Hello Button Buddies!
Sorry about the radio silence last week, I (Alice) was looking after a seriously ill family member.
But, we’re back now, and this is a bumper issue looking back at our games of the (first half of the) year, and we have been seriously spoiled for choice last year. 2023 has been one of the best years for games in a while. So, without much further ado, here are our lists.
Alice’s picks
Narrowing the list of games from this year down to just five was nearly impossible. There was some excellent DLC (like the Forza Horizon 5 Rally expansion), and PSVR2 game Horizon: Call of the Mountain deserves a special mention. But in amongst all the praise for excellent video games, and holy cow there were so many (Zelda TotK came out this year for Pete’s sake), I also want to call out some excellent board games that either came out this year, or that I played for the first time this year. So, here are the five new (or new to me) video and board games that I felt best fit this list.
Lego 2K Drive
A lot of parents ask me to recommend games for their kids, and outside Lego and Nintendo games it can often be hard to think of suggestions that aren’t full of predatory monetisation or violence. Lego 2K Drive has some battle pass elements and other things that feel a bit out of place in a full-priced game, but it’s also essentially a Lego-themed ‘My First Forza Horizon, and I love that. It felt familiar yet fresh, and the humour worked on multiple levels, so grown-ups could enjoy playing with kids. It introduced the basics of racing games and RPGs without feeling boring or patronising, which is an extremely difficult thing to do. Plus, it’s just fun. Definitely a game of the year for me.
Everybody 1-2-Switch
Everybody 1-2-Switch was right on the edge of eligibility, coming out on the last day of June. What I love about it is the same thing I loved about the original 1-2-Switch: it doesn’t take itself seriously, it encourages people to get up and have fun, and it’s easy for non-gamers to pick up. It’s like a less sarcastic Jackbox Party Pack, but much weirder and with an anthropomorphised horse with a novelty giant carrot, for some reason. It’s a game I’ve been pulling out at dinner parties and then falling over laughing, and it’s a game I took to the hospital to try and bring some levity to an otherwise scary situation.
What it’s going to struggle with is longevity. When was the last time you played 1-2-Switch? Was it the week after you bought it? 1-2-Switch was essentially just a tech demo for the Switch, showing off the sensitivity of the controls, whereas Everybody 1-2-Switch still has some elements of that, but also lets you use your phone for up to 100 players at a time, as well as have 1-8 players with Joy Con. It will be interesting to come back in a year and see if I’m still playing it, but at the moment it’s pretty great.
The Witcher: Old World board game
I have to admit that I slightly hesitated including this one in the list, just because the casual misogyny in the exploration cards is a bit gross. But, I just had such a good time playing the game, and enjoy the game’s mechanics, that I feel that it does deserve to be in the list (albeit with a bit of side-eye).
Before The Witcher: Old World I’d never come across a game that tried to be so many things (RPG with skill trees, homage to a world from a series of books, deep combat, deck builder) and actually pulled it off. The game definitely gets a lot of brownie points for the combat system, which is somehow both complicated and simple, and allows players to pull off epic combos. There is real suspense in combat, without relying on the roll of dice, which is welcome. Drawing cards is still somewhat random, but you’re the one that chose the cards during the deck building phase, so it feels like there’s more control than with dice.
Part of the game’s success also comes from focusing on capturing the vibe of the books/games rather than trying to replicate the source material in some way.
The King’s Dilemma
In real life it is horrifying to watch a group suddenly turn against their values because they can smell a small amount of profit in it for them. In a game it’s fascinating and wholesome fun, and that’s really what The King’s Dilemma is all about. I have played heaps of new board games this year, but none have kept me thinking about the next play session quite like The King’s Dilemma. Part of that is that it’s essentially a Legacy game, where each session changes the game for future sessions. You’ll play it 10+ times, but after that it’ll end, and each play through is different. But it’s also interesting to see how each of my different friends approach this fictional world and what their motivations are. It’s the ultimate social game for people who want to have an excuse to frequently get together and play, but don’t want to put in the effort required by Dungeons and Dragons.
Alice is Missing
I really ummed and ahhed on including Alice is Missing in this list, because it did a lot of things that I didn’t like. However, its creativity eventually won me over. A tabletop role playing game where you can’t speak and can only communicate over text really drew me in. I’m not good at role playing games, I’m too sarcastic and always want to follow the rules of the game which is hard when you’re supposed to be a character, and the texting nature really took my wife out of the headspace. But the texting for me made it easier to get into character, made it easier to see my friends as these characters, and the music of the game (on YouTube) was also really soothing.
It had a set time limit, so you weren’t stuck playing for hours/years as you can be in some other TTRPGs. It was like living in a CW teen drama that would be cancelled after one season: trashy, fun, and a bit misguided.
I’d say it’s the perfect game to play if you’re intrigued by the idea of TTRPGs, but fear the commitment if it turns out not to be your thing, and for that it deserves to be on the best of list.
