Okay, so I don’t play very many videogames anymore. I have a few franchises I play every year and sometimes go back to older games instead of playing the newest releases. But here are the recent games I played this year in order of my favorite to least favorite.
I also played some of AEW Fight Forever, but not enough to write a blurb about it. Additionally, I think Street Fighter 6 may be my second favorite game of 2023, but I only really played the Story Mode and am not good enough at Fighting games to explain why it’s better than Mortal Kombat 11, another game I played a bit of.
Goodbye Volcano High (Ps5, also available on Ps4 and PC)
Veering sometimes more into a visual novel than an actual game this is a Narrative Adventure game with some rhythm game elements and a very heavy emphasis on character relationships. I don’t think any piece of media has captured the anxieties of the transition from high school to young adulthood since Ghostworld. A group of dinosaur high schoolers are graduating the same year the extinction asteroid is going to hit the Earth. There are obvious parallels to living during the COVID era, but the imminent destruction of all dinosaur life is also just a subtle metaphor for the weight of adulthood that’s coming.
Even though all the characters are dinosaurs, they are so well-written that by the end of the game, you care about their feelings.
NBA 2K23/2K24 (Ps5, also available on Ps4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows)
The NBA 2K series gameplay remains so fluid. It not only captures NBA basketball well, it also feels great and smooth to control. That alone usually makes it a great game, but in 2K23 and 2K24 I’ve been spending most of my team in the Dynasty Eras Mode (Not technically called that) that allows you to choose different NBA eras to start your franchise from all the way back to the mid-80s with the Magic vs Bird Era. Other Eras include the Jordan Era (90s), the Kobe Era (2000s), the LeBron Era (2010s), and the Modern Era. It’s a lot of fun seeing what would have happened if Magic Johnson teamed up with Jordan near the end of his career, or if Shaq had gone to the Bullets instead of the Orlando Magic, or how would the League be different if the Supersonics never left Seattle and became the Thunder? The fact that the TV Presentation changes with the different eras, the original floors and logos of the time are present, and that they have historic draft classes that cover every Era make it feel authentic. It’s so great you wish other sports games would do something similar.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)
Mario Kart 8, the game that just wouldn’t die. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was already the most comprehensive Mario Kart game yet, but in 2023 they finished their Booster Pass Course DLC. By the time all the DLC had been released they had doubled the number of tracks and cups in the game with a mixture of classic courses and brand-new courses. They had added eight new racers also with a mix of new and classic racers. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had the Smash Bros Ultimate approach – pretty much anything a fan would want from the Mario Kart series is in the game now.
I enjoyed all the new courses and cups, and a lot of my favorite courses were brought in. And Pauline is a surprisingly fun addition to the Roster. The Booster Pass drops dragged me back into the game and had me once again trying to beat the Nintendo speed runs of every course.
Starfield (Xbox Series X/S, also available on Windows)
Maybe the hype for this game was always going to be too much. What I was hoping for was a BioWare level of story writing, a Skyrim depth of content in each galaxy I explored, and a No Man’s Sky-like promise of multiple galaxies and planets with multiple unique experiences. What we actually got – a very trite and boring Sci-Fi main story and every planet, moon, or space station explored felt basically the same and were actually pretty empty. For some reason every character you talk to tells you things in the longest way possible, each interaction could be lines of dialogue shorter. Every sidequest is just another variation of a fetch quest. It has the Skyrim bugs and annoyance without any of the depth. I spent most of my time managing my items to avoid over-encumbrance between the same repetitive firefights that you have to win to get the items you need for the same repetitive fetch quests. Eventually, I started asking myself, why am I even doing this?
In the end, Starfield is just a combination of the bad things about Mass Effect and Skyrim without anything to redeem it.
Fire Emblem Engage (Switch)
I’ve really been drawn into the entire Fire Emblem series in the past few years. Even though the base of the main Fire Emblems are tactical RPGs the series is known for their engrossing storylines and memorable characters. Not every Fire Emblem game is strong in all aspects, the previous Switch release Three Houses had perhaps the strongest story and most memorable characters and designs, but the strategy was kind of basic. Other releases may not have had the strongest story but made up for it in very clever battle maps. Engage has very memorable character designs but that’s it. The battles are boring, the story is trite, and the characters are all cliches. It is easily the worst of the modern Fire Emblems and that’s such a disappointment after Three Houses brought tons of new fans to the series.
Madden 24/EA Sports FC 24 (Ps5,also available on Ps4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, and Windows)
EA has the exclusive NFL License. It lost the FIFA license but still has the only meaningful soccer game being released annually. Because of this they don’t have to make great football and soccer games and don’t need to improve year over year. Suckers like me are going to buy Madden and FC every single year, no matter what because EA has no competition.
This year Madden finally re-introduced Superstar Mode, the ability to play as one player throughout an NFL Career. That was a welcome addition back. But it wasn’t exactly feature-rich. And every year they scale back the actual Franchise Mode more and more.
EA Sports FC 24 was the first in EA’s new FC series because they lost the FIFA license. Unfortunately losing the FIFA license makes the game feel empty. There’s no branded World Cup or Women’s World Cup anymore. Many of the National Teams are missing. Each year they seem to lose more and more domestic leagues. They introduced Playstyles and claim they’ve improved actual gameplay, but those things are both barely noticeable.
EA isn’t interested in Madden or FC being accurate sims of the NFL or top-flight soccer anymore. They’re spending most of their development time on the Ultimate Team nonsense and the games are constantly pushing you to play those modes because they want you to buy packs (with real money!) to improve your Ultimate Team. It’s gross and honestly Ultimate Team is a mode I only cared about the first year it came out. We just have to hope that one day the NFL allows another license and maybe FIFA partners up with Konamai and resurrects Pro Evo or something.
FIFA 23 was my favorite game last year, but EA Sports FC feels like that game with parts removed. I used to play through every week of the Commanders’ Season in Franchise Mode in Madden. But I gave up on that this year. Here’s hoping we get better games next year.