Last December I did an end-of-year recap thing that got a lot of fun comments. Thought I’d do it again this year! What games did you complete (or just play a lot of)? What did you think about them? Highlights? Lowlights? Might be a good chance to find some hidden gems while the Steam sale is on too.
I finished a surprisingly large number of games this year. Sorted by date completed, oldest first…
A Short Hike | 8/10
Cute, short, and fun. Perfect game to start the year.
Inside | 8/10
Limbo was the very last game I completed in '23, and I definitely preferred Inside overall. I liked the atmosphere, visuals, and puzzles more here.
Hook 2 | 7/10
NABOKI | 6/10
Up Left Out | 6/10
I bought these three as part of a bundle. Short and fun puzzle games, nothing super memorable.
Firewatch | 7/10
Definitely an enjoyable time, great voice acting, but the ending was kind of underwhelming.
Cyber Hook | 7/10
I really like this style of 3D platformer, but there aren’t a lot of them. The only other one I can think of is Grapple, which was hugely underrated.
Lunistice | 6/10
Cute art style, but I remember the controls feeling a little bit janky.
Slay the Princess | 8/10
Fuckin’ weird, I love it.
Unpacking | 6/10
I was disappointed that I didn’t vibe with this one very much. Telling the story through the items you own is a super cool idea, but I just couldn’t get myself to really care about where to place the items which is the entire gameplay loop.
Hades | 10/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
I don’t like roguelikes, so I skipped Hades for a long time, but I finally gave in. I LOVED my time with this. The meta progression was done well enough that I felt like I was still making progress overall so the roguelike-ness never bothered me, and every other aspect of this game is perfection. My highest rated game of the year because I cannot find a reason to take a point away.
Trail Out | 7/10
Something something imitation, something something flattery. This is a Flatout game, but it’s honestly a pretty good one. I had a fun time with it, but I’d never take this over Flatout 2.
art of rally | 7/10
I’m not a huge fan of top-down racers but with some tweaks in the camera settings it’s bearable. What really hurts this game is the penalty/recovery system, it’s so eager to reset your car the moment you go off the track, even if only by a hair, it destroys the flow. Graphics are beautiful though.
Hot Wheels Unleashed | 6/10
It’s fine. Super repetitive, lootbox-esque progression is stupid, but it’s mechanically sound. I would only recommend if you’re desperate for arcade racers like I am.
Loddlenaut | 7/10
I love how cleaning games have become a genre. This is a short and sweet game about cleaning the ocean, I had a good time with this one on the Steam Deck.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 | (the PS2 one) | 9/10
There’s a decent chance this was the first video game I ever played. If not the first, it’s at least among the first couple. I’ve started so many saves but never actually finished the career mode until now. Aside from the career structure being a bit boring, it’s still a highlight of the franchise for me. Beautiful tracks, beautiful cars, top tier early '00s soundtrack, great handling, I love this game.
Gear.Club Unlimited 2 | 6/10
Look, I’m really desperate for arcade racers, okay? This one isn’t a live service, isn’t always online, no lootboxes, no battle passes, I’ll take it.
Toem | 7/10
Cute, but there were several times throughout my playthrough where it felt like what should’ve been the solution wasn’t, and the actual solution made less sense than what I was trying to do, which was a bit frustrating.
Hi-Fi Rush | 9/10
The score went up an entire point when The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die started playing. I really hope this gets a sequel.
Burnout Revenge | 9/10
Another game I’ve started many times and never finished. NFS:HP2 may have been a nostalgia-driven 9/10, but this is a genuine 9/10. Absolutely puts everything from the past 10 years of this genre to shame.
DiRT 4 | 6/10
Painfully dull. DiRT Rally is a way better sim, DiRT 2/3/5 are way better arcade racers, there is no reason to ever touch this. I finished it because I am desperate for racing games.
Ghostrunner II | 7/10
This one didn’t vibe with me as much as the first, and I’m not really sure why. The bike levels were a bit janky but were still fun for variety, and I still liked the game overall, but I’m more likely to replay the first than this.
