My favourite gaming experiences 2023

22 Dec 2023

Every gamer likes a good Game Of The Year discussion, but I don’t play enough new games to really participate in that tradition as typically defined. So, instead I want to celebrate video games by talking about my favourite gaming experiences this year regardless of when they were released.

So, in no particular order:

Armored Core 3

Piloting a light mech in Armored Core 3

Technically, I played this in late 2022 but I’ve not talked about it before and so I’m gonna do that here.

When Armored Core 6 was annouced at the 2022 Game Advertisements, I - being a certified mech pervert (tm) - was excited beyond belief. However, despite my best intentions, I had never actually gotten round to playing any Armored Core games. How lucky was I that there was a PSP port of AC3 and my Vita was freshly hacked!

The old Armored Core games are known for having obtuse control schemes and I can confirm that getting to grips with AC3 was quite a journey. However, if you can stick it out, then you will find one of the most confidently realised mech games that has ever been released.

It’s more than just the fact that AC3 perfectly captures the weight of a jet powered 20m war machine, but its tone and story are on a level beyond anything else that I’ve played. The world of AC3 is cruel and dark and all you can do as a Raven is try to kill off the worst parts of it. I knew that the game was something special when I found myself optimising my mech to more efficiently destory a monorail full of civilians. The game will never criticise you for killing all those innocent people, and you really need the extra 10k that you get for doing it, so the only reason to be a good person is because you, personally, have a line you will not cross. No game before or since has made the “evil” decision so appealing or natural.

One of the corps in Armored Core 3 asks you to incorporate civilian casualties into your mission. — This shouldn't sound appealing, but those chaingun bullets don't pay for themselves...

I adore this game.

Armored Core 6

Applying waterslide decals to Gunpla models.

This should not really come as a surprise if you read the previous section.

If you asked me to choose between Armored Core 3 and Armored Core 6 as my favourite mech game, I would be hard-pressed to come up with an answer. I think that AC6 is a better “game”, with tighter gameplay and a superior audio-visual experience, but it does suffer in the tone compared to AC3. Sure, it talks big game about how the corps are bad but inevitable, but without any financial burden on the player, there’s never any mechanical incentive to not just tell them to get stuffed. You kind of just work with them because daddy Walter tells you to.

Well, and because your Buddy works for one of them.

But man, when you’ve got a build that you like and you understand the boss’ patterns? Your mech can dance.

Armored Core 6 makes me feel like a Gundam pilot, whilst Armored Core 3 makes me feel like a Battlemech pilot. They are both amazing.

Applying waterslide decals to Gunpla models. — Thanks to the new customisation options, this is high tier AC6 gameplay. Image source: The Gunpla Tutorial: How to Decal your Gundam Plastic Model

Hi Fi Rush

Chai unleashes an explosive attack against a large robot enemy, causing a massive cartoonly explosion effect. — I'm not downloading the whole game again for a screenshot so enjoy some B-roll. Image source: Hi Fi Rush on Steam

What a surprise, right? This game just kind of came out and was amazing. I don’t actually have much to say about the game because its charms are so self-evident, but I had to include this in the list because of how much joy it filled me with whilst I was playing it.

I don’t know how the developers managed to get every animation to sync up with the beat of the music, but whatever they earned from the sales of this game, it wasn’t enough. Respect.

Also, Chai is an adorable boyfailure and Peppermint is big goals.

Cross Code

I have wanted to play Cross Code for a while, ever since I read a comment saying that it was a really strong indie RPG with up to 80 hours of content. To be honest, long games have slightly lost their appeal now that I am in full time employment, but I usually have the spoons for one or two each year (shout out to my ~120 hours in Xenoblade 3).

Now that I have actually played Cross Code, I can confirm that every hour that I spent with it was worth the investment!

Though Cross Code definitely has RPG trappings like gear and levels, in the moment-to-moment gameplay it’s much more of an action game. In this way, it reminds me of something like Dark Souls or Nier Automata, though obviously the nature of the action is different to those games. If you’ve played Hyper Light Drifter, it’s actually a bit like that!

Though the basic gameplay is great - oh my god the special charged attacks are soooo satisfying - the thing that Cross Code most deserves credit for is the quality of it’s side quests. Now, I have a high tolerance for mechanically simple activities; as long as I get to learn about the world or its inhabitants, I am content to slay monsters or do fetch quests for a while between story beats. But Cross Code actually goes a step above and makes an effort to give each side quest a mechanical identity! In some cases, this is quite simple - like a unique miniboss based on an existing enemy type - but in other cases they get properly experimental. Here are some memorable side quests that I am just remembering off the top of my head:

Kill the extremely fast blue hedgehog.
Help Simon the Digger to construct the Super Galaxy Giga Drill.
The alcohol brewing minigame.
The tower defence minigame.
Helping a hacker with a furry avatar escape out of bounds and find a prototype game area with a boss comprised of placeholder assets. (Did I mention that the game is set in a MMO world?)

