The Grumpy Old Gamers

Most gamers might agree that 2023 was the year that the next-gen (current gen?) has been waiting for.  This year in particular has seen an astounding amount of high calibre games being released. Also as such, has that pile of games that I have mentally noted as “must play!”; the ever robust BACKLOG

What’s also really not helping me get to that backlog of games, is my #5 best of 2023:

Number 5

Emulation on Onion OS/Miyoo Mini +

Portable gaming is in a full on renaissance right now.  With the array of devices ranging from the de facto Nintendo Switch, the ever-growing list of portable PCs chasing the success of the Steam Deck, or even with the current releases of untethered VR options: gaming on the go is only growing.

Also in that list of portable gaming devices are what I informally refer to as “bootleg Gameboys”.  You know the ones, you see them in sponsored ads in your browser or on social media; always coming preloaded with hundreds if not thousands of games (ROMs). I was pretty quick to scoff at these in the past, and rightfully so – they are objectively garbage.  (Souljah Boy gaming consoles anyone?)

Then something happened.  A synergy of affordable technology, and a solid community created operating system.  A portable device that is my “everyday carry” for gaming, and allows me to emulate everything up to, and including PS1.

The Miyoo Mini + (imported from a Chinese retailer for about $80 CAD) checks a lot of boxes, tech-wize: 1.2 Ghz Arm Cortex processor, 128MB RAM, USB C, Wifi, 3.5″ IPS LCD screen, and even rumble – all wrapped in a good build quality, with a great D-pad, and nice buttons.  Sadly the gaming experience out of the box is still in that questionable territory, due to the slow and buggy stock operating system.

This is where Onion OS comes into play.  A slick community-created custom OS that supports over 100 emulators, with handy features including save states, retroarch settings, quick resume, themes, and even a really cool “retro achievements” feature, for all you trophy and achievement hunters.  Installation is pretty straightforward using a micro SD card (one is included but it’s best to use your own, if you have one laying around)

This device has been what I played more games on than anything else this year, just for the fact I have with me due to its form factor. It’s also my device of choice if I want to play classic games up to and including PS1.  If you feel like this device might be for you, even a little bit – it absolutely is.

Number 4

Hi Fi Rush

Nearly a year ago, Hi-Fi Rush was announced AND released at the Xbox and Bethesda Developer Direct. It came out of nowhere, had no buzz, and no marketing.  Yet this Tango Gameworks (Evil Within 2/Ghostwire Tokyo.. weird right?) developed game would become one of the most unique (and awesome) games I’ve played all year.

This action game/rhythm game mashup, all wrapped up in anime style with an absolutely killer soundtrack (both original and licensed music) somehow manages to be original and fresh despite both action and rhythm games being done to death.  Think Devil May Cry and Parappa the Rapper having a baby.

It’s not a long game, but it doesn’t need to be.  The gorgeous Saturday-morning-cartoon visuals, unique characters, great voice acting and just FUN gameplay are enough; and why we all play games in the first place.  

Top notch, and it’s on Gamepass! 🙂 

Number 3

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection

Hey you! Yeah you!  Do you like RPGs?  Do you like classic JRPGs? How about 6 classic JRPGs that are arguably the entire foundation of all other RPGs that came after?  How about if those 6 classic JRPGs were all in one collection which are both faithful to the original iterations AND updated with refined color palettes, updated yet faithful sprites, new backgrounds, newly arranged orchestral soundtracks, autosaving, minimap addition, and other quality of life improvements that save your precious time: such as EXP and currency multipliers?

Sounds awesome right? Well it is!  So awesome in fact, I imported a ludicrously-priced physical copy like the sucker that I am. (but it’s a good deal if you consider it’s 6 games, right? Right?!  Look at the inside of the box!!)

All jokes aside, if you are a fan of classic JRPGs, Final Fantasy, or just want the single best way to play any or all of these games, look no further!

Number 2

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I’ll get this out of the way first: Breath of the Wild is the best video game I’ve ever played.  It was a towering accomplishment, and was a true system seller for the Nintendo Switch (because no one owned a Wii U).  A widely acclaimed and accepted 10/10.

