The Psych Awards 2023
Per metaphysical solipsism, I am the only person who actually exists. Therefore, if I played a game for the first time in 2023, it gets to be on the list.
15 Games
The Somehow Better Than Silent Hill 2 Award for Best in Show
Silent Hill 3 is the first entry in this list, but I've saved writing this description for last because I'm struggling to express why this is such an excellent, landmark title. How do you put into words why you love your own child?
This was a shockingly close race, but Silent Hill 3 just barely edges out the competition by being one of the primary catalysts for me wanting to take games more seriously as a medium. Not to say that I didn't before, but I don't think I acted like it. I absorbed a lot of what other people said and used that to shape my tastes, and everyone always said that Silent Hill 3 was inferior to 2. I believed them, because I was along for the ride. I played it for myself and realized just how wrong I and everyone else could be. To take this medium seriously, to properly engage with it as critics, we need to clear our minds and judge a work without a predilection that was given to us. We need to open ourselves to the possibility of being piled on for having the "wrong opinions". We need to write honestly. We need to cover pieces we wouldn't ever think to touch. We need to experience the lows so we can appreciate the highs. I feel a responsibility to do so. Every game deserves to be reviewed.
Runners-Up: Rez, Heisei Pistol Show, Hi-Fi Rush, Lies of P
Silent Hill 3 is the first entry in this list, but I've saved writing this description for last because I'm struggling to express why this is such an excellent, landmark title. How do you put into words why you love your own child?
This was a shockingly close race, but Silent Hill 3 just barely edges out the competition by being one of the primary catalysts for me wanting to take games more seriously as a medium. Not to say that I didn't before, but I don't think I acted like it. I absorbed a lot of what other people said and used that to shape my tastes, and everyone always said that Silent Hill 3 was inferior to 2. I believed them, because I was along for the ride. I played it for myself and realized just how wrong I and everyone else could be. To take this medium seriously, to properly engage with it as critics, we need to clear our minds and judge a work without a predilection that was given to us. We need to open ourselves to the possibility of being piled on for having the "wrong opinions". We need to write honestly. We need to cover pieces we wouldn't ever think to touch. We need to experience the lows so we can appreciate the highs. I feel a responsibility to do so. Every game deserves to be reviewed.
Runners-Up: Rez, Heisei Pistol Show, Hi-Fi Rush, Lies of P
The Everywhere At The End of Time Award for Most Forgettable Game
I played this shit this year? When? May? Holy shit, I played games back in December of 2022 that I was certain were going to be on here because I remembered them so clearly. The only thing I remember about Splinter Cell: Conviction is that there was some airfield mission that I kept dying on and that it wouldn't stop crashing near the final mission of the game.
I just went back and looked at my review for this and I legitimately don't remember any of what I wrote happening. There was an Iraq mission? Third Echelon got taken over by terrorists? This soundtrack is fucking awful. You can tell this is a game about the NSA because they wiped all memory I had of it.
Runners-Up: Black, Bloodroots
I played this shit this year? When? May? Holy shit, I played games back in December of 2022 that I was certain were going to be on here because I remembered them so clearly. The only thing I remember about Splinter Cell: Conviction is that there was some airfield mission that I kept dying on and that it wouldn't stop crashing near the final mission of the game.
I just went back and looked at my review for this and I legitimately don't remember any of what I wrote happening. There was an Iraq mission? Third Echelon got taken over by terrorists? This soundtrack is fucking awful. You can tell this is a game about the NSA because they wiped all memory I had of it.
Runners-Up: Black, Bloodroots
The Fourth Crusade Award for Worst Sequel
This one still upsets me. Dead Space was a great game, and Dead Space 2 was a masterpiece, and then Dead Space 3 gets meddled with and bastardized so badly that it more closely resembles a bad Lost Planet ripoff than it does Dead Space as a series. Packed to bursting with relationship melodrama, embarrassing guilt trips for Carver, atrocious gameplay, and all this while running like it's about to fall apart, this is easily the most shamefully bad Dead Space has ever been. It only took two years for EA to make Visceral plummet from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the trench.
