blade, and the highly specific and intimate story of 1000x Resist. That’s great! I don’t personally know anyone who has a problem with that. But the weird gamergate dudes that think every game needs to be a Stellar Blade are weird and wrong misogynists and also white supremacists usually? In conclusion, please enjoy your horny robot girl game and stop complaining that there’s a girl in a Star Wars or a black guy in Assassin’s Creed, you grimy losers.

7. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth

It was such a joy to return to the world of Final Fantasy 7 and spend more time with my good friends Cloud and Barrett and Tifa. In this sequel, they built a huge open-world game filled to the brim with minigames and side quests. And that was fun for a while, but quickly became too much for me—its open-world bloat ultimately ruining the good time I was having with my old friends.

The whole thing feels like a project where no decisions were made, where no editing occurred. For the first twenty hours or so, that felt great for me, but as the hours piled on, and barely anything of significance happened in the story, it became clear that the only reason I was still playing was to fill little circles on my progress bars and see what they did with the big death scene from the original game. But when I saw that scene and rolled credits, I found myself unsure of what had even happened. Again, it felt like a lack of decision-making or editorial control from the creators meant that nothing happened? Or everything happened? I’m still not sure. And after the existential changes in FF7 Remake, I was so excited for the narrative possibilities of these original creators remaking their work.

All-in-all a real disappointment, that still makes my top 10 because I like hanging out with Tifa.

6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

An immediately impressive Metroidvania. The unique art-style and quality of writing initially pulled me in, but the tight platforming and non-linear exploration kept me playing. It feels like it takes inspiration from every great game in this style, while adding its own magic.

I will be forever bitter that Ubisoft tore this team apart after releasing this game. I am so interested in what a follow up would be like, but instead the devilish machinations of capitalism hides that from us forever. That said, if somehow you missed this one, please right that error in 2025.

5. Deep Rock Galactic Survivor

This game stole the Vampire Survivors crown for me this year. The personality of the dwarfs, the variety in builds, the perfect difficulty curve, and multiple game modes where each run raises your strength for your next run—these elements all came together to make this the perfect Steamdeck game. I am naturally wary of early access games, but there is already so much content in this one, it feels very complete, and they still keep adding new things.

4. Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth

Booting up Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth for the first time was such a joyous experience. After spending 80 hours with Ichiban and his friends in Yakuza Like a Dragon, seeing those friends again felt like an instant reunion. Like all Yakuza games, there’s so much game in this game—so much story—I’m 50 hours in now and I have no idea how much more I have, but it will be great to spend a chunk of 2025 hanging with these friends.

There’s a whole Animal Crossing game in here! There’s a whole Pokémon collecting and battling style game, except you're collecting and battling weird grown men! There’s a strangely charming dating game! There’s the entire new area of Hawaii and the traditional Japan areas from the last game. It’s an RPG with two full parties of characters! So many friendship bars and xp bars and jobs to level up!

Beyond that, Ichiban remains just about my favorite character in video games. He is such a strong hero—not usually that great at doing the thing, but always trying to be the best friend and best person he can be. I hope we get so many more games starring this guy. He makes me feel better about humanity and what we can all be.

3. 1000x Resist

1000x Resist is an outstanding sci-fi narrative game. You won't be shooting or platforming, you'll mostly be pressing the A Button to advance dialogue.  What it lacks in actual mechanics, it makes up for with a sweeping narrative, incredible dialogue, fantastically specific stories that anyone can identify with, striking and varied visuals, and FEELINGS—oh so many feelings. The way it juxtaposes real Hong Kong protests with the futuristic scenes later in its narrative? Wow. Every part of this thing is art, and it's gonna stick with me for so long. Find the time for this one. Hekki Allmo.

2. Metaphor Refantazio

The quick and dirty description of Metaphor Refantazio is that it's fantasy Persona, and that works fine to start, but the deeper you dig into the game—as the hours peel back and the characters and mechanics begin to reveal themselves—it unveils itself to be not just a refined fantasy Persona, it's a game inspired by but not held back by the expectations of its inspiration. Without getting into spoilers, it is a fantasy game for a reason, not just a style-refresh on a rehashed Persona game.

The way Metaphor Refantazio builds out its story over 100 hours should really be studied by everyone making long games. Seated in its center is the basic idea that "The world is bad and it should be better," and every single story point revolves around this idea. It means that side quests, follower quests, conversations with NPCs in town, whatever weird twists and turns the main narrative takes—it all circles around that original premise. And it's never overly optimistic or overly bleak. It always balances itself out. There will be the cheesiest lines about hope and dreams, and then those will be followed up with quests about the real-world work it takes to make positive change. It's an incredibly refreshing take, and was a great game to play in the aftermath of the 2024 election.

Time marches on and the age of new king draws nearer (derogatory).

1. Balatro

Balatro is perfect. I'm 80 hours in, and each run is still unique, each one filled with different strategies and challenges. It takes the basic game of poker, a game most people have some understanding of, and transforms it into an always unique puzzle box of making the number go bigger. One round I can feel so overpowered, points multiplying beyond comprehension, but two rounds later if I haven’t been improving my numbers, that snarky Joker is telling me to start another run.

Balatro is $15 on console and pc, $10 on mobile, and it's free with Apple Arcade if that's a thing you pay for and never use like a lot of people do. It's a bit hard to explain, and looks really simple in a screenshot, but all the audio and visuals blend with the game mechanics to make an incredibly rewarding game. It is complicated to explain, but extremely simple to pick up. Let it take over your life. You'll be happier for it.

Other 2024 games I played worth mentioning

Halls of Torment

This is a fun Vampire Survivors-like with the look and feel of Diablo II. It’s got a great sense of progression and runs build well. A lot of this is due to their inventory system, where you outfit your character with a full set of gear before a run, and then pick up new gear as you play. Each run you can find a well to send one new piece of gear back up to your base, unlocking that gear for future runs. It adds a whole other level of strategy and progression. Ultimately, I had more fun with Deep Rock Galactic Survivor this year, but I still think every Steamdeck should keep Halls of Torment installed too.

Helldivers 2

Similar to Palworld, but on an even tighter schedule, I had a really fun two weeks with Helldivers 2. The game had a great balance of being overwhelmed by swarms of bugs, while still squeezing out a victory just in time. I enjoyed reading about all the updates, narrative progression, and drama that the game’s community experienced throughout the year, but I never felt the need to hop back in myself.

Dragon's Dogma 2

Dragon’s Dogma 2’s exploration and emergent storytelling through its many gameplay systems scratched that Elden Ring itch for me this year, although never quite reaching the heights I felt originally playing that game. Similar to Elden Ring, though, at some point I found that just dealing with all of those systems was overwhelming me, I took a small break, and that small break turned into never returning to it.

Astro Bot

Astro Bot is adorable, charming, and surprising, with some of the crispiest visuals I've ever seen. I am filled with joy every time I play a level. I agree with critics that compare this to the quality of a Mario game, and I honestly think because it's not actually a Mario game it can do things that surprise and delight in completely different ways.

Star Wars Outlaws

Oh hey this game is good! It’s not perfect, but being a little space crime lady, sneaking and blasting aliens, turning one faction against the other—this was all fun. It’s basically Star Wars Grand Theft Auto, and the only reason I didn’t get more into it is because at this point I’ve played so many open world games that getting my fill doesn’t usually mean hitting credits. I think the only reason this thing bombed is because both Ubisoft open world games and Star Wars itself has been milked a bit too hard in the last ten years, and we all only have so much appetite for both things. That said, I bet I’ll return to Star Wars Outlaws and do some more chill smuggling in 2025.

UFO 50

I gotta go back to this. I only played like 7 of the 50 games, loved every one, but found its breadth to be intimidating. I should get over that.

Zenless Zone Zero

I dip into all the Hoyoverse games a bit, but still the only one that has really locked me in is Honkai Star Rail. That said, I do return to ZZZ maybe once a week or so for a mission or two. I really enjoy the style and tone of the cute urban cyberpunk, and it's fun to button mash the action scenes. Not much in the characters or story has connected with me, though, so it always feels like such a slog to make progress. I expect it'll stay installed for those weekly twenty minutes of button mashing, though.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

This game seems great! I did the first 3 dungeons or so, and then fell off. Not sure when I'll go back, but I think the item creation mechanics are very fun, it's great to give the spotlight to Zelda herself, and the art style is adorable. It does make me feel the age of that ancient Nintendo Switch and I can't wait until a Switch 2 maybe makes all these games run just a little bit snappier.

Tekken 8

The fighting games in the last couple of years have really disappointed me. I could not seem to connect with any of the character designs in Street Fighter 6. Mortal Kombat 1’s cameo characters added an unnecessary system for me, their Invasions mode added too much grinding that didn’t improve my actual skills in the game, and their character pass added too many authoritarian superheroes that did white power for the LOLs (allegedly).

Tekken 8 on the other hand is the first fighting game in the last couple years that I’ve actually connected with. I think the art-style is top notch, I love the character and move-set of my main Reina, and the single-player modes in the game really do feel like they are helping me learn and get better. That said, this is the first Tekken game I’ve ever invested time in and I am still incredibly bad at it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not having a good time.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Can you believe this game came out this year? That's wild. Yes, it's true, it's a live-service game and all that stuff messes it up real bad. There's pointless loot, and ridiculous grinding, but I picked it up for $15—and for the fun, silly cutscenes and good combat it's worth $15 for sure.

Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 is great! I've started it like four times over the years across PS3, Vita, Steamdeck, and now this remake on Xbox. The remake is good! It updates it well while keeping most of the charm of the original. Once Metaphor Refantazio came out I had to take a break, but I fully intend to return in 2025 and finally see this one to its ending.

2024 games I haven't played

I think I'd probably like these! But even when you don't have a job, you only have so much time (and money, especially money) for playing video games. Next year to you five games!

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Tales of Kenzera: Zau

Animal Well

Pacific Drive

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2

Games that didn't come out this year, but you know I've gotta talk about

Octopath Traveler 2

This was my comfy RPG I returned to on the Steamdeck quite a bit this year. It remains great. I will relax to more of it in 2025.

Need for Speed Unbound

This is my favorite Need for Speed game, and it's been great to see them continue to support it this year. I have it on both Xbox and PC for no other reason than it's been really cheap on sale and it's nice to be able to play it in whatever room I'm in.

Fortnite

This is the year where I finally fell off Fortnite and skipped a few seasons. I still go back to it every couple months, though, and it still scratches a specific itch, but I expect I'll drop off even more in 2025. But if a shiny Spider-Gwen or a Mariah Carey in a Santa Claus outfit kills you? That's probably me, bud, back to the battle bus for you.

No Man's Sky

This was somehow my third most played Steam game this year. I've jumped into every expedition and update to dig around a bit, even if I never make that much progress. They added fishing this year! What a game, can't wait for their follow-up, Light No Fire.

Diablo 4

Diablo 4 really hit its stride in 2024. The promise of the launch game finally reached those late-era Diablo 3 highs after the major updates. The expansion didn't do as much for me, but I expect when the new season launches in January I will again find time to make a new character and kill a few thousand more demons.

Honkai Star Rail

This was the year I accepted that Honkai Star Rail might be my perfect game. I love the big dumb anime story, the ridiculous characters, and the hokey dad joke writing. I like going through the story on my PS5, but I also like just having my iPad autoplay battles for upgrade mats while I do something else. Numbers go up, and every once in a while I get the weird anime girl in the awful gacha system that I was hoping for.

--

And so that was 2024. Looking ahead to 2025, I hope that the Switch 2 drops with some solid upgrades and some surprise bangers. I hope more game developers unionize and push back against the dystopian conditions of big-budget gaming. I hope you and I both find some good things to distract us briefly from the bad things, and I hope things generally get better for everyone.

And if somehow you're still reading this, just in case, you should check my resume out on LinkedIn. I write a good Game of the Year list, but I'm even cooler as a co-worker, I'm incredibly good at just about everything, and I am very available—except for that week that that Nintendo Switch 2 is coming out, I happen to have completely unrelated plans during that week.

[ludonarrativediss]

GOTY 2023

What a year for games! Maybe the best year for video games we've ever had? Not the best year for people working in video games, though, and I don't think you can separate those two things—I know I can't. It was a year of amazing games, great selling games, and yet also huge mergers, countless layoffs, and depressing studio shutdowns. Games have never been better, but the business of making games has never been worse, at least for the people who actually make the games. These problems aren't unique to the games industry, the same thing is happening in most industries as earnings continue to be consolidated to the top while the workforce finds it harder and harder to survive (general strike when?).

