The Grumpy Old Gamers

2023 what a crappy year!!! It was like when we all said 2022 was the worst, 2023 was like “hold my beer” and went on to be even worse then 2022… and it didn’t even have a global pandemic to back it up, just crap crap crappy all on its own.  For me 2023 was a tough year personally and it is reflected in my gaming for sure, I scoured my game libraries and I came up with I played a whopping 28 new games this year.  My usual yearly new game played number is usually double and triple that. I spent a lot a lot of time diving into familiar and comforting games as the thought of playing something new was truly overwhelming and not very appealing.  Like I said it was a tough year.  I do have to admit thou the new games I did play there were some of the best stuff I’ve ever played, which I think is an excellent segue to my top 5 list.  Lets start with at the bottom with number 5!!!

Number 5 – Timberborn (PC)

Ok imagine this, there is a post apocalyptic future where the human race has been wiped out and in this area of the game beavers have survived and are thriving. Timberborn is a Lumberpunk (love it!!!) city builder where you try and build up there society while managing resources (wood mainly), water levels of your nearby lakes and rivers, and of course the always looming droughts. The city building and technology trees feel well thought out, even if I am not fully on board with their district systems. The district systems are this games contribution to the city build and its exactly as it sounds, you have a limited area you can build in and then you need to set up trading between your districts to make sure everyone has all they need. These limited areas thou are quite small in sense of the map sizes and its not unusual to have several districts by the time you are finished filling up a map. Timberborn is technically still in early access and in some ways it shows, some things need to be tutorialized better (districts) but also it can be a lot of fun figuring stuff out. Like if you narrow a river it will flow faster through the narrowed opening, great place to place a water wheel or some other water powered device to get the most production out of it. The water physics are top notch in this game. But please don’t let the early access scare you off, there is a full game to play here, its just if you are looking for a ending its not there yet. This was easily the game I put the most time into this past year, and once I hear more content has been added or it comes out of early access I will drop everything to put another 100 or so hours into this game.

Number 4 – Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot camp (Nintendo Switch)

One thing Nintendo has really been doing right with the Nintendo switch is remastering/remaking some fan favorites.  I first read about Advance wars well into the life cycle of the GBA and noticed it showing up on a bunch of games of the year lists, and I was intrigued.  After some searching I was able to get my hands on a used copy of Advance wars… and then all I know is that 3 months had passed and I had a kick ass beard. I lived this game for a very long time, and when Advance Wars 2 came out for the GBA I didn’t hesitate to pick it up, and again a large chunk of my life just disappeared.  If you have never heard of or played an Advance wars title, in brief its a turned based strategy game that has perfectly mastered the “just one more turn” mentality that helps erase large chunks of time from your life.  The game play difficulty is ramped up perfectly as every new unit and feature is introduced in a nicely stacking way that doesn’t feel overwhelming.  Up until the release of Re-boot camp I would still dig out the old GBA and put some time almost annually, now this isn’t needed like it once was.  This remake keeps all that made Advance wars 1 & 2 the amazing games they are,  but with updated graphics, sound, quality of life modernizations and online capabilities.  There is a map editor and a vs mode now that had it existed when these games came out I may have never come up for air.  When this title was announced I was genuinely shocked, like mouth agape for 5 mins staring into nothingness type of shock.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think something like this would happen, especially since these titles were not the hits that usually get the attention for remakes or remasters, but I have to give Nintendo kudos for this one.

Number 3 – Spider-Man 2 (PS5)

Spider-Man 2 is everything you could hope for in a sequel, it has a bigger map, bigger enemies, more abilities, and above all else 2 Spider-men. Insomniac games really came out swinging with this title, and in a lot of ways it could be called the current showcase title for what the PS5 is capable of with it’s gorgeous graphics and fast load times. The addition of Miles Morales to this title is a great addition as well, the 2 Spider-men play very similarly but have their own higher end abilities that set them apart making sure it doesn’t feel like the exact same character each time you play one of them. The story Spider-Man 2 tackles is this title is the Venom story arc, and I do love the way that Insomniac have laid it out. Before I get to much further into story thou I should mention I have not completed Spider-Man 2 yet, I’m at about 20 hours into it, but I feel like this is enough of a sampling to make my judgements. Insomniac has created their own branch of the Marvel universe, with enough familiarity that you still know and love all the characters, but also some changes that are interesting and create some great new experiences. The combat is still the shining star of these games, and as expected it feels great… mostly. They introduced a new parry mechanic and I know this is a me thing, I’m not good at parrying, never have been never will be. In most games I can work around this, but they made parrying a part of some of the boss fights and its been frustrating to try and work with this. I get through the fights eventually but its not with out some near controller throwing moments. I guess while we are talking about anger and frustration I’ll mention a couple other dark spots on the game. First up crashes, I’ve had this game hard crash 4 times while playing, always resulting in lost progress. I can say with confidence I never had one crash during the original title or Miles Morales. Second up some bad camera movement, quite a few times I’ve been in the middle of a fight and the camera will fly behind a wall or zoom so close I’m inside Spider-Man ultimately causing me to be killed or hurt way worse then I should of. Again the camera was never an issue in the previous 2 titles. So its these nits coupled with the feeling that even thou there is lots of new stuff, its kind of just another Spider-Man game that this didn’t land higher on my list. I’m am having a great time playing but the sense of amazement I had with the original just isn’t there.

