Best:

• Hi-Fi Rush: Holy crap, I didn’t expect Shinji Mikami to make the best character action game since DMC3. From the soundtrack to the gameplay to the artstyle this game really stands out as something amazing.
• Pizza Tower: I’m gonna be honest, I missed the hype train for this game. I knew it was coming but I didn’t play any of the betas or follow the community, but once it released I was pleasantly surprised by its blazingly fast and addictive gameplay loop.
• RE4 Remake: I prefer the oldschool tank control RE games, but this is a pretty fantastic remake that stays pretty faithful to the original game.
• Dead Space Remake: GOATed. Reimagining the game as one giant open area instead of locked off mission zones really opens up the exploration aspect, and the random scares you’d run into while re-treading old environments caught me off guard every few hours.
• Street Fighter VI: I didn’t expect Capcom to hit it out of the park so hard. After the disaster of SFV leading to me quitting fighting games for a few years and eventually discovering Tekken/Guilty Gear I never thought I’d be back to playing good ol’ Street Fighter, but the systems are really well thought out and deceptively deep.

Disappointments:

• Diablo IV: I might be a little salty since it’s so recent but I’m not really jiving with D4 right now. The game feels like busy work, the scaling feels wrong and it just doesn’t have the QoL I expect from a billion dollar company. Maybe it’ll open up later, but with Path of Exile 2 around the corner I don’t need this game to be great.
• System Shock: The game is probably great. Issue is I bought it on Deck and the controller support is extremely half baked to the point where I am just going to shelve it until they update it.
• Last of Us 1 (Steam): It just doesn’t work.

It isn’t fully in the spirit of the post, but I really, really enjoyed the For the King 2 closed beta last month. The gameplay felt just a bit more complicated than the first one, but very much in the same vein, which is what I was hoping for. It does have a 2023 release date, however, so I’m hopeful!

Hi-Fi Rush and Hogwart’s Legacy so far for me.

In the “disappointments” category, has to be Redfall. I don’t think anyone expected anything from Gollum.

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I know it’s a small title, but #PlanetOfLana is maybe the best game I’ve played this year so far.

Humanity was perhaps the biggest surprise. It’s not much of a looker, but I just couldn’t put it down until I had 100% completed it. The puzzles are really addictive.

Tears of the kingdom and Hi-fi rush were bangers

Lone Fungus has been the only new game (as in released in 2023) I’ve bought so far but I wholeheartly recommend it to anyone who’s fond of the Metroidvania genre.

I’ve only really played two games that have come out this year, Street Fighter 6 and HiFi Rush. Both are GOTY-material if you like action.

Oh and Warhammer 40k Boltgun. Fun old-school FPS in the style of Duke Nukem 3D and co. Highly recommend it if you enjoy either the license or a satisfying shotgun or two.