I felt this disconnect personally, as I spent 2023 between jobs myself (hi anyone reading this who is hiring, reach out!). That meant I spent 365 days of 2023 faced with a different dichotomy: I had the time to play all of the great new video games, but often I felt like I shouldn't be, what on account of being a jobless layabout. (Ahhhh... capitalism! Let's all feel bad about our hobbies unless they also make us money!)

Despite constantly second-guessing how I should be spending my leisure time, the games of 2023 did give me refuge from that economic anxiety. More than most years, they excelled at providing joy, distraction, competition—hey, maybe even a couple of them are art, who knows.

Adam Dorsey's 2023 Games of the Year

10. Diablo 4

Diablo 4 is already so much more fun than it was at launch. They've successfully adjusted the knobs and levers to make the rewards feel just rewarding enough that the game is truly fun. The live-service aspects of the game remain a deterrent for me, though. I want to be able to play offline on my Steamdeck, and I just can't. Although I like them adding new mechanics every season to give me a reason to play through as a fresh character, the battle pass cosmetic rewards do absolutely nothing for me. Luckily, I can ignore that stuff for the most part and just play it like I would Diablo III, and that makes it good enough for me to put on this list, and I bet it'll be a game that I play off-and-on for however long they support it.

9. Resident Evil 4 Remake

For many years if asked, I would list Resident Evil 4 in my Top 10 games of all-time. I'm not sure that would be true today, but it's still an excellent game. This remake brings all of that excellence forward, in a way that makes it much more playable by 2023 standards. Better yet, it keeps everything wacky and unique that was in the original.

8. Remnant II

This game should not be as weird and good as it is? It's a squad-based third-person shooter sequel, and at first there's nothing standout about it, but the more you play, the more you realize that despite initial appearances, this game is the farthest thing from generic. Every level feels like it came out of a different video game, and then when you talk to your friends that are playing it, you find out that the order of the levels is different for each player, and that the story and characters and bosses in those levels are randomized too. It's got easy drop-in and drop-out co-op and you keep all the experience and items you earn while goofing off in your friend's game.

The best way I can summarize Remnant II is that it feels like they took most of the elements that people actually like in a live-service game, and put them in a regular game, while leaving out all the negative and predatory problems that plague live-service games. It feels like a B-tier game (complementary), which in a year of AAA bangers, has been a breath of fresh air for me. It's something fun and goofy to play with friends or grind solo, it's not trying to take my money, it's not asking me to play every week for the rest of my life—it's just fun.

7. Honkai Star Rail

The business model of Honkai Star Rail sucks. It's gacha garbage, where you pay lots of real money for lots of fake money and then spend it to have a minuscule chance of getting the character you want. It's exploitive and could easily bankrupt anyone who has the smallest gambling tendencies. It should be illegal.

Here's the thing, though: You don't need to spend any real money in Honkai Star Rail. There are lots of fun, strong characters that they give you for free, and over the course of playing you'll earn enough fake money to spend on other characters. If you won't fall into the trap of spending more money than you should, it's a beautiful anime-styled RPG game with an interesting story, rewarding turn-based combat, and a space train.

This summer they did trick me into spending $30 to get a character I wanted (Kafka, pictured above). I don't feel good about it. But at the end of the day, all I've spent is $30 for a game I've had a ton of fun with this year, so I'm choosing to be okay.

6. Super Mario Bros Wonder

This game is  pure uncut joy crushed down into a fine dust and then snorted through a Mario elephant trunk for the fastest, quickest delivery. Why is Mario an elephant now? It doesn't seem like a power-up that makes sense in the flower-based world that this new game takes place in... but who cares! It's cute! It's functional! And that's kind of the mantra of the whole game. If it's fun, they cram it in there, and with the new game mechanic of wonder seeds—where something new and different can happen in every level—they have plenty of places to cram.

This game is a whole lot better than any of the 2D "New" Super Mario Bros games that came out in the Post-Wii era. Personally, maybe I had a bit more 2D fun with the wildness of Super Mario Maker, but hey, they gotta make new great Mario games so that they have new things to put in the next Mario Maker, right?

5. El Paso Elsewhere

El Paso Elsewhere is a love letter to old-school Max Payne bullet-time gameplay, deconstructed by the decades that have passed since its homage's release, and then twisted into different nightmare shapes to tell its own unique supernatural noir story. I am 100% here for all of it.

In the game, you play a hard-boiled supernatural monster hunter, whose ex is a vampire queen. She's trying to destroy the world, and you've got to stop her... and maybe save her... and maybe save yourself. The story is delivered in lofi cutscenes with excellent voice-acting. The dialogue is classic noir, but through a modern millennial lens. 

4. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

They made another one of those Spider-Man games. It's the first to fully take advantage of the PS5, and the spectacle reflects that. The lightning quick fast-travel and load times wow as well. The swinging and fighting remain top-notch, even if at this point I don't think they can cram anymore gadgets onto poor little Spider-Man (does that suit even have pockets?).

As someone who enjoys the comics, I'm here for the story as much as I am for the gameplay, and this mostly delivers a fun alternate take on the Venom tale. At this point for me, Miles is far and away the more interesting character, and it's a little disappointing that he kind of disappears for huge sections of the game while the story focuses on Peter and Venom. That said, it all comes together in the climax.

It's too bad that the economics of making these games mean they have to be this big and this expensive. This game is great, but I'm still kind of partial to the smaller, tighter story of the Miles Morales spin-off game. This is still a can't skip for anyone who likes fun action, webcrawlers, or well, owns a PS5.

3. Baldurs Gate 3

I spent about 25 hours with Baldur's Gate 3 and in those 25 hours it truly felt like games had advanced in amazingly spectacular ways... and that I had not. It felt like anything was possible—that all of my choices truly mattered—but that I was a dummy who didn't understand how to kill a spider without blowing up the whole room, let alone how to make choices that decided the fate of a kingdom.

I was in awe of the whole experience. Just an incredibly ambitious game made by experts in their genre, with huge production value, great voice acting, and unfathomable scope... but I'm still a dummy with no D&D experience. All that said, I had a great time in my 25 hours even if I never made it out of Act 1, and when I return I may need to start completely over or crank the difficulty down a notch.

2. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

Breath of the Wild is probably the best video game I've ever played. There's a sense of awe and joy that I felt in my first week with that game that I'm not sure any other game will ever replicate. Tears of the Kingdom is more Breath of the Wild, and although it'll never hit quite the same, it's still a marvel of a video game.

The thing I noticed while playing Tears of the Kingdom was the polish. As players, we're used to open world jank. We're told it's impossible to get rid of, that by giving the player freedom in a large world, different elements will go off the rails on occasion. I saw it happen many times during my 25 hours with Starfield. Tears of the Kingdom, on the other (master) hand, is an insanely huge open world game, with abilities and building mechanics that give what feels like nearly limitless power to the player. Yet it never broke for me. It never felt janky like other, much less ambitious open world games do. Of course in interviews it's been revealed that the game was feature-complete a year before release and they spent that last year polishing, which is something basically no other game company is allowed to do because capitalism (hey, look, it's almost like everything that is good is an exception to the broken system we have in place. Weird!)

1. Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 feels like it shouldn't exist. It's a sequel to a 13 year old game that was exclusive to a platform that has never been interested in making a sequel. It probably only got made because Epic wanted an exclusive game for their store, and so fronted the money. It uses full motion video alongside its gameplay to great effect, it's genuinely scary (but not too scary that this scaredy cat couldn't play it), and it's, well—it's just excellent.

Remedy has been making Remedy-ass Remedy games for just about as long as I've been playing video games. They've always made action-focused games with twisty-turvy narratives, games that wore their film and tv influences on their sleeves, while finding new ways to tell old stories. Alan Wake 2 is the culmination of that, taking everything they've learned over the years with Max Payne and Control and the original Alan Wake (and okay maybe even Quantum Break), swirling it all around in a full motion video stew, and serving it up as a masterpiece of a dish. It all feels effortless while playing it, although I'm sure that's not true.

The noir horror of Alan Wake 2 is clinically speaking "extremely my shit" and boy has noir-obsessed me been blessed in 2023 to get both this and El Paso Elsewhere. So although I expect that long-term I'll go back to Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur's Gate 3 in the coming years and get more out of them, Alan Wake 2 comes out on top for me this year. The whole time I played I had a big dumb smile across my face, which expanded to actual hooting and hollering during [REDACTED] and the [REDACTED] and let's not forget [REDACTED].

Other 2023 games that do not make this list, but I still want to talk about

Cyberpunk 2077

Hey this is a weird one. I know the expansion came out in 2023, but I didn't even play that, I just restarted the game with the big 2.0 update. That update was substantial enough that it's basically a new game now, and so I'm putting it on this list.

It was Starfield that made me look at Cyberpunk 2077 in a new light. Twenty hours into Starfield, as I started to feel the monotony of that game's scale, as I started to melt under its blandness, I was surprised to find myself craving Cyberpunk 2077. When the game first come out, I said that it wasn't great, but it scratched that Bethesda itch of doing quests and killing enemies and picking up every item in a room. At the time, I thought that a lot of the creative decisions in Cyberpunk 2077 were weird and wrong and that even if they could fix all the bugs, the underlying game and story would never rise above the decisions they had made. After twenty hours of Starfield, though, actual creative decisions were a breath of fresh air. Going back, even if I don't agree with all of the choices in Cyberpunk 2077, at least there are choices being made. Like the best art, the game makes you think about its story and its writing, which sits in contrast to however Starfield feels.

Mortal Kombat 1

I had a blast for the two or three days I sprinted through the story mode of Mortal Kombat 1. The presentation and narrative of the series is at its peak, and it's the best they've ever been with these story-modes. But as a mostly single-player fighting game guy, there hasn't been much for me to go back to. I miss the towers of the last game and the multiverse of Injustice 2. Those were both good reasons to grind fights against CPUs and unlock things. This game just doesn't have a great reason to play its tower-equivalent: Invasions makes the fights so weird that I don't feel like I'm playing the Mortal Kombat that I want to be playing, and the unlocks just aren't as interesting as the dress-up unlocks of Injustice 2 or MK11.

Suika Game

This is a cute, physics-based fruit matching game that hit it big because of streamers importing it from the Japanese Switch e-shop. It's now on the US store, it's just a couple of bucks, and it's simple but addictive.

Dredge

Dredge is a cool indie lovecraftian fishing game. That's why video games are cool, because sentences like that can exist.

20 Minutes Till Dawn

If for some reason I don't want to play Vampire Survivors, but I still want to play something like Vampire Survivors, 20 Minutes Till Dawn is my preferred game. I like the art-style and vibes and I like the risk/reward balance of the power-ups. Unlike Vampire Survivors, you choose to fire and reload your gun, and you actively aim, so it's a little bit more dual-stick shooter and that can be a good change of pace.

Octopath Traveler 2

I liked the first Octopath Traveler, but the writing and story immediately turned me off, and did nothing to motivate me to make progress in its beautiful world. Instantly Octopath Traveler 2 drew me in, with more interesting characters and significantly less grating dialogue. With only ten hours of gameplay, I've still barely put a dent into this game, but I'm excited for it to sit on my Steamdeck and be a nice cozy old-school RPG that I can escape to in 2024 and beyond.

Fire Emblem Engage

I love the presentation in this game, loved being able to focus on the tactics and not having to engage in the story as much as Three Houses, but because the story wasn't as engaging, I definitely fell off before it concluded. Still, had a lot of fun with it for a month or two.

Final Fantasy 16

Oof. I did basically every sidequest in this game for some reason. So I can tell you—definitively—this game is not very good. The politics of the world are clumsy at best and completely offensive to humanity at worst. The big combat sequences are epic and wondrous, but I would still prefer to just select spells on a menu, sorry. Despite it being action-packed and realtime, at some point you're mostly just waiting for cooldowns from your spells, so it feels more MMO than modern action. I'm sure that changes somewhat on higher difficulties, but I'll never know.

The combat isn't the only thing that feels MMO influenced. Most of the sidequests are MMO quality—go collect 5 things and fight a thing and then go talk to the person who gave you the quest again. But those are mixed in with genuinely interesting side quests, ones that are more engaging than the main quest, and so if you're like me you'll do them all just to be sure. Also like an MMO, the open world never feels like an interconnected place, just waypoints on a map that you teleport between.

It's all too bad, because like I said, there are brief moments that really draw you in. Along with those brief moments, the lead voice actors are incredible, specifically Clive and Cid. And the world is thought out, it's just that those thoughts are... bad.