Its sequel improves on BoTW in almost every way.  It’s bigger, has more story elements, and the amount of freedom to approach the gameplay is essentially limitless. TotK is a better game looking at its individual elements, but to me: BotW was poetry in motion. This being said, TotK is EXACTLY what I wanted from a BotW sequel.

In my mind, I imagine the very tired (and sweaty for some reason) Dev team from BotW sitting around a conference table after wrapping up development, and saying “What’s left? What can we do? Is there anything??”

And then a metaphorical lightbulb lit and someone said “That’s it!  ANYTHING!” 

TotK feels like strapping a Game Genie on BotW.  And who didn’t LOVE the Game Genie?  

I put over 160 hours (and counting) into TotK, which is the most I’ve put into any single game this year. If you’ve been under a rock, the big shift in TotK is being able to build whatever the hell you want. Weapons, vehicles, traps, etc.  You want to make a simple raft out of a pile of wood to traverse a body of water? Of course. That raft is too slow, let’s make a boat! Good idea. Maybe a hot air balloon to reach new heights? Easy.  Maybe you want to build the Pelican drop ship from Halo with functioning turrets and a Warthog with frickin’ laser beams and flame throwers, OH! And maybe toss a drone on there too! and! and! and!….   you see where I’m going with this.

Your creativity is directly proportional to the amount of fun you can have in this game.  I can’t believe this runs on this hardware, the amount of game physics happening at all times is actually insane (and you can play this thing portably!!).  It’s a technical achievement, a must play, a masterpiece, a 10/10…

But still not my favourite Zelda game.  And.. not my favourite game of 2023.

Number 1

Alan Wake 2

Nintendo’s first party developers are masters at making video games, but Remedy Entertainment are masters at telling stories; they just so happen to choose video games as the medium to tell these stories. And for good reason, a video game may be the only way to tell a story like this. They are acutely aware of their strengths; their own mission statement from their website is:

“Our mission is to create thrilling experiences you can’t find anywhere else. We bring imagination to life using our unique technology, creating worlds that are completely believable yet extraordinary. Then we invite you down the rabbit hole.”

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A quick interrupt, but this write-up has minor spoiler points (no major plot spoilers) for Alan Wake 2, and FULL ON spoilers for the original Alan Wake. But you’ve had 13 years to get that out of your backlog, so if you’ve waited this long there is no helping you. 😉
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The gist is:

The original Alan Wake is about a best-selling thriller/horror/crime writer, suffering a 2-year bout of writer’s block after killing off his cash-cow fictional protagonist (hard nosed detective Alex Casey.) And in efforts to break the cycle of writer’s block, his wife Alice suggests a vacation to the sleepy Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, Washington. This area has helped numerous creative professionals in the past, so what could go wrong? Unfortunately, their cabin accommodations share a lake (Cauldron Lake) with an access at the bottom to an realm, known as “The Dark Place”, which is where the extradimensional entity “The Dark Presence” resides. 1 out of 5 stars on Expedia for that place. Five minutes after arriving at the cabin, Alice and Alan get in an argument because she lets Alan know the vacation is actually a bait and switch so he can see a local doctor that can help with his creative issues, and of course, Alice ends up being dragged into the lake by the entity. Go figure. Alan dives in to save her, and then wakes up behind the wheel of his car (having crashed) 2 weeks later, with no recollection of what happened since he dove in. He then begins to find pages of a novel he had wanted to write but couldn’t – titled “Departure”. This manuscript describes all kinds of creepy horrors and shadow people (known as The Taken), and wouldn’t you know it, these events/things are actually happening. Life is imitating art, or in this case, Alan’s writing. Thus begins Alan’s twisting convoluted journey to thwart The Dark Presence and rescue Alice. There are MANY points and characters being missed here, but the important take-away is that The Dark Place has the power to make creative thoughts reality, and the Dark Presence actually requires creativity to attempt to be set free (and has been leveraging that weirdo Doctor to help the creative types, and bring it closer to being free in the real world), and unfortunately for Alan, his creative chops involve writing horror and thriller. Ultimately in order to free Alice from the The Dark Place, Alan had to write himself into a version of the story where he remained trapped there in her place – the story needed balance, not a happy ending. So Alan Wake ends with Alan stuck in the trippy nightmare realm of The Dark Place, trying to write himself free, to no avail.

