Incline Most fun game for you in 2023 and why: Share your thoughts

[Tyranicon]

I'm going to drop my hipster vote:

Lords of Infinity. Continuation to a Sharpe-like CYOA with some of the best writing on the market (not that there are that many contenders).

For more conventional games I'll probably go with

1. Aliens Dark Descent. It wasn't a masterpeice or anything, but it was fun.

2. Stasis Bone Totem. Creepy click and point with gorgeous visuals. Bonus points for devs being on the 'dex.

 

[Modron]

Current year releases I had the most fun with this year:
Dreams in the Witch House,
Caves of Lore,
Colony Ship,
Heads Will Reforged,
Punch Club 2,
Repella Fella,
Like a Dragon Ishin,
Dead Monarchy,
Jagged Alliance 3,

Translations:
Kurohyou 1,

Highlighting a few things I've slept on aka current releases I meant to play this year but probably won't get around to until next year:
Like a Dragon Gaiden,
Old School,
Space Wreck,
Fallout: Sonora,
Wartales,
Hero's Adventure,

 

[Late Bloomer]

These are the ones that come to mind. If they are on Steam, I go by that release date.

Everquest 2 Ballads of Zimara - I have been playing EQ2 on and off since release. My friends and I have played together since Everquest. Running the guild is fun and I enjoy their company immensely. The expansion itself has been pretty fun. A decent amount of content for like the five people who worked on it. Better than the last expansion.

Dragon Quest Treasures - This may be my favourite game this year. Likeable characters, fun story, great enviornments, awesome dragon quest music, fitting sounds, varied zones, great exploration, and many of the treasures you find were from previous games. I am super bummed it wasn't received well which means no sequel. I am a huge Dragon Quest fan and have been playing since 1. This game was so much fun.

Elder Scrolls Online Necrom - For me, this game is all about the story, lore, and exploration. Necrom met all those requirements. Really captured the essence of everything Hermaeus Mora. Ended on a shitty cliffhanger which was really weird for ESO. But it sounds like they are going to take the story to Tamriel proper for the next one.

Soulash 2 (early access) - Not sure if early access counts. If not, my apologies. Soulash 2 is still rough around the edges. I won't go to into the game overmuch, but I have clocked in a lot of hours considering it was a recent release. Good exploration, a lot of skills to work on, and is quite replayable.

Moonring - I don't understand why this didn't get more traction here. Maybe the neon colours. If you haven't played it and like Ultima and turn base combat, try it. It's free.

Lunacid - King's Field like game. Very good exploration, challenging at times, secrets, interesting weapons to play around with, great music and feel to the world. As a warning, the trannie who made the game added pronouns on the 1.0 release (the game was in early access and didnt have them) and also taunted people on twitter about it.

Etrian Odyssey HD - This is an older game that was given a fresh coat of paint as an HD remaster. Some solid quality of life improvements. It's a dungeon crawler with a cartography system. Very enjoyable for what it is. Very much an anime aesthetic, if you are senstive about that type of thing.

Colony Ship - I am only 20 hours in so far as I just started a few days ago. It has been amazing. Very easy game to immerse yourself in which is exactly what I have been looking for. Going on a bit of a binge, which is something I don't often do anymore. Looking forward to where my choices take me.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Hm this guys seems to like a lot of games. I wonder...

Starfield
The shooting was fun and the glitches were funny. I liked clicking on baddies and watching them explode.

Oh yeah, right there.

It's a shit eater. Checks out every time.

If you can't enjoy watching a game fall apart constantly and glitch it's self into a shit show you have no soul. Starfield is like a Neil Breen movie, it's good because it's awful.

Tears of the Kingdom. Because I am against bear sex.

I hated everyone saying you can just avoid it as if you couldn't always avoid the gay shit in games until you couldn't. Next Tomb Raiders going to rip off all the rule 34 bestiality garbage the fanbase wants to spam every where. Lara cries as a pack of wolves gang bang her then a slow 10 minute crawling scene as she recovers and immediately climbs a cliff face with jizz icicles for crampons

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Jagged Alliance 3, a worthy successor to the Codex's favorite squad-based tactics game.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Tons of insane games this year.