I don't know, Final Fantasy games are weird. I didn't love Final Fantasy 13 when it came out, but a couple years ago I played through it again and loved every moment. So maybe without expectations, in ten years this game will be interesting. But right now I sure wish they'd spent this time and money on something better.

Starfield

Oof, speaking of wishing they'd spent that time and money on something better. Starfield feels like a relic of early 2000s gaming, just with the resolution cranked up to 4K. But even that seems unfair, because the magic of Skyrim just isn't in this game. There's no sense of discovery, no joy in exploration.

Narratively there are no creative decisions that seem to be made with passion. Every character acts the way you would expect them to, every mission feels like a checkbox for both you and the designer who made it. It doesn't feel like the designers had fun making the game, because no joy transfers to the player.

I made it about 25 hours in, and I'm sure I'll eventually go back and finish the main quest, but every time I've tried to return since launch, I've just been met with apathy, from both me and the game.

I did like the laser gun I got that had a perk that made people drop health packs when I killed them. That was neat.

Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 is good! I think I kind of ruined it for myself in a very specifically dumb way where I tried to use a fightpad, but the fightpad had no right analog stick which meant I couldn't control the camera in the single-player open world stuff, which meant that I had to switch from the fightpad to a regular controller between every fight, and it was just clumsy and not fun.

I also think that despite being weird and cool, the single-player stuff maybe isn't actually fun, which is too bad.

Mineko's Night Market

This game is cute! I played enough to get a feel for the world and work my first night market, but then I never went back to it. That's probably fine!

Star Wars Jedi Survivor

I loved the first one, but something about this one just didn't keep me engaged. I guess I should go back and wrap it up. It felt too big, but also like I was spending all my time on the same boring planets.

Forza Motorsport

This is the first driving game that I decided to exclusively play on my Logitech steering wheel. I had a good time with the few hours I played, and I'm sure I'll go back to it, but having to take each race so seriously made the whole thing feel more like work than play. I played more old Forza Horizons on a gamepad this year than I did with the wheel. Maybe that's just the type of gamer I am? Maybe I don't need a giant expensive steering wheel and pedals in my bedroom? Maybe you shouldn't ask so many questions?

Coffee Talk 2

I loved Coffee Talk 1. Coffee Talk 2 feels like more Coffee Talk! I just haven't spent the time to play it yet.

Metroid Prime Remastered

Metroid Prime is still good. Like the-best-there-ever-was good. I will buy it again in 4K whenever Nintendo tries to sell it to me again, but it's great to have it portable and to be able to boot it up whenever I need those vibes.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

This is the third time I've bought some version of this game? But this is the best version, what it should've been to begin with. Plays great on the Switch both in handheld and docked. Sometimes you just want to mash some buttons to Final Fantasy songs.

Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp

Bought this day one because I am worried about Switch physical games selling out. I only played it for like an hour. Maybe one day I'll get way into it. I really liked the first DS one! But it didn't happen this year.

Games that didn’t come out this year, but I’ve gotta talk about anyway

Yakuza Like a Dragon

Three years after starting it, I finished Yakuza Like a Dragon! I loved it! GAME GREAT! Since then I've gone back to Yakuza 0, and I like it, but I greatly prefer the turn-based combat of Like a Dragon. Also—and maybe this is blasphemy—but I just think Ichiban is a better character than Kiryu. He immediately charmed me, and every decision he made in the game made me like him more.

Cult of the Lamb

I named my cute cult "Helen Hunt Gang" and every time I go back to my cult lair village thing it says "HELEN HUNT GANG" on the screen in big text. I love it. I should play it more.

Marvel Midnight Suns

I put a lot of hours into this game in 2023 and wrapped it up. I loved my time with it, and I think eventually I'll pick up the season pass and do a new game plus playthrough with the new characters. I'll forever be disappointed that this game didn't perform well and we won't get sequels.

Resident Evil 3 Remake

I played through this whole thing on my Steamdeck and had a great time. I'm a scrub who loves the corny action of Resident Evil over its horror tendencies, and this remake delivers in a nice short package. I might even do a replay in 2024, that's how much I enjoyed it.

Marvel Snap

I played Marvel Snap every single day of 2023. I spent $10 a month for the battle passes, and I regret nothing. This game remains an excellent mobile experience, with quick matches and always evolving gameplay.  As I said to a good friend earlier this year: "We'd have a lot more to talk about if you played Marvel Snap too."

Fortnite

I still probably maxed out every battle pass this year on Fortnite. It's still the game I play with my girlfriend. With a Lego version, a racing game, and basically a Rock Band sequel all crammed in this year, there's a lot to do in Fortnite, but I still spend most of my time in no-build duos, dying to little kids who then dance over my corpse to music I'm too old to understand.

Destiny 2

I still kind of play Destiny? Mostly just enough to see the new story stuff? Maybe I'll stop finally? But I didn't in 2023.

Hunie Pop

This game is racist and sexist and you shouldn't play it, but it's biggest crime is that it lost my save data after like four hours of gameplay and I will never go back to it again.

Need for Speed Unbound

I still think this game is a real hidden gem from last year and everyone should try it. Just great style, fun driving, and a tight open world experience.

Arcade Paradise

I had a lot of fun turning a laundromat into an arcade. Recommend it.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

I finished this game this year and got about halfway through the DLC. I'm an apologetic fan of the Xenoblade series, but 3 is the first one that I can recommend to everyone without caveats. If you have a Switch and you like a good long RPG, you should play it.

Catherine Full Body

I played this whole thing on vacation. Really enjoyed playing through a Persona-like story, but starring adults. Would really love a Persona game that isn't about high school students.

--

So that's kind of it for 2023. Looking ahead to next year, I'm excited for the new Like a Dragon, the new Final Fantasy VII Remake, and whatever new console Nintendo maybe decides to sell me. Outside of the games themselves, I'm looking forward to more unions forming in the games industry and more worker rights, so that people can have long fruitful careers, be happier, and make better, more sustainable games. Also I guess it would be nice if I got back into the games industry in 2024 too.

Happy New Year, folks.

[ludonarrativediss]

GOTY 2022

I have several friends who love saying that 2022 was a weird year for games and that no games came out this year, but that's not really true. A wide-range of games downloaded on my wide-range of consoles, from the big huge ones that we all played and talked about to the niche ones that really connected with smaller audiences. Personally for me, after a couple years of unemployment and tough living, 2022 was a year where I had a lot more money to spend on video games than I had time to play them. Of my top 8 list, only two of them are games I "finished."

2022 was also the year that I got a Steam Deck, which made the aging hardware of the Nintendo Switch even more apparent. Still, the Switch managed to get a game in my top 8, while the Steam Deck really allowed me dig into some of my backlog while curled up on the couch. I feel like the PS5 really hit its stride with exclusives this year, while Xbox shined with their varied Game Pass offerings. Anyway, below are my top 8 games of 2022, followed by the usual addendums, corrections, and contradictions.

MY TOP 8 GAMES OF 2022

8.Trombone Champ  - I laughed harder at Trombone Champ than I did any other game this year. Just howling guffaws shaking loose as I frantically clicked the mouse button. It's a rhythm game where you play a trombone. It's hilarious. Highly recommend.

7. Marvel Midnight Suns - This is a late addition as this game only came out in December, and it's a long one that at fifteen hours in I feel like I've barely dug into, but I've already had a good enough time hanging out with my Marvel superhero friends in my spooky Marvel house that it has to go here. Looking forward to really digging into this in January.

6. Vampire Survivors - Vampire Survivors is like $2 or something. All you do is move your little guy around, avoid dumb monsters, and pick up powerups that make you ridiculously strong until the next round of stronger monsters threatens to overwhelm you. It's perfect. Even some of the clones that have chased its success this year are worth checking out. Some of my favorite gaming moments this year were getting incredibly overpowered builds in Vampire Survivors and laying waste to an ever filling room of weird bad guys, only to die at 29 minutes into a run.

5. Marvel Snap -  Marvel Snap is too good. Even though it came out in the second half of the year, I may have spent more time playing it than any other game in 2022. No game lasts more than five minutes, there are loads of possible strategies, every match is different because of card matchups and random locations that severely change the game. Plus, even when I lose I get to level up my cards and make them shinier.

The game is insidious in the way it primes all of the joy in your brain to activate, but it manages to do that without also being insidious about microtransactions. Yes, it has $50 packages that amount to just a couple variants of cards you already have, but all gameplay specific unlocks don't require real money purchases. Season passes are optional and cost $10, and yeah them being monthly sometimes feels a bit much, but I'm playing it so much that I'm happy to throw $10 a month at a it so I have even more numbers that go higher.

4. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I played all of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2, and despite enjoying both of them a ton, they both had slow enough starts and sometimes troubling idiosyncrasies that made them difficult to recommend. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is different, it’s an instant recommendation to anyone looking for a complex, interesting JRPG. The characters and story are immediately engaging. Also unlike the previous entries, the side quests are significantly more interesting, giving real reasons to explore the huge world.

Currently I’m only (“only”) 40 hours in, and I’m guessing I’m about halfway through. I’ll be chipping away at it for a large chunk of 2023, and that’s a-ok by me.  “I’M THE GIRL WITH THE GALL!”

3. Immortality - Immortality is the latest from Sam Barlow, modern FMV auteur, and this time he bites off way more than he should be able to chew, but somehow sticks the landing. It’s three movies worth of footage, with weird behind the scenes material to go with it, and all you’ve gotta do is watch it and try and make sense of what you’re seeing. Pretty quickly it gets a little Twin Peaks, but also always stays true to the genres the films within the game live in. It’s a spooky, voyeuristic ride that no film buff should miss. Also, it’s on Xbox game pass and on Netflix on your phone, so just play it.

2. God of War Ragnarok - I picked this up because I was supposed to. It’s the big PS5 release this year and my PS5 needs more games on it. I enjoyed the last one, but found it completely forgettable—Ragnorak is anything but. The writing and storytelling is just top-notch. I think the best way to explain it is that they truly respect every character in the game and give them all a ton of screen time. This does mean that the game balloons in length (I think I put in 45 hours or so), but it had me loving every weird dwarf, giant, and other mystical beast I met.

That game length is also less painful because they keep the mechanics just fresh enough without changing them so you forget out how to play. Playable characters and sidekicks swap in and out regularly in ways that feel natural to the narrative, but also keep you adjusting your playstyle.

It’s a great game and it makes me very excited for whatever that team does next (but it doesn’t have to be another one of these, guys).

1. Elden Ring - Elden Ring is so much. It’s the game that finally made me understand the Souls games. It’s the first game since Breath of the Wild to give me a true sense of exploration and wonder in an open world. I had so many terrifying experiences of stepping into areas, seeing the grossest, scariest thing I’d ever seen, and running away as fast as I could. Then twenty hours later, I’d go back to the same area and lay waste to that silly ugly monster.

I didn’t finish Elden Ring, but I put about sixty hours in, loved it all, and hope to some time eventually be in the mood to return. Even if I never do make it back, those sixty hours set a new bar for open world games for me and reminded me that games can still surprise.

Games I played that didn't make the list because they didn't come out this year:

Code Vein - After playing 60 hours of Elden Ring over two intense months, I needed more souls-like action, but I didn't want it to feel as "important" as Elden Ring.This is how Code Vein became my most played Steam Deck game of the year. I love it's weird vampire anime bullshit. I love that the combat is difficult and souls-like, but I can also just button mash 90% of the time. Definitely recommend it to anyone like me who wants something souls-like but not quite a Souls game.

Fortnite - I'm still playing Fortnite. Sorry. Every new season they add a ton of new stuff and it's a great game for my partner and I to play together. This year they even made the game look a bunch better. You can ride a pig around as Spider-Gwen and shoot a gun at Goku.

Destiny 2 - I played through Witch Queen this year, and it probably could've made my top 10, but then I also kind of burned out on the seasonal stuff a bit and chose to focus on other games. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by all the inventory management, but Destiny 2 still feels better to play than just about any other game. Very excited for this the next big expansion.

Fire Emblem Three Houses - I finally finished this game this year! Fire Emblem still good! Turned out that maybe playing through 3/4s of the game on Classic Hard wasn’t the right thing for me, and in the last 20% I switched to Classic Normal and had a much better time. I’ve got that new one pre-ordered for later in January and I'll probably take three years playing that one too!

Yakuza Like a Dragon - Like a Dragon is still great! I'm still playing it somehow! I'm probably not even halfway through. I still love it.

Games I didn't play (or didn't play enough of) but would like to:

Neon White - Neon White is good! I played two hours and really enjoyed myself and then never went back. See you in 2023, Neon White.

