What games did you complete in 2023?

[lycanwarrior]

The number of games that I finished this year is quite a bit less compared to the previous years mainly due to some long-ass games lol.

Completed:

Resident Evil Village - - The Resident Evil games that everyone knows and loves.
Pathfinder WotR - - 2nd playthrough continued from last year. Still in the process of playing through the Lord of Nothing DLC
Marvel Midnight Suns - - Rating could've been higher were it not for the performance issues especially with later DLCs.
Dead Island 2 - - Great mindless mayhem
Lamplighters League - - Fun for what it is. Near the end though, it really started to drag with the recycled stages and invasion countdown that seems like a blatant attempt to simply pad out the game length. Interface and movement is really janky as well.
Deliver Us Mars - - Good game although story not quite as memorable as the previous Deliver Us the Moon game.
Death Stranding Directors Cut - - Can't wait for the sequel!
Farcry 3 Blood Dragon - - Very fun and funny game and does not take itself seriously.
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines - - This would be a perfect score if not for some weird bugs and one of the end-game bosses being too overpowered if you didn't spec your character specifically for combat. Had to cheat to beat it.
Stasis Bone Totem - - Would be a perfect score but horror adventure games are too niche for most people
Assassin's Creed Mirage - - Solid game, love the emphasis on stealth. Starts slow and takes a while to get going.
Baldurs Gate 3 - - Fun game although the companions aren't quite as memorable as BG2. 5th Edition still doesn't make for a great CRPG system IMHO.
Colony Ship - Solid game but agree with others who say the first half of the game appears to be more fleshed out compared to the latter half. 1st playthrough as charismatic character, 2nd playthrough as melee brawler.

Retired:

Spellforce 3 Reforced - - Fun game but some of the RTS sections are just brutal and too difficult.
Need for Speed Unbound - - A game made for the hip-hop Zoomer crowd lol. It can be fun, but really gets grindy and repetitive. Also surprisingly difficult for a "mainstream" AAA game.

Ongoing:

Street Fighter 6 - - Trying to finish up World Tour mode but having to grind for health drinks in order to complete the arena section that has multiple fights in a row and doesn't allow you to resume the previous fighter; if you leave the arena you have to start back from the very 1st fighter again. Blatant attempt to pad out the game length lol.
Spellforce Conquest of EO - - Had to restart the campaign as I missed some important quests early on and was unable to upgrade my army to level 3.
Jagged Alliance 3 - Getting close to the end. Very long game.
The Crew Motorfest - -Very fun racing game. Did not really notice too much "wokeness" despite the Sweet Baby collab.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora - Great game if you have a high-end PC. Mix of Far Cry and Crysis.

 

[antimeridian]

Spent majority of the year playing online garbage with friends.
Actual quality shit that I'm not embarrassed about listing includes Portal/Portal 2, Max Payne/Max Payne 2, Ghostrunner was the best title I played this year. Didn't really touch anything that came out in 2023.

 

[Squidhead]

Witcher 3 - Meh
Gothic 2 - Yes (but got shit towards the end)
Nier Automata - Meh
Dead Rising 2 - Meh
Dark Souls - Beautiful (but got shit towards the end)
Resident Evil 4 (2005)- Perfection
Final Fantasy 2 - Awful

 

[Spike]

I started Yakuzer 5, Enderal, and Nioh 2. Only finished Nioh 2...But got back into Enderal. Also in process of replaying Ratchet and Clank 3 and will most likely finish by New Year's.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

C&C Remastered - the add on campaigns were a first playthrough for me. Very good effort overall when it comes to the remaster itself and I had more fun with it than I initially expected to. Some of the mission design in the expansions is questionable though and I hate most of the missions with no base building as much as I ever did. The ant stuff was amusing.

King's Bounty 2 - don't ask why, I just did, ok? It's just plain bad game though, like a super janky PB-like euro rpg (with all that entails, including every woman character sharing the same tired face) with very mid tactical battles that have no interesting challenges to them. A lot of extremely poor design decisions as well.

Q2 - I think the remaster effort is slightly better here than it was in Q1. The vanilla campaign flowed smoothly, the expansions not nearly as much. The extra ep was meh, the N64 missions shite and a waste of time.