For games that released this year:
1. Space wreck.
2. Colony ship
3. Baldur's gate 3
4. Stasis: bone totem
5. Trails into reverie
6. Blood west
7. Alan wake 2


For games that i played this year but not strictly 2023 release (and not a replay)
1. Death stranding
2. Northern Journey
3. Rain World
4. Astlibra revision
5. The journey down trilogy
6. Yakuza 3: remastered
7. Crystal project
8. Citizen sleeper
9. Ctrl alt ego
10. Tormented souls.

Overall a good year for my personal life and gaming, it kept me feeling positive in general.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I haven't necessarily beaten any/all of these, but I have played them all to some degree and enjoyed my time with them the most. No early access releases or time spent playing early access before release has been considered. In no particular order of things that were released on PC this year:

• Armored Core VI. Mech nerd porn. This may not scratch the itch for AC fans of the past, but in terms of being a nice looking mech action game, it's a lot of fun.
• Etrian Odyssey III HD. I enjoyed the integrated map tools that you could leave as manual or automated as you please. The other two are good too, but each title clearly builds on the others, so if you don't really care, you could just pick up the third in the trilogy without missing much from the other two, so far as I can tell.
• Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty. The 2.0 update was a significant overhaul of the game's mechanics and I had a lot of fun running around with it again and seeing some new areas and enemies.
• Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Basically a straight upgrade to Jedi Fallen Order and a lot of fun if you're into Star Wars.
• Spellforce: Conquest of Eo. This just scratched that fantasy MoM-like strategy itch. Not a perfect game by any stretch, but enjoyable.

Honourable mentions:

• Baldur's Gate 3. I played around 40 hours or so in early access and enjoyed it quite a bit. I expect to have a blast once I get back to it now that it's "finished".
• Turbo Overkill. I'm not a huge shooter fan, but this seems pretty well done, if you're into the fast Doom style, no weapon reloading sort of FPS.
• Sprawl. I preferred this to Turbo Overkill, at least for the amount I've played of each. It's slower paced (a positive) and some of the movement / platforming is more janky than TO (a negative), but whereas TO reminded me of a pure shooter in the realm of Doom, this one reminded me of a shooter more in the vein of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, with more of a story telling element and less straight forward levels. I just haven't played it enough to call it a favourite of this year, but it could be.

 

[Galdred]

Most of my gaming time has been split between WH40K Chaos Gate : Daemonhunters(because of its two new expansions) and Marvel Midnight Suns in 2023, but CG:Daemonhunters was already the game I would have listed as GOTY 2022, so I'll have to give it to Midnight Suns despite its pacing flaws (the whole Persona 5 inter mission should have been axed, and replaced with proper geoscape/base layer).

Games I played but stopped midway:
- Jagged Alliance 3: The game seemed solid, but it also looked like there was a ton of changes incoming, so I paused
- Rogue Trader: The game has potential, but it is too much of a buggy mess for now
- Spacebourne 2: awesome game concept, and good execution, apart from ground combat, but I am waiting for the game to exit Early Access to come back to it.

 

[jackofshadows]

Alan wake 2

Huh? What's so fun about it? Genuine question, haven't played that myself but thought it's a total garbage, based on what I've seen.

As for my own list - BG3, definitely. Since I usually go for playing as a total cunt I was amazed by the sheer amount of options for me and automatically skipped almost all the faggotry by going that path. Then I went for the good guy playthrough and by God, cringe levels went up instantly. Fuck that. Still had lot of fun with its combat, different setup etc, almost finished that playthrough even.

Then goes Colony Ship - great game combat wise, story wise was lacking although many writing bits and themes were still very good. Overall - very good, will come back later for sure.

Other games I tried were dissapointment except for one game which technically just been released (it was in the EA for a year or so and the release version isn't that different from recent builds) and it's Against the Storm. Highly recommend to anyone who likes city builders - it's something very special.

 

[Iucounu]

Let's also limit ourselves to current year releases

I haven't played a current year release since 2013 (Mass Effect 3), so this thread must do without my contribution.

 

[d1r]

Hi-Fi Rush crazy good beat 'em up.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Currently playing Half-Life and it's actually pretty good except for these bosses that keep turning up everywhere:

Spoiler

Also just found out that there's supposed to be music

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Poor Maxie, he barked current year releases, and everyone ignored it. I think he wanted someone to mention Hogwarts Legacy, so he wouldnt feel so ashamed playing it.

 

[Modron]

Poor Maxie, he barked current year releases, and everyone ignored it. I think he wanted someone to mention Hogwarts Legacy, so he wouldnt feel so ashamed playing it.