SPRAWL | 9/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
If SPRAWL didn’t have a soundtrack, it would be an 8/10, good time, recommend. However, I have had this goddamn soundtrack on repeat since playing it. This is my favorite video game OST and it’s not even remotely close. This is a neurofunk album with a video game tie-in.
Blur 8/10
The fact that when I first played this I instantly got a message from a friend I hadn’t talked to in years asking “HOW DID YOU GET A STEAM KEY” says so much about the legacy of this game. It existed for such as short period of time and was horribly underrated. (I wish I owned this game on Steam, but it was a non-Steam copy.)
Webbed | 7/10
Cute platformer, don’t really much about it at the moment besides skateboarding spiders.
Bastion | 8/10
Played after putting many more hours into Hades to see where Supergiant came from. I was impressed by how well it holds up, fun to see earlier concepts that Hades would perfect.
Old School Rally | ?/10
Technically an early access game, but I finished all the available career events. Very promising PS1-style rally game.
Stories: The Path Of Destinies | 8/10
You ever have one (or hundreds) of those games you got in a Humble Bundle 5 years ago and just never touched? This was one of those, I randomly decided to play it, and it was great! Fantastic voice acting, fun story, fun combat, I wish I played it sooner.
Exo One | ?/10
I don’t know what’s going on and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. I think I launched a marble at Jupiter?
Hardspace: Shipbreaker | 8/10
This was my podcast game for a while. Not very deep, but it’s fun to gradually tear ships apart. Definitely recommend playing on the lower difficulty, having to worry about O2 and stuff kills the vibe.
To the Moon | 5/10
Explaining why I don’t like this game involves major spoilers. To keep it vague, I really don’t like how they handled one of the characters in the story. If you’ve played the game, you either understand or think I’m insane because apparently this is a masterpiece.
ExoCross | 6/10
Very basic offroad racer. Used to be named “DRAG” but then the developers were bought by iRacing. The game seems like it was frantically rushed out of early access after that. The native Linux port is excellent though.
RUINER | 7/10
10/10 vibes, 5/10 gameplay.
Furi | 8/10
“That final boss sure was easy… oh? oh! OH FUCK!” followed by many deaths until I finally won.
Pseudoregalia | 8/10
10/10 movement/controls, but the environments felt a little bland. There’s an accessibility option to put pants on your character.
Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition | 6/10
It’s fine, but nothing especially noteworthy compared to other metroidvanias I’ve played.
Redout II | 9/10 (Top 3 of the Year)
(I played with the assists off because I am a stubborn bastard, I have no idea how the assists change the gameplay.)
Redout II will repeatedly punch you in the face until your brain wraps itself around controlling these 2700km/h deathtraps. But trust me, once you get good, it’s euphoric. One of my favorite gaming experiences this year was missing out on a gold medal in a time trial by several seconds and thinking “how the fuck is this possible”? And then I tried again. And again. Going faster, and faster, until I had beaten the gold time by several seconds. Every time you think you can’t go any faster, you’re wrong, just be better.
Crayon Physics Deluxe | 5/10
Great idea for a puzzle game, but the janky physics made it more frustrating than fun.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | 7/10
It’s fine, but doesn’t really feel like it lives up to the hype surrounding it.
Mini Motor Racing X | 6/10
Painfully dull career mode, but I’m desperate for arcade racers.
Parking Garage Rally Circuit | 7/10
Short but fun.
Minecraft | ?/10
I haven’t beaten Minecraft in probably 10 years, so I started and new save and beat the game again for the hell of it. I’m not sure how to rate Minecraft out of 10 at this point.
Jusant | 9/10
Super beautiful and chill, I recommend avoiding spoilers and just playing it.
Dome Keeper | 7/10
Trying to keep the Hades “maybe I don’t hate roguelikes” thing going, so I got Dome Keeper. I feel like it’s too easy and there’s not enough variety in runs, but I still had some fun with it.