Norco - I played a good amount of Norco and loved it, but fell off when they added a mechanic that felt too complicated at the time, and unfortunately I never went back. Now I have to decide whether to a.) finish it even though I feel like I've forgotten what was happening, b.) start over, or c.) just save it for some time in the future when I can give it a fresh playthrough.

Tunic - I was really enjoying Tunic! But it was also a bit too hard for me and I fell off and never went back. Hope to return at some point.

Need for Speed Unbound - This game came out of nowhere, dropped with no fanfare, and after a decade of unexciting Need for Speed games turns out... good? I’m only like 6 hours in, but the racing is solid, the art-style and soundtrack are captivating, and the story is actually interesting? Best of all, it seems like an open world racing game with a vision, a reason to keep racing, and not just 100s of icons on a map. Excited to keep digging into this one.

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

Pentiment

Signalis

Sifu

Tinykin

Stray

Cult of the Lamb

Citizen Sleeper

Games that I'm sad I didn't like more and might go back and play more/finish, or might just say goodbye to:

Overwatch 2 - Overwatch is still great when it's great, but boy when you're losing does Overwatch feel bad. The new characters and maps are fine, but the season pass progression and unlocks were pretty boring for me, and once I got my fill of More Overwatch I fell off. Haven't even turned it on in season 2 yet.

Horizon Forbidden West - Too many things on map. Want to know what happens in the story, but too many things on map.

Pokemon Legends Acreus and Pokemon Scarlet - Did these... both come out this year? Did I buy and start both of them despite not really getting into a Pokemon game since Pokemon Emerald? Did I enjoy my first 5 hours with both of them a ton and then forget completely about them? Yup.

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So yeah, I think 2022 was a pretty good year in games, as I'll continue to chip away at my favorites and the ones I didn't get to. 2023 promises to be an even bigger year with the Zelda Breath of the Wild follow-up, Fire Emblem Engage, Starfield, and Diablo 4 being the games I'm most looking forward to. Beyond the big releases, I'm going to try to spend a little more time playing the games I already know I love, and I hope you will find time to as well. Happy 2023.

[ludonarrativediss]

GOTY 2021

Weird year, man. Global Pandemic Year 2 coincided with Year 2 of me taking time between jobs. You see how I did that? "Taking time between jobs" sounds a lot better than "very unemployed, dangerously burnt out, wandering through a depressed haze while spending two years being very, very broke." You would think that being forced to stay in my apartment by a deadly virus and having no job would've led to me playing more video games this year, but something about 2021 makes it hard to remember what I even played. Everything is a blur, in many ways it feels like I only played every game about two hours. If my brain was in constant fight or flight mode in 2020, in 2021 it just sort of sizzled on a pan like those old anti-drug commercials, spastic but nicely heated by the dual stress of pandemic and crushing capitalism.

That said, I'd like to share with you my Top 8 games of the year, and then spend some time talking about all the things I played that didn't quite rank in that Top 8. mostly because I didn't play them quite enough or because they came out years ago. Okay, let's go.

MY TOP 8 GAMES OF 2021

#8. HITMAN 3

Hey they added some more levels into Hitman and slapped a three on it! It lets me play all the Hitman I already own! It's still that fun and goofy Hitman experience, even if I've kind of played a lot of that over the last five years!

I enjoyed my time with it, but I probably only played through the new levels once. I had a blast playing the new experimental stages, but quickly found myself using it as an excuse to go back and play the older stages from Hitman 1 & 2 that were my favorites.  Like several games on this list, I didn't play as much Hitman 3 in its release year as I would've liked, but I am comforted by the idea that it is sitting on a hard drive, ready for me to dive into at any point in the future…

#7. FORZA HORIZON 5

…Which is exactly how I feel about Forza Horizon 5. Here's another one of those series that I like a lot, that is still just as good as it’s ever been, but I didn't play as much as I thought I would this year, because I play so much of them every year. Honestly, I probably played a lot more Forza Horizon 4 this year than 5, just due to the fact that 5 came out in November and I had all the months before November to fool around in 4. So, honestly, well, 2022 is probably gonna be my big Forza Horizon 5 year.

The cars are still fun, the concept of a weird wild "car festival" is still just the right amount of dumb, and boy does beautiful Mexico look good in 4K on a Series X.

#6. ALAN WAKE REMASTERED

Alan Wake is still great. The tone and influences and writing still impress eleven years later. Maybe more interestingly, some of the things that bothered me when the game first came out no longer do. I despised collecting manuscript pages and coffee thermoses back then—thought it really destroyed the pacing and atmosphere to be bumbling around the levels collecting literal garbage, and maybe it still does—but now I don't mind it. Hang out in this cool spooky pacific northwest town a little more? Sure.

Perhaps more importantly, Remedy succeeded so well two years ago with Control that I can't wait to see what they do with the newly announced Alan Wake 2.

#5. MONSTER HUNTER RISE

Every time I pick up a Monster Hunter game, I enjoy it a little bit more and I play it for a little bit longer than the last one. Rise didn't buck this trend, as I spent most of the month of March fighting and capturing giant weird dino monsters. I think the combo of the game being handheld and just generally more accessible than even the previously pretty accessible Monster Hunter World helped a lot. I also think that maybe the lowered technical prowess of the Nintendo Switch worked in its favor, as the thing that finally stopped me from playing Monster Hunter World on PS4 was that I felt sad when the monsters would limp around after a beating, and I'd have to chase them to their nests and finish them off. The Switch makes everything feel a little more cartoony, and that actually makes me feel less bad about mass monster murder.

#4. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Oh wow, what a nice surprise this game is. Square Enix's Avengers game was such a downer that when I saw the first video from this game I was immediately turned off... but it's great! The story and writing are just charming as hell. It tells a pretty complex cosmic Marvel story in a real chill, natural way, with great introspection on each character and actual real laughs. The combat is serviceable in a throwback kind of way, but I kept playing for the story, and boy does the story deliver.

#3. DEATHLOOP

This game has everything I'm looking for with its premise, setting, and characters. Set in a 60s mod supervillain lair and starring two cool black characters? And it's about time travel? It ticks all my boxes, and does it all with a great style. The gameplay borrows chunks from several genres, rearranging them in brand new ways to make a game that is so different than everything else that it takes about three hours of prologue just to fully understand its mechanics. It's got all the best parts of a rogue-like game without the frustration. It's got a lot of the things I love about an immersive sim, but in digestible bite-sized chunks. There's a PVP element where you're being hunted by the antagonist in the otherwise single-player game, and that antagonist can be player controlled. The PVP is well-balance and thrilling and you can turn it off but why would you?

My only complaint with Deathloop is that it appears to overstay its welcome a bit, because well, I haven't finished it. But that's okay, I look forward to spending more time with it in 2022, wrapping up that story, and then seeing if I can sneak into some other player's games and mess them up.

#2. METROID DREAD

It felt so good to play Metroid again. Metroid Dread is such an achievement, in a restrained way that’s still somehow surprising. They just went and made another of those old Metroid games! It's dripping with nostalgia, but holds nothing back. It always feels like it's throwing a new upgrade, power-up, or boss battle at you. And boy, is it a challenge. My official completion time was somewhere around 9 hours, but I spent an additional 7 hours just dying over and over again to bosses. Somehow it was never frustrating, though. The difficulty felt as nostalgic as the other parts of the game, taking me back to what it was like to play games as a kid, how I would have to put something aside and step away from it for days or weeks, then come back and give it another go.

#1. INSCRYPTION

I had so much fun with Inscryption this year. I won't be spoiling the game here, and my advice to you is to not read anything else about Inscryption and just go play it. It's got a narrative structure that's only possible in a video game. It's just full of weird vibes, fun surprises, and satisfying gameplay. It's a weird spooky rogue-like card game that really goes places, and I recommend that everyone play it. What a game.

Games that I enjoyed, but that don't quite make a ranked list, mostly because I didn't play them enough.

Super Mario 3D World Bowser's Fury - If I was the type of person who felt it necessary to round this list out to a Top Ten, then Bowser's Fury would be on it. The Mario 3D World portion is just a Switch version of the very good Wii U game, but the Bowser's Fury content is a brand new, semi-open world take on Mario that hits all the right joy sensors in my brain, and gets me excited for whatever that Mario team is working on next.

New Pokemon Snap - Once again, if I was making a list that had ten games on it, this would be there too. I'm not a big Pokemon guy, but I love games that play around with photography, and this game is the right kind of chill. I do wish that Nintendo, with their near endless budgets, had spent a bit more creative capital and gone all out on this release. I would love true open world areas, better photo judging algorithms, and more extensive online mechanics, but I'm still just happy we got another one of these.

Pokemon Unite - I know I just said I'm not really a Pokemon guy, but oh wow, I played an embarrassing amount of this in the first month or so it was out. Just match after frustrating match, but for a brief period it really dug its way into me, even if I was actively angry every other battle. I recently loaded it up again, just to see how to unlock the Santa Pikachu they had changed the game thumbnail to, and it's still that same game, but now with a bunch more Pokemon and even more levers to make you keep playing and spend real money on things. I don't know, it still gives me what I want out of a MOBA without having to play a real MOBA, and so I'll probably keep it installed on my Switch forever.

The Ascent - Oh I really had a good time with this one, but hit enough bugs at launch that after ten hours or so I decided to wait until it got patched a couple times, and then I never came back. I really enjoy the setting and aesthetic, though, and definitely feel like it's a better cyberpunk game than Cyberpunk 2077.

Resident Evil Village - I only picked this game up recently, because I am a scaredy cat who loved RE4, but couldn't make it past the first five minutes of RE7.  I'm currently somewhere midway through the real tall lady's house, and really enjoying my time with it. I am still quite anxious about playing it, but so far I've found the balance of freaky things to bullets in my gun reasonable enough to keep me going.

Halo Infinite - Hey they made another Halo! The multiplayer seems good and I like that it's free and that the battle passes don't expire. They tried to do a semi-open world thing and that shows off how fun Halo gameplay is, but also I'm already kind of bored and I've barely played any of it? Frankly, Halo Infinite is a success in my book because it's not awful. I'm sure I'll give this game a lot more time in 2022, and I also bet I'll come back to the multiplayer for years.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition - I only played a bit of ME1 on here and only while streaming on Twitch. Mass Effect is still good and unlike some other remasters this year, this one seems alright.  Maybe I'll find time to play it more in 2022.

Death’s Door - It's like Zelda crossed with Dark Souls, but you play a cute bird. I wish I had given this more time, I really enjoy it.

Ratchet and Clank: A Rift in Time - What a good looking game. I got this right at the end of the year, so I've barely touched it. I'm very early on, but so far it's one of them Ratchet and Clanks but somehow looks better than a Pixar movie. I'm sure I'll leisurely pick away at it in 2022.

Lake - I just started this and want to give it more time. Nice relaxing story game where you deliver mail in a 1980s small town? Sure.

Alright, so here's the real list—the place I put my real gaming time this year—these are games that didn't come out in 2021, but that I still played and enjoyed:

Wide Ocean Big Jacket - Great narrative game you can play in an evening or two. Just good vibes, man. It's on PC and Switch and everyone should play it.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1&2 - Another great remake, which somehow was rare the last couple years. I just like having this on my hard drive just in case I need to be happy fast.

The Last of Us Part 2 - I despised the discourse on this one so much at launch—and the depressing nature of the series was not what I needed in Pandemic Year 1—but in Pandemic Year 2 I finally got a PS5 and so I picked it up on sale and really enjoyed the small amount of time I put into it. I'm not that far, maybe 10 hours. I stopped because I suddenly had to kill a bunch of dogs and I don't know, that doesn't seem like such a great time? Maybe I'll go back to it, or maybe I'll just pretend that Ellie retired in Seattle and now lives with a bunch of really nice dogs.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - I put so many hours into this in 2021. Such a big game, just beautiful and so much to do and just enough weird Assassin's Creed lore bullshit. I'm still somewhere in the Ireland dlc, and so I guess I'll be playing more of this in 2022.

Spider-Man Miles Morales - I maybe enjoyed this more than the previous game? It's shorter, with a tighter story, and it just so good to have a game starring Miles Morales and to see him treated well, and to have the other characters in the game also be people of color. Plus it's still just a blast to swing around that city.

Snowrunner - This was my main twitch streaming game this year, and I had a really good time hopping on stream and getting stuck in the mud with a big truck and complaining about capitalism.

Genshin Impact - I'm always this close to just going all in on Genshin Impact. Instead, I turn it on when I need a bright, chill, colorful world, but never dive too deep. I mostly ignore the free-to-play nonsense, and just do a few quests. It's nice.