Tim’s picks
The first half of 2023 was riddled with so many incredible games that I really had to get ruthless to knock it down to five. To be honest I could comfortably have had 12 entries on this list, which is wild considering we still have the pointy half of the year to go. Commiserations especially to Planet of Lana, Fire Emblem Engage, Dave the Diver and Resident Evil 4, which are all wonderful and you should check them out, but the games I ranked just slightly higher (or had more time with) are:
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Respawn’s Jedi games have delivered arguably the best canon Star Wars stories since 2017’s The Last Jedi, which is saying something since there have been several very good TV shows, one bad movie and heaps of books to compete with. Ginger space wizard Cal Kestis is a great protagonist, and this game delves into not one but two relatively unexplored eras in the history of a galaxy far away. And not only that, but it more than delivers on the new planets, robots, creatures and charming frog boys that I demand from this franchise.
Fighting and exploring really makes you feel like a Jedi this time, with satisfying force powers and your choice of several devastating and flashy lightsaber styles. But aside from the story, the most memorable moments for me were several of the mind-blowing platforming set-pieces that easily give any Uncharted a run for its money. I won’t spoil anything, but there’s one relatively early on involving teleportation that I literally couldn’t believe was happening for several minutes straight.
Dredge
A beautiful and stylish fishing management game set in a haunting Lovecraftian archipelago, Dredge is a slow burn but one you’ll be glad you embarked on. As a fisherman lost in unfamiliar waters, but rescued by sketchy islanders, you’re in charge of your own time: catch and sell fish to earn money and upgrade your vessel, or scrape treasures from the deep, while also contending with horrific sea life aberrations, twisted characters and an insanity-inducing fog that rolls in after dark. There are moments of true horror when you find yourself stranded too far from safety, alone (or not) in your boat, and the surprises just keep coming as you gradually make it further out to sea.
The limitation of needing to be in a safe spot for nightfall feels strict at first, but eases as you get some supernatural upgrades and become accustomed to dealing with the dark, and overall this is one of those games that grows relative to how much you poke around. What’s with that stone marking shaped like a crab? Who is that hooded traveller begging for fish? What happens if I make no attempts to save my sanity and see how deep the water can get?
Pizza Tower
It’s impossible to describe Pizza Tower without sounding like you’ve lost your mind, but I swear I did not invent this game in a fever dream. It follows extremely stressed chef Peppino Spaghetti who’s out to stop a sentient pizza from using an atomic laser to destroy his small business. It has an early 2000s MS Paint aesthetic, by way of something like Rocko's Modern Life, while it’s evident from the animations and various pizza-themed bad guys that a huge amount of work has gone into all aspects of the presentation. But it’s the game design that makes the whole thing really special.
Pizza Tower is blatantly a modernised take on Wario Land 4, borrowing the concept of an unkillable protagonist who can be transformed by level hazards to get through puzzles and roadblocks, as well as the U-shaped levels where getting to the end starts a countdown and you need to return to the start in time or lose all your progress. But it also borrows elements liberally from Sonic, Super Mario, Metroid, Rayman and others to create a familiar but uniquely hectic vibe, which is only enhanced by the deranged and eclectic electronic soundtrack.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
In almost any other year, this sublime sequel to Breath of the Wild would be absolutely top of my list, so it really speaks to the calibre of 2023 games that I wasn’t sure it would make this top five at all. While there’s something to be said for the quiet plains of BotW, Tears of the Kingdom feels expanded in all directions both literally and figuratively. The physical size feels more than doubled with a thoroughly remixed terrestrial Hyrule, plus dozens of floating islands in the sky, plus the dark and brooding depths. And miraculously, all of it is also much denser with missions, tasks, characters, monsters and distractions.
Link’s four game-breaking powers, which become a language through which you understand and manipulate the world, are each an outrageous act of courage and confidence from Nintendo. How can this game — which is also among the most stable AAA open worlds ever made — even function when every item can be fused with every other item, when you can zip upwards straight through any structure, when you can dive from the top of the world with a clear view of the whole continent down to the bottom of hell in a single leap. Tech flexing aside, the narrative and minute-to-minute action here also sit at the tippy top of the Zelda franchise, which is to say it’s a masterpiece.
Final Fantasy XVI
It’s been a decade since a new game in the Final Fantasy series gripped me from the start and held my attention throughout, and even longer since I genuinely cared about any of the games’ characters. But Final Fantasy XVI has hit upon something special, and it feels like a new beginning. The fast-paced action and wide-linear world design feels more like God of War than any previous FF, but it’s all drenched in a familiar fantasy world and serves a dark story which plays out like a melodramatic Game of Thrones. Vast kingdoms flourish under massive crystals protected by massive Kaiju-like Eikons, while anyone elsewhere starves. Those born with magical abilities live their lives as despised slaves until they’re worked to death. Our hero, Clive, royalty turned slave, eventually joins an underground effort to bring equality to the continent.
This is also an improbably beautiful game and I’m obsessed with its characters, its score and many of its locations. While the main quest is relatively straightforward, constant optional side-quests get you familiar with every town and region, spell out the various attitudes of people in the world, and really endear you to Clive and his tragic badass bestie Jill. Even busywork missions like delivering hot meals to a cantina’s customers, which would be useless padding in any other game, are utterly compelling here, and I gleefully undertook every one.