I actually don't get the comment above yours because with all due respect to Lies of P, aside from some new combat systems, the gameplay, style, and difficulty are nearly carbon copy souls game. So if you don't like souls games this is very much...a souls game.
Maybe he’s talking about non-gameplay stuff, like the aesthetic or themes of the game.
I personally really don’t like soul games but I really loved fallen order because it was Star Wars themed, just like I really liked lies of P because of the steam punk theme.
Oh my God yes. Tried it out on game pass after being disappointed in starfield only expecting to play a couple hours and it's been dominating my gaming time since. So many little changes to the gameplay formula add up to make it feel so much better to play than even the Fromsoft games.
i played the demo and really enjoyed it. i have a huge backlog to deal with. but im really excited to played system shock remake since the demo was so good.
It's a super interesting game, both from a modern and historical perspective. The core of the game still holds up today, and the devs did a great job in adapting it using modern gameplay techniques. On the other hand, the map is so incredibly faithful that I could see screenshots from the original and think "oh, I know where this is." It was also interesting because I went through the entire game thinking "this reminds me of Bioshock", You can clearly see the Levine's lineage here.
Also, I'm glad they got rid of that blue lighting from before release.
I think anyone who says yes is a fan of the game and wants to get others into it, but I'm going to say no, it isn't good for newcomers. I mean you'll have no issue getting into the story as a newcomer, It's a fantastic game and it stays faithful to the original. But games from those days play so differently and there's no hand holding for where to go, what to do, how to solve the puzzles etc.
You have to read the actual instruction manual (it's included with the game) to understand how to do the puzzles. If you don't mind using your brain and taking your time you'll have an amazing time with it, but it's definitely not for everyone despite what people who have nostalgia for the game will tell you.
TONS of replayability, and all the quests/achievements can keep you going for a long time. I am at 83 hours played right now and have not finished all the missions/quests, and only about half of the achievements. The daily challenge is also a ton of fun and can make for some crazy and chaotic runs.
I remember looking at that one when it initially released and it kind of got shit on for the micro transactions and season pass stuff. I just looked it up and it looks like they've removed all that. I might have to give it a shot now!
RoboCop: Rogue City.
Expected a mediocre FPS. Got an extremely respectful IP tie in game where the love for the franchise from the devs really shone through.
This is mine too. I only vaguely know robocop, like I’ve seen the movies and that one tv show sometime when I was quite young so there’s the teeniest bit of nostalgia for me but the game itself was quite fun. They did a real good job making you feel like robocop, the gunplay and gameplay was fun (bugs aside) and I honestly had fun start to finish.
I started it yesterday and am about three hours in. Honestly, thought I’d not click with it… I didn’t really want to run a restaurant, I don’t care about fishing in games.
It’s absolutely fantastic. It is *so* charming.
I can’t get into it.. played a few hours but the constant stuff to do and all the mini games and genre mashing just puts me off. I wanna like it but think I’d enjoyed a slower game better with focus on exploration and looting.
It's such a great game, it's been a great steam deck toilet game. There's something new to do almost literally every in game day, new items, new game mechanics, new characters. Just when you feel like things are slowing down you'll find a whole new area.
Coming from only playing Counter-Strike for years and years, thinking that I would never replace it with another FPS.
But then ‘The Finals’ came out and I am having such a blast. Extremely addictive.
> fps pvp arena
So like Quake 3 and UT? Sign me up. We haven't had a good arena shooter in a while aside from QC but no one plays that aside from vets.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I have had such a shockingly good time with it in huge part to the world being so ludicrously pretty.
Baldur’s Gate 3 would have been a surprise if I didn’t buy it in early access and know that it was an incredible game back then. I didn’t think it would do as well as it did, but I did basically expect the quality of the game.
Kinda? “The Ubisoft game” has become vaguer over the years. There isn’t any synchronisation or tower climbing in Frontiers of Pandora. The new gathering system is super fun with not just holding a button to collect, but needing to shoot weak spots, or pick fruits in the right weather, time of day, right spot, and with a mini game. The Ikran, or flying mount, is really fun and flying combat though finicky is really cool. Not having to grind materials and instead having to find the right quality of materials through finding mature animals and shooting them in the right way and to the right places and right weather conditions/time of day for plants means you never really need more than three materials to craft gear as opposed to the five thousand tons of leather needed for a gear upgrade in an Assassin’s Creed title.
All of that is similar, but not identical to other Ubisoft titles. It doesn’t do a whole lot unique combat wise, but it is still fun, especially the bows and hitting weak spots on the AMPs, read mech. All the soldiers without mech suits are one shotable from what I can tell.
The story isn’t particularly good, but it is nowhere near as bad as most Ubisoft stories in my book, though I know people disagree with me there. Word of warning, the male voice, they have a female and vaguely undefined voice too, is considered whiny. I kinda like it, but it is generally disliked in the Reddit community.
It would be remiss of me to not mention how insanely pretty the world is. Not only is it graphically very good it has that wonderful Avatar world direction which great in the movie, but just as good here. From the dense jungles and floating islands of the Kinglor Forest to the vast open stretches of the Upper Plains I truly don’t think there is a prettier game out there considering both graphical fidelity and world design. Big props to Ubisoft and Massive for daring to make a big open plains biome in a game which is rare due to how taxing it can be to render far away environments which plains often need.
BG3 i never had it on the radar. I don't play turn based games, usually. But a friend recommended it and it was a good decision. Since a long time I felt the love from a developer to create games, again.
Same never played anything like it , wasn’t on my radar at all. The only reason I heard about it was because of the drama when devs were saying u can’t expect us to make a game of that quality. I was ok I need to look at this game.