Risen - the new patch they released seemed to have done feck all for the overall qol and I didn't notice any technical improvements, either. But hey, it made me replay the game, which I appreciate. Everything before the lizards show up is gr8 and easily the best post G2 PB game imo.

System Shock (the new version) - Looked and handled fine overall and the game itself rocks. I have no idea how they've spent so much time on it, though, the crisis of competence in game design/development/project management seems to be reaching critical levels.

 

[MpuMngwana]

It seems I played way too much. I pretty much doubled the last year's number and, worst of all, I didn't notice any change in my day-to-day habits.

Dragon Quest IV
Memoirs of a Battle Brothel
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
Bully
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto IV + The Lost and the Damned + The Ballad of Gay Tony
Like a Dragon: Ishin!
Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise from the Ashes
Grand Theft Auto V
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
Final Fantasy VII
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Metroid Prime
Onimusha: Warlords
Koudelka
Metroid Fusion
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Super Mario World I guess but pure platformers were never my thing so I lack a frame of reference here
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (modded)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption
Prey (2017)
Parasite Eve
Dishonored 2
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Tomb Raider (1996)
Baldur's Gate III
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Vagrant Story
Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Dark Forces II
Space Wreck
Silent Hill 2
Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Fable: Anniversary
Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-Playing Game
Final Fantasy VIII
Arx Fatalis
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

 

[janior]

Resident Evil 4 - Along with Max Payne 1 and 2 the best TPS
Resident Evil 2 - Fantastic Sequel, less spook more action
C&C Remastered - Really loved Tiberian Dawn the mission design was more interesting than in Red Alert(especially NOD), didn't beat the allies campaign for it
Warcraft 2 - artstyle and music are still legendary didn't play the expansion yet
Baldur's Gate 1 - if I ever replay this one again it will be without the sword coast expansion
Baldur's Gate 3 - Good game despite everything around it
Ninja Gaiden Sigma - Not as bad as NGB fanboys say, enjoyed new weapons
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - Inferior to the original but still alright
Ninja Gaiden Black - close to perfection, some annoying adventure elements
Ninja Gaiden 2 - the best third person action game ever created
Tomb Raider: Underworld - it was ok I guess, way too much symmetrical map design
Tomb Raider: Anniversary - a good remake of the original
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - replayed RoE and SoD
PSX DOOM - a great way to replay doom1/2
Metroid: Samus Returns - very mediocre, had some good ideas but overall its a miss

 

[Pelvis Knot]

C&C Remastered
Return of the Obra Dinn
Starcraft and Brood War

 

[Modron]

Stuff I had the most fun with, mostly indie affairs:
Caves of Lore
Colony Ship
Dead Monarchy
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
Heads Will Roll Reforged + Downfall + one run through the Original (for comparison).
Jagged Alliance 3
Kurohyou 1
Like a Dragon Ishin
Lords of Xulima
Lost Judgment
Punch Club 1-2
Starsector
Star Valor
Ludus Mortis

Adventure Games:
Behind the Frame
Dreams in the Witch House
Goby World
Happygame
Insomnia Theater in the Head
Midnight Scenes: From the Woods
Mothman 1966
Repella Fella
Rogue Quest: The Vault of the Lost Tyrant
Stellar Mess: The Princess Conundrum

Biomutant (kek)
Ender Lilies
Flower
Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune
Gears Tactics
Grand Mountain Adventure
Jack Move
Journey
A Juggler's Tale
Macbat 64
Need for Speed (not the good one)
Nier Replicant
Pixel Heroes Byte & Magic (meh)
Queen's Wish
Tails of Iron
Watch Dogs (got it for free years ago)
Wings Remastered Edition (meh)

Going to try to finish off Space Wreck, the Crew since Ubisoft is killing it, and maybe an adventure game before the year ends. Plus I completed who knows how many demos because my replay says I played 1 of them.

 

[taxalot]

Only one I can think of right now is Starfield.

Thanks, I'm depressed now.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Parasite Eve

A question, if I may. Did you play Parasite Eve on a console or emulated on PC? If the second is true is the emulation enjoyable experience and can it be satisfyingly played with mouse and keyboard or do I need a controler to have fun?

 

[Hellraiser]

A question, if I may. Did you play Parasite Eve on a console or emulated on PC? If the second is true is the emulation enjoyable experience and can it be satisfyingly played with mouse and keyboard or do I need a controler to have fun?

