A note from Alex “Jeddy” Jedraszczak, GameCola’s Editor-in-Chief:
Dear Readers, do you remember websites? It may surprise you, but you’re looking at one right now. And on this site on the Information Super Highway, we’re celebrating the best games of another thing you might remember: 2023. We’ve played the games, remembered them, and voted on the best of the best. Just for you!
Best Licensed Game
Baldur’s Gate 3
Paul Franzen: Say what you will about Dungeons & Dragons and their creators, Wizards of the Coast—god only knows Twitter’s had some very strong words about them—but the system they’ve…built? maintained? occasionally updated to remove problematic elements that honestly should’ve been removed at least a decade ago? remains the most popular TTRPG model by a country mile. One of the biggest shows in the world right now is people playing a game that would’ve gotten them stuffed in a toilet 20 years ago. D&D is, dare I say it, almost kind of cool now.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has taken the elements that everyone loves about D&D, such as romancing elves, romancing dwarves, romancing dragons, romancing halflings, romancing tieflings, and occasionally hitting somebody with a sword, and translated it to videogame form in a way that instantly makes sense to any veteran role-players, and is at least mildly accessible to everyone else. The comparison people like to make is that “it’s D&D without the dungeon master!”, and while I’m not sure that’s entirely true, I did spend about a half-hour of my game-time talking to a rat and trying to get rid of a rock that made him sad, so it’s definitely accurate to my own experiences, at least.
Honorable Mention: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Best Remake or Re-Release
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective HD
James Pelster: As you might know from my Let’s Play series on our YouTube channel, the last time I got a chance to play Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was around 2012, when it released on iOS while I was in high school. Now, 12 years later, it was a delight to re-experience this wonderful and whimsical game. This remaster is excellent, increasing the resolution of the graphics and redrawing a significant number of art assets. The cherry on top is the re-arranged soundtrack, courtesy of Yasumasa Kitagawa, the composer from The Great Ace Attorney. These tracks sound oh-so-familiar to the original, but add some slight tweaks and revamps to certain instruments that edge out this version of the music over the originals. All in all, you owe it to yourself to play this game if you haven’t already. It’s not too long, very well-paced, witty, intriguing, and a whole lot of fun.
Honorable Mention: Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection 1
Best New Character
Mr. Door (Alan Wake II)
Blu Ryder: In Alan Wake 2, we have our first meeting with Mr. Warlin Door—who is Legally Not Quantum Break‘s Mr. Martin Hatch (R.I.P. Lance Reddick)—an enigmatic figure previously only alluded to in Control. Being perhaps the only character to date that’s entirely immune to the AWE-inspiring [sic] powers that Alan wields, Mr. Door promises to be an entity of cosmic importance to the future of Remedy’s connected universe. Aside from that, Mr. Door is a delight, portrayed by the scene-stealing David Harewood. Cryptic, comedic, and sinister; I can’t wait to see more of Mr. Door, whether he’s acting as a metatextual surrogate for the audience to ask Alan the same questions fans have for over a decade (seriously, what does, “it’s not a lake, it’s an ocean” ultimately mean?) or performing another banger of a musical number! If he allows the storytellers at Remedy to write him into more of their stories, of course.
Honorable Mention: Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Best Story
Alan Wake II
John Rizzi: This is a unique one. For the past 12 years we’ve seen time and time again story-based games doing the exact same thing. Big game’s taking Telltale or BioWare approach in having a choice-based system with branching paths determining how you experience the story. Or indie games that taking the minimalistic, visual storytelling approach where you piece the story together through background details. Nothing wrong with either of these methods. However, there are so many of them nowadays that we thought that these was the best storytelling methods in games. It was time for another innovation. Video games, as a medium, is conglomerate of storytelling mediums coming together and adding interactivity to it. Out of nowhere, Alan Wake 2 comes along and takes that idea in full stride. Combining an incredible art design that rewards eagle eyed players, incredible music, jaw-dropping set pieces that combine gameplay and filmmaking techniques, I could go on. But the most intriguing part to me is the Writer’s Room mechanic where you are essentially building the levels you must traverse in yourself using the prompts and words that you find within them. Masterfully done.
Honorable Mention: Baldur’s Gate 3
Most Disappointing
Hogwarts Legacy
Terrence Atkins: Hogwarts Legacy. What can I say? It deserves the award for Best Game of 20 Years Ago. The graphics are impressive for the era, even if the gameplay, characters, and plot haven’t aged well.
What’s that? It came out in 2023? Oh.
Honorable Mention: Overwatch 2
Funniest Game
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
John Rizzi: Leave it to SEGA’s Social Media Team to go above and beyond for April Fools’ Day. While most companies will at the very least write something silly or put something amusing together in Photoshop at the most, Sega Social Team decided to create an entire, 3-hour-long visual novel mystery. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is so funny in concept alone, that it would’ve worked well enough as just a silly poster or a fake teaser video. Instead, we got a FREE mystery/comedy game filled to the brim with in-jokes, situational comedy, and just the right amount of absurdity that it fits right into Sonic‘s world like a glove. Sometimes all you need is fully realized characters doing their thing in a certain situation and the best jokes seem to write themselves. And that is exactly what happened here.
Honorable Mention: Baldur’s Gate 3
Best Multiplayer
F-Zero 99
Daniel Castro: F-Zero 99 struck a nerve with something that probably no one was expecting; F-Zero fans have been impatiently waiting for a new entry of the series for 20 years, they would have been pleased with either a remake or a new entry of the series, but Nintendo decided to surprise everyone by releasing neither!
F-Zero 99 is all about fun, it’s a revival of the classic SNES title stripped down to its core elements and then just dares you to race against other 99 players, or at least survive and make it to the finish line.
Beside everything said so far, this was the biggest surprise of the year for me. In this day and age when everything is a remake or a remaster of something that had already come before, F-Zero 99 is an outstanding and yet simple reminder that videogames don’t break the limits of new technologies to be fun; it dared to be just that…fun!
Honorable Mention: Baldur’s Gate 3
Biggest Improvement
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
James Pelster: No Joe, I will not call it Threenoblade! Ahem. How do you make my personal Game of the Year for 2022 even better? You take all the good things about it—the music, the visuals, the exploration, the story—and craft a new experience that satisfyingly concludes the entire Xenoblade Chronicles main trilogy while maintaining or even exceeding the quality of what’s come before. In particular, this new “side story” which takes place nearly 1000 years before the events of the main game, introduces a new gameplay system that incentivizes and rewards exploration and completion like no Xenoblade game has ever done before. I had a difficult time putting this game down, and I’m so glad I got to see this long story to its end.
Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters
Remember, this is only the little winners—meaning there will be more coming tomorrow! You know, Game of the Year and that kind of thing. And did I mention our LIVE YouTube awards show spectacular, The Tac? It’s all still to come, so mark your calendars!
And if you thought all of our choices were stupid and you want to complain, then leave a comment. Or better yet, come complain at us directly on our Discord channel! We’d love to hear from you. Even if you agreed with our choices, you can come talk to us and all the other GameCola Superfans. Why wait for tomorrow when you can join today?