Runners-Up: PAYDAY 3, Devil May Cry 2, Silent Hill Ascension
This one still upsets me. Dead Space was a great game, and Dead Space 2 was a masterpiece, and then Dead Space 3 gets meddled with and bastardized so badly that it more closely resembles a bad Lost Planet ripoff than it does Dead Space as a series. Packed to bursting with relationship melodrama, embarrassing guilt trips for Carver, atrocious gameplay, and all this while running like it's about to fall apart, this is easily the most shamefully bad Dead Space has ever been. It only took two years for EA to make Visceral plummet from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the trench.
Runners-Up: PAYDAY 3, Devil May Cry 2, Silent Hill Ascension
The Bram Stoker's Dracula Award for Excellence in Queer Game Development
The first game to ever have a personality. Parun was hardly new to the development scene at this point, but there's something so anarchic about this that it almost feels like a piece of outsider art. Sure, the drawings are crude, and the puzzles are overly simple, and the gameplay isn't especially deep, but it all comes together to form this intoxicating core that somehow manages to Get It better than almost anything else I've played in my life. We can shirk convention here because we're doing something that's good enough and important enough that it doesn't need to adhere to the traditional development canon. Rules are made to be broken, and Heisei Pistol Show is more than happy to be the one to break them.
Runners-Up: Fanart of Luke and Jamie from Street Fighter 6 kissing
The first game to ever have a personality. Parun was hardly new to the development scene at this point, but there's something so anarchic about this that it almost feels like a piece of outsider art. Sure, the drawings are crude, and the puzzles are overly simple, and the gameplay isn't especially deep, but it all comes together to form this intoxicating core that somehow manages to Get It better than almost anything else I've played in my life. We can shirk convention here because we're doing something that's good enough and important enough that it doesn't need to adhere to the traditional development canon. Rules are made to be broken, and Heisei Pistol Show is more than happy to be the one to break them.
Runners-Up: Fanart of Luke and Jamie from Street Fighter 6 kissing
The Looking in the Mirror Award for Biggest Disappointment
God, what a letdown. I already didn't have much faith in what was left of Overkill, but I really didn't think what they ended up putting out was going to be as dismal as it was on launch. Even now, two months after release, the only levels they've added are just ported over wholesale from PAYDAY 2. The first brand-new map is supposed to drop sometime before the end of December, and a few changes have been made to the abysmal progression system to make gaining new weapons and masks less of a slog, but it's all too little and too late. PAYDAY 3 is a historic fumble.
Check back on this list in a year to see if Starbreeze is still alive; if it is, comment below and I'll gift the first person to mention it a Steam key from my collection or something. I'm willing to wager that it won't be.
Runners-Up: Dead Space (2023), Red Dead Redemption 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
God, what a letdown. I already didn't have much faith in what was left of Overkill, but I really didn't think what they ended up putting out was going to be as dismal as it was on launch. Even now, two months after release, the only levels they've added are just ported over wholesale from PAYDAY 2. The first brand-new map is supposed to drop sometime before the end of December, and a few changes have been made to the abysmal progression system to make gaining new weapons and masks less of a slog, but it's all too little and too late. PAYDAY 3 is a historic fumble.
Check back on this list in a year to see if Starbreeze is still alive; if it is, comment below and I'll gift the first person to mention it a Steam key from my collection or something. I'm willing to wager that it won't be.
Runners-Up: Dead Space (2023), Red Dead Redemption 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
The Tom Myers Award for Unintentionally Funniest Game
Sometimes, when I'm sitting around, my thoughts getting dark, wondering if there's a reason to go on, I remember the scene in this game where the orangutan who can't speak English gets a lead pipe broken over his back by the humans torturing him for information, and I laugh, and laugh, and laugh. All of my sorrows fade away. Thank you, Planet of the Apes.
Runners-Up: Silent Hill Ascension, Tender Frog House, The Bouncer, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
Sometimes, when I'm sitting around, my thoughts getting dark, wondering if there's a reason to go on, I remember the scene in this game where the orangutan who can't speak English gets a lead pipe broken over his back by the humans torturing him for information, and I laugh, and laugh, and laugh. All of my sorrows fade away. Thank you, Planet of the Apes.