Keyboard is fine and you could probably play on a phone with a touch screen as well, so very similar to some other square JRPGs when emulated on a phone. While you can move in combat while the action bar charges, it wasn't twitchy from what I recall. I remember finishing it on a laptop's cramped keyboard, even did the optional hardest boss.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Parasite Eve

A question, if I may. Did you play Parasite Eve on a console or emulated on PC? If the second is true is the emulation enjoyable experience and can it be satisfyingly played with mouse and keyboard or do I need a controler to have fun?

I played it emulated, keyboard only. Didn't have much issues since while combat is real-time it isn't really action based and it pauses as you go into menus to select targets and abilities.

 

[Hagashager]

The only new games I played were Pokémon Yellow and Baldur's Gate 3. Everything else were replays as usual.

In chronological order:

Pokémon Yellow: As a little boy circumstances contrived themselves such that I could never access the Pokémon series. To satiate my inner-child I played Pokémon Yellow. It was cute, but didn't make me a fan. I will most likely never play another Pokémon game.

Paper Mario: Still a great game.I felt slightly childish playing it at one point, but then remembered I pay a mortgage and utility bills in an empty condo. I can jolly-well enjoy a Mario game.

Kotor 2: Modded it on my phone. It ran like a dream. It was an odd game to play in a hospital while my father was fighting heart disease and we were all fearing the worst. But he made it out, and I beat K2 the day of his discharge. I have no nostalgia for the fear, but I'm slightly wistful about the cozy late nights in his hospital room listening to Kreia wax philosophical.

Super Mario World: Damn fine platformer. Comfy summer nights after work playing through it in my now less empty condo.

Baldur's Gate 3: There's a 600 page thread on it. Go read it for a full breakdown. It's a Larian cRPG with Baldur's Gate trappings. I had a very good time with it, but for every good there was usually a bad to come along with it. Act 3 in particular sucked.

Gothic 1: It's Gothic. I enjoy the first half, but second half gets cumbersome. I also think the "humble beginnings" element loses itself completely by Chapter 3. I would've preferred it stay a prisoner escaping prison story.

Chronicles of Myrtana- Archolos: fantastic mod. It is exactly what I want from Gothic.


I started an IWD classic run, but I may not finish it. I want to do IWD SCS. I also modded Kotor 1 on my phone recently and want to start that, but for some reason K1 runs far worse than K2. No idea why. Even unmodded it runs sluggishly.

 

[Gostak]

Streets of Rogue - fun roguelite
MP possible, usermade additional chunk packs and lots of basegame options keep it varied

Heat Signature - how to describe this? Pauseable, puzzle-y top-down tactical action roguelite, maybe
completing it is a bit of a grind, but a fun one and you mostly constantly get to choose the difficulty yourself

Monaco (well the Locksmith'es missions with all coins anyway) - top-down action game with quite some stealth
MP possible, HEAPS of user generated levels

Doom Infinite - sort of turning Doom into a roguelite with meta progression unlocks proper. Well actually you cannot complete this currently, however I finally had an unstoppable run going
which I foolishly lost via save-game overwrite when trying out another mod

 

[Sinilevä]

Gothic 1 - this needs to be replayed once in a while. Maybe will replay Gothic 2 by the end of the year.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Armored Core VI: It was alright.
(nu) Lords of the Fallen: It was pretty ok. Rough launch and nonstop daily patching was kind of annoying.
Volcano Princess: It was ok.
CULTIC: Pretty mid in the batch of new retro shooters. Too brown.
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order™: A competent but overrated Star Wars game. Exploration largely felt unrewarding because the majority of it was poncho colors or saber pieces so small you'll never be looking at them in game.
STRANGER OF PARADISE: Very good. My only complaints with this title are similar with the Nioh games, I don't enjoy Diablo like gear grinding in games like this.
Resident Evil 4 "remake": Didn't really care for the character or music changes in this one.
Tropico 6: Great soundtrack. Annoying amount of DLC. If you asked what changes there were from Tropico 4 to this I wouldn't be able to answer.
Ender Lilies: Fairly average Metroidvania.
Darkestville Castle: Pretty standard point and click adventure. It was ok can't really complain.