Also, I really enjoyed the story! It was not anything life changing, but it was an interesting conceit and I found the characters compelling. I know that VR MMO games are a popular setting in light novels, but I don’t read those so I am not bored of it. Regardless, Cross Code really does leverage the fact that it’s set inside a game to do fun stuff (see my point about breaking out of bounds above), so it entirely justifies its conceit in my eyes.

Also also, I actually enjoyed the crafting system for once! Mainly this is because getting materials is actually fun: if you equip a certain item, then getting a large combo in combat increases the item drop rate. So, you can get a lot of items very quickly if you max out the combo meter and then string enemies along whilst you harvest all the plants in the area! Honestly, more games should have you picking flowers whilst ten angry hedgehogs try to bite your ankles off.

Lea smiles smugly whilst indicating 'four' with her fingers. — Protect this smug child. Image source: Cross Code on Steam

Star Renegades

Now this one was a complete surprise; I only bought it because I added £30 to my eShop account before going on holiday and it just so happened to exactly use up my remaining funds. Well, obviously I had some interest in it because it was a sci fi strategy game, but knowing that it was a roguelike (a genre that I’ve never enjoyed), I wasn’t expecting it to be anything other than an enjoyable time passer.

But after booting it up, I found myself completely hooked on it! It actually overshadowed the other games that I bought for my holiday and I’ve accumulated maybe 40 hours in it now!

Star Renegades has scratched the exact same itch for me that XCOM does, despite their only similarity being that they are turn based tactics games. The level of randomisation per run is restrained enough that I don’t feel like I’m being dicked over by RNG, but is enough that I still have to think about each turn even 40 hours in.

The only problem is that on Switch, it crashes quite a lot. Still, it’s testament to how much fun I’m having that I keep coming back for more.

Walkabout Mini Golf

A low poly golf course set in the old west. — I knew that I wanted to write this post, so why didn't I take screenshots when I still had access to my gaming PC? Image source: Walkabout Mini Golf on Steam

I got a used Vive headset this year and I’m really loving VR! I could really put any of the VR games that I played here, but I’m going with Walkabout Mini Golf because it has allowed me to meet up with my friends who live far away and play some crazy golf!

There’s honestly nothing particularly revolutionary here, it’s just some fun crazy golf courses with a VR interface. I do appreciate that the holes are sufficiently “out-there” to warrant being created in a virtual world; when I play crazy golf, I want it to be crazy!

Also, a Myst crazy golf course? That absolutely fucks.

Super Metroid (Randomised!)

Samus fights her way through a randomised Zebes whilst decked out in an Asexual-pride livery. — Samus says Asexual rights.

Last year, I played all of the 2D metroid games in anticipation of Metroid Dread. I loved every one of them, but I also held the extremely controversial opinion that Super was the worst of the lot. See, on my first playthrough, I found the lack of guidance frustrating and I much preferred the snappiness of the GBA movement mechanics to the momentum based movement in Super.

Fast forward to November this year: my workplace was hosting a remote gaming event and I joked about hosting a Metroid randomiser speedrun race. Surprisingly, I actually received some interest in this idea, so I had to do some research. The game with most robust randomiser support was Super, so I elected to put my preferences aside and break out the Varia randomiser.

Though only one other person ended up participating in our race, we had a great time playing together! The ‘race’ aspect of the event was soon forgotten as we focused on helping each other to master the easier sequence breaking techniques.

It was the act of pushing the mechanics of Super to their limits that helped me to appreciate them. When you don’t know what you’re doing, trying to get momentum on your jumps is a chore. When you’re already good at the game and you’re looking to walljump yourself to places where you shouldn’t be - that’s the good shit.

I’ve now played two more Super Metroid Randomiser runs and I’m slowly building up the difficulty. Super still isn’t my favourite Metroid - that remains Zero Mission - but it’s definitely now up there (it doesn’t hurt that the worst Metroid is still better than 90% of all games).

Honorable Mentions

There are a couple of games that came to mind when I thought about “Game of the Year”, but for whatever reason I didn’t want to include in the main list, above.

Signalis

This is a game with immaculate vibes (and by that, I mean the worst possible vibes), but I’ve only finished a single playthrough so far and I don’t think that I can finalise my feelings about it until my beautiful lesbian kids have suffered in all four different ways.

Serious Sam: The Last Hope

You know what I love? Lightgun games. You know what VR is brilliant at? Immersive lightgun games. Fuck yeah, Croteam always got my back.

House of the Dying Sun

I played this a while ago normally, but this year I got to experience it in VR! One of my formative memories is watching the battle of Yavin at the end of Star Wars Episode 4 and ever since then I’ve wanted to pilot a spaceship. When I got to fly around in HotDS in VR, I honestly could have cried.