I wont waste your time with some long preamble about how great gaming has been this year...Let's get right to it then!

THE BEST GAME OF 2023

ALAN WAKE 2

Yes, if you can believe it, the picture above is form the game. Remedy games has been working on melding live action with games for quite some time now. It is clear with Alan Wake 2 that they have gotten damn good at blending the mediums. This game is PEAK sci-fi in the weirdest way possible and there simply is not much out there that is like this.

HORROR DONE RIGHT

When I hear someone talk about the horror genre I often hear the phrase "not scary enough". The horror genre gets confused in my opinion as it does not mean you have to be afraid for it to be horror, but instead needs to be terribly horrific. This game does not always come off as frightening such as I am afraid to open a door in fear a goblin will be spooking me on the other side. Instead, opening the door might reveal something that certainly is not natural and definitely unsettling. There are jump scares in this game but besides that I did not find this game terribly scary. That is OK with me since instead of mindless zombies chasing me for cheap thrills, I got a meticulous drip of murder and bizarre logic to wrap my head around. This game does what it does so perfectly that any shortcomings it has becomes incredibly inconsequential compared to the master craft of what it does right. I gave this game a 9 in my review and the more I think about it the closer it comes to a 10. This was not just a game but an art form that really spoke to me. I wrote in detail what makes that game so great so I would say if you want to see if it peaks your interest just check out the review.

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME OF 2023

ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

I would like to say this is not a BAD GAME, but I simply did not have fun with it. This game has all the shortcomings of the last game so i will break down the problems as best I can. There is a great game in there and a lot of fun to be had that ultimately is destroyed by bad mechanics. Let's break them down.
• CLIMBING SUCKS - yes being able to climb things is a nice thing to be able to do, but you climb so slow and constantly sliding down or falling off things. Yes you can climb anything but most things don't want to be climbed. You try to make shortcuts over mountains to save from going aorund them but it takes you longer to traverse over.....then it rains....and you can no longer climb, DUMB! Climbing would be really really fun if they just change what is next on my list.
• STAMINA METER IS BAD - This reminds me of the same reason Fallout and Skyrim were so annoying. In those games if you held on to too much stuff you would become "over-encumbered". This is bad design because what it does it say, "hey, you are having too much fun picking stuff up, so not you must walk at snail pace until you drop some things you like". Like that, in zelda the stamina meter keeps you from actually having true fun. If you want to run over a mountain you must do it by running and then walking for 10sec so you ca actually go back to the pace you want. This goes for the majority of everything in the game as most things use stamina. If you had no stamina bar you would just have more fun in the game.
• BUILDING IS LAME - This goes with my last point actually. To circumvent the problem of stamina and traversal, you are given a bunch of different tools to build weird contraptions so you can actual DO what you want. Except most of what you build is so dumb and does not work very well. You spend so much time making the perfect air craft just for it to fall into a pit of no return somewhere. And remember the stamina bar??? Well all your build will have their own stamina bar as well!
• THE WORST COMBAT OF ALL ZELDA GAMES - Two things will happen combat during every encounter you ever come across. When you hit an enemy they will go soaring 20 feet out, to you will then chase after them and hit them again causing the same effect. This is the majority of combat in the game and it is simply not a very fun loop. The other thing that these games get a lot of flack for is the weapons breaking. So to show you how a great game is made I will make it very simple for you. If you character you play, has a great weapon that is fun to swing....you will have fun. THAT IS IT. If in Zelda your sword was unbreakable BUT other weapons could still be used and fused into weird things that would have been amazing. Experimenting with some weird fireball slinging wand or air gusting paddle would have been interesting if I knew I could always swap to my main sword to dish out some big DPS. Instead you store away your "good weapons" and use random garbage until you feel you need to bring out your big guns, only to have them break in 5 minutes...so fun!!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Choosing the best game was easy for me but there certainly some others that came SO CLOSE to being #1, which include:
• RESIDENT EVIL 4 - One of the most fun shooters I have ever played. There really is nothing bad to say about this game as the gameplay is so good. The only thing holding it back is it's paper thin story. Which is a hard thing to beat when being compared to Alan Wake 2.
• SEA OF STARS - I had been looking forward to this game for a few years now and mannnnn did they nail that combat system. Super Mario RPG has long been one of my favorite games simply because they allowed you to interact dexterity style in the combat system. It is such a simple addition that really helps with combat feeling involved. Traversal in this game is dang clever with all the different paths and animations happening as you run, jump, climb, and tightrope balance on your way. The one thing that really held this game back for me is the very childish story telling. This games characters are written for 12 year olds but I feel the game itself was made for someone older like me. Had the story been just a little more less bubbly and more mature I would have put this in the all time greats list.

Thats all I got for this post, hoped you liked it, please don't roast me for not liking Zelda even though I am totally right haha!