My Video Game Offcuts and Loose Ends of 2023
The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs and the creamy middles of 2023 I haven't talked about elsewhere
29 Dec 2023So here’s the deal, I wrote short reviews for every game I played this year and then I realised that I didn’t really have a good format to share most of them in. I’ve got my Indie Game Book Club reviews included in the IGBC wrap up article I’ve posted, and I’ll be posting a separate article for specifically 2023 released games. That leaves 15 reviews that need a place to live, and that’s gonna be this post.
To have some kind of structure to this, we’re splitting the reviews up into the lowlights, the highlights and everything in between. This won’t be as fancy as my other posts - only the good stuff are getting images to go with them.
Games that weren’t very good (aka The Lowlights)
Façade (PC, 2005)
With AI and LLMs being such a fad at the moment, I wanted to go back to the first game I remembered having some kind of language model you can interact with. Façade’s dinner party setting is a great setting for this type of thing, and trying to talk with a couple who’s marriage is falling apart is a great use case for how certain words and phrases can have different meanings. It’s a shame the game just absolutely sucks and struggles to be flexible with how you interact with it. Trying to prompt for relevant topics can be completely misconstrued or ignored, the character limit is restrictive so you can’t go into too much detail with what you can say. Even with trying to approach it as a “game” from 2005, it just really sucks and you’re left thinking of how it could be better. Which funnily enough is exactly how I feel about current AI/LLMs so I guess actually this game was the future. 3/10
Alan Wake Remastered (PC, 2021)
This game could have been an 8/10 if fighting enemies felt good. It could have been a 6 or 7/10 if the PC port wasn’t absolutely terrible. Alas, shooting faux zombies who have funny little lines and dodging incredibly large pretty much instant kill objects did not feel good, and the PC port was so bad that I was legitimately worried I was not going to finish the game by the end because of how much the game was falling apart. Terrible graphical artifacting, lighting breaking to the point of an entire skyline blowing out the camera so much so that you can barely look at the screen, and the game breaking even more if I even dared to turn DLSS off. It’s shocking that a game can get released like that, especially since it’s a remaster of a 360 game. The PC version just isn’t worth the problems. Alan Wake still has a lot of charm to it, but if I wanted a game that was “heavily inspired by” Twin Peaks, had awkward gameplay and bad performance, I’d just go play Deadly Premonition. 5/10
Everything In Between (aka the Everything In Between)
PlateUp! (PC, 2022)
It’s Overcooked but less chaotic and with a basic business management sim aspect going on. The progression system was so slow that it unfortunately made unlocking things feel like a chore. But when you’re in the thick of it, making turkeys in microwaves and hoping the waiter and cleaner have the front of house sorted out, it’s a sublime co-op experience. 8.5/10
Love Hero & The Queen TV-Game 2 (3DS, 2019 & 2022)
These games are weird and can only ever exist as a cheap downloadable game. They feel equal part artistic statement and really solid arcade style games. They’re a testament to the spirit of the truly indie developer and I weep because now you can’t legally purchase them anymore since they were 3DS games - unique experiences which will inevitably be lost to time. The digital age should have been an era where games like these could thrive and last forever, the fear of lack of preservation no longer being an issue. Instead we see digital storefronts close and we have to turn to piracy for a chance at history. 8.5/10
Aero Porter (3DS, 2012)
An addictive puzzle game that’s perfect for a handheld system like the 3DS, simple as that. Level-5’s Guild compilation series was so cool and I’m really surprised we haven’t seen anything like it since. I guess the only place that kind of stuff can live and actually stand a chance of being successful these days is the Switch, but even then you’d be competing in a hellhole of infinitely discounted shovelware games that bloat the storefront and hamper discoverability. 8/10
The Case of the Golden Idol (PC, 2022)
Each mystery in The Case of the Golden Idol builds and builds in complexity. It starts with a single screen with a only a few clues to discover and eventually culminate in a multi faceted mystery with several questions to answer. The escalation feels natural but I think the levels also lose some of their charm when you expand it out so much. It can be tedious to explore everything and the puzzle solutions can feel restrictive - the old adage that less is more rings true here. Scale issues aside, The Case of the Golden Idol is a really fantastic mystery game and when the levels are good, they’re great. 8/10
Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch, 2019)
It takes a whole hour of single player gameplay before you can unlock the co-op part. I understand that it’s optional co-op but that’s crazy unreasonable for an advertised feature of the game. That specific gripe aside, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a lovely experience that feels like a kid’s horror themed movie - spooky but not at all scary. Each level of the hotel has a distinct theme and fun gimmicks, and because you’re rewarded for taking your time and exploring, you can get really immersed in the atmosphere. Combat is easy but good enough, except for one particular boss that was so bad I am astounded it made it into the final game, and we only beat it by cheesing the fight completely. 8/10
Good Job (Switch, 2020)