Runners-Up: Silent Hill Ascension, Tender Frog House, The Bouncer, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
The Double Finger Guns Award for Coolest Game
Games can be a whole lot of things. Games can be moving, swirling pieces of art that celebrate the world we live in and make you think about all of the little narrative nuances long after you've stopped playing them. Games can be mindless time wasters, purely existing as a hole that you toss hours of your life into purely for the sake of feeling momentary, intrinsic enjoyment. Games can be complete, heartless messes that want nothing more than to pull money from the wallets of those who have succumbed to industry practices solely designed to create gambling addictions in their playerbases.
But I think the gamethinker space often doesn't give enough recognition often enough to games that are just really fucking cool, and that's what Rez is. You play Level 5 while Fear is the Mind Killer bumps in the background and you navigate your computer virus body through the mainframe to rescue a giant woman who turns you into a butterfly and you realize that some video games just fucking rule.
Runners-Up: Hi-Fi Rush, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Street Fighter 6
Games can be a whole lot of things. Games can be moving, swirling pieces of art that celebrate the world we live in and make you think about all of the little narrative nuances long after you've stopped playing them. Games can be mindless time wasters, purely existing as a hole that you toss hours of your life into purely for the sake of feeling momentary, intrinsic enjoyment. Games can be complete, heartless messes that want nothing more than to pull money from the wallets of those who have succumbed to industry practices solely designed to create gambling addictions in their playerbases.
But I think the gamethinker space often doesn't give enough recognition often enough to games that are just really fucking cool, and that's what Rez is. You play Level 5 while Fear is the Mind Killer bumps in the background and you navigate your computer virus body through the mainframe to rescue a giant woman who turns you into a butterfly and you realize that some video games just fucking rule.
Runners-Up: Hi-Fi Rush, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Street Fighter 6
The Salvation Award for Game with the Purest Soul
What a delight. Hi-Fi Rush is everything that top-level executives don't want video games to be, and everything that video games should be. It stands as a monolith; a complete and utter refutation of how games "should" be marketed before release, about how games "should" withhold content to nickel-and-dime the consumer later, of how games "should" cost hundreds of millions of dollars to secure a hefty take, of how games "should" be live-service to milk whales until the sun burns out. The non-indie space isn't completely diseased, but it's got a weird, fungal skin condition that probably needs to be looked at by a doctor before it gets any worse. Hi-Fi Rush is one of the few pieces of evidence we have that there might still be hope for a cure.
Runners-Up: Ridge Racer Type 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, L.O.L.: Lack of Love
What a delight. Hi-Fi Rush is everything that top-level executives don't want video games to be, and everything that video games should be. It stands as a monolith; a complete and utter refutation of how games "should" be marketed before release, about how games "should" withhold content to nickel-and-dime the consumer later, of how games "should" cost hundreds of millions of dollars to secure a hefty take, of how games "should" be live-service to milk whales until the sun burns out. The non-indie space isn't completely diseased, but it's got a weird, fungal skin condition that probably needs to be looked at by a doctor before it gets any worse. Hi-Fi Rush is one of the few pieces of evidence we have that there might still be hope for a cure.
Runners-Up: Ridge Racer Type 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, L.O.L.: Lack of Love
The Diogenes of Sinope Award for Most Cynical Game
"What if we made a game that was entirely powered by AI?" asked the corporate worm.
The several dozen executives sitting around the mile-long meeting table all collectively shifted, trying to hide their mounting excitement.
"How will it work?" asked one of his bosses. Like a dog looking at a steak, he was beginning to drool.
"Who cares?" replied the corporate worm. "AI is the future."
"AI is the future," everybody in the room repeated, in unison. They then proceeded to exchange millions of dollars between themselves, stood up, shook hands, and accidentally released this unfinished investor pitch to the public.
Runners-Up: No Man's Sky, Tender Frog House, Silent Hill Ascension
"What if we made a game that was entirely powered by AI?" asked the corporate worm.
The several dozen executives sitting around the mile-long meeting table all collectively shifted, trying to hide their mounting excitement.
"How will it work?" asked one of his bosses. Like a dog looking at a steak, he was beginning to drool.
"Who cares?" replied the corporate worm. "AI is the future."
"AI is the future," everybody in the room repeated, in unison. They then proceeded to exchange millions of dollars between themselves, stood up, shook hands, and accidentally released this unfinished investor pitch to the public.
