Hello, this is me Evil Uno.
What city are you in again? who knows? I’m writing this from an airport lounge. This is appropriate, especially since this is where he played most of his 2023 games, not this airport lounge. But we get it. Shout out to all you portable game console players out there! You are the real heroes.
This year has been an exceptional year for video games. I feel like I’ve played an unusually large number of games this year, but I still haven’t had enough time to play some of the big titles that will eventually make it onto this list. Its the life. I play by my own rules, so you can expect my list to follow the same flow. Before we get into this year’s top 10, I’d like to highlight a few honorable mentions that I won’t go into too much detail about. Case of The Golden Idle DLC, Slay the Princess, Humanity, Dredge, Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE.
I like this game. I played this a lot (for work, of course) and really enjoyed playing it side by side with fellow wrestlers who grew up on the same style engine. I don’t want to seem dishonest, so I’ll end this here. Where is Evil Uno?
I’m ashamed of how much Fortnite I’ve played this year. It would be even more embarrassing if I told you how much money I spent on Fortnite in 2023. I used to think of Fortnite as a “kid’s game” and had no interest in it, but at some point this year it hit me. You won’t have any trouble finding games. Earn ongoing rewards (if you have a Fortnite Crew). Most are free. Basic loops are a lot of fun. Sometimes you’ll feel like the best gamer ever. Yes, you too can be Michael Myers and make him do the worm. That rules.
I really fell in love with Risk of Rain 2, but even more so with its soundtrack. Returns is a more refined and updated version of the original His Risk of Rain, featuring lots of new music. Same gameplay loop as always, but with a new paint job. This is a game I’ve been slowly learning to play on planes, and I’m sure I’ll be playing it all the way into 2024.
I love mystery games, and one of my favorites this year was Chants of Sennaar. It’s a short 5-6 hour experience where you have to decipher languages and solve puzzles. Example: An NPC shouts strange symbols at you that you can’t decipher. After a few minutes, you recognized one of the symbols on the pharmacy sign. Maybe the NPC is talking about potions? Sounds pretty easy, but when we started implementing a number of different languages later in the game, it became quite difficult. A truly refreshing game in a sea of over 30 hours of games.
I thought this would be my game of the year. No, while I was playing it, I boldly claimed that it was the best game ever made. I don’t know if that’s really the case, but I think this game took full advantage of the first iteration’s map, basically making it three times its size and filling it with wild new puzzles and new mechanics. Masu. Just like in the first game, I loved exploring the land and discovering new locations and characters. What I really wanted to like was building mechanics, but I was just too bad at it. Still, I enjoyed months of watching all the crazy mech suits, spaceships, wild vehicles, and fire-breathing penises (or should I say penises? Dong?) all over social media. Also, this game really made me feel authentic emotions. What about the Master Sword? Fuck.
I’m sure I’ve acknowledged this in a previous Giant Bomb list, but when I was much younger I was scared and didn’t play much Resident Evil. I love Capcom’s approach to remaking all the classics so that new players can enjoy them without having to use clunky controls or find terribly unscratched discs. I’ve played a good portion of RE4 before. This was one of the few Resident Evil games I played until Resident Evil 7 was released and I fell in love with the series anew. I arrived at the Regenerators, had no idea how to defeat them, and left. Well, I figured it out and beat those bastards in 2023! This is another incredibly clean remake by Capcom, and I wish they would give this kind of treatment to all their classics. hoping. Dino Crisis, please?
The audio design in this game is something else. I guess I was using the right kind of headphones while playing because it really resonated with me. Everything in this game is inherently alien, including the creatures, the ambient noise, and the very core puzzle mechanics the game is based on. All with a joystick and he can play with just one button. This was also a 5-6 hour game and I wanted more.
This is Uno’s first Pikmin. Are they all that good? I don’t know what it was that he liked, but maybe he just liked collecting things? I found the game to be very laid back and relaxing. This is one of the few games on this list that I completely completed.
To be honest, Giant Bomb readers, I was a little nervous about how this match would go. I thought I was tired of 2D Mario games, but this one really hooked me. New mechanics are constantly thrown into him from one level to the next, such as mid-level transformations that dramatically change the type of platform you run on. There is a huge variety and all are welcome. The amount of customization you can do with badges is quite impressive. If you are having trouble with a particular level, there may be badges that will help you overcome the problem and continue progressing through the game. I haven’t finished the game yet because I’ve convinced myself that I need to perfect each level before coming to a conclusion. I don’t want it to end, so I’m taking it one plane at a time and working on it slowly.
This is my game of the year. Remedy does it again. I would like to explain this in multiple paragraphs, but I don’t think my writing will be able to adequately express it. This game is full of passion. You can see that the team has a singular vision and never deviates from it. I think that’s what makes this game special.
The game is packed with multimedia content such as radio broadcasts, in-game commercials, written manuscript pages, and great music, all written with the same passion, all of which tell their wild story. We support this. I wove it. This story is a battle between fiction and reality and attacks these themes with any content thrown at you. An example is shown below. Alex Casey is his FBI agent and a real person that Alan Wake used as a model for the fictional detective character “Alex Casey” in his book. Meanwhile, Alex Casey is also clearly a play on his previous Remedy game character, Max Payne. Things get even more complicated when you discover that the actor playing Casey is modeled after Max Payne. Oh, and he’s also Sam Lake, the real-life writer and director of the game itself.
I won’t go into the very impressive feat of connecting so many games within the Remedy universe. This is a game that isn’t afraid to get weird and isn’t afraid to be selfish, but it also doesn’t lock you down. The game also utilizes full-motion video in a way we’ve never seen before. Mainly his FMV level along the way and you’ll never forget it. In any other game, that would stick out like a sore thumb, but Alan Wake, it’s just part of the overall fever dream you’re a part of. This game may go down as my favorite survival horror game of all time. Some are surprising, some are hilarious, some are scary, some are challenging, some are confusing, and some are genius: they’re my games of the year. Oh, and the soundtrack is completely broken. Show me the champion of light, I will show you the emissary of darkness!