Dead Cells | 8/10
And finally, one more roguelike. I’ve “beaten” the game, as in I’ve reached the credits, but only 0BC. Still playing it, but won’t be chasing 5BC or anything like that. I do wish there was more meta progression with this one, a lot of runs feel like a complete waste of time which is my main problem with roguelikes, but the core gameplay is excellent.
You must log in or register to comment.
One game, Factorio. I still wanna play more!
You can complete Factorio? How? Please tell me how! I’ve been trapped in this game for the last 2000 hours and I can’t find the exit-button.
Launch a rocket. That’s all. There’s an exit button the first time u do it.
Petition to name A Short Hike the best open world game.
Bastion 👍
If you liked Pseudoregalia, why not try the other N64-style 3D platformer released in 2023 with a goat protagonist trapped in a dream, Corn Kidz 64? Yes, this is a particularly specific coincidence. It features great humour, extremely cartoony animation, and polished movement. It’s very much quality over quantity.
The obvious cameo happens if you get to the right place.
I also “completed” Dead Cells and went “yeah, that’s enough.”
Anyway, my games.
Completed games
- Neon White
- Run fast. Puts you in the speedrunning grindset. Corny anime plot. Unnecessary dating sim elements. The addictive gameplay carries it.
- Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer
- Retro-style FPS with stylistic suck but still with lots of in-universe and IRL soul. Takes the piss out of edgy teen boy fantasies. This is an essential part of the Hypnospace Outlaw canon.
- Gauntlet Slayer Edition
- It’s Gauntlet but modern. Fun dungeon crawling online co-op with friends.
Games that aren’t reasonably completeable
- Shotgun King
- Chess but the only piece you have is a king with a shotgun. It was fun for a bit, but I quickly lost interest.
- Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
- Kart racing. Cool maps that change over time. Less bullshit than Mario Kart. It has a hint of more “hardcore” racing mechanics, so it felt like I had more agency. It’s a 2013-era PC game with a surprising amount of jank to make work properly.
Corn Kidz 64 looks super fun, I will definitely be picking that up!
- Neon White
Dragon Age: The Veilguard | 9/10 I loved this game so much. It literally made me cry at one point. The story and characters were phenomenal.
Super Mario Wonder | 7/10 fun with the family.
Solasta | 9/10 Finished yet another playthrough with my wife. It’s the best D&D video game.
Oh wow veilguard got so much flak that it’s refreshing to hear someone so positive on it.
72% positive on Steam. I think it’s going to end up one of those silent majority games like Inquisition did (though it doesn’t look like it’s going to sell as well as DA:I).
Not sure about the whole year, but I just beat Tunic twice today. That game is fantastic.
deleted by creator
Every game for the year?? That’s crazy
Highlights:
Tears of the kingdom: amazing game, sunk an absurd amount of hours into this
Like a dragon: infinite wealth: so good, favorite franchise, rgg consistently puts out quality and is the only studio ill bother to buy full price games from
Tales of arise: really good
Hi fi rush: extremely good, but no jet set radio
Bomb rush cyberfunk: not as good, much closer though. actually felt like next gen jet set radio. just wish they bothered to improve the formula at all from 2000 or whenever
Dead space remake: I found myself having to push through the end of this, got very tedious
Silent hill free game on psn (I forget the name, the suicide one): so heavy handed, awful writing, awful voice acting, but it was free so whatever
Silent hill 2: pretty great remake but wish I waited for a price drop.
Persona 3 reload: basically same as above
Ff7: solid overall, really liked it
Spider-Man 2: not as good as the first one but decent
Unicorn overlord: really good
Forspoken: not amazing but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be based on the initial reactions
Tekken 8: love it even though I fucking suck
Smt: vengeance: great
Dave the diver: played on a whim without knowing anything about it, sucked me in
I know there weee more but that’s what I can remember off the top of my head
Excited to play metaphor, hellblade 2, Indiana jones, riven remake, erdtree dlc for Elden ring, cyberpunk dlc, Alan wake 2, god of war ragnarok dlc, new taiko no tatsujin, armored core vi, like a billion more
The OG Dead Space completely blew my mind back in the day and probably is still the game to frighten me the most, but I tried to replay it—twice—and dropped it because of how much worse the controls felt than what I remembered. The juking necromorphs were much more irritating to dismember on replay. I thought about getting the remake but people say the controls are the same; and regardless, that’s my own issue with the AI, not really the controls…
My most notable one was Subnautica.