Will probably finish Rogue Trader before the year is over. Pretty lame year to be honest.

 

[Abu Antar]

Championship Manager 01/02

Why this version? How did it get 10/10?

It is probably my favorite game of all time, only rivaled by Championship Manager 00/01 and Arcanum.

But why?
-Quick to get going, and quick to play. You can be done with a season in five hours or less. While I like many of the newer games, they take longer to start. I'm playing FM24 (the same goes for FM20, I don't buy them as regularly as I used to), and five hours won't even get you to the midpoint of the season.
-I love the diversity of tactics that you can use, and be successful with. There's a myriad of ways to build your tactics, and not only that: You can move around your players positions, fine tuning them as much as you like.
-I have very fond memories of playing this versus my brothers as kids. All three of us would pick a team and challenge each other. This one is as subjective as it gets, but we still challenge each other every couple of years, even if the save files usually aren't that long.
-Less bullshitting around with other stuff than actually just managing the team. While I get why they try to add as much stuff as they can to the newer games, I just want to play matches.
-Great, and easy database to play around with. Not a lot of crap to deal with. Even someone like me can get into it, and just edit what he wants. One funny memory was when we edited in ourselves in the game, as 14 year old wonderkids. I was doing the best, and bid to buy both of my brothers (the players in the game), and they both got unhappy, because they weren't allowed to. Begrudgingly, I had to agree to delete the game. The butthurt was real!
-Easy database fix leads me to another reason. Thanks to an easy to edit database, there are dedicated people who update it with current squads, teams, competitions. The last update I played was for last season. Not only that, but they also change the tactics to match current day tactics used. There's even options for inflation, so the values of player values, wages, income, etc go up. They can change a lot.
-There's more, but these are the biggest reasons. Well, one more thing is that it's still fun to play all these years later.

 

[Doctor Gong]

I didn't beat many games as I took a six month break from gaming.

FAKE

GAMER

Eh, chopping wood, gardening, and making homemade board games/homebrewing D&D and ignoring the computer and phone for six months got me out of a funk I was in for 2 years, and once I got out of that funk I went and got a new job which I enjoy a lot more and now have some spare change to pick up some games. Eventually I will have to upgrade from the 1050 Ti card I have, but right now I have plenty of games below that threshhold that I can still play, so no rush.

 

[deuxhero]

I beat Doom (episodes 2, 3, and 4 because I've beaten 1 enough), Doom 2, Hexen, and Heretic. All great, though all of them suffer from very uneven level design. Didn't do Hexen's expansion yet though since the process of patching it on Linux was enough of a pain to dissuade me from actually playing it.

Dark Forces II and Mysteries of the Sith (via OpenJKDF2) however suffer from consistently awful level design despite excellent gameplay. Levels are serviceable to "what? How the fuck were you supposed to figure that out?!".

Nioh 2 was great, though I never really bothered with the DLC/NG+.

Akiba's Trip 1 was fun, but primitive. 2 was way better, but has been retroactively censored by tranny cowards.

Stick of Truth was OK. Too much into memberberries for humor (ironic considering what created that name) until the last third. Super unbalanced.

I can probably squeeze out Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (via openRCT) if I wanted to, but I have no desire to finish Ghost Town since it has no failure state and is purely about mastery of coaster building mechanics. I think I'd rather finish of Tales of Vesperia since I'm in the last part and got bored with all the sidequests that unlock after that town becomes inaccessible.

Realized I should mention that X4 and Morrowind (Tamriel Rebuilt content only. Via OpenMW) ate up over 190 hours and 33.3 hours respectively. X4 doesn't really have a "complete" state, and neither does Morrowind outside of the main quest I didn't touch this playthrough.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I'm an unemployed no-lifer(of the rich, fit and handsome variety) and I'm amazed at how productive you people are. I have a lot to learn from you guys.

 

[Fink]

1. Fable II
2. Morrowind
3. New Vegas
4. Knights of the Old Republic
5. Knights of the Old Republic II
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
7. Baldur's Gate 1
8. Four Last Things
9. Vampire Bloodlines
10. Arx Fatalis
11. Dark Messiah
12. Hogwarts Legacy
13. Grand Theft Auto III

 

[Serious_Business]

Lots of ToME for me. Almost 200h. Didn't finish it. I expect to get a win after 2000h+. Although to be fair I do play on insane roguelike, it would be fairly easy on exploration normal or something.