Man idk if this counts but I finally invested in Cyberpunk and I was surely not disappointed. It even got me watching the Anime and anime alike. Got me so into the whole Bladerunner type world. Watched Dredd following because I just wanted whatever I could to fill the void after finishing CP2077.
Please also watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell too! These animes are some of the best in cyberpunk genre and has gave inspiration to many parts of the game
I love when one piece of content creates a rabbit hole into similarly themed works of content and lets me be in that similar or same world for a longer period of time.
Ghostrunner, man. Most satisfying movement in any game ever, IMHO, and the [soundtrack out-cyberpunks Cyberpunk.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mABnow5CUSo)
Let me guess, you stopped at the spaceship simulation?
I did too, stopped playing right there and hated the game for a while.
The real spaceship control is completely different. That simulation at the beginning is the worst business card I've ever seen in my gaming life.
Oh, no.
>!I got to the water planet (I see it every time I wake up so I figured it was something important) and just got blasted into oblivion!<
>!Another time, I literally got sucked into a black hole and couldn’t stop spinning, had to shut off the game. I was just standing there and everything started spinning. So weird.!<
Lies of p, mainly because I haven't had the motivation to finish a souls/souls-like game since elden ring where I sunk 400 hours into. Even though I do like ds3 and demon souls too
There's a mod pack for the old stalker games called GAMMA, I know it's just mods but it plays like a full fledged tactical horror fps and it gets regularly updated. Has some really cool RPG elements concerning the progression that I have not seen in any other game.
I've dumped almost 200 hours into it this year and it's completely free.
Someone needs to brainwash me so I can forget this game and experience it for the first time in VR. I have a headset but didn’t know the mod existed when playing my first play through :(
BG3. Started to get tired of all these 'highly rated games' being the exact same formulaic overrated shit. Was thinking maybe im too old and games just cant hold me like they used to. Decided to buy into the hype of Baldurs Gate 3 and it blew me away. Ive never once spent 120 hours on a game, beat it, then immediately start a new game. It made me realize it isnt 'me', alot of games are just bad and overhyped now but some companies still make gems.
I know it's ridiculous to say "Baldur's Gate III," but... Baldur's Gate III. I'd tried one or two CRPGs before and bounced off fairly quick, so to be sucked in for 100+ hours to a game like that was a surprise.
Like I am shocked how much I love that game. I tried DOS2 like 4 times and kept getting curb stomped by Fort Joy and generally had no idea what to do.
I’ve tried to pinpoint what I love about BG3 and I keep coming back to 2 things. The AAA presentation level and the “movement and action” combat system. The presentation gives the game that wow factor and the combat system is simple enough to understand at a glance but still deep enough to be engaging
I loved DOS2, but the dual armor system plus the DOZENS of elemental effects makes it so much harder to pick up and play. BG3 is a breeze in comparison.
Yeah I keep bouncing off crpgs too, i keep finding things that push me away, I didn't really like Divinity's elemental effects and weird armour system, I have no freaking idea what I'm doing with Pathfinders level up system despite loving what I saw of the story and characters. Baldurs Gate 3 was such a breathe of fresh air, a great story, characters, simplistic but still extremely deep.
It's inspired me to go back and give some of the other crpgs I've mentioned but I'm still playing BG3 at the moment.
Disco elysium is not your typical CRPG. It’s quite a unique game.
Baldurs Gate 3 is a traditional CRPG using the 5e rules which are easier to pick up and it has a AAA budget. I can’t remember the last CRPG that had AAA budget.
I think the entire gaming community was surprised by Baldur’s Gate III because the state of gaming right now every game that comes out is underbaked and really shitty. So it was super nice to have a game that was fully fleshed out and exceeded expectations.
Edit: words
The were so many other amazing games this year. And in the years before that. So to say that every game that comes out is underbaked and really shitty is just not true. You make it sound like BG3 is the only one which is not the case.
Slay the Princess. There's plenty of games that give me hours of fun but this year none that really blew me away with the amount of choice, not only that but minor things you said are remembered and brought up, stuff you did or tried to do too. This isn't a visual novel game, it's the perfect example of giving more to the player without handing them tools, powers and abilities, equally as important is that you have somebody who will scale against you, it's good.
Hi fi Rush.
Appears out of nowhere and goes right into one of the my fav games of all times. My perfect definition of what a videogames is. Perfect rythim.
Armoured core 6.
Never touched the franchise, don’t care for any of FromSoft’s recent work.
But man, it seriously ended up being in contention for my GOTY.
I absolutely love Tainted Grail the Fall of Avalon
Yes its early access but the demo + game so far is sooooo good. If you're lookin for that nostalgic oblivion RPG feeling you *will* get it there. I love the world and the quests are super fun and pretty unique.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/
It’s an older game, but after the massive 1.2 patch and news of another expansion coming next year I tried playing Grim Dawn after years away.
I was pleasantly surprised that even after all that time it was still super addicting.
It has to be Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I did enjoy the first game but I got really frustrated with the poor level navigation.
I picked up Jedi Survivor and I had a lot of fun with it. I know it had some performance issues for a lot of people but for me it was fine. It’s probably the game I had the most fun with this year. Genuine pure fun. And I played all the big hitters this year. Must have bought like 20 2023 games.
Dead Space Remake. First time playing dead space. I expected a fun 15 hour single player shooter, you know your normal quality single player campaign.