This all said, playing Alan Wake is not necessary to play Alan Wake 2, but I do recommend hitting a plot summary on Youtube or something, it does help to get invested in the story ahead of time.

It’s ironic that Remedy’s mission statement has the words “We bring imagination to life….”, because that is a central theme of this game. Another major theme is the narrative use of meta itself. Remedy (who wants to “bring imagination to life”) has written a game about a writer, whose imagination brings things to life. This theme is ever prevalent everywhere in this game, and what I’ve described is just one peak of the absolule mind-f**kery. So much of this game’s narrative folds in and over itself in such brilliant ways, it’s hard to describe. It starts weaving this crazy storytelling by using two main protagonists, FBI Agent – Saga Anderson, and the titular writer Alan Wake.

Saga’s story is straight forward (at face value), she’s an FBI agent investigating a cult-connected set of serial murders in Bright Falls. Her portion of the game is a gritty detective thriller, like playing a season of HBO’s True Detective. She’s a brilliant detective and the game has you able to switch to Saga’s “mind place” – A manifestation of her mind and thoughts that can be accessed instantly and at any time (with ZERO loading). It allows you to piece together the evidence on a case board, and make deductions that move the story forward. It also serves as a unique way to be a “codex” of sorts for the game, but organized in a slick and brilliant way – looking like a classic detective’s evidence room, complete with the red threads linking ideas together, but also allowing a visual and logical way to organize and refer to the game’s story.

Alan’s side of the story is played out through him writing various drafts of a manuscript, with the goal of escaping The Dark Place. The manuscript being an Alex Casey (Alan’s fictional detective protagonist) thriller, and set in a very film noir, twisted, neon-hellscape version of New York. It should be noted that Alex Casey is played by Remedy’s own creative director Sam Lake. So, we have Sam Lake’s Remedy (whose writing “bring imagination to life”), writing a story about Alan Wake (whose writing brings imagination to life), who is writing a story about Alex Casey (who has been brought to life by Alan Wake), who is played by Remedy’s Sam Lake… with me? This isn’t by accident, this is VERY intentional within the narrative, and Remedy has a lot of fun with these meta story threads. It’s utter insanity, in the best possible way.

Alan also has his version of the mind place. Whereas Saga’s mind place is set in a cozy lodge, Alan’s is a liminal space, barren and cold. Inside this room is his typewriter, and also an insanely clever item/game mechanic called “The Plot Board”. As mentioned, Alan is writing a manuscript. As you are playing through Alan’s portions of the game, Alan can get inspired by settings and gains new plot ideas for his manuscript. You then use those ideas and settings to (in real time) change the plot of the manuscript and therefore the game itself, because in The Dark Place creative acts of imagination affect the world. It sounds weird, but it’s brilliant and it never gets old to see how his different ideas and inspirations can affect the game.

The game bounces back and forth between Saga and Alan, working together to unravel the mystery. Saga a murder mystery, and Alan a mystery of escaping The Dark Place.

So what kind of game is it? Whereas the original Alan Wake was more of an action game, with horror elements, Alan Wake 2 is a legitimate survival horror game. I typically steer clear of survival horror, but this game is changing me. The narrative in this is so strong, feeling like a book that you just can’t put down. I look at the horror game genre differently now having played this.

Everything I’ve mentioned combined with the best graphics I’ve seen all year, incredible sound design, great acting, bold ideas like seamless blending of FMV cutscenes, unabashed levels of humor and quirk, and just being the weirdest thing I’ve played in a long time: make this an unforgettable experience and my favourite game of 2023. I am officialy a Remedy fanboy.