2023 in games

content/post/2022/12/my-personal-game-of-the-year-awards.md

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 ---
-title: "My Personal Game Of The Year Awards"
+title: "2022 In Video Games"
 date: '2022-12-14T17:02:00+01:00'
 tags:
   - games

content/post/2023/12/2023-in-video-games.md

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+---
+title: "2023 In Video Games"
+date: 2023-12-14T13:00:00+01:00
+tags:
+  - games
+  - goty
+  - lists
+  - yearnote
+categories:
+  - braindum
+---
+
+It's that time of the year---the time to publish the [yearly notes](/tags/yearnote) summarizing playtime statistics and providing a personal opinion on recent and vintage Game Of The Year (GOTY) contestants. [In 2022](/post/2022/12/my-personal-game-of-the-year-awards), _TOEM_ and _Shredder's Revenge_ were examples of superb recent games, while _Axiom Verge_ and _Looney Tunes Collector_ scored high in the vintage list. 
+
+If you're interested in hearing what I have to say about each game, consult my dedicated gaming blog where the reviews reside, at https://jefklakscodex.com/games/. 
+
+I present to you a collage of the 39 games I (re)played this year:
+
+![](../collage-2023.jpg "The GOTY contestants. ")
+
+[As was the case last year](/post/2022/12/my-personal-game-of-the-year-awards), I've put my Analogue Pocket to good use: two rows consist almost entirely of Game Boy games. Handheld bite-size gaming suits my needs very well, especially since we have our daughter. This year, I did play a few (3)DS games---and for 2024, I'm finally planning to tackle the _Dragon Quest VIII_ 3DS port. Hopefully. Also, too little time was spent in DOS mode on my beloved 486! 
+
+Some more useless stats, based on user input from How Long To Beat (HLTB):
+
+- total #games: 39
+- total hours: 400.7
+- average hours: 10.27
+- average a day: 1.13
+- longest game: _Tactics Ogre: Reborn_ (56.4)
+- shortest game: _Kirby's Dream Land_ (0.8)
+- Division by platform:
+  + switch (12/39)
+  + gameboy (9/39)
+  + pc (8/39)
+  + ds (4/39)
+  + gameboycolor (3/39)
+  + snes (1/39)
+  + 3ds (1/39)
+  + gamecube (1/39)
+
+These stats are even more inaccurate than last year as I replayed quite a few games without putting in the HLTB recommended hours. Additionally, _Tactics Ogre_ indeed is a huge game, but I stopped grinding at 40 hours or so, further skewing total hours. For divisions by platform, this year, I whipped up a graph that summarizes the platforms and calculates an average score (rated on 5, see [about the rating system](https://jefklakscodex.com/about/#rating)) for each platform:
+
+![](../goty-stats.png "A bar chart of (average) scores per platform.")
+
+Most game names were too long to be fully readable on the x-axis, but the chart does learn us that on average, the Game Boy and Nintendo Switch games I played aren't bad but aren't great either. For Game Boy---and, as you can see, especially Game Boy Color---games, I kind of expect a high amount of jank, but for Switch games, my standards should probably be higher. A fair amount of one-offs (_Buffy_ on the GameCube, _Castlevania IV_ on SNES, etc) are present as well. I'm surprised that on average, the PC games I played were rated among the highest!
+
+Filtering all games that are scored as either _great_ (4/5) or _amazing_ (5/5), we end with the following lists, where I further cherry-picked the best of the best:
+
+The **Recent GOTY** list:
+
+- 💖 Pizza Tower (pc; 2023)
+- 💖 Super Mario Bros. Wonder (switch; 2023)
+- 💖 Tactics Ogre: Reborn (switch; 2022) (I played this in 2023)
+
+The **Vintage GOTY** list:
+
+- 💖 Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (gameboy; 1992)
+- 💖 Kirby's Dream Land 2 (gameboy; 1995)
+- 💖 Quake (switch; 1996/2021)
+- 💖 Outlaws (pc; 1997)
+- 💖 Goblins Quest 3 (pc; 1993)
+- 💖 DUSK (switch; 2018)
+- 💖 Plants vs. Zombies (pc; 2009)
+- 💖 Might and Magic VIII (pc; 2000)
+
+Games that deserve a honorable mention but missed the lists by a slight margin: Lost in Play, New Super Mario Bros., Castlevania IV, Kirby's Dream Land, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. 
+
+For the actual single recent GOTY, my pick for 2023 is without a doubt **💖 Pizza Tower**. [Its amazing soundtrack](/post/2023/03/pizza-towers-soundtrack-is-amazing/) by itself is worth a nomination. I loved playing _Mario Wonder_ together with my wife, but considering hundreds of people worked on it while _Pizza Tower_ is a labor of love by a few indie devs, the choice is easy. 2023 was an amazing year for video games, but I almost never play games in the same year as they're released. _Tears of the Kingdom_ will have to wait. Perhaps in 2024.
+
+As for the vintage list, my top pick is **💖 DUSK**, an amazing nineties throwback shooter inspired by DOOM and Quake, again made by a very small team. I worked up to it by replaying Outlaws and Quake first, and it completely blew my mind. Being initially released in 2017 but ported to the Switch in 2021 (and finally, played by me in 2023), it's not exactly a new game, but not an old one either. My definitions of "recent" and "vintage" are admittedly a bit shaky. 
+
+I'm excited to see what 2024 will bring to the table---the backlog is long enough...