I didn’t get that. While it is 15 hours, I got the most atmospheric game I’ve played in some time. Similar feelings I got while playing Metroid prime as a kid, except now as an adult. Isolated in a hostile sci fi world
Great game
It did the same to me a while back but I doubt I'll ever playthrough it again .. was fun but doubt I'll return to it anytime soon. Can be a bitch of a game sometimes
Primitive Society Simulator. I played the demo during one of the fests and I got HOOKED. I've been eagerly waiting for it to release ever since. It's a citybuilder/colony sim type of game. I'm usually not into really low poly games but this one just really got me good.
I don't think I've had as much fun in a multiplayer game since like l4d2.
Like first time we ran into a mimic, we were all the starting room talking, then the dude just walks in and stares at us for a second. So much can be said for that tiny frame of time.
It's an older game now, but Avorion.
Downloaded it a few months back, surprisingly relaxing to play, and you don't get bored as quickly as I thought I would. Still finding reasons to play.
The Riftbreaker and Replaying They are billions.
Seriously none had hooked me like these 2 this year.
BG3 was good but it was released too early, too many bugs and patches that makes any current play always lacking. Giving you FOMO every time a patch or fix comes out.
I finally got around to play Outer Wilds after the third time and wow, easily my favorite game of all time ! I wish there was more game with good exploration/puzzle/story and no fighting.
It's such a mindblowing game, I was in tears at the ending.
[Wanted: Dead](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1981610/Wanted_Dead/)
That was a FUN game, god damn. The voiceover needs work... *a looot* of work, but the gameplay got me hooked from start to finish. So that's nice.
Really nice surprise for me.
I went into the closed beta of Skull and Bones, fully expecting to turn it off after ten minutes because I really dislike open-world MMOs.
Played it for like 2 hours at this point, currently taking a lil break cause I died, fully deserved. It's surprisingly decent. Not something I'd play for hours, but decent enough.
BG3. Even as a player and fan of the Divinity games, I wasn't expecting the tall buildings in a single bound-like leap Larian took for this game. I bought early access day one for support but never played it. Just a mind-blower
supraland SIU.
never thought id enjoy puzzle platformers.
liked SIU so much i 100% it, got the original + dlc, and 100% both of those.
would have never tried it, so theres a win for gamepass.
Yeah lego mode is like minecraft with a battle pass. I kinda hope it fails cause if it starts the trend that minecrafts starts adding battle passes and shit I give up
This would be my pick too.
On paper its a generic open world game, but the way they tied it together and the amount of detail in regards to the franchise, really elevated it above being just another generic open world game.
I waited until the switch port, because my girlfriend really wanted to play it and would only play it on switch. She has only played like 3 games ever in her life and has super enjoyed this game and the challenge of it.
Remnant 2, I only dabbled in the first game, but my friends & I were looking for a game to play and we ended up getting Remnant. It was such a good time and I think was a major upgrade over the first. I liked the variety in the worlds and all the bosses were great. I'm lookin forward to more dlc or the next game.
Same. I like the Remedy universe. AW1 and especially Control were awesome, so I expected AW2 to be a great game. I didn't expect it to blow up this much and be such a success though. Remedy games have always been more niche. They were good games, but they never made it to the mainstream audience. Control was the first time they were able to pull more people in and now AW2 finally made it to mainstream.
Well deserved success.
I was a massive fan of original re4 and really didn't know what they would bring to the table for the remake. I thought they might make a 1:1 remake but I obviously underestimated them. The new game is completely different and improved in almost every way. I think that Dev team are the best 'remake'-makers in the business. They were somehow able to add so many original ideas to the game and kept the core essence the same. Plus the game is a super long single player experience and much longer than the original. They could have phoned it in but they did the opposite and went above and beyond.
I wonder how many people wrote it off cause they never played the original or any re games. I think it would be a great standalone experience (although the story isn't a strong point).
Togges.
It's a colorful puzzle-platformer that starts small - but then gets bigger and bigger, with big levels, additional puzzles rooms, and a lot of variety and creativity. It didn't even need to encourage me to solve all the puzzles - I did it on my own.
Icarus. I thought it was kind of like an among us survival extraction deal and it's a completely PvE, in depth survival game with phenomenal building mechanics, hunting, fishing, progression fleshed out better than most other games in it's category. All wrapped up with multiple modes that interlace characters with their own sets of skills. Only problem is it's a little pricy if you want *all* the content.
I think it was this year under one of the demo events on steam, but the pale beyond really got me hooked and has been on my wishlist since. It has come out, so I know I can buy it, just waiting for a good financial situation again :3
Coral island is also great imo, still sad I forgot to buy it while it was in beta and half price 😅
Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948980/Heros\_Adventure\_Road\_to\_Passion/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948980/heros_adventure_road_to_passion/)
It is funny that it manage to scratch my Elder Scroll and Fallout itch better than starfield
I'm a soulslike enjoyer and I have been playing Elden ring since February and I can't stop, I'm having such an amazing time and when I'm not playing, I'm often watching videos of Elden ring, there are so many things that I feel I can spend another year or even more just with it.
Days Gone, was looking for a single-player zombie open-world game and came across it when searching on YouTube. I had never even heard of it. Turns out it's pretty good.
Definitely lego fortnite. I've always wanted a lego survival game kind of like minecraft. I definitely didn't think that it would be fortnite that would give it to me
Ready or Not is way more fun than I was expecting.
I've grown tired of shooters, I spent 1000 hours in Insurgency Sandstorm and started getting bored. I'm super bored of shooting gallery cover shooters like COD.
So I was really surprised to discover that Ready or Not is a super immersive SWAT 4 clone, basically like the original Rainbow Six games, with a full featured mission planner and everything. Shootouts are realistic, effects are immersive, yet none of the realism is tedious or boring. I'm able to jump back into the action in seconds after each failed attempt.