Maxie games almost exclusively on his switch these days, did HL come out for that?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Poor Maxie, he barked current year releases, and everyone ignored it. I think he wanted someone to mention Hogwarts Legacy, so he wouldnt feel so ashamed playing it.

Maxie games almost exclusively on his switch these days, did HL come out for that?

Yeah, they eventually scaled it down enough to release on it. Weird, I know.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

HL is Half-Life, you console nincampoop. Don't ever call a kid's game HL.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I forgot to mention Halls of Torment. I mentioned in that thread but it plays like a direct upgrade to Vampire Survivors and is a great snack size game for zoning out after work or as a palette cleanser between heavier games. I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Eh…if we’re limiting it to current year releases then I played a lot of crap this year. Not sure if it’s inadvertent selection bias or if 2023 was just a very weak year for vidya, but yeah. Kind of a crap year.

The best game I played was almost certainly Tears of the Kingdom (which I still had some major complaints about).
Other than that.. ummmm… Against the Storm was decent.

Oh and Mario Wonder was great fun with the kiddos, best 2D Mario in a long time.

All that said I’ve been holding off on some games that I’m looking forward to (Jedi: Survivor, Colony Ship, Rogue Trader) just because I haven’t had much time for games. Hopefully those all pan out once I get to them.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Vote for Against The Storm as well, it's quite all right. Talos Principle 2 isokay. Cyberpunk if expansions count.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Eh…if we’re limiting it to current year releases then I played a lot of crap this year. Not sure if it’s inadvertent selection bias or if 2023 was just a very weak year for vidya, but yeah. Kind of a crap year.

Crazy, I thought it was a great year overall.

 

[Tavar]

Eh…if we’re limiting it to current year releases then I played a lot of crap this year. Not sure if it’s inadvertent selection bias or if 2023 was just a very weak year for vidya, but yeah. Kind of a crap year.

Crazy, I thought it was a great year overall.

Why? There were a lot of releases, but most of them were forgettable AAA stuff. The only game of this year with a lasting impact will probably be Baldur's Gate 3 because it gives a blue print for successful AAA RPGs (lot of faggotry and bear sex).

 

[mediocrepoet]

Eh…if we’re limiting it to current year releases then I played a lot of crap this year. Not sure if it’s inadvertent selection bias or if 2023 was just a very weak year for vidya, but yeah. Kind of a crap year.

Crazy, I thought it was a great year overall.

Why? There were a lot of releases, but most of them were forgettable AAA stuff. The only game of this year with a lasting impact will probably be Baldur's Gate 3 because it gives a blue print for successful AAA RPGs (lot of faggotry and bear sex).

Eh, I don't hate all AAA stuff, just ignore a lot of it. But this is also General Gaming, not General RPG, so...summarized from my posts above:

• Armored Core VI
• Etrian Odyssey HD Collection
• Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty
• Star Wars Jedi Survivor
• Spellforce: Conquest of Eo
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Turbo Overkill
• Sprawl
• Halls of Torment

Stuff I didn't mention for various reasons but are still good:

• Aliens Dark Descent
• Jagged Alliance 3
• Caves of Lore (I should've mentioned this one, tbh)
• LoZ Tears of the Kingdom
• Super Mario Wonder
• Octopath Traveler II

I haven't played this but it will probably be great once the bugs are quashed:

• WH40K Rogue Trader

Those are just more noteworthy ones. There are other games that I consider to be at least pretty good that I haven't mentioned like Showgunners. There were releases whether indie or mainstream that most people even around here would consider anywhere between solid to great and they span almost any genre you can think of, so pretty much anyone should be able to find at least one or two enjoyable titles. If you like most genres, there were probably more good releases than you had time for. I haven't seen that in years. So yes, it was a great year for gaming.

 

[TripJack]

mario wonder because its the only one i played

 

[KD6-3.7]

Halls of Torment

It's a bit easy but loads of fun. Has classic feel to it as well, especially the dungeon map.

 

[DemonKing]

2023 games I've played this year and enjoyed:

Company of Heroes 3
Jedi Survivor
Shadow Gambit
Jagged Alliance 3
Baldur's Gate 3
Lords of the Fallen
Lies of P
Blood West
Robocop: Rogue City
Diablo IV
Quake II remaster
Trine 5
Alan Wake 2

(please don't ask me how many of the above I've actually finished!)