Number 2 – Starfield (Xbox Series X)

So I am going to start this post with a very shameful admission… I have never played an Bethesda RPG before. Unbelievable right? I have never touched Skyrim, or any other Elder scrolls, or even a Fallout game. Looking through Bethesda’s catalog the only games I can lay claim to are the Doom titles as games of theirs I have actually played. How does this happen? I’m not sure but I think it has a lot to do with not being into other consoles besides Nintendo for many many years. Anyways when Starfield was announced and the hype train started it seemed like a good jumping in point for a Bethesda RPG. Not quite so intimidating or feeling you have missed out on tons of lore because you have not played the previous titles. When the first videos were shown of Starfield and all you could do in the game I really became hyped because I was playing No Man’s Sky at the time it looked like the sequel that I so wanted (No Man’s Sky play hours 250+). So when I finally hopped into Starfield I was worried about feeling overwhelmed with all it had to offer, but the game definitely eased me into the world of Starfield and I was off. So I’ll mention at this point in the review I have not completed Starfield yet, I am at the 35 hourish mark of playing. Again I feel this is enough time put into it to be able to judge fairly its placement in my list. So have I been doing for 35-ish hours? Let me tell you. You start the game off being recruited by the Constellation group to help search for more artifacts like the one you find in the tutorial of the game. So I started off working on the Constellation group quests then I joined a pirate group and started working up the ranks of the Crimson Fleet. But that wasn’t good enough so I went to a random job interview and became a fixer for a major corporation, which led me all over the universe finally landing me in Akila city where I was deputized and am currently working as marshal. This is what I am loving about Starfield, the game is massive and it truly feels like you can do anything. Starfield has become my putzing game, when I have a little time to kill I will bang off a quick quest or manage my constantly growing inventory. I am also constantly learning new things or figuring out how something actually works instead of how I have been using it. There is so much to do in this game I can see playing it for a long while yet. Gameplay wise I am pretty happy with it, and it really helps you can choose to play this game in first or third person view for me anyways. If I was locked to first person I may not be enjoying it as much (again a me thing). When your questing as a player the gunplay feels pretty good, especially the varying gravity of all the planets, the spaceship shooter stuff is pretty good as well, even if I am still figuring out the full workings of it all. I’ve only really encountered 1 game bug that had me super frustrated and that was an unfortunate quick save that when I died kept rezing me right in the middle of a mob, I ended up having to load a previous save losing about 5 mins of gameplay, which really could of been a whole lot worse. I have had so much fun exploring and interacting in Starfield, this game really feels like a achievement in gaming, and maybe one day that luster will wear off, but for now you can find me in the stars.

Number 1 – The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo Switch)

Tears of the Kingdom is a perfect sequel to one of my all time favorite games, there I said it. Come at me bro. What pushed this sequel above Spider-Man 2 in my list this year was the feeling of familiarity, but everything was still shiny and new. Breath of the Wild is easily one of my most played console games (300-ish hours) and it was the sense of exploration that had me so enthralled with that title. TotK nails this as well, you know in theory that you are in the same Hyrule from BotW but still there so much to explore, and also you are looking skyward to the aerial kingdoms now too. The thing that really makes this game stand out is the building aspects, that’s right you are now in Nintendo’s entry into the Minecraft likes of the gaming world. I feel when they were designing TotK they looked at what kept people playing BotW and they realized it was the creativity, the ability to create a floating platform from all the monster parts you have collected, or the myriad of ways that you can kill monsters and bosses using everything but your typical Sword or bow and arrow. The developers of TotK fist introduce the Ultra hand build mode and this give you ability to build whatever you would like by fusing things together, wood, rocks, vegetation. Then you can start adding in the ancient technologies that up your building game even more. The limits of your creativity are basically endless and I’m not gonna lie I totally got caught up in this. So again as a caveat to this being my game of the year, I am at around the 30 hour mark of playing this game and have only defeated one of the main areas, not even close to defeating this game but what I have played has blown my mind. Picture this if you will, I come to a body of water, well I could just swim or try and glide across, but wait lets build a raft… well that’s kinda slow, lets add some more wood and add some ancient tech. Alright now we are cooking!!!! Or look at this open field, it sure would be a shame to have to just walk across it, I’m building a motorbike!!!!. You get the idea. One thing I do have to mention about the building is how its very intuitive and not hard to master at all, and the intricacy of your builds never seem to slow down the old hardware of the Switch, the Nintendo developers have really done something magical here. Something else that needs to be talked about is that the build mode isn’t even the end of creativity in this game, they also have fusing!!! So there is an event in the game early on that basically ages and destroys all weapons, so every weapon you find is in a tarnished or rusted state, but worry not because fusing fixes this. I have more laugh out loud moments by fusing things that make no sense, like sword and fire fruit create a bomb sword that blows up you and enemy every time you swing, or a sword and leaf makes your sword fire out little wind bursts at enemies. This also works with your arrows, like if you fuse and arrow and a Kesse eye and suddenly you have homing arrows that never misses!!! There is so much creativity in this game and I love every darn minute of it. With the amount of time I am putting into this game don’t be surprised if it shows up on my next years top 5 list as well.

So now that I have come to the end of my top 5 for 2023 I just want to take a moment and thank everyone who has checked our lists out this year, thank you!!!!! I also wanted to acknowledge the fact that I haven’t actually completed the top 3 games in my list. I know if I had just chosen one of them I could of probably completed it, but I am really digging my ADD approach this year, kind of savoring all these massive triple A titles. Its something new and different for me so I hope you can embrace this along with me.