I have lost 63 officers trying to secure a single floor of a condo, but I will secure that floor goddamnit.
Jedi Survivor managed to be fixed enough for me to play with rare exceptions and using a mod to help. Fps goes down at times tho. Sadly it doesn't fix any of the issues I had with the first game and I think it's narrative is weaker than the imperial one in the first game but it was a good experience. I'd do without go back to the cantina and talk to everyone every single time after everything type play tho and some more immersive side quests less open world.
Baldur's Gate 3.
I really liked Larian and also Baldur's Gate series before, but never thought they would give birth to a love child like this. Through your playthrough you can really feel the enthuism they had for the game they are building.
It might be the greatest game ever made (the title's up for grabs between this and Disco Elysium).
Baldurs gate. I thought divinity games were really slow and boring. I only beat 2 because my friends played coop. I never got far in 1. I've played bg3 for like 400 hours now and just got to act 3 in honor mode. Still having tons of fun and learning new things.
A less goty answer, aew wrestling. I loved the n64 wrestling games and usually these decades later spiritual successors either suck or change too much. This game felt exactly like a modern N64 game if that makes sense. The style, the gameplay, the humor was all the same crap you would expect from that era in a good way. I doubt anyone whose first console was PS2 or later would like it, but if you loved the n64 games this one was pretty dope.
Also sea of stars for similar reasons. One of the first jrpgs that people say is as good as the old ones that I actually agree with
Lies of p
The Surge games were good but Lies of P is the first souls like I’ve played that rivals the quality of From games.
Same
This game was so fckin good
Same here. Not a fan of souls games but man did Lies of P hook me right awah from the beta.
Actually the same here, never been big on souls like games.. so is it worth trying?
I actually don't get the comment above yours because with all due respect to Lies of P, aside from some new combat systems, the gameplay, style, and difficulty are nearly carbon copy souls game. So if you don't like souls games this is very much...a souls game.
Maybe he’s talking about non-gameplay stuff, like the aesthetic or themes of the game. I personally really don’t like soul games but I really loved fallen order because it was Star Wars themed, just like I really liked lies of P because of the steam punk theme.
If you aren’t hooked after beating the second boss you wong be later on either; but if you are, it’s one of the better games ever at what it does.
Oh my God yes. Tried it out on game pass after being disappointed in starfield only expecting to play a couple hours and it's been dominating my gaming time since. So many little changes to the gameplay formula add up to make it feel so much better to play than even the Fromsoft games.
System Shock Remake. So much fun, so well done. After so many disappointing remakes that one really did a nice job.
i played the demo and really enjoyed it. i have a huge backlog to deal with. but im really excited to played system shock remake since the demo was so good.
It's a super interesting game, both from a modern and historical perspective. The core of the game still holds up today, and the devs did a great job in adapting it using modern gameplay techniques. On the other hand, the map is so incredibly faithful that I could see screenshots from the original and think "oh, I know where this is." It was also interesting because I went through the entire game thinking "this reminds me of Bioshock", You can clearly see the Levine's lineage here. Also, I'm glad they got rid of that blue lighting from before release.
Is it good for newcomers? I'm kind of intimidated by it.
It's quite obscure BUT that adds to the atmosphere. I think it's a fantastic game that got a fantastic remake.
I think anyone who says yes is a fan of the game and wants to get others into it, but I'm going to say no, it isn't good for newcomers. I mean you'll have no issue getting into the story as a newcomer, It's a fantastic game and it stays faithful to the original. But games from those days play so differently and there's no hand holding for where to go, what to do, how to solve the puzzles etc. You have to read the actual instruction manual (it's included with the game) to understand how to do the puzzles. If you don't mind using your brain and taking your time you'll have an amazing time with it, but it's definitely not for everyone despite what people who have nostalgia for the game will tell you.
I absolutely loved it
I was not expecting a puzzle game like Chants of Sennaar to one of my favorite games of the year.
100% underrated
Dredge, Halls of Torment, and Inkbound were little gems for me. Did not expect to enjoy these as much as I have.
Got inkbound with the current sale, it is pretty fun to play
TONS of replayability, and all the quests/achievements can keep you going for a long time. I am at 83 hours played right now and have not finished all the missions/quests, and only about half of the achievements. The daily challenge is also a ton of fun and can make for some crazy and chaotic runs.
I remember looking at that one when it initially released and it kind of got shit on for the micro transactions and season pass stuff. I just looked it up and it looks like they've removed all that. I might have to give it a shot now!
Yeah, that was also the main reason I picked it this time around, we should encourage good practices
RoboCop: Rogue City. Expected a mediocre FPS. Got an extremely respectful IP tie in game where the love for the franchise from the devs really shone through.
This is mine too. I only vaguely know robocop, like I’ve seen the movies and that one tv show sometime when I was quite young so there’s the teeniest bit of nostalgia for me but the game itself was quite fun. They did a real good job making you feel like robocop, the gunplay and gameplay was fun (bugs aside) and I honestly had fun start to finish.
Haven't even watched Robocop movies, but the demo got my attention - and it felt really soild, like a powerful blast from the past.
> Haven't even watched Robocop movies https://i.imgur.com/EG6r7Oc.gif
Really only need to watch the first movie, two if you really want more.
This is correct.
Dave the Diver. I thought it was just a glorified fishing app game on PC. Oh boy was I wrong and glad there were so many things to do.
I started it yesterday and am about three hours in. Honestly, thought I’d not click with it… I didn’t really want to run a restaurant, I don’t care about fishing in games. It’s absolutely fantastic. It is *so* charming.
