Before I play Baldur’s Gate III…
I know I’m late to the party, but I started Baldur’s Gate III this morning (finally). Before I potentially invest months of my life into 2023’s Game of the Year, I thought I’d take a moment to share my thoughts on all the other nominees just because this might be the only time I’ve played all the games nominated for the title of GOTY.
I don’t think it’s necessary for anyone- whether gamer or moviegoer, to have seen every movie nominated for an Oscar or to have beaten every game nominated for GOTY, but it’s rare I ever do this so I thought I’d reflect and express the range of opinions I had this past year with such fantastic releases.
When they announced the list of 2023 Game of the Year contenders, the first thought in my mind was, “I don’t mind if any of these games win”. To me, this might’ve been the first year where I was passionate about every single title.
2023’s GOTY nominees were:
Alan Wake II
Baldur’s Gate III
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Super Mario Wonder
and Spider-Man 2
Even though 2023 has already come and gone, I still think it’s important for me, as a man who bases his content on video games, to become more and more serious about publicly expressing more of my opinions on games that aren’t just Yakuza, Persona, or DS games (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Anyway, here are my summed up thoughts and opinions on 2023’s spectacular GOTY list.
First off, let’s start with Resident Evil 4 Remake. As someone who before, wasn’t that into survival horror or even Resident Evil, this remake completely swept me off my feet (and not just because everyone in it looks super hot). Without having any prior experience with the 2005 Resident Evil 4, I felt like I was able to snuggly fit myself into an entire series and genre that at one point, felt inaccessible to me. Before playing RE4R, I often strayed away from horror games simply because I get scared and anxious easily and would rather not put myself through stressful games if it can be helped. I’ve revved this series up like a chainsaw so many times, starting and stopping numerous entries (only completing Resident Evil 2 Remake) and could not get it to click with me… until now.
Resident Evil 4 Remake rocks so hard because it not only creates an experience to keep veterans of the series on their toes but it also confidently acts as a fantastic gateway to Resident Evil and survival horror games as a whole. The entire time I was playing Resident Evil 4, I noticed how it started making the concept of survival horror more legible for me.
Oftentimes, I would be faced with a situation where a dramatic amount of Ganados (RE4’s zombies) would be up ahead and I had like 2 bullets and a knife that maybe had one more parry left in it. In my head, I had a snowball’s chance in hell. What Resident Evil 4 taught me was how to get over that fear of anxiety in games. Because what I learned during my time with RE4 was the appeal and the thrill that came with facing impossible odds and coming out on top. More often than not, the odds of me overcoming the hoard of Ganados up ahead would be next to impossible. But the game rewards the player for frantic movement amongst the crowd and aggressive tactics that require a little more intimacy than I would like in a combat encounter. And after my playthrough of RE4R, I noticed how much more equipped I was for tense situations in video games that at one point, might’ve encouraged me to break the controller in half. I’m thankful Resident Evil 4 Remake exists because it not only opened up the floodgates of survival horror to me, but it also better equipped me to handle my anxiety in video games.
It’s called a “remake” but in many ways it’s more like a modern adaptation of the original because it’s not like they simply re-made the same exact game. Capcom took a game that a lot of passionate fans wanted to keep untouched and protected but instead, Capcom ended up making a title worthy of standing alongside the original.
Next up, we have what I thought was going to be my GOTY 2023: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I probably spent most of my year with TOTK than any other game on this list. I was playing it from May to September, and that was allI played for those 4 months. I already made a video on TOTK, so I’ll try not to repeat too much of what I already said.
Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t aim to recapture that feeling of playing Breath of the Wild, it aims to fully realize it. I think when looking at TOTK through that kind of lens rather than looking at it as a sequel, it’s easier to see a lot of the things Nintendo sought out to do with this title.
In many ways, Tears of the Kingdom is Nintendo’s way of making the kind of Zelda game they’ve been trying to perfect for almost 13 years and it shows. It’s the kind of game where we see the payoff of a lot of ideas and decisions conceived with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild. Something I’m really eager to see over time is how Tears of the Kingdom ages vs Breath of the Wild.
To me, BOTW was only playable once. So much of that game’s magic came from discovering the world and learning how to navigate and conquer it as a dramatically unarmed elf boy. Anyone who has played BOTW will know that starting over after already beating the game feels less and less exciting the more times you do it. And then you get “Post-Zelda Depression” because you “saw the Matrix” with BOTW but can’t even replay it because it’s not the same and no other open world game comes close to replicating it.
Tears of the Kingdom to me, has more potential of being a Zelda game I can return to time and time again (I just wish they let us keep different save files). Because of this title’s bigger emphasis on creativity, I am confident this is a Zelda that will stand the test of time better than BOTW. It may have not had that same eye-opening impact that BOTW had, but Tears of the Kingdom will definitely be the one I return to as time goes on.
Super Mario Wonder is a brilliant game that takes the style of 2D Mario and puts an unexpected twist on it at every turn. I didn’t give Super Mario Wonder my full attention this year because I only ever played it between the other games that came out this year. And I think this game fits that role perfectly.
Wonder is a Mario game that isn’t afraid to change things up and keep the player on their toes. It’s a game that is best went into blind with zero expectations because it’s main gimmick revolves around what the game likes to call a “Wonder Flower”. Every level has a Wonder Flower and when Mario touches it, the level redefines itself right before your eyes. Mario could suddenly morph into a Goomba and the player will need to make it to the end of the level without being spotted by other enemies. Sometimes the level will suddenly shift to a top-down perspective, giving the player the illusion of playing a 3D Mario game. I kinda don’t want to comment any more on the game, simply because going through the game was a joy to experience without any idea of what to expect.