The joke’s too easy to ignore. Good Job does more than a Good Job of being a fun couch co-op puzzle game. Great workplace themed levels with a lot of variety, a physics engine with just the right amount of jank to have goofy results and mostly fun puzzles to solve. It does have some downsides, like any time you have to get into a vehicle or the low frame rate that occurs if players get too far away from each other, but the highs more than make up for it. 7.5/10
Detroit: Become Human (PC, 2018)
David Cage is a huge hack writer and every Quantum Dream game walks a thin tightrope of good and bad, often falling into the bad. Detroit: Become Human is a mostly fine game which has one great protagonist (Connor), one okay protagonist (Markus) and one terrible protagonist (Kara). It is legitimately astonishing that Quantic Dream has not had more negative reception for how they write and treat their female leads, who they consistently place in uncomfortable and compromising situations that just feels yuck to play through. This game is carried by the Connor storyline and I wish we just had more buddy cop investigations with him and Hank. 7/10
Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC/PS5, 2020)
REmake 3 is the worst Resident Evil remake, which is like saying “hey this cake isn’t as big as the others”. It’s still a cake, and who can hate that? Yes, this cake is smaller, doesn’t have as much icing, it’s a fair bit more linear than the other ones (and it’s original cake), it lacks depth and replayability, and the main antagonist is so underwhelming in most encounters that you’re left wanting more. But this cake has Jill Valentine and Carlos, and one of the coolest final button prompts in any cake, so it’s not all bad. I fear I’ve lost track of this delicious metaphor. 7/10
Max Payne (PC, 2001)
Max Payne feels like a game that if I had played when it came out I would have lost my mind with how cool it was, but in 2023 it just doesn’t hit super hard. Its atmosphere holds up great - pulpy monologues, the constant snow, that one track that’s really good but is used for everything. I even like the graphic novel stills where they just had a digital camera, three dudes and about four suits between them to play all the characters. But the gameplay feels lacking by modern standards with magically spawning enemies, every bit of extra plot delivered exclusively by letters left all over the place, and weapon changing being just janky enough that you can’t easily swap in the middle of a firefight. It’s still a very cool game, and absolutely the blueprint for all Remedy games that came after it. 7/10
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (DS, 2006)
I didn’t play the DS exclusive “Rebirth Mode” so my thoughts on RE:DS are probably what my thoughts would be of the original PS1 game. It’s really cool to see where the series started and I absolutely adore the cheesy voice acting. There’s a lot more branching in Jill’s route than I expected, to the point that I didn’t even get her true end because I moved on from what I didn’t realise was a choice. The whole game has the “first in a series” feel to it, so it can feel clunky in bad ways but you can still see how it can (and would) get better. It’s not a bad game by any means, but I also don’t know why I’d ever really play this over REmake 1. 6.5/10
You should play these next few games (aka the Highlights)
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PC, 2003)
This game is a near perfect sequel. Everything gameplay wise feels better - shooting is tighter, bullet time mechanics are expanded and refined so you’re left feeling cool in every single fight, there’s no weird forced stealth section, levels have a lot less magical spawning enemies, the Havok physics engine gives everything a nice weight to it and has enemies ragdolling in satisfying ways, the list goes on. The noir atmosphere lands just as well as the first game and info is given to the player in more ways than just left over letters across the levels. The story in a vacuum is good but as a continuance of Max Payne 1, it does feel a bit off. Max’s obsession with Mona is a pretty big pivot from his revenge obsessed character, some returning characters feel like they’re either completely different people and/or been given connections to certain plot threads from the original game which maybe they shouldn’t have been. 9/10
UNSIGHTED (Switch, 2021)
A hidden gem of a Metroidvania-like with a heavy Zelda influence in terms of presentation and items. This is one of those games I can’t believe never blew up more, it feels like it should have been a new indie classic with how high quality it is. The time limit counter for all the characters in the game adds a resource management aspect to the game that I’m a bit mixed on but I can appreciate the vision for it. I enjoyed it so much that I played through a New Game+ run, which was a lot of fun because I could just absolutely blast through all the temples and bosses without even worrying about the time limit because I was so fast. 9/10
Outer Wilds (PC, 2019)
A very special game that I’ll always wish I could play it for the first time again. I can’t tell you what my highlight moments of the game are, they’re all spoilers. All I can say is that every time things clicked into place, it was the most satisfying feeling followed immediately by a dozen more questions about what’s next and how this piece connected with others in the greatest way possible. Best enjoyed with friends, as long as they don’t heckle too much about your flying skills. 9.5/10
If you made it this far and actually read everything, I’m astonished. Flabbergasted even. Writing all these game reviews has been a lot of fun, I’m hoping that I can find a better format next year to present them. It’s easy when there’s a clear focus for an article, but I don’t know how well this whole “here’s all the games I played” approach really tracks. Something to reflect on I suppose.