Destiny 2 - The Destiny seasonal story stuff actually got good this year? I'm still a very casual Destiny player; I hop in, I do the new story stuff, and that's about it. I've still never done a raid or a dungeon, but I love the lore, love the game feel, and I'm always pleased to return when they've added a new chapter of weird proper nouns for me to try and comprehend while I shoot the aliens.

Final Fantasy 13-2 - Last year I replayed Final Fantasy 13, a game I had already played through before, and this year I restarted Final Fantasy 13-2, a game I had bounced off of pretty quickly at launch, but which I find endlessly interesting now. It's a weird, convoluted time-travel story that feels like fan-fiction of the previous game, while also actively trying to undo its history. I'm still somewhere in the middle of it, but hopefully I can find some time to push through it later in 2022.

Risk of Rain 2 - I love the vibes of Risk of Rain 2, I wish I wasn't awful at it.

Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider - I found myself replaying these games again this year for some reason? It was therapeutic to shoot dumb mercs with arrows and solve ancient puzzles at like 2am when I'd had too much whiskey after stressing about being unemployed. They still hold up.

Injustice 2 - Speaking of holding up, Injustice 2 is still good! I also played a bunch more Mortal Kombat 11 this year, but at some point the bloody ultra-violence of MK11 wasn't what I was in the mood for, so I suddenly found myself reading all of the Injustice comic books, playing through the story modes of Injustice 1 and 2 again, and then spending a lot of hours grinding out multiverse tournaments to level up Starfire. Injustice 2 is still good!

Yakuza: Like a Dragon - I've mentioned before that I bounced right of Yakuza 0 the two times I've tried to play it, but Yakuza 6: Like a Dragon kept my interest for a lot longer. I love the main character, he's so relatable and likable, and the turn-based combat is just more my speed than the beat-em up mechanics of the main series. I'm still probably only half-way through, but hope to get back to it at some point.

Fortnite - My most played game two years in a row was probably once again Fortnite. I put more hours into it than any other game on Nintendo Switch this year, and I definitely played it more on Xbox than Nintendo Switch? So I played it a lot, is what I'm saying. I mostly only played duos with my girlfriend—we both leveled up three battle passes past 100 in 2021, I think. I don't enjoy everything about Fortnite, but the amount of energy and resources they put in the game means that there's always something new, and that keeps us coming back.

Parasite Eve - I went on a real Parasite Eve kick this year. I played through the first game twice? I read a translation of the Japanese novel that the game is a sequel to? I don't know, in Pandemic Year 2 I got overwhelmed by the virus and obsessed on a weird story about mutant mitochondria and organ transplants gone wrong. I really want to make a nice long YouTube video about Parasite Eve, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe in 2022.

Anyway, those are the big ones. Real quick, here's a list of games that came out in 2021 that I wish I'd gotten to, but didn't:

Boyfriend Dungeon

Nier Replicant

Returnal

Loop Hero

Sable

The Forgotten City

SMT 5

Psychonauts 2

Chicory

Life is Strange True Colors

Boomerang X

I guess that's what 2022 is for.

Like I said, 2021 was a weird year and a weird year for gaming. Weird couple of years. Hope 2022 is less weird. Or weird in the cool ways with cool games. There's some new games that might come out that I'm excited for (Breath of the Wild 2 and Starfield? Maybe?) and I have three handheld gaming consoles preordered that are supposed to land in my mailbox by the end of the year (Valve's Steam Deck, an Analogue Pocket, and that yellow console with the crank). Here's hoping there's all of that, less weird NFT things, and a whole lot less global pandemic.

Take care of each other, take care of yourself, and I hope you find the time and space to play some good games in 2022.

[ludonarrativediss]

GOTY 2020

This was a long, strange year for all of us, with considerably more downs than ups. It was a year where people didn’t leave their houses that much, and video games were asked to do more than their usual share. The games on this list helped me connect with friends that I couldn’t see in person, pass a lot of time, and turn off the stress in my brain when the current events became too much to handle. These games would be good any year they released, but this year they mean even more.

MY TOP FIVE GAMES OF 2020

#5. COFFEE TALK

Coffee Talk is a chill, pixel-art, visual novel style narrative game with barista mechanics. It's a Shadowrun-esque world with elves, orcs, succubi, and other fantasy creatures living in a dreary Seattle, where everyone takes refuge from the rain at an all night cafe. The writing is fun, the storylines are simple yet engaging, and the whole thing oozes charm.

At 5-8 hours and no lose-states, it's a great chill game to complete over an afternoon or two.

#4. DESTINY 2: BEYOND LIGHT

Beyond Light is the first big expansion that Bungie has developed and released since breaking away from publisher Activision and committing to chart their own future with the franchise. Is it good? Well, the ice powers are rad, I'm still obsessed with the lore, and I love making the numbers go higher. Destiny still has a lot to learn about how to keep their fanbase engaged year-round with their seasonal content, but every season and every expansion they get closer to realizing that goal. Plus, wow, the game looks and runs great at 4k/60fps on the new consoles.

There's never been a better time to jump into Destiny. It's free to start on every platform, all the expansions are currently free on Xbox Game Pass, and I can recommend you all the weird websites to read about the cool lore.

#3. FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE

I'm not the biggest Final Fantasy VII fan. I act like I am, in public I joke about chocobo races and materia management, but in private I whisper in hushed tones about how I never made it past disc one. Because of this, I didn't have expectations of any kind for Final Fantasy VII Remake, I just knew that its very existence was interesting enough that I needed to play it. In the end, I walked away enamored with the game—obsessed with its mechanics, its characters, and its boldness to even exist.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is the culmination of every Final Fantasy game since the original VII, but specifically it feels like a massaging of the mechanics and storytelling techniques seen in 13 and 15. The action feels new and fresh, and the character models are so clean and detailed that they feel next gen despite now being last gen. That said, in many ways it's the parts of the game that feel old that are so refreshing. In the same way that Resident Evil 4 felt like it was a bunch of games stuck together (but in a good way), Final Fantasy VII remake has huge mechanics and set-pieces it invests heavily in and then just as quickly pushes aside for the next adventure. This creates a momentum in the game that is unmatched in modern AAA, and not every section sticks the landing, and most of the sidequests don't work well, but the variety is great spectacle.

The game does take a while to get going, and I was probably five hours in before the combat clicked and got fun. The game reeks of a project with a long production time—like I said, the character models look great, but then suddenly a door will look like it's from a PS2 game for some reason. And yeah, the sidequests are hit and miss. But the thing is, it's amazing that this game even exists. It's a remake, made by the same people who made the original game. It's artists looking at the art of their past and improving on it, expanding on it, creating something closer to their original vision with the new technology that twenty years brings. At the same time, its very narrative interrogates what it is to do that, what it is to revisit that old work, and what it's like to be an artist held hostage by rabid fans.

Oh, and somehow I haven't mentioned that this game is only part 1—that despite clocking in at 90 hours, it only makes it through the Midgar section of the original Final Fantasy VII. Guess what, that means that at some time in the (maybe far) future, we're going to get a follow-up to this. I can't wait.

Also, if you like Aerith more than Tifa, something wrong with you.

#2. ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

2020 was a year when we all had to lock ourselves up and not see anyone else, just to stay safe and keep the ones we love alive. Animal Crossing New Horizons hit at the start of quarantine, and that turned a game that traditionally is about checking in for twenty minutes every day into a game that people were playing all day every day, just to get the social buzz of talking to a town of digital animals. In a way, this worked in its favor: everyone I know was playing and talking about it. Friends who didn't have a Nintendo Switch were buying one just to see what everyone was talking about.

But being at the center of cultural discourse while also being asked to fill all of the social needs we were missing in 2020 is a lot to carry. Animal Crossing has never been a game built for all day play sessions, and New Horizons succeeds there better than its predecessors, but ultimately playing it that way burns out a fire quickly that is mean to crackle gently for several years. I put 90 or so hours into Animal Crossing New Horizons, and I loved my time with it. It's the best Animal Crossing game they've made, it made my 2020 much better than it would've been without it, but at the same time, unless there's a substantial, game changing expansion, I'm probably mostly done with Animal Crossing until the next entry. And maybe that's okay, maybe the strongest signal of what an amazing game it is is that I'm now mourning not wanting to play it anymore.

#1. HADES

Hades is a beautiful isometric roguelike action game with perfect controls and an incredibly engaging story inspired by Greek mythology. Although it originally released in December 2018 in early access, its complete release (and Switch port) hit in 2020, and that's when I really fell for the game. They clearly used the feedback garnered during the early access period to perfect the systems and power-ups, creating a game that feels fresh no matter how many times you've died in its dungeon hallways.

You'll die a lot—I died a lot—but unlike other games in the roguelike genre, death doesn't mean starting over. Death ties directly into the story, so even as you're dying, the story is progressing, you're learning more and more by talking to the gods and deities that make up the cast, and all of their dialogue and story continues to evolve. So even if you're not making progress in the dungeons, you are making progress in your knowledge of the story and your relationships with the characters, and that means it never gets frustrating. It's an expertly crafted tale, a real lesson in game narrative, and although there are lots of threads to follow at your own pace, each one ends up tying into the greater themes of family disfunction and forgiveness.

I can beat a run of Hades in 30-45 minutes, but somehow I've played the game for over 70 hours and I keep going back for more. It's grabbed me like no other game in its genre has, and again, that's due to its tight controls, engrossing story, and extreme "okay, just one more run" design. I recommend Hades to everyone, it's my Game of the Year 2020, and really high in my short list for my favorite games ever.

So those are my Top 5 of 2020, but 2020 is more complex and insidious than just a Top 5, so below are all the games that didn’t quit fit there. Game I played a lot of, but have reservations about:

Call of Duty: Warzone

Warzone was and still is the main game my friends and I have squaded up for during quarantine. It's free, it's got cross-play across xbox/ps/pc, and it works enough like Call of Duty and enough like Fortnite that anyone can jump in and play. It really does feel like a great evolution of the battle royale, keeping some of the intense, almost horror-movie feel of PUBG, but bringing in the smooth gunplay and first-person movement that Call of Duty has honed over so many annual releases. It even added new elements that helped keep it fresh when I first started playing, like the one-on-one death battles in the purgatory gulag or the risk/reward of the bounty system.

That said, despite all the fun I've had with it in 2020 and the thanks I give it for allowing me to be social with my boys, I still feel gross every time I play it. It feels like war in a way that Fortnite doesn't for me. It's increasingly hard for me to separate the fun I'm having in the game from the horrors of war that its accurately modeling and then twisting into a thing that's fun. This all mixes in a way that gets my adrenaline going so that if I play after 10pm, I usually can't get to sleep until after 3am.

I'll continue to jump in every now and then to hang out with friends and have a laugh, but I'll also enjoy when our group has moved onto the next game, which hopefully is just as fun, but doesn't make me feel as much like I have PTSD from a forgotten war.

Games that came out this year that I wasn’t able to play but think I'll enjoy:

Wide Ocean Big Jacket

Paradise Killer

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 and 2

Star Wars Squadrons

The Last of Us Part II

Umurangi Generation

Half Life Alyx

Spider-Man Miles Morales

Demon Souls (2020)

Game I played in 2020 and loved that didn't come out in 2020:

A Short Hike

Games I played a lot of in 2020 even though they didn't come out this year:

Overwatch - I still put in some solo queueing this year, mostly Mystery Heroes and Quickplay. It remains an amazing game, but I’m finding that a lot of the tricks Overwatch had when it launched that stopped me from being frustrated just aren’t doing the job anymore. I look forward to how this improves with Overwatch 2.

Fortnite - Fortnite was definitely my most played game in 2019. In 2020, I still put a lot of time into it, and it still kept me interested, but by splitting my time between two battle royale games (this and Warzone), I think I might be running out of steam for the genre in general. I’ll continue to pop in and play a bit every season, but I’m trying not to be as obsessed with the challenges and battle pass as I have in the past.

Forza Horizon 4 - Forza Horizon 4 is still great! The patch to make it 4k and 60fps on the new Xbox Series X makes it even better! 2020 was the year that I realized I could put on a podcast in the background and just drive around pretty landscapes raking in fake money and fake fans, and my stress level is better for it.

Mortal Kombat 11 - I still booted this game up regularly in 2020 and played a few towers with my main Skarlet. I’m very interested to try out the expansion and see the new story stuff they added, but I just haven’t been able to justify it at its current price. I’m also trying to accept that buying dlc characters for fighting games is a very silly thing for me to do, because I always just choose one character and never try anyone else.