Runners-Up: No Man's Sky, Tender Frog House, Silent Hill Ascension
The Final Project Worth 30% of the Grade Due in 30 Minutes Award for Most Stressful Game
I was originally set to give this to Sekiro, but something about that seemed wrong. Resident Evil Remake was holistically more stressful, and that stress was actively enjoyable. It feels a little heavy-handed to call the game a haunted house, but that's kind of how it feels; it's a remarkably spooky and stressful journey your first time through it, and then it's exhausted almost all of its tricks. Once you know what's coming, it isn't really scary anymore.
That's a fundamental issue with horror as a whole, but Resident Evil neatly sidesteps it by encouraging you to start playing aggressively once you think you've got it all figured out. Do it again, but faster. Do it again, but without firing a shot. Do it again, but with invisible enemies. Do it again, but with a zombie that blows up and kills you. It's a horror title that encourages repeat playthroughs for the purpose of gaining mastery, which is something I don't think we've really seen again in the more than two decades since this originally released.
Runners-Up: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Silent Hill 3, Lies of P
I was originally set to give this to Sekiro, but something about that seemed wrong. Resident Evil Remake was holistically more stressful, and that stress was actively enjoyable. It feels a little heavy-handed to call the game a haunted house, but that's kind of how it feels; it's a remarkably spooky and stressful journey your first time through it, and then it's exhausted almost all of its tricks. Once you know what's coming, it isn't really scary anymore.
That's a fundamental issue with horror as a whole, but Resident Evil neatly sidesteps it by encouraging you to start playing aggressively once you think you've got it all figured out. Do it again, but faster. Do it again, but without firing a shot. Do it again, but with invisible enemies. Do it again, but with a zombie that blows up and kills you. It's a horror title that encourages repeat playthroughs for the purpose of gaining mastery, which is something I don't think we've really seen again in the more than two decades since this originally released.
Runners-Up: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Silent Hill 3, Lies of P
The Ninth Circle of Hell Award for Worst Fucking Thing I've Ever Experienced in My Life
Fuck No Man's Sky. I have declared an eternal blood feud with Hello Games for not openly condemning every single person who praised their game. Not only is it a completely miserable, barely-finished experience nearly ten years after everyone said that "they made it good", but it's also now a maypole to rally around whenever a new game comes out that's shitty and unfinished. "No Man's Sky was bad, and now it's good, so you can't ever complain about games being bad today because they might be good in the future!", the masses cry. No more. We need to put a stop to this flagellant mentality.
While promoting Light No Fires at The Game Awards 2023, Sean Murray almost verbatim dropped the line "you see that mountain? You can climb it," and spent the following twenty-four hours making jokes on Twitter about how he loves over-promising and under-delivering. Everyone seems to think this is very cute. I think it's a sorry state of affairs that the industry hasn't shamed him into retirement.
Runners-Up: Dead Space 3, Square Enix AI Tech Preview: The Portopia Serial Murder Case
Fuck No Man's Sky. I have declared an eternal blood feud with Hello Games for not openly condemning every single person who praised their game. Not only is it a completely miserable, barely-finished experience nearly ten years after everyone said that "they made it good", but it's also now a maypole to rally around whenever a new game comes out that's shitty and unfinished. "No Man's Sky was bad, and now it's good, so you can't ever complain about games being bad today because they might be good in the future!", the masses cry. No more. We need to put a stop to this flagellant mentality.
While promoting Light No Fires at The Game Awards 2023, Sean Murray almost verbatim dropped the line "you see that mountain? You can climb it," and spent the following twenty-four hours making jokes on Twitter about how he loves over-promising and under-delivering. Everyone seems to think this is very cute. I think it's a sorry state of affairs that the industry hasn't shamed him into retirement.
Runners-Up: Dead Space 3, Square Enix AI Tech Preview: The Portopia Serial Murder Case
The Encephalitis Award for Biggest Brained Game
Sometimes you play a game that's smart. That's cool. A lot of the time, you'll play games that are very stupid. Rarely, though, you'll play a game that's a lot smarter than you are, and the act of playing it makes you feel smarter by association. Pentiment is a very smart game. Not only does it ask you to read books at the end, but it also goes through great pains to remind the player that humans, historically, haven't changed much. Our cultures have changed, our values have changed, our circumstances have changed, but there's a little kernel of humanity so fundamental to all of us that's been the same for thousands of years. We love, we yearn, we hate, we die. Everything we leave behind can and will be rewritten, and our truest selves can only exist in living memory. It's transient, but so is everything else.