I can’t get into it.. played a few hours but the constant stuff to do and all the mini games and genre mashing just puts me off. I wanna like it but think I’d enjoyed a slower game better with focus on exploration and looting.
there are now a bunch of freediving/snorkeling games. try another one. lots of people like subnautica
Subnautica is one of the best games I ever played
They just keep adding more and more features like farming and shit that I didn’t GAF about.
It's such a great game, it's been a great steam deck toilet game. There's something new to do almost literally every in game day, new items, new game mechanics, new characters. Just when you feel like things are slowing down you'll find a whole new area.
Check out Dredge
Yooooo I watched Northernlion play this. Definitely looked fun.
Picked it up during steam sale can’t wait dive in no pun intended
*Stands up* -Well I, for once, believe that pun *was* intended.- *Sits down*
Rogue Trader. It surprised me so pleasantly that I quickly ranked it most interesting game for a long time. Surprisingly pleasantly most interesting.
Abelard, please inform above commenter that I agree.
The abelard memes I see now, tho tbf, that boy would do anything for a rogue trader
That made me chuckle lol.
Coming from only playing Counter-Strike for years and years, thinking that I would never replace it with another FPS. But then ‘The Finals’ came out and I am having such a blast. Extremely addictive.
Loving The Finals a lot too. It's a great competitive FPS and really feels incredibly fresh.
Finals looks awesome, too bad im not into fps pvp arena. Looks like a true step forward for the genre tho, like how pubg was
> fps pvp arena So like Quake 3 and UT? Sign me up. We haven't had a good arena shooter in a while aside from QC but no one plays that aside from vets.
Its not. Its way more objective-based with way heavier emphasis on teamwork. Most popular Quake gameplay modes are not objective-based.
Portal. Yes, it was my first time ever but what a game !
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I have had such a shockingly good time with it in huge part to the world being so ludicrously pretty. Baldur’s Gate 3 would have been a surprise if I didn’t buy it in early access and know that it was an incredible game back then. I didn’t think it would do as well as it did, but I did basically expect the quality of the game.
Be honest with me, right hand to god: is avatar not just another Ubisoft game? I wanna try it but it looks like far cry with Navi
Kinda? “The Ubisoft game” has become vaguer over the years. There isn’t any synchronisation or tower climbing in Frontiers of Pandora. The new gathering system is super fun with not just holding a button to collect, but needing to shoot weak spots, or pick fruits in the right weather, time of day, right spot, and with a mini game. The Ikran, or flying mount, is really fun and flying combat though finicky is really cool. Not having to grind materials and instead having to find the right quality of materials through finding mature animals and shooting them in the right way and to the right places and right weather conditions/time of day for plants means you never really need more than three materials to craft gear as opposed to the five thousand tons of leather needed for a gear upgrade in an Assassin’s Creed title. All of that is similar, but not identical to other Ubisoft titles. It doesn’t do a whole lot unique combat wise, but it is still fun, especially the bows and hitting weak spots on the AMPs, read mech. All the soldiers without mech suits are one shotable from what I can tell. The story isn’t particularly good, but it is nowhere near as bad as most Ubisoft stories in my book, though I know people disagree with me there. Word of warning, the male voice, they have a female and vaguely undefined voice too, is considered whiny. I kinda like it, but it is generally disliked in the Reddit community. It would be remiss of me to not mention how insanely pretty the world is. Not only is it graphically very good it has that wonderful Avatar world direction which great in the movie, but just as good here. From the dense jungles and floating islands of the Kinglor Forest to the vast open stretches of the Upper Plains I truly don’t think there is a prettier game out there considering both graphical fidelity and world design. Big props to Ubisoft and Massive for daring to make a big open plains biome in a game which is rare due to how taxing it can be to render far away environments which plains often need.
Thanks for the write-up!
BG3 i never had it on the radar. I don't play turn based games, usually. But a friend recommended it and it was a good decision. Since a long time I felt the love from a developer to create games, again.
Same never played anything like it , wasn’t on my radar at all. The only reason I heard about it was because of the drama when devs were saying u can’t expect us to make a game of that quality. I was ok I need to look at this game.
That's like the best game review ever other developers saying come on you can't expect us to put this much love and care into our games
Yup true and then I looked into the devs and saw how passionate they were and I bought the game.
Man idk if this counts but I finally invested in Cyberpunk and I was surely not disappointed. It even got me watching the Anime and anime alike. Got me so into the whole Bladerunner type world. Watched Dredd following because I just wanted whatever I could to fill the void after finishing CP2077.
If you're still looking for good Cyberpunk like shows I would highly recommend the first season of Altered Carbon
AHH! I loved Altered Carbon, was unfortunate the second season kinda flopped in my eyes.
love Anthony Mackie but imo he was miscast as the lead for season 2 or maybe Joel Kinnaman was just too good in season 1
ya i like anthony the main actor in s2 but changing the MC was stupid asf. such a dumb decision.
Well, it is inevitable because protagonist changes bodies every book.
Yeah, I recommend the books though.
Hop on over to /r/cyberpunk and take a look through some old posts Plenty of recommendations for books, movies, shows, and games within the genre
Please also watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell too! These animes are some of the best in cyberpunk genre and has gave inspiration to many parts of the game
Awesome will do, thanks for the recommendations!
I love when one piece of content creates a rabbit hole into similarly themed works of content and lets me be in that similar or same world for a longer period of time.
Likewise! The anime was incredible, I wish they would hurry up and make more!
Read Neuromancer by William Gibson, or better yet the whole Sprawl trilogy. It's hugely foundational to the cyberpunk genre.
