My Top Games 2023

Hey Spacers,

Another eventful year has passed. So eventful, in fact, that I only now got around to write my yearly blog entry. Anyway, let's talk about the games.

Every year, I rate the different games that I have played throughout the year and grant my personal GOTY award to one of them. 

I played a lot of great games this year that captivated me. Only one of them is Baldur's Gate 3, however. But which one will it be? Here's my write-up for my favorite games that I played this year, and why they are or are not Baldur's Gate 3.

Featuring some of the most jaw-dropping and blood-pumping boss fight sequences ever put in a game. I cannot stress enough how great the boss fights are - whenever I got to a new boss, it felt like a big, exciting event. Unlike in other games, where you usually think of the reward as something that you get after defeating a boss, the boss fights themselves are the reward in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

What is it precisely that makes these boss fights so great? To put it simply, a perfect union of all of the tools at the game developers' disposal, mainly: music, gameplay, and narrative. The story is insane and over the top, but it perfectly serves to put you into the protagonist's perspective and create a certain consistent tone for the entirety of the game. It pulls you out of the mundane tedium of life and into an exaggerated world that exceeds your wildest imaginations.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an exhilarating joyride of a game, and there is quite a lot to take from it if one wishes to learn more about creating a certain game feel. Unfortunately, it is not Baldur's Gate 3.

Probably one of the best, most polished, fun, and creative 2D Mario games that Nintendo has ever made. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It has everything you'd hope for in a classic-style 2D platformer game: challenging levels, secret exits, secret levels, interesting power-ups, surprising level mechanics, gameplay variety, a nice climactic final world, etc. 

In reality, not much about it is really revolutionary. It is rather the presentation itself that makes Super Mario Bros. Wonder feel special. The actual main point of the Wonder Flowers is to grab the player's attention: "Look, something crazy and different is about to happen now." It's kind of brilliant.

What's also prety unique about Super Mario Bros. Wonder is that they focused on creating a certain ambience or mood for a lot of the levels, through music and aesthetics. This is something that doesn't really impact a player's experience while playing the game that much, but rather something that makes moments of the game stick with a player. I think this is in particular where Super Mario Bros. Wonder excels in comparison to the previous 2D Mario games of the last decade or so.

While all that is great, and I look forward to more 2D Mario games in a similar vein, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is pretty far removed from being Baldur's Gate 3.

A truly revolutionary RPG that is sure to impact game developers of the genre for a very, very long time. 

What surprised me right from the get-go is just how funny and weird this game's writing is. When you imagine a game that is being heralded as a narrative masterpiece, with about a million written words, you would not expect the experience of playing the game to feel as effortless and joyful as it does with Disco Elysium. Reading takes concentration, and people hate reading anyway, but the writers of this game fully knew this. So they did everything in their power to make every interaction as funny, surprising, and memorable as possible. I'd therefore recommend this game to just about everyone.

But there's more! Disco Elysium also features one of the most innovative spins on the dusty old RPG attributes / skills system. Instead of having things like "Strength", "Endurance", "Shooting your gun really well", the skills of Disco Elysium represent rather psychological and philosophical concepts. Depending on the skills that you've invested the most points in, it will give your playthrough a pretty distinct flavor, as each skill essentially acts as its own character that will constantly chime in and provide additional commentary and narration throughout the interactions in the game. What the writers of the game realized is that players need constant affirmation in a game like this that regularly requires them to make decisions. Not only is reading hard, so is decision-making. The skills basically ensure that the player constantly gets a second, third, and fourth opinion on which dialogue option or choice of action to pursue. 

I also wanna mention that I really love the worldbuilding of Disco Elysium. It might seem surprising, but Disco Elysium is actually not set in the real world. Instead, it is set in a universe that is in a somewhat similar state of technological progress, but with some pretty unique distinctions that you find out about throughout the game. There are lot of inventions, places, and concepts that seem familiar, but are somehow different and novel. This leads to kind of a dream-like quality, which is pretty interesting.

Disco Elysium is an RPG, so it is somewhat similar to Baldur's Gate 3, but it is not actually Baldur's Gate 3. So let's continue to the last game of this blog and find out whether it is Baldur's Gate 3 or not.

For any fan of gigantic, awesome, deep role-playing-games, it doesn't get much better than Baldur's Gate 3. 

Where do you even start with this game? Let me try to put my most concrete thoughts in a list of bullet points.

• Most combat encounters feel unique, interesting, and refreshing. There are a lot of enemies in the game that are only encountered once or twice throughout the entire game. This also makes the game really replayable on a side note, since there is not much repitition within a single play-through. 
• There are tons of ways of approaching the combat encounters in this game. The game is very liberal in allowing you to apply real-world logic and physics to the way things work in the game. This also applies to a lot of the quests and other problems in the game; the game very much promotes creative problem-solving.
• The companions are great. The way that your avatar's relationship evolves and changes with each one of the companions feels pretty dynamic. The presence of your companions is constantly felt throughout the game, each companion's personal storyline interweaves with the main narrative of the game, and there are many events and choices throughout the game that will impact the way your avatar is perceived by your companions. Companions might call you out on your actions or even decide to leave your party for good. It is very reminiscent of Dragon Age: Origins.
• I really love Honor mode. It's an extra difficulty mode that they added in a post-release patch, which limits you to only one save file and does not allow you to reload your save file (except when you exit the game and boot it up again). This effectively eliminates the issue of save-scumming that some people felt with the game, and it makes every decision and die roll you make feel so much more impactful. It's definitely worth a replay even after you have already beaten the whole game.

The game easily stays interesting and fun throughout the duration of a single playthrough (which may take 100+ hours), as well as having a lot of replayability for multiple playthroughs. And on top of that, it has online multiplayer which lets you play through the entirety of the game together with your friends. And on top of that, the developers keep releasing free updates to the game that add new features and content. This game is the dream of any gamer - the game that keeps on giving.

But is it Baldur's Gate 3? Baldur's Gate 3 is Baldur's Gate 3, so therefore my GOTY 2023 award goes to Baldur's Gate 3. Honestly, if Larian Studios releases some sort of "extended cut" version of the game in 2024, maybe with one or two more companions and some expanded companion questlines (Minthara please), Baldur's Gate 3 has a good chance of also being Baldur's Gate 3 in 2024. And I am not sure whether anything else I'll play in 2024 can compete with that.

Here's my full ranking of games I played this year. I didn't include games that I didn't spend too much time on, or games that I would have rated worse than 6/10. I had fun with all of the games listed here.

• Baldur's Gate III ---- GOTY 10/10 ✨✨✨✨✨
• Disco Elysium ---- 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder ---- 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance ---- 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐
• Hero's Hour ---- 9/10 ⭐⭐
• Crusader Kings III ---- 9/10 ⭐⭐
• Metroid Prime Remastered ---- 9/10 ⭐⭐
• Griftlands ---- 8/10 ⭐
• Persona 5 ---- 8/10 ⭐
• Diablo IV ---- 8/10 ⭐
• High on Life ---- 8/10 ⭐
• Sims 4 ---- 8/10 ⭐
• Super Mario RPG Remake ---- 8/10 ⭐
• Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy ---- 7/10