Burnout Paradise Remastered - Burnout Paradise is still the best open world driving game ever made. The remastered version has a couple of quirks, like how it gives you all the overpowered dlc cars right away, but it’s still a great experience and a great way to chill out and wreck some cars.

Final Fantasy 13 - After loving Final Fantasy VII Remake and wanting more, I decided to replay all of Final Fantasy 13. If you have a newer Xbox, they’ve bumped the resolution up to 4k and it looks great. With the different expectations of 2020, I found I really enjoyed the story and world of the game in a way that I didn’t originally. I also think the linearity that was critiqued so harshly at release was a really calming way to spend some time this year, just walking down long hallways and fighting pretty monsters with my emo dreamgirl Lightning.

No Man's Sky - If you’re seeing a pattern here, the games I played in 2020 were games that I could wile the hours away with and chill—and No Man’s Sky has never been better for that. This year I finished the huge 30 hour additional story stuff they added after release, and really enjoyed my time with it. Currently, since I have the new Xbox and not the new Playstation where my save file is, I’m considering starting over from scratch again so I can play in 4k 60fps. The great thing about No Man’s Sky is that making progress is fun, but starting over can be fun too, because there are always new worlds to explore.

American Truck Simulator - This year I picked up the Washington and Oregon expansions for American Truck Simulator and repeatedly recreated the drive from Los Angeles to Olympia, a drive I do every year but wasn’t able to this year due to the pandemic. It’s really an incredible feat how much of the joy of long drives the game recreates. I’m trying to earn enough money to buy a new garage, but we’ll see, I’m always getting tickets for running red lights.

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn - 2020 was the year I got way into Final Fantasy again, and part of that was subscribing off and on to Final Fantasy 14. I played very casually, only grouped up in dungeons when I had to, and still haven’t made it out of the base game and to the expansions, but I enjoyed my time and will probably resubscribe at some point in 2021 as I continue to chip away at it.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Hey, AC Odyssey is great, and this year I finished the main story and most of the dlc so I could “be ready” for the new Assassin’s Creed. This is still a game I recommend to everyone, it’s so huge but so approachable.

Games I enjoyed but need to play more of:

Cyberpunk 2077 - I put like 30 hours into this game on release week. I enjoyed most of my time with it, but also every mission was plagued with bugs and it generally feels like a game from eight years ago, and not in a good way. Still, it scratches that Skyrim itch, so I’m going to wait for a couple more patches and then dive back in.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla - I picked up the new Xbox in November and this was the single next-gen game I bought at launch. I’m very happy with the choice, I’m about 50 hours in, and it feels like the perfect mix of old school and new school Assassin’s Creed mechanics. It’s also very very weird, and that keeps the monotony of some of those mechanics interesting.

Ghost of Tsushima - Speaking of Assassin’s Creed, this is a beautiful game that is made to feel like one of those earlier Assassin’s Creed games, but in picturesque feudal Japan. I enjoyed my time with it, but it’s not doing anything groundbreaking, and it wasn’t long until I moved onto other things. I expect I will go back to it eventually, especially when I pick up a PS5.

Doom Eternal - Wow, I loved 2016's Doom, and this follow-up is all of that cranked to 11, and somehow it turns out that's not that great. I plan to go back and finish this, and maybe I'll get into it, but it's hard to say at this point. All the stuff I loved before is still there, but the levels seem too long and the combat is now too complicated. That flow feeling of being in the zone is maybe stronger, but it's so much harder to get there now that I'd maybe rather just go back to the simplicity of the last game.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - I just got this game a week ago, but I loved the original, and this one is already scratching that same itch. On top of that, it uses all of the characters, lore, and aesthetics of Breath of the Wild to really cook up the perfect comfort-food gaming.

Spiritfarer - This is a beautiful, comfy little indie game about gardening, cooking, and sailing as you help your animal friends into the next stage of the afterlife. I didn’t put much time into this, but I want to get back to it.

Ooblets - Another great, comfy indie game about gardening, making friends with the things you garden, and then entering them in dance battles. Ooblets is still in early access, but I really enjoyed what I played of it, and need to spend more time with it.

Genshin Impact - What if Breath of the Wild had party-based combat and was a gacha game? I liked what I played of this, but got out before spending any real money.

Spelunky 2 - I barely touched Spelunky 2, need to play more or admit that I’m just not good at video games.

Crusader Kings III - I only did the tutorial of Crusader Kings III, but it’s so interesting, I’ve gotta put more time in.

Kentucky Route Zero - I am sure that when I finish Kentucky Route Zero, it will be one of my favorite game experiences of all time. Maybe because of that, I can’t ever bring myself to actually play it. I’ve only played through the first chapter, but I should really find time to keep going.

Microsoft Flight Simulator - My computer can barely handle this, but I still loaded it up to take off from my hometown’s airport and try and fly over my mom’s house. I think this is one I’ll put more time into when I build a new PC or it comes to the Xbox.

Well, that’s my 2020 in games. I hope everyone made the best of a real downer of a year, and I hope you found some time to play some good games. If you didn’t, the above list is a great start to get you going in 2021. Be safe out there.

[ludonarrativediss]

I thought I'd met everyone in Hades, but has anyone else gotten this?? Illustrations by P. Nathan Smith, Video by Adam Dorsey.

[ludonarrativediss]

A Simple Proposal to Fix Our Presidential Elections

The electoral college doesn't work anymore. Our goal with a democratic election is to elect via the will of the people, but unfortunately (or by design) the electoral college is more concerned with electing a President based on the will of  land. It's an old idea with racist origins and it's time to replace it. Similarly, there is too much big money in our politics, so that the will of the people always comes in second to the will of the RICH people. What if I told you there was a better way? It is time that we take a cue from popular mobile games and run elections via gacha.

Under my proposed Gacha Election, everyone of voting age in the United States will get ten free "pulls" for President. They can choose between different "banners" that will allow them to increase their chances of pulling a vote for the candidate they are interested in, although the actual chances of pulling a vote for that candidate are relatively low. Additional votes can be obtained using V Bucks (Vote Bucks), a virtual currency that can be purchased with real world money. All money earned from the purchase of V Bucks will be used to improve social services in America.

I am aware of the critique: "This doesn't sound very democratic!" Well, the Gacha Election is a stop gap before we can enact policies that are more in line with actual democracy. The mechanics of the Gacha Election are brutally honest about the failings of our current system and realistic at our abilities to fix it all in one go. Corporate interests and big money will still have an outsized voice in politics—this will be true until we eliminate the capitalist greed from our society. What the Gacha Election does is weaponize that capitalist greed for the good of the people. Corporations, lobbyists, and other vehicles for old white guys will still purchase elections, but the chance mechanics of the gacha system will introduce a randomness to their electoral fraud, producing a higher likelihood that the will of the people might still eke out into reality.

Additionally, the money the bourgeoisie wield will no longer go to the bank accounts of corrupt politicians, but instead into systems that help the average voter. Ironically this means that the most corrupt leaders in our crumbling capitalist system will be the ones most actively supporting a better socialist system. In essence, their millions of microtransactions will be funding the healthcare, education, employment programs, and generally improving the quality of life for the other 99% of the country, without any scary threats of tax increases on those making more than $400k a year.

And what of the average voter who is not a "whale"? Well, voting just got more fun! Normally at a boring voting booth, you fill in or poke out the circle for your candidate of choice, and that's it. But in a Gacha Election, there is excitement! Chance! Sparkles and sound effects when you pull the lever in the app to vote! And okay, sometimes it's not the best feeling when you want to elect a qualified democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders but instead end up voting for a +3 grey sword, but that's what makes it so satisfying when you do pull the vote you were going for!

[ludonarrativediss]

When We Stop Playing Games

I've been thinking a lot recently about when we stop playing games. Not like stop playing all games forever ("When I'm dead!" exclaims the gamer, skin glistening with the early morning's Mountain Dew), but instead when we put down a game to go onto another game. Or maybe when we put down a game for good.

As a child, this never happened to me. I got one, maybe two new games a year, which meant my backlog hadn't been conceived yet. I always went back and played the games I owned, even the ones I had beaten, because those were the games I had. Most of my game playing back then came from game rentals, which by their very nature had built-in times when I would stop playing them. In my case, when my parents were driving to town the next day and it had to be returned.

In the aughts, which I spent mostly in my twenties, the nature of games changed and so did the way I consumed them. There were a lot more games, and those games were a lot more about their stories. Games for me became contained experiences. I played the games to their conclusion, I saw the ending, and then I moved onto a new game. Games had unlocks and new game plus modes and higher difficulties, but there were too many games to even consider any of that, we had to keep moving forward.  That said, even in the early 2000s, you could see the glimmer of games as a service. For me, these were games that my roommates and I could become obsessed with, play asynchronously, and then discuss together. I think a lot of people my age had these experiences in college with Halo or GTA, but my roommates and I were weirdos, so my dorm was obsessed with Animal Crossing on the Gamecube and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball on the Xbox. These were games without endings, games we could play for an hour a day and feel like we were forever making progress cleaning up our animal towns or dressing up our volleyball ladies.

Then at some point we were all online and we could play with each other even if we hadn't chosen to live in the same liberal arts dorm room. More importantly, all of our games could get updates all the time. Soon, that meant most of the games I was buying weren't finished, and therefore could never be finished by me. Games As A Service: the most boring way to describe the game we all wished for as a kid, the game that never ends, the game you might not even have to buy, but the game you definitely don't have to get your parents to drive you to the video store for. Hey wait Past Me, put down that monkey paw, I've got a bad feeling about thi—

We wished for something new and we got something old. I've been playing Fortnite and Destiny and Overwatch for years now. The stories never end. The gameplay is always evolving. I'm playing it just like I played games as a kid, everyday popping in the same copy of Super Mario Bros 3 (after blowing on it), but in this strange future Super Mario Bros 3 has a Lunar New Year Goomba this week, and they're slowly rolling out lore this season that's really building on the Bullet Bill raid they released in November, and ugh they nerfed the tanooki suit again.

Hey it's great, playing these Games As A Service that I personally click with, where I follow the updates and complete the challenges and obsess over the lore—it's great—but hey guys when do we stop? They've hired psychologists and sociologists and economists to help build these levers and adjust these dials to make sure we keep spending money and never stop playing. And those story games I loved in the aughts? They're still coming out. I've got a stack of weird cool interesting games that I've never managed to get to, burning a hole in my hard drive. I know I need to play Undertale and Kentucky Route Zero and Telling Lies, but those are standalone experiences that aren't going anywhere, and so I need to turn on the new event in Fortnite while it's still there, I need to put some time into my Diablo III character this season—I need to play the same games I've been playing for the last five years.

When I talk to friends who don't play games, they don't get it. See, they get to watch a two hour movie and get a nice, satisfying, full experience. In comparison, I've got these games I've played for literally hundreds of hours, over the course of years, and some nights I've had some of the most incredible, immersive experiences of my life. These are the nights when the gameplay told a story, where the random human players on my team delivered a narrative through their actions, and we discovered the new season's lore together. Other nights I just fucked around and lost a lot of matches, but my numbers did go up and I did feel a false sense of accomplishment. So what do I do, do I keep playing?

Personally, I'm trying really hard to push through the new game anxiety and expand the titles and genres I'm spending my time with. I'm trying not to get caught up in limited time events in my ongoing games, and only playing them when I genuinely want to play them. It's a balancing act between not thinking too much and just playing what I feel like playing, while also pushing against the brain tricks my favorite games are using against me, and learning when to sample something new. Xbox Gamepass has been really good for that, because I can try something new with no expectation that I need to put in a certain number of hours because I spent actual money on it and it's sitting in my backlog, and that sense of "this is free, whatever" (even if it's not actually free) really cuts down on that initial new game anxiety.

Look, man, I don't have the answers. I don't have an answer. But I've been thinking about it a lot recently, I've been thinking about when we stop playing games, so that we can play new games. The stuff I've been playing, the stuff I already know how to play—those are the safe games. That's the nice warm bed to curl back into on these cold winter months. It's the familiarity that brings me back, and it's that familiarity that makes the little changes every week or every season really feel so important. Real new stuff, though, brand new games where I have to learn how to play again from scratch, that's what's hard. That's what's intimidating. But if I don't jump into those new games, then I won't find my new favorite. I'll miss out on the real ongoing narrative, which is the journey our industry is taking as it shakes off the Doritos dust of its adolescence. That's the lore I don't want to miss out on.