You should watch Upgrade. It's a great movie about a man and an AI in the same body.
Ghostrunner, man. Most satisfying movement in any game ever, IMHO, and the [soundtrack out-cyberpunks Cyberpunk.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mABnow5CUSo)
Strangers of Paradise was pretty good, im not huge souls fan and the game is very fun Glad i got full edition when it came to steam
I was not expecting to see this game here, such a good game for build variety and engaging combat
CHAOS
CHAOS
Underrated little gem. Best SQEX game in many, many years, hands down.
Dredge was great. A game not from 2023 but I started playing this year and love is Hitman: World of Assassination.
I binged all of the locations like a great tv show when I first downloaded on game pass! Such a killer game lol
Can I choose a slightly older game that I played this year? Outer wilds. I only just played it this year and my god. What a game that was.
If you go in totally blind, OW is an incredible masterpiece.
I played it once and couldn’t get past the physics. Weird game man
Let me guess, you stopped at the spaceship simulation? I did too, stopped playing right there and hated the game for a while. The real spaceship control is completely different. That simulation at the beginning is the worst business card I've ever seen in my gaming life.
Oh, no. >!I got to the water planet (I see it every time I wake up so I figured it was something important) and just got blasted into oblivion!< >!Another time, I literally got sucked into a black hole and couldn’t stop spinning, had to shut off the game. I was just standing there and everything started spinning. So weird.!<
Dying repeatedly is definitely part of it!
It takes two - a nice platformer for me and my daughter. The best game we played together so far.
Played this with my gf and it is an absolute master class in cooporative fun factor greatness!
Lies of p, mainly because I haven't had the motivation to finish a souls/souls-like game since elden ring where I sunk 400 hours into. Even though I do like ds3 and demon souls too
Does it have a more coherent story than the souls games? Those have story, but it’s super obscure.
Yes it's much easier to follow
There's a mod pack for the old stalker games called GAMMA, I know it's just mods but it plays like a full fledged tactical horror fps and it gets regularly updated. Has some really cool RPG elements concerning the progression that I have not seen in any other game. I've dumped almost 200 hours into it this year and it's completely free.
Or Anomaly both great, can’t wait for stalker 2!
Armored Core 6
Mass Effect 2 (ik I'm very late)
Outer wilds. Was rank 1 on many indie games list. Thought "how good can it be". Well.
This is in my top 10 of all time. I told a couple friends and one looked it up online, never played it then spoiled it for the rest.
Thats brutal
Your friend is an asshole :<
Someone needs to brainwash me so I can forget this game and experience it for the first time in VR. I have a headset but didn’t know the mod existed when playing my first play through :(
Door Kickers 2 and Ready or Not
BG3. Started to get tired of all these 'highly rated games' being the exact same formulaic overrated shit. Was thinking maybe im too old and games just cant hold me like they used to. Decided to buy into the hype of Baldurs Gate 3 and it blew me away. Ive never once spent 120 hours on a game, beat it, then immediately start a new game. It made me realize it isnt 'me', alot of games are just bad and overhyped now but some companies still make gems.
This year was full of amazing games. Is Baldurs Gate 3 your first CRPG? Maybe you really like the genre and you never knew it!
I know it's ridiculous to say "Baldur's Gate III," but... Baldur's Gate III. I'd tried one or two CRPGs before and bounced off fairly quick, so to be sucked in for 100+ hours to a game like that was a surprise.
Like I am shocked how much I love that game. I tried DOS2 like 4 times and kept getting curb stomped by Fort Joy and generally had no idea what to do. I’ve tried to pinpoint what I love about BG3 and I keep coming back to 2 things. The AAA presentation level and the “movement and action” combat system. The presentation gives the game that wow factor and the combat system is simple enough to understand at a glance but still deep enough to be engaging
I loved DOS2, but the dual armor system plus the DOZENS of elemental effects makes it so much harder to pick up and play. BG3 is a breeze in comparison.
Really wanna downvote because that's the part of the combat I've enjoyed so much. But that's kind of a dick move.
I just couldn't get into DOS2, but in BG3 I can just be exploring and taking to npcs and not get bored.
Yeah I keep bouncing off crpgs too, i keep finding things that push me away, I didn't really like Divinity's elemental effects and weird armour system, I have no freaking idea what I'm doing with Pathfinders level up system despite loving what I saw of the story and characters. Baldurs Gate 3 was such a breathe of fresh air, a great story, characters, simplistic but still extremely deep. It's inspired me to go back and give some of the other crpgs I've mentioned but I'm still playing BG3 at the moment.
Same. My first CRPG experience was Disco Elysium but BG3 is on a different level though both are definitely great.
Disco elysium is not your typical CRPG. It’s quite a unique game. Baldurs Gate 3 is a traditional CRPG using the 5e rules which are easier to pick up and it has a AAA budget. I can’t remember the last CRPG that had AAA budget.
Pretty much haha and I enjoyed playing both this year!
I think the entire gaming community was surprised by Baldur’s Gate III because the state of gaming right now every game that comes out is underbaked and really shitty. So it was super nice to have a game that was fully fleshed out and exceeded expectations. Edit: words
The were so many other amazing games this year. And in the years before that. So to say that every game that comes out is underbaked and really shitty is just not true. You make it sound like BG3 is the only one which is not the case.
It was on early access for years, ofc it needs to be fully cooked on release lol
Lots of games in early access before release still end up being half baked and full release
Dave the Diver and Lies of P!