I enjoyed it enough that I completed it 3 times: firstly in normal mode, then in hardcore mode, then with the Deathrun mod.
Burnout Revenge was an amazing party game back in the day. Simple enough that anyone could immediately start playing without being terrible at it, and chaotic enough to keep everyone hooked.
I only completed 2 games this year. Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok. Played a bunch of others but they were either endless or I lost interest right near the end.
Currently not-quite finished list: Zelda ToTK, Satisfactory, BG3 Endless games: Animal crossing, Cities Skylines, Stardew Valley
I in the last 4-ish months played through yonder, biomutant, ni no kuni 1+2, ff7 remake (#1), balan wonderland, several Lego games, star ocean integrity and faithlessness, tandem, all the cat quest games, several “tales of” games, and a buttload more while I still had the ps+ subscription (which expired in like… August? I won’t count those cuz I had no life at the time. Still don’t but It was worse then.)
My big push at the moment is going through some of the ps3 era titles I’ve never played. I have so many games I buy and just sit on for years… I probably shouldn’t do that, but I buy used so it’s cheaper… But those unplayed games are mostly super long story focused games, so they take a hot minute to get through. I have a few upcoming tales of games, which I now own most of, star ocean, valkeria chronicles, and all the final fantasy games I never slogged through the overwhelming tutorial on and thus haven’t played.
Any games I finish, I enjoy enough to finish. I gave up pushing through bad media long ago because there’s so much more out there. I’ve been really into big story games with minimal or easy combat, but I also really like the short and simple games that you can get through entirely in 10 hours.
Tandem was a really cute one that stuck out. I got it purely because it was inexpensive. It’s a fairly short puzzle game where one character walks through a top-down view and the other is a side scroll view. You have to swap back and forth to use them both to solve puzzles. It’s not super difficult, but it is satisfying in difficulty.
Where do you find the time to not only play, but beat so many games? No job and no SO?
In my 36 years here on earth, I’ve completed maybe 3-4 games total. In my entire life. I almost always get bored or don’t have the time to finish the ones I start. I prefer online games anyway because single player bots tend to be stupid and predictable.
A lot of these games are pretty short and playing on my Steam Deck during lunch breaks at work is responsible for several completions. I also basically never play online multiplayer games.
Shorter games is the biggest factor though. Just for fun I combined my time in To the Moon, Parking Garage Rally Circuit, Jusant, Sprawl, Toem, ExoOne, Ghostrunner 2, Loddlenaut, Unpacking, Lunistice, Up left out, Naboki, Hook 2, and Inside, and the total number of hours it took to beat all of those was 37.
I’m guessing you probably have more than 37 hours in your favorite online game this year, I just spend my hours on different games lol
Not quite in the spirit of this post, but I managed to complete Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for the first time this year. It’s been my favorite game for a few years now, but it’s a roguelike and doesn’t allow for many mistakes, so lots of starting over.
That is also the complete list of games I completed this year. I started replaying Thomas Was Alone, but somehow the platforming passages were a lot more frustrating to me, so haven’t finished it…
Hi-Fi Rush | 9/10
The score went up an entire point when The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die started playing. I really hope this gets a sequel.
I’m so happy I didn’t know that song was in the game. I personally rate it 10/10, a perfect blend of gameplay, story, and soundtrack, with bonus points for managing to toe the line between goofy and sincere. That part at the end (“I am a rockstar”) had me bracing for someone to point out how cheesy it was, and no one does. I love a piece of media that doesn’t make fun of you for getting invested.