[ludonarrativediss]

“I’m Not Buying Video Games in 2019″ - End of Year Update

In 2019, I decided to challenge myself and not buy any video games. I spent the month of December 2018 looking backwards at the last couple years of my life and my growing reliance on consumerism. With my father’s death a year before combined with the general anxiety that we all feel in the modern world, I recognized that I’d been coping by buying, and for me that manifested mostly with video game purchases. In 2018 I had bought over 100 video games and spent over $4,000 on video games and related products.

I also spent the month of December 2018 looking forward at how to make “don’t buy any video games” a real resolution, and not just a thing that lasted two weeks and then I abandoned (like all my previous resolutions). I thought about what made me buy games, and found that the most money was actually spent on sales for games that I never ended up playing, but bought in order get a good deal. I also found that I had a lot of anxiety about watching for those sales, and then even more anxiety when I bought from those sales, despite the original purchasing rush. I also recognized that I couldn’t go cold turkey, that there would be new releases that I would want to play throughout the year, games that I would want to be engaged in the discourse with, and so I gave myself four games I could buy throughout 2019 (1 game a quarter). Additionally, I left myself open to earning more game purchases if I accomplished big life goals, like creative milestones.

The days leading up to January 1st 2019, I committed to this plan by driving to every game store and staring at the shelves with a ton of stress. What last minute games did I need to stock up on before they were out of reach for a year? I was suddenly a prepper trying to make sure his bunker was adequately stocked, but in retrospect, that wasn’t a new thing but what I had been for years—adding to a backlog that I would never be able to finish, waiting for some hypothetical future when I had time and desire to play all of these old games.

And so now, at the end of 2019, how did I do? What worked and what didn’t? What have I learned from this experiment?

First, I did it. I followed my rules, and I only bought five video games in 2019. Four were my quarterly provisions, one was “unlocked” because I wrote a 10,000 word short story, something that despite identifying as a “writer” I hadn’t done in 5-10 years. A real creative accomplishment that I’m quite proud of.

The five games I bought were:

Mortal Kombat 11

Super Mario Maker 2

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3

Control

Death Stranding

I’m incredibly surprised that I was able to crank down 100 game purchases to five. Some of this was due to loopholes, such as buying up a year of Xbox Game Pass in 2018 to last me to 2020. Having a continually updating list of games I could play without buying meant that I was free to try new things, but also free to abandon them—something that’s harder to do when you’ve spent actual money.

Another thing that helped was just the changing nature of video games. Most of my time this year wasn’t spent chipping away at my backlog of games or playing the five new games I purchased, but instead continuing to play the games as a service titles that I had been playing in 2018. In other words, I played a lot of Fortnite and a lot of Destiny and a lot of Forza Horizon 4.

I gave myself permission to buy new hardware and DLC for games that I was actively playing, but that didn’t add up to very much. A Fortnite skin and a couple Destiny 2 expansions. The biggest purchase I made this year was on an Xbox Elite controller, which is also the purchase I’m most happy with. It’s made all of the games I play better, and if you play games regularly on Xbox or PC, I highly recommend it.

This is the first New Year’s resolution I’ve ever succeeded with. I credit several things: 1.) The support of my partner, 2.) The fact that this is something I really wanted to accomplish, 3.) The month I spent before the new year really considering it from every angle and building a plan that worked for me.

When I started this last January, I expected that I would be writing and filming constant updates to keep a hypothetical audience informed and to keep myself in check. In reality, I did that once or twice, but really it was a personal journey that was more about introspection than public blogging. I also expected that I would really miss being involved in the gaming discourse, that I would miss buying games day one to be able to talk about them and listen to podcasts about them. In practice, I bought the games that I wanted to spend my time with, they were personal decisions based on my own tastes and what I was looking for at that point of the year. I’m happy that I saved money on games that have now dropped significantly in price, but mostly I’m happy that I saved time. I’m looking at you, Anthem.

I consider this whole experiment a success, and although I won’t be repeating it again in 2020, I think the lessons I’ve learned will inform my purchasing decisions and time management decisions not just in games, but in all facets of my life. I’ve learned that it makes no sense to buy something on sale if you’re not going to touch it for months or years. The sales are stressful, the backlog is stressful, and the joy I’m looking for comes from the thing itself, not from buying it. I’ve learned I don’t need to get everything just when it comes out. I don’t need to wait for sales, but I need to wait for when I actually want to play it/watch it/read it. Specific to games, I always want to be knowledgeable about the industry, but I’ve learned that the way to do that isn’t by buying and playing every new thing that comes out. I can play what I’m interested in, read about the rest, and still be exactly where I want to be in the discourse.

Most importantly, I’ve spent a year not buying things to feel better, and by removing that, I’ve found new, healthier ways of coping with the world around me and its challenges. This resolution was very personal to me, and I understand that a lot of people reading this will scoff at “stress” and “anxiety” as it relates to video game purchases and backlogs, but I think the reality is we all suffer from very similar things that manifest in very specific ways, and I hope that you can be inspired by this and work to improve yourself as I hope I have.

Anyway, guess I’ll see everyone at the local game store on January 1st. I’ve got a few indie things I want to pick up, hoping I can get a copy of the SoulCalibur or Dead or Alive that I missed this year, and who knows, I might get The Witcher 3 on Switch or Dragon Quest Builders 2, both games that I think I’ll really like having portable. Thanks for reading, take care out there.

[ludonarrativediss]

Hey remember how I'm not buying video games in 2019? Well, it's almost the end of February and so I wanted to hit you with a little update on how I'm doing.

[ludonarrativediss]

[ludonarrativediss]

GOTY 2017

2017 was not good, but the games? The games they were very good. Below are my picks for the top video games of 2017.

10. Tacoma - I finally played through Tacoma this week, in one sitting, and found it to be an interesting story with a couple of wonderful twists. Themes of mass corporations and generally shitty capitalism make it feel extra weighty in 2017 (and probably every year from here on out). Visually, the avatars for the characters were just color-coded empty cyphers, a presumably budget-related decision that also served to amplify the dual sense of loneliness and voyeurism that I experienced. Playing through Tacoma reminded me that I often neglect smaller games and that I can get the same enjoyment I would out of a giant 60 hour open world game in a fraction of the time.

9.  Mario Kart 8 DX - It's a perfect Mario Kart game, in a complete package, that looks and plays even better on Switch. I'll be playing this game for years to come in long multiplayer sessions or quick solo games on the go.

8.  Assassin's Creed Origins - As a long time Assassin's Creed fan, I thought I would casually enjoy this new entry, but that like Syndicate before it, I would never fully invest like I did back in the day with Ezio. To my surprise, I've been fully pulled into Bayek’s world and have played more Origins in the last two weeks of vacation than I have any other game. The sidequests and world exploration share a lot with Horizon Zero Dawn, but without any of the gross cultural appropriation. It's great to play a brown man in a game about brown people. More than anything, though, the game takes what's great about Assassin's Creed and stabs out all the bullshit, leaving not a perfect game, but a highly enjoyable one, and what will hopefully be a solid blueprint for the series going forward.

7.  Injustice 2 - I suck at fighting games. I enjoy them, but I definitely suck at them, so for me to enjoy a fighting game it needs to have a large single-player component. Injustice 2 has a big, fun, dumb story mode, tons of characters to learn, and a ridiculous loot system that lets me earn loot box after loot box of outfit pieces to dress up my fighters. All I want to do in video games is customize and dress up characters, so I've played Injustice 2 more than I've played any fighting game except Super Smash Bros Brawl. On top of customization, the ongoing support has been great, with regularly updated multiverse events that give new excuses to grind loot.

6.  PLAYER UNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS - I had more fun watching streams of game journalists playing Battlegrounds this year than I did playing it myself. There was a three month period where every night, instead of watching sitcoms or procedurals, my girlfriend and I would sit down with dinner and watch the Waypoint team play “Breakfast and Battlegrounds.” It gave us everything that traditional television used to give us: Excitement, intrigue, humor, horror, character development, and lots of death. It made me truly understand game streaming, why it is popular, and why it will continue to steal eyeballs away from other media. The game itself, from a distance, looks like the most generic shooter imaginable. But when you try it out, when you see what it really is, you start to see there is so much new right under the surface. It's janky and broken and barely works sometimes, but at the same time it's a complete, focused vision of a game that's going to change what I’m looking for in multiplayer games for years to come.

5.  Wolfenstein 2 - Virtually killing Nazis in 2017 has a different feeling than it did when the last Wolfenstein game came out, and so The New Colossus would have been a therapeutic ride no matter what. The devs at MachineGames don't settle for just a fun ride, though, as they throw every wild idea into this game, stir it around, and somehow make each extreme tonal shift work. The shooting gets stale and the level design leaves something to be desired, but there are so many twists, so many heart-wrenching reveals, that about a third into the game I yelled to myself "WAIT, WHAT IS THIS GAME EVEN ABOUT?!"

4.  Nier:Automata - I did not enjoy the majority of my time with Nier. I found the difficulty frustrating until I cranked it down to easy. With no autosave, death would sometimes mean having to play through the last thirty minutes all over again, which would have been bad even if I didn't think the action was repetitive and boring. I had to completely destroy the camera controls just to not get violently motion sick. For most of its runtime, Nier:Automata felt like it was actively fighting against me and my enjoyment of it. All of that being said, Nier:Automata is one of the most amazing games I've ever played. It does things with the video game form and narrative that cannot be missed. The last hour is a rollercoaster that made me feel things no other video game has ever made me feel. It might have taken 40 hours, but by the end of Nier:Automata, I loved Nier:Automata so much that I almost wanted to start it right over again and slog through all the stuff I had hated before, because maybe I was supposed to hate it? I don’t know, man, video games.

3.  Persona 5 - Persona 5 has so much style, it's the only game that would make this list for its menu screens alone. It's a bonus that the characters are adorable, the combat is tight, and the themes are dark and gritty and keep you going for it's 100+ hour runtime. I'm *only* 70 or so hours in, so I still have a ways to go, and I won't finish until well into 2018, but I enjoyed those 70 hours enough that it makes it on this list.

2.  Super Mario Odyssey - Super Mario Odyssey is everything I love in a Mario game, but compressed into tight, explorable worlds that reward every curiosity with smiles (and moons). It plays in nostalgia, but earns it.

1.  Zelda Breath of the Wild - Zelda Breath of the Wild is my favorite game this year. It reinvents the open world genre in a decidedly Nintendo fashion, while retaining all the best elements of what makes a Zelda game a Zelda game. It succeeds on that old Skyrim promise of "See that mountain? You can go there" but makes a world where every element is driving you to explore, for no reward but to quench your curiosity. It it such an amazing open world game that it has sort of ruined the genre for me, turning otherwise great examples like Horizon Zero Dawn into 60 hour fetch quests that don't even feel open world anymore.

AND WHILE WE’RE AT IT...

Games that didn’t come out this year but I played a bunch:

Overwatch - This year I played more Overwatch than any other game. Along with playing a ton solo, my girlfriend also got into Overwatch (her first shooter), which led us to buy a second PS4 so we could play together. The new characters, levels, and seasonal events have kept me playing all year round, and I wouldn't be surprised if I play it even more in 2018.

Watch Dogs 2 - I didn't finish Watch Dogs 2, but I played a lot of it in 2017, and although it's far from perfect, I still loved the characters and world. Look, I just want to play as a black guy in video games, okay.

Forza Horizon 3 - With great DLC support, I continued to go back to Forza Horizon 3 this year, and despite newer racing games, it's still the game I'll turn on if I want to play with cars.

Fire Emblem Awakening - In 2017 I started Fire Emblem Awakening for the third time. I still didn't finish it this time, but I got farther than I ever have before, and I feel like this is the first time it really clicked for me.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions - I was about twenty hours into this game when 2017 began, and I put another 75 into it this year. I really enjoyed the combat, the characters, and the bright colors. If this game came to Nintendo Switch, I’d buy it and play it all over again.

Games that might be on this list if I had played more of them:

Pyre

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Nex Machina

Yakuza 0

Superhot VR

Games I liked enough to play, but didn’t make it on this list:

Horizon Zero Dawn

Everybody’s Golf

Destiny 2

Splatoon 2

--

Anyway, thanks for reading. 2017 was probably the best year to play video games, and boy did we need it. Now that it’s 2018 and the pressure is off to play all the new things, I’m looking forward to playing everything else. I’m still going to work on finishing Assassin’s Creed Origins and Persona 5, but I also want to find time to go back into Zelda, Mario Odyssey, Arms, Splatoon 2, Mafia 3 DLC, Stardew Valley, and Skyrim on Switch. Happy gaming.

[ludonarrativediss]

My Favorite Games of 2016

Overwatch Overwatch is my favorite game of 2016. I bought it twice, first on PC and then on PS4, because I wanted to play it so much. I made it to level 40 on PC and level 50 on PS4, which is not a measure of skill, but simply a sign of how much I played Overwatch this year.