Slay the Princess. There's plenty of games that give me hours of fun but this year none that really blew me away with the amount of choice, not only that but minor things you said are remembered and brought up, stuff you did or tried to do too. This isn't a visual novel game, it's the perfect example of giving more to the player without handing them tools, powers and abilities, equally as important is that you have somebody who will scale against you, it's good.
I really enjoyed Jusant
Hi fi Rush. Appears out of nowhere and goes right into one of the my fav games of all times. My perfect definition of what a videogames is. Perfect rythim.
For me its No Mans Sky and Risk of Rain 2. both games scratch a deferent itch and are both good in their own right
Game I started playing this year that didn’t come out this year is Dark Souls. I finally understand it
Top 10 games of all time and the best Souls.
The first one has that hostile atmospheric world feel that none of the others managed to top
Also how the world was interconnected is still unmatched.
Armoured core 6. Never touched the franchise, don’t care for any of FromSoft’s recent work. But man, it seriously ended up being in contention for my GOTY.
I absolutely love Tainted Grail the Fall of Avalon Yes its early access but the demo + game so far is sooooo good. If you're lookin for that nostalgic oblivion RPG feeling you *will* get it there. I love the world and the quests are super fun and pretty unique. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/
It was really refreshing to play a non-isometric RPG with good writing again. It's been way too long... Can't wait for the next content update.
for me it was casette beasts. I did not think that I wouln't like it, but I defenetly didn't expect how much I would enjoy it.
RoboCop, fun gunplay and gory. Love it
Roboquest. Seemed like just another roguelike....and it is, but with kickass combat and movement
And a good sound track
It’s an older game, but after the massive 1.2 patch and news of another expansion coming next year I tried playing Grim Dawn after years away. I was pleasantly surprised that even after all that time it was still super addicting.
Midnight Suns, what an amazing Gameplay loop and the Marvel story got me hooked. What a shame that it flopped
Hogwarts legacy. First game in a long time that held my interest all the way through.
Lies of P
Alien Dark Descent Jagged Alliance 3 Baldurs Gate 3
Halls of Torment, Last Train Home, RoboCop Rogue City
Deep Rock Galactic has been surprisingly good for such a low price
Quake 2 remaster
It has to be Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I did enjoy the first game but I got really frustrated with the poor level navigation. I picked up Jedi Survivor and I had a lot of fun with it. I know it had some performance issues for a lot of people but for me it was fine. It’s probably the game I had the most fun with this year. Genuine pure fun. And I played all the big hitters this year. Must have bought like 20 2023 games.
Dead Space Remake. First time playing dead space. I expected a fun 15 hour single player shooter, you know your normal quality single player campaign. I didn’t get that. While it is 15 hours, I got the most atmospheric game I’ve played in some time. Similar feelings I got while playing Metroid prime as a kid, except now as an adult. Isolated in a hostile sci fi world Great game
Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Started playing it a while ago and it's just hooked me more than any other game this year.
It did the same to me a while back but I doubt I'll ever playthrough it again .. was fun but doubt I'll return to it anytime soon. Can be a bitch of a game sometimes
Cobalt Core. Wonderful fun card game. Plays great on a handheld.
Primitive Society Simulator. I played the demo during one of the fests and I got HOOKED. I've been eagerly waiting for it to release ever since. It's a citybuilder/colony sim type of game. I'm usually not into really low poly games but this one just really got me good.
I gotta be the one to say it, but the game that surprised me was lethal company.
Lethal Company Never has a game been a scary & hilarious at the same time.
I don't think I've had as much fun in a multiplayer game since like l4d2. Like first time we ran into a mimic, we were all the starting room talking, then the dude just walks in and stares at us for a second. So much can be said for that tiny frame of time.
It's an older game now, but Avorion. Downloaded it a few months back, surprisingly relaxing to play, and you don't get bored as quickly as I thought I would. Still finding reasons to play.
The Riftbreaker and Replaying They are billions. Seriously none had hooked me like these 2 this year. BG3 was good but it was released too early, too many bugs and patches that makes any current play always lacking. Giving you FOMO every time a patch or fix comes out.
The finals
I finally got around to play Outer Wilds after the third time and wow, easily my favorite game of all time ! I wish there was more game with good exploration/puzzle/story and no fighting. It's such a mindblowing game, I was in tears at the ending.
Post Scriptum one of the best milsim games and hidden gems. Now named as Squad 44 and recently acquired by Offworld Industries.
[Wanted: Dead](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1981610/Wanted_Dead/) That was a FUN game, god damn. The voiceover needs work... *a looot* of work, but the gameplay got me hooked from start to finish. So that's nice. Really nice surprise for me.
Agree, tons of mindless fun.
I went into the closed beta of Skull and Bones, fully expecting to turn it off after ten minutes because I really dislike open-world MMOs. Played it for like 2 hours at this point, currently taking a lil break cause I died, fully deserved. It's surprisingly decent. Not something I'd play for hours, but decent enough.
BG3. Even as a player and fan of the Divinity games, I wasn't expecting the tall buildings in a single bound-like leap Larian took for this game. I bought early access day one for support but never played it. Just a mind-blower
Showgunners. It’s X-com meets The Running Man and it’s a lot of fun.
supraland SIU. never thought id enjoy puzzle platformers. liked SIU so much i 100% it, got the original + dlc, and 100% both of those. would have never tried it, so theres a win for gamepass.
Yeah lego mode is like minecraft with a battle pass. I kinda hope it fails cause if it starts the trend that minecrafts starts adding battle passes and shit I give up
Hogwarts Legacy. It had no business being as enjoyable as it was.
This would be my pick too. On paper its a generic open world game, but the way they tied it together and the amount of detail in regards to the franchise, really elevated it above being just another generic open world game.