I realize I need to finish more games. The only four I beat this year were
Baldur’s Gate 3 | 8/10
I’m gonna be real, the replay value is not really there for me. My wizard and my co-player’s paladin are the big damn heroes, and I have trouble getting into another character. I’m not gonna get a better ending than the one I got with _______ and ____, and it feels weird being as into Karlach as I was, and then just pushing her aside and dating someone else
Outriders | 8/10
The world needs more games like this. I love that everyone recognizes that the Outrider is essentially a god. The Russian roulette scene alone brings this up from a 7, but the rather unsatisfying ending brings it down from a 9. I don’t love that they imply some big war between the altered humans, and then ditch that halfway through. The fact that Moloch is introduced as a BBEG and then you kill him in an optional endgame side mission is disappointing. The DLC though, that kicked ass… Right up until the rather unsatisfying end, again. It’s certainly much better than the main game, which isn’t really that bad to begin with. I just want to know what the Outrider learned in that ancient vault.
Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand | 7/10
Don’t get me wrong when I say 7/10. It’s one of my favorite games I’ve ever played, and I want more games like it. It’s hard to explain why exactly I like it so much, but I think I can sum it up with: many other games are rather exhausting, either mentally, or emotionally. This game doesn’t expect a lot from the player, except for proficiency with the simple combat system. The story is simple—there’s an evil god, you find a magic gauntlet that can maybe kill that god, action ensues. I can count on one hand the number of characters that I feel like the game wanted me to remember or care about.
It’s a fun game, solid 30 hours to 100%, 7/10 absolutely recommend.
Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga | 7/10
It wasn’t as good as the first game. Or maybe it’s that it wasn’t as better than the first game as it could have been. A large part of why the first game was so engaging to me was the loneliness. It was just me and the furies, and the puzzles we were solving. Senua’s Saga introduces a few primary characters, and villages full of people, which dampens the furies’ affect on me. The game was also much more confusing. In the first game, it’s entirely nebulous what was real and what was in Senua’s head. You can interpret it as a literal descent into the underworld to attempt to reclaim her lover’s soul, or an entirely figurative descent into her own psyche to overcome the grief of losing him, or somewhere in between. Ironically, this makes it easier for me to parse, because there’s no apparent contradictions. The sequel makes it explicitly clear that Senua is engaging, at least somewhat, in real life. This makes it more confusing, because
Hellblade 2 spoiler
the >!giants are also explicitly a result of people’s negative emotions. So are the giants really giant? Is everything literal? I need to read some analysis.!<
Let me know if the spoiler tags didn’t work in your client. I think combining the ::: and the >!!< should cover all bases
You guys are finishing games?
Yeah what the fuck? Look at some of these lists lmao.
I paid for the whole game I’m gonna play the whole game
That’s why I only buy games on discount. That way I only have to play the inverse percent of what I paid.
How did this person find the time and dedication to complete so many god damn games in just a year? They beat more games this year than I have in my entire life! I get bored or run out of time before I get anywhere near finishing a game.
Stalker Anomaly: A community project built on GSCs XRay engine with community made stories based in the zone. Played for years and always missed the story till recently where I did all 3 campaigns and it was a great time.
Stalker 2: My most recent game to complete but it was a let down when pitted against its older titles.
Way of the Hunter: Its a hunting sim, completed a DLC map and story.
Kingdom Come Deliverance: Main story, side content and DLC all of which was a pleasure.
Ready Or Not: A tactical FPS me and my brother sometimes co-op, was used to play Rainbow six Vegas back as kids so its cool to have that same experience.
And just this week I’ve jumped back onto Ghost Recon Wildlands finishing up on DLC content as its been a few years since I’ve last played and there’s a first person mod. also sunk my teeth back into Far Cry 5, its good but gets old quick.
I don’t think I’ve completed a single one this year as I like to bounce around and play lots.
Most of the games I play are also single player and none of this “games as a service” crap so I am very bad at finishing anything.
