Now that we've bid adieu to 2023, it is time to look back and see what went right and what went absolutely BONKERS in gaming. As per usual, I'm giving you the Good, the Bad, and the downright UGLY of 2023, so let's get to it!
The Good:
1- Remember when video game movies sucked? Those days seem so far behind now thanks to The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It's not just that they made a good video game movie, or even that they made a good Mario movie; they made a GOOD movie, starring Mario!
2- Speaking of Mario, Super Mario Wonder's Piranha Plants on Parade. Jesus, what a MASTERPIECE of a level!
3- Final Fantasy 16 being released and quickly becoming one of the BEST games of the year? Remember when a Final Fantasy release was a big deal? Yeah, it felt just like this!
4- God of War Ragnarock's Valhalla DLC helps bring Kratos' story the end(?) it truly deserves, and solidifies Kratos' turn towards becoming a far better person overall. THIS is what a DLC should feel like!
5- Speaking of DLC; we have Pokemon's Indigo Disk, bringing players to two brand new areas: Kitakami, and Blueberry Academy. A true and worthwhile expansion for the core Scarlet/Violet games, and I'd even go so far as to say I VASTLY preferred Kitakami over Paldea!
6- Tears of the Kingdom continues the longstanding Zelda tradition of Zelda games being the BEST Nintendo games out there.
7- Let me just list a few other worthwhile games that really deserved the spotlight this year: Spider-Man 2, Blasphemous 2, Octopath Traveler 2, Sea of Stars, Baldur's Gate 3, Persona 5 Tactica, Disgaea 7, and so on...
The Bad:
1- The Gollum game was just one giant misstep after another. I LOVE me some Tolkien and some Middle-Earth, but a bad game is a bad game. And Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a BAD game.
2- Pro-tip to developers: don't port your games to the Nintendo Switch if you have to SIGNIFICANTLY downgrade your game's graphics. Nintendo Switch ports of Third Party games have this unfortunate tendency to be VASTLY inferior to their PS5 and PC counterparts, to the point that you'll often feel like you're playing a game that's over fifteen years old. This is best exemplified by the Switch port of Mortal Kombat 1, wherein the Fatalities are slower and much, MUCH less graphic than their PS5 counterparts. Yikes, dude.
3- Rise of Kong. How do you screw up a King Kong game? By doing EVERYTHING wrong. Terrible graphics, lousy control, no enjoyment to be found anywhere; JESUS.
The Ugly:
1- Let me kick it off with the Hogwarts Legacy boycott. While I support gamer's rights to boycott developers whom they deem unworthy of support, the fact of the matter is that these boycotts targeted the WRONG people. Gamers who only wanted to buy the game, streamers streaming the game, the developers; these were ALL at the crosshairs of Trans "allies" who hated the thought that noted transphobe JK Rowling was going to get a payday from this game. Meanwhile, Rowling herself is laughing her butt off since the grand majority of her revenue comes from deals with LEGO and Universal Studios, neither of which were targeted for a boycott. In the end, the boycott achieved nothing but worthless virtue signaling.
2- The Day Before. A masterclass in false advertisement. Gamers were promised a post-apocalyptic survival horror MMO. They were instead sold a PVP game where the zombies are literally nigh harmless, and 90% of the gameplay is you going out, finding resources like ammo and food, and then returning to base. It's an extraction shooter with barely any of the shooting. No wonder so many gamers are saying "take me back to The Day Before I bought this game!"
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