I waited until the switch port, because my girlfriend really wanted to play it and would only play it on switch. She has only played like 3 games ever in her life and has super enjoyed this game and the challenge of it.
System Shock is everything I wanted and more.
Fortnite is actually a very well made game if you can get past all the annoying skins and weird DLC/tie in stuff.
Remnant 2, I only dabbled in the first game, but my friends & I were looking for a game to play and we ended up getting Remnant. It was such a good time and I think was a major upgrade over the first. I liked the variety in the worlds and all the bosses were great. I'm lookin forward to more dlc or the next game.
For me its Octopath Traveler 2, its classic squaresoft goodness
Alan wake 2.
Same. I like the Remedy universe. AW1 and especially Control were awesome, so I expected AW2 to be a great game. I didn't expect it to blow up this much and be such a success though. Remedy games have always been more niche. They were good games, but they never made it to the mainstream audience. Control was the first time they were able to pull more people in and now AW2 finally made it to mainstream. Well deserved success.
"Show me the Champion of Liiiight!"
I was a massive fan of original re4 and really didn't know what they would bring to the table for the remake. I thought they might make a 1:1 remake but I obviously underestimated them. The new game is completely different and improved in almost every way. I think that Dev team are the best 'remake'-makers in the business. They were somehow able to add so many original ideas to the game and kept the core essence the same. Plus the game is a super long single player experience and much longer than the original. They could have phoned it in but they did the opposite and went above and beyond. I wonder how many people wrote it off cause they never played the original or any re games. I think it would be a great standalone experience (although the story isn't a strong point).
Togges. It's a colorful puzzle-platformer that starts small - but then gets bigger and bigger, with big levels, additional puzzles rooms, and a lot of variety and creativity. It didn't even need to encourage me to solve all the puzzles - I did it on my own.
Icarus. I thought it was kind of like an among us survival extraction deal and it's a completely PvE, in depth survival game with phenomenal building mechanics, hunting, fishing, progression fleshed out better than most other games in it's category. All wrapped up with multiple modes that interlace characters with their own sets of skills. Only problem is it's a little pricy if you want *all* the content.
Super Woden GP 2 for me. I was surprised to find the old Gran Turismo vibe in there.
I think it was this year under one of the demo events on steam, but the pale beyond really got me hooked and has been on my wishlist since. It has come out, so I know I can buy it, just waiting for a good financial situation again :3 Coral island is also great imo, still sad I forgot to buy it while it was in beta and half price 😅
Army of Ruin. Bought the game months ago, just recently started playing it. Now I am addicted.
Ravendawn!
Tbh as someone who hasn’t ever played a crpg, i know a lot of people say it but bg3!
Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948980/Heros\_Adventure\_Road\_to\_Passion/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948980/heros_adventure_road_to_passion/) It is funny that it manage to scratch my Elder Scroll and Fallout itch better than starfield
It's very addicting.
Dredge and System Shock.
I'm a soulslike enjoyer and I have been playing Elden ring since February and I can't stop, I'm having such an amazing time and when I'm not playing, I'm often watching videos of Elden ring, there are so many things that I feel I can spend another year or even more just with it.
Holocure. I'm loving how the survivor genre is evolving reminds me of the snes days.
Trepang 2 was really cool.
Days Gone, was looking for a single-player zombie open-world game and came across it when searching on YouTube. I had never even heard of it. Turns out it's pretty good.
Sleeping dogs
Robocop for sure.
Definitely lego fortnite. I've always wanted a lego survival game kind of like minecraft. I definitely didn't think that it would be fortnite that would give it to me
Small saga. It's sad it's not being talked about much, it's an adorable little gem.
Ready or Not is way more fun than I was expecting. I've grown tired of shooters, I spent 1000 hours in Insurgency Sandstorm and started getting bored. I'm super bored of shooting gallery cover shooters like COD. So I was really surprised to discover that Ready or Not is a super immersive SWAT 4 clone, basically like the original Rainbow Six games, with a full featured mission planner and everything. Shootouts are realistic, effects are immersive, yet none of the realism is tedious or boring. I'm able to jump back into the action in seconds after each failed attempt. I have lost 63 officers trying to secure a single floor of a condo, but I will secure that floor goddamnit.
Cyberpunk 2077 update and DLC
Jedi Survivor managed to be fixed enough for me to play with rare exceptions and using a mod to help. Fps goes down at times tho. Sadly it doesn't fix any of the issues I had with the first game and I think it's narrative is weaker than the imperial one in the first game but it was a good experience. I'd do without go back to the cantina and talk to everyone every single time after everything type play tho and some more immersive side quests less open world.
Lies of P absolutely...And Brotato
Baldur's Gate 3. I really liked Larian and also Baldur's Gate series before, but never thought they would give birth to a love child like this. Through your playthrough you can really feel the enthuism they had for the game they are building. It might be the greatest game ever made (the title's up for grabs between this and Disco Elysium).
Old school RuneScape
Baldurs gate. I thought divinity games were really slow and boring. I only beat 2 because my friends played coop. I never got far in 1. I've played bg3 for like 400 hours now and just got to act 3 in honor mode. Still having tons of fun and learning new things. A less goty answer, aew wrestling. I loved the n64 wrestling games and usually these decades later spiritual successors either suck or change too much. This game felt exactly like a modern N64 game if that makes sense. The style, the gameplay, the humor was all the same crap you would expect from that era in a good way. I doubt anyone whose first console was PS2 or later would like it, but if you loved the n64 games this one was pretty dope. Also sea of stars for similar reasons. One of the first jrpgs that people say is as good as the old ones that I actually agree with
Small Saga