Every character in Overwatch plays so differently, it’s like twenty games in one. What’s better is that as you improve with the characters, understand each of their quirks and play-styles, the way you play as the other characters change. People always reference Team Fortress 2 and MOBAs when they talk about Overwatch, but I think that natural skill progression makes it more like the best fighting games. Also like a fighting game, it has a wide-range of diverse characters, each with their own skills, and lets players dip their toes in by just choosing a character that they identify with, or simply one that looks cool.

Overwatch is fun in hour one when you have no idea what you’re doing, and fun in hour 60 when you have a tiny idea of what you’re doing. The continued support for Overwatch with two new characters, new maps and modes, and huge seasonal events has given me reasons to come back again and again. Lastly, in the current world we live in, a game that embraces multi-culturalism, diversity, and just revealed the character on its box to be lesbian—that’s the sort of game I’m glad I put so much time into this year.

Doom Doom feels good. It cuts away the fatty mechanics that have weighed down first-person shooters in the 20+ years since its namesake defined the genre, only taking what it absolutely needs. Out goes reloading, in goes a simple upgrade system that encourages learning advanced techniques.

The story, the music, the speed, and the violence all made me smile again and again. It doesn’t take anything serious except the fun. It does a thing that so few games take the time to do: it pauses to learn lessons from the past before heading into the future. It’s a throwback and a step forward. And oh man, does it just feel good to play.

Mafia 3 Mafia 3 proves that a game can be about something real, can have a huge budget, and can still make a bunch of money. Mafia 3 has the best narrative I played all year. Like the best works of fiction, it's a personal story that feels important today. Unfortunately, Mafia 3 is a great 10 hour game crammed into a 30 hour game. It's still very much worth playing, but it's a great example of how despite having some amazing open world games, maybe we haven't quite figured out open world games yet.

Titanfall 2 I loved playing the original Titanfall multiplayer with friends. In a year with Overwatch, though, I barely put any time into the Titanfall 2 multiplayer. It seems great, more of the same, but the single player campaign is still enough to put Titanfall 2 on my best gaming experiences of 2016.

Every level in the Titanfall 2 campaign feels like it could be its own great game. Like a Super Mario Galaxy game, each level presents a new spin on the established mechanics—or presents brand new mechanics—then quickly gives you something else fun to do in the next level. That moment where the pieces peel away and the game tells you “Press L1 to [spoiler].” Wow, I haven’t felt that way in a game since Half-Life 2.

Firewatch Firewatch is a great story told well. It's spooky and personal and will make you feel things a game maybe hasn't made you feel yet. Wandering around the woods and getting to know the two main characters is great, but there's something about the text that opens the game that I'll never be able to shake.

Hitman I've never played a Hitman game before, but I don't think that's the reason I only just now made it past the first level of the new Hitman. Don't get me wrong, I "beat" the first level the first time I played it, but what's great about the new Hitman is that your first playthrough of a level is just the start. The real fun is going back in and discovering all the murderous secrets just under the surface. 

Uncharted 4 I didn’t think I wanted another Uncharted game. I didn’t think there was anywhere for the story to go. Then Uncharted 4 comes out and it might be the best traditional storytelling I’ve seen in a game. It's also got such a great, definitive ending, which is something games find so hard to do and it's refreshing to see it done right.

I had a blast with Uncharted 4, but like a summer blockbuster, I sort of forgot it as soon as I finished it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t great, it just shows that right now I’m much more interested in the new ways games can tell stories, and that the traditional cinematic storytelling of Uncharted, even at its best, is a fleeting enjoyment.

Hyrule Warriors Legends Hyrule Warriors Legends was a dumb purchase. I already owned the Wii U version and had barely played it. But I bought it anyway, I guess because I wanted to see what a female Link named Linkle was. Despite the lower graphical fidelity, I ended up putting a ton of hours into it. Sometimes portability can make an okay game great.

Forza Horizon 3 I'm forever chasing that rush I felt while playing Burnout Paradise, and the Forza Horizon series is best at getting me close to that. After the sort of boring Forza Horizon 2, this third entry brings personality back into the open world, and makes a car and music festival feel the right level of dumb again. I played a lot of Forza Horizon 3 this year, but if you asked me I'd say I hadn't played enough.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Persona 4 is one of my favorite games ever, and this game is a pop music version of that favorite. I probably put twenty hours into it, and I hope to go back to it and finish it before Persona 5 comes out.

Games I still want to play:

Watch Dogs 2

The Last Guardian

Final Fantasy 15

Games That Didn’t Come Out in 2016 That I Loved In 2016:

The Witcher 3 - The Witcher 3 is the best game to come out this generation. Go play it.

Her Story - It's a great narrative experience that really shows games aren't done showing us new things. I think it's even on phones now? Go play it.

Max Payne 3 - I missed this when it first came out because the glory kills looked so gross, but this year I gave it a chance and the noir story roped me in deep.

Nuclear Throne - I am not good at Nuclear Throne, but I still love jumping in for five minutes, shooting some gross looking things, and then exploding in a blob of big pixels.

Diablo III - Last year I played a ton of Diablo III on PS4, and this year I returned to it on PC and played through a few seasons. This game is still great, and still a great example that a game can come out awful and then be fixed later on with time and care and an understanding community (I'm looking at you Destiny and The Division!)

Anyway, this probably needs another draft, but I'm gonna just post it now so I can go and start Final Fantasy 15. Happy new year and happy gaming!

[ludonarrativediss]

Why I Play: Mafia 3 and The Division

Mafia 3 couldn't have come at a better time. My country had elected to replace its first black president with a president celebrated by the increasingly vocal closets of racism that had prevented a black president in the former 232 years of these United States, and this game had just landed on shelves. A revenge tale following a half-black, New Orleans born man trying to find his place in the world after fighting in Vietnam, it's literally the story of my father, but with a whole lot more neck slitting of mobsters (or at least I assume, Dad). I thought that a power fantasy like Mafia 3, where I---as a mixed race black man---could embody the vessel of a mixed race black man as he exacted revenge on the racist evildoers that had done him evil was exactly what I needed. Classic blaxploitation, now with cover mechanics. And although the first couple hours of Mafia 3 were exhilarating, soon I found it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

The free hours in my days now ricochet between filling myself with political news and commentary, before long bouts of hiding from it all. Browsing Twitter has become a responsibility more than a relaxation. I have to read about what our President-Elect is doing. I need to retweet the good articles. I need to read the mentions and block the trolls. I thought Mafia 3 would be my break from this, my oasis where I had both power and control. Instead I found myself disconnected from the narrative. It was too opposite from my real life, too much power, too much justice.

I soon found myself turning back to a game I never thought I would go back to. I wanted to play more of Tom Clancy's The Division. It's a game about an apocalyptic New York ravaged by a deadly man-made plague that's trapped everyone in a permanent Black Friday (obviously hell on earth). The whole thing is an interesting concept, but I bounced off of it midway through the story campaign earlier this year because I just couldn't deal with the disconnect between the game's world and its mechanics. Besides the occasional interaction with randomly-generated NPCs, my only tool to effect change was my gun. As people starved and froze around me, all I could do was shoot the ones with red arrows above their heads. My complaint wasn't unique, many of the reviews and critiques of the game took umbrage with the game's ludonarrative dissonance. Games writer Heather Alexandra said it better than I can:

"The ruins of Manhattan were a playground where I could hurt to my heart’s content, but where I could never heal anything. I really did want to heal too. The most I could do was give a shivering civilian a can of soda. Could I use my super science nanotech healing gun to bring them away from the brink of death? Sadly, no. I just gave them an energy bar and watched them walk off into the snow." 

Someone wins the electoral vote, but not the popular vote, and suddenly I want to shoot bad guys in the snow again. It would be easy to say that I'm suddenly drawn back into The Division because the real world is increasingly apocalyptic, and so I crave a fictional version of that apocalypse to shoot my way through.  I don't think that's what it is, though. I find myself coming back to this world, after vehemently dismissing it, because of how powerless the game makes me feel. Yeah, I have my pick of guns and I can kill all the bad guys I want---and those mechanics are fine if a little default---but nothing I do saves the regular people. They're still homeless, cold, starving, and scared. I can't give them their lives back before this disease changed the world. I can't even invite them to take refuge in my giant military base that I'm building with points that I earn from doing side missions. I can only give them an energy bar or a soda. Just enough to make it to the next day.

And that's all I'm doing in the real world too. I can't give us a new president. I can't grab a gun and protect the women, muslims, LBGT, or any number of other minorities that are directly threatened by this upcoming administration. I can't protect myself. I can just retweet. Amplify. Give a little time or a little money. Make it to the next day. Help other people make it to the next day.

Right now, while I pick myself up from the shock of this election, while I realize that the work my parents did in the time Mafia 3 takes place isn't guaranteed to stick, while I figure out how I can really help in some tangible way, I let The Division be the soda that gets me to the next day.

[ludonarrativediss]

An Argument to Ignore the Release Dates of Games

When it comes to video games, we all want to play the newest thing, the hottest thing, the thing everyone is talking about. Sometimes that’s great. Sometimes that’s the best way to experience games. For instance, I’m very happy I bought my Xbox One at the launch of Titanfall, because I got to play the game with my friends, while everyone was still excited about it. Similarly, when Skyrim came out, despite not being a multiplayer game, it was great sharing stories about my adventures in Tamriel, and everywhere I went in late 2011, that’s where the conversations would eventually wind up, and I would have felt pretty left out if I hadn’t been playing. That said, I think that there is great value in ignoring release dates.

Publishers and retailers work so hard to get you to buy a game as soon as it is comes out. With previews, trailers, screenshots, pre-order bonuses, limited collector’s editions, betas, beta entries to other games, every game you decide not to buy on release date should be a tiny victory. It’s so hard not to get excited for every new game, but keep in mind that game publishers don’t choose release dates to please the consumer, they do it to please their bottom line. Games come out in the fall so that they’re ready for the holidays, the spring to release before the end of the fiscal year, and the summer because those other months were too crowded to get noticed.  As a gamer, the busy release months are both thrilling and stressful. Will I finish this game before that game comes out? What if I don’t have enough money for that other game? What if all of my other friends decide to pick up Game A when I chose Game B? What if this game ends up being awful?! It’s a hard life, man. But thats why I reiterate: IGNORE THE RELEASE DATES. Play a game when you are interested in playing it. Don’t pre-order a game you’re on the fence about, instead wait until the reviews come in, or until your friends try it out. I know this is just common sense, but the nature of the games industry causes us to forget this, as publishers push us to pre-order every new title and get it as soon as it comes out. Every year, games get bad reviews because they are "just more of the same, and we got another one of these a year ago.” That’s unfortunate for that reviewer--you know, that they had to play that game that was good, but just more of the same thing they played last year--I feel for them. The cool thing about you is that you’re not a game reviewer (unless you are a game reviewer. Hey game reviewer, get out of here, go review a game or something). You don’t have to play that new game now if it’s been too soon since you played the last one. A little burned out on Assassin’s Creed? Take a year off. There’ll be a new one next year, and by then this year’s game will only be like fifteen bucks. Play a sequel when you’re ready to revisit the series, not when someone decides to crank out another sequel. STOP LETTING CORPORATIONS, CONTROL YOU, MAN! CHEMTRAILS! Fans of other mediums have already figured this out. With hundreds of years of novels, few readers are sitting around waiting for that brand new book and reading it right when it comes out. Instead, they’re going to the bookstore (or the website) and choosing the book that they feel like reading today. Same goes for music, movies, and with the advent of streaming/dvd, even television. With video games, it’s a little different, because every year a brand new batch of the best-video-games-ever is supply-dropped on the public. Every year the graphics are better, the gameplay mechanics are more refined, and so the obsession to play the newest thing is always there, and honestly it’s probably always going to be there. All I’m asking is that you don’t give over to it completely. Go back and play games you missed. If you’re feeling nostalgic, go back and play your favorite games from your childhood (unless you’re still in your childhood. Wudup cool kids! Go review a game or something). You could also take a break from the new hotness and check out a hidden gem that you missed last generation. In the process of playing what you want to play instead of what publishers and games press are saying you “need” to play, you might miss a few games. That’s alright. The good ones will still be there for you to play through, and the not-so-good ones will still be there for you to skip over.

I mean, except for Destiny, have you guys been reading the previews, looks great, check out these new screenshots, did you preorder so you can get into the beta, what collector’s edition did you go with, what console are you getting it for, are you picking up the dlc season pa--