I don't need any other game anymore. ToME is the One Game. All your other game design is shit.

 

[Sibelius]

Pentiment: Thought it was pretty good, great presentation and attention to detail. Decent story, not woke, not an RPG - 7/10

The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante: Amazing dark visual novel/CYOA type game in a unique fantasy setting and very replayable. Went with clergy for my first and only playthrough (so far) to continue my religion focused start to the gaming year (I'm an atheist, but religion themed games tend to have interesting philosophical stories) 8.5/10

Hogwarts Legacy: Enjoyed the castle and atmosphere, they really nailed the Harry Potter movie series feel. Main story was pretty generic and I done the bare minimum open world fetch quests - 7/10

Jedi Survivor: Enjoyed it pretty much equally to the first, very similar Sekiro lite gameplay. Decent story with a few obvious twists, interesting morality conundrum with the antagonist - 8/10

Moonscars: Atmospheric souls-like metroidvania with amazing pixel art and atmosphere. Really great character control, combat and boss fights. Decent lore and world building. 8/10

Signalis: Nice 2D pixel art Resident Evil-like game. Good puzzles and interesting story and setting 7/10

The Last Case of Benedict Fox: Interesting metroidvania set in the 1920s with an amazing Art-Deco aesthetic. Great puzzles and interesting story 8.5/10

Death's Gambit - Afterlife: Another souls-like metroidvania. Great exploration, decent combat and an interesting plot. Not on par with Moonscars or Last Case of Benedict Fox visually, but made up for it with the world. 8/10

Stasis: Fantastic dark sci-fi point and click adventure with very tricky puzzles and amazing art. Have bought the sequel and looking forward to playing that soon 8.5/10

Remnant From the Ashes: Found it really difficult starting the game on hard mode. Read later that you should only switch to hard mode when you have a complete build. Some very tough boss fights, mainly with loads of adds, which I don't like, but I pushed through and enjoyed the challenge and reward. 7.5/10

Baldur's Gate 3: Played with a ton of mods to improve the experience. Went with a female MC so the gayness becomes a positive rather than a negative . Really enjoyed the campaign and didn't have any technical issues in Act 3 as some seem to have had, didn't think the plot of Act 3 was much of a decline over the first two either. I did play with the Better Aesthetics mod, which I believe makes the city bearable (no pun intended). Presentation was top notch, using classically trained British actors really makes a difference and its a crime the soundtrack didn't win at the awards, it was fantastic. Didn't like the continuation of the 2023 trope of making every male an 8 STR. Nearly uninstalled when Minsc joined the party and was a generic low strength ranger, even though his character sheet when fighting him before joining the party pretty much matched up to his BG1 and BG2 stats. Think they explained it away as having to use the standard ranger stat spread so as not to confuse people, which makes sense and fits with the general theme of dumbing things down across all media. Overall a great game though 9/10

Colony Ship: Enjoyed Colony Ship quite a bit. It was released the day I completed BG3 and I had already bought in early access (to support development, I never actually play in EA), so I took that as a sign to give Colony Ship 1.0 a go. Really enjoyed the grim writing and world, was refreshing after playing BG3 for a couple of months. Enjoyed the tough as nails tactical combat and the setting/premise. Felt the game underdelivered in terms of amount of content and party interactions/quests etc. Didn't like the scale of much of the combat, the Naked Gun meme with two guys shooting each other from 2 feet away really is perfect for CS. Overall I really enjoyed it though. Last year I played The Ascent and Underrail and was hoping Colony Ship would be a baby of those two with Ascent like graphics and Underrail style gameplay, alas it fell short of that. 8/10

Aeterna Noctis: Work in progress, but hope to finish this year. That is no guarantee though, because this could very well be the hardest game I have ever played! AN is a precision platforming metroidvania, really beautiful world, pretty generic story (so far), but the gameplay is addictive as hell. It is also known to be one of the biggest metroidvanias. Maybe a bit ambitious of me to think I'll finish this year, given that I never read guides and difficulty and size of the game are extreme, but this could very well be my GOTY 9/10 (so far)

 

[TripJack]

I finished Dusk which was good and Dork Messiah and Derpshonored 2 which were ok