Runner-Up: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Sometimes you play a game that's smart. That's cool. A lot of the time, you'll play games that are very stupid. Rarely, though, you'll play a game that's a lot smarter than you are, and the act of playing it makes you feel smarter by association. Pentiment is a very smart game. Not only does it ask you to read books at the end, but it also goes through great pains to remind the player that humans, historically, haven't changed much. Our cultures have changed, our values have changed, our circumstances have changed, but there's a little kernel of humanity so fundamental to all of us that's been the same for thousands of years. We love, we yearn, we hate, we die. Everything we leave behind can and will be rewritten, and our truest selves can only exist in living memory. It's transient, but so is everything else.
Runner-Up: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
The Enlightened Centrist Award for Most Mid Game
Breath of the Wild's oft-celebrated encouragement of player expression is really only skin deep. Peel back a layer beyond something like "you can weigh down switches with inventory items", dig a bit deeper, and the entire thing starts to reveal how shallow it is. Dungeons will regularly invisible wall you and prevent you from progressing unless you do exactly what was expected of you; failing to use a specific piece of geometry over another to block a jet of fire is the difference between being let through the trap and being forced against gravity out of it; electricity and conductivity are used against the player, but are then also something the player can never use themselves (such as using conductive items to complete circuits); bosses with elemental weaknesses can be hit with power-specific arrows, but can't be hit with appropriate elemental rods. Combine this shockingly superficial "do anything" gameplay with a massive, empty world with nothing to do in it, and you've created the hottest game of 2008.
Mosa Lina came out this year and demonstrated what real player expression can look like. If you were impressed by Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, I highly encourage you to check it out purely to see just how free you truly can be as a player. Thirty minutes with Mosa Lina will provide you with more "no way, I can do that?" moments than you'll get out of thirty hours with Zelda.
Runner-Up: Metroid: Dread
Breath of the Wild's oft-celebrated encouragement of player expression is really only skin deep. Peel back a layer beyond something like "you can weigh down switches with inventory items", dig a bit deeper, and the entire thing starts to reveal how shallow it is. Dungeons will regularly invisible wall you and prevent you from progressing unless you do exactly what was expected of you; failing to use a specific piece of geometry over another to block a jet of fire is the difference between being let through the trap and being forced against gravity out of it; electricity and conductivity are used against the player, but are then also something the player can never use themselves (such as using conductive items to complete circuits); bosses with elemental weaknesses can be hit with power-specific arrows, but can't be hit with appropriate elemental rods. Combine this shockingly superficial "do anything" gameplay with a massive, empty world with nothing to do in it, and you've created the hottest game of 2008.
Mosa Lina came out this year and demonstrated what real player expression can look like. If you were impressed by Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, I highly encourage you to check it out purely to see just how free you truly can be as a player. Thirty minutes with Mosa Lina will provide you with more "no way, I can do that?" moments than you'll get out of thirty hours with Zelda.
Runner-Up: Metroid: Dread
The $20 Bill in an Old Jacket Pocket Award for Most Pleasant Surprise
I expected nothing from Lies of P. I went on Game Pass one day, saw that this was on there, figured I'd give it a shot, and found one of the most impressive action games I've played in years. If Hi-Fi Rush didn't exist, this would have been the best game that came out in 2023, and it wouldn't have been close. The unfortunate thing about a surprise is that it can only happen once; the developers have given themselves a very tough act to follow, and I'll be the first one in line to see what they release next.
Runners-Up: Baroque, Basilisk 2000, Last Call BBS, Blind Drive
I expected nothing from Lies of P. I went on Game Pass one day, saw that this was on there, figured I'd give it a shot, and found one of the most impressive action games I've played in years. If Hi-Fi Rush didn't exist, this would have been the best game that came out in 2023, and it wouldn't have been close. The unfortunate thing about a surprise is that it can only happen once; the developers have given themselves a very tough act to follow, and I'll be the first one in line to see what they release next.
Runners-Up: Baroque, Basilisk 2000, Last Call BBS, Blind Drive
The Buffer Underflow Award for Best Worst Game
Some things in this world are so bad that they are, in themselves, masterpieces. There's something