Alan Wake II surprised me the most out of all the games that came out this year. Set 13 years after the events of the first game, Alan Wake II tells Remedy Entertainment’s most confident story that celebrates their entire history along with continuing the saga of Alan Wake’s entrapment in “The Dark Place”, a supernatural dimension where art influences reality.
I finished the original Alan Wake right before I jumped into its sequel and I thought it was alright. I kind of had to force myself to beat Alan Wake (2010) because the gameplay wasn’t my cup of tea but I wanted to at least have the context of the first game under my belt. With that said, I was absolutely entranced by Alan Wake II.
Alan Wake II is a survival horror game that continues Wake’s saga, while also celebrating all of Remedy Entertainment’s past projects.
The player starts off as Saga Anderson, an FBI agent investigating a series of cult murders in Bright Falls, Washington. The game starts off as a slow burn, having you start as an FBI agent, investigating a crime scene, interrogating witnesses, and manually piecing together evidence. And then the game eventually puts a gun and flashlight in your hand and you might think you know how the rest of the game plays out but no- you don’t.
Because what follows after AW2’s tutorial is a celebration of film, television, music, books, poetry, and of course, video games. All of these artforms work in harmony to create Alan Wake II’s rich story and unmatched atmosphere. During my time with Alan Wake 2, I watched a Finnish Short Film, took part in an autobiographical musical, and listened to a kickass album between it all. What I experienced was Remedy’s past games uniting in a game that fully embraces creativity in all forms. I kinda don’t want to say anything else about the game other than: I loved it very much, I’m definitely playing it again, and who knows when another game like this will be made again so you should definitely try it for yourself.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018) is my all-time favorite game. So you can assume how hyped I was for its sequel Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 which looked to be on a much grander scale than its preceding games- combining Peter Parker and Miles Morales’s story all into one big Spidey adventure. You can bet I called out of work for this one.
I cranked through Spider-Man 2 the week it came out and I remember feeling a swarm of emotions after rolling the credits. I think because the original is my favorite game of all time, I was looking at this game with a much more critical lens, maybe too critical. Because I have spent the past 5 or 6 years turning on the original Spider-Man and have easily spent hundreds of hours just web-swinging. To me, it’s a game with so much heart and warmth and comfort.
So judging Spider-Man 2 on its own merits and not comparing it to my favorite game of all time- I think it’s a well-made game. A solid game. And when Insomniac releases the big update allowing for a New Game Plus later this year, I’m sure I’ll jump back into the game and maybe play it again.
Any fan of 90’s style Spider-Man will feel right at home with this game’s buckwild plot and symbiote storyline. As for me, I think the game had a really strong first half. I think the pacing of the story and its missions was miles better than its predecessors. I absolutely loved switching between Miles and Peter’s Spider-Men. And the swinging is- *chef’s kiss* it’s beautiful.
But I think the moment I fell out of love with Spider-Man 2 was when I stopped seeing the game through rose-tinted Spider-lenses. This was the game that kind of made me realize how fatigued I am of big budget cinematic action games. Spider-Man 2 is bigger and much grander than its predecessors, but that does not make it greater.
As a video game, Spider-Man 2 was the least eye-opening title on this list for me. One could easily point out how biased I am because of how much I adore the first game, therefore, I’m going to be more critical of Spider-Man 2 than the average player. But I still stand by my statement that as a video game, Insomniac did not really do anything with Spider-Man other than crank it up to 11. In this game, there are more Spider-Men, flashier combat, stronger villains, and more New York to swing around in. Insomniac was really clever with how they mixed and matched Spidey’s mythos to create a story unique from decades of Spider-Man stories out there.
Resident Evil 4 took an untouchable classic and perfectly adapted it to a modern audience without alienating its veteran fans. Tears of the Kingdom took a genre-defining title and somehow proved it could be perfected even more. Alan Wake II is what you get when a game embraces all kinds of artforms and has them work in harmony to create a horror atmosphere that goes unmatched. And Spider-Man 2 was a well-made big budget cinematic superhero game with the big wallets of Sony and the passionate fans of Marvel behind it- and that’s great! I’m not saying Spider-Man needed to redefine how we play video games. But part of me couldn’t help but feel some people might’ve looked at the Game Awards as a popularity contest when a big budget cinematic superhero game like Spider-Man 2 didn’t win a Game of the Year award.
Something else I briefly wanted to address was how some of the louder fans of Spider-Man 2 have been dissing Baldur’s Gate III, comparing cinematic footage of SM2 to put down BG3’s game of the year victory. And as a Spider-Man fan, yes, Spider-Man 2 is a technical marvel and looks beautiful in terms of photorealism mixed with flashy action-packed set pieces ripped straight from a comic book- but I don’t think that inherently makes a game worth the GOTY title and I’m kind of exhausted of seeing that take.
That’s just my take as a Spider-Man fan. Take it up in the comments.
So far, I’m a only a few hours into Baldur’s Gate III and I can’t wait to play as much of it as I can without letting it f*ck up my life. Anyway, thank you if you made it this far. I try to blog and make videos when I can in between a full-time job and the personal life stuff and of course- video games. So thank you for showing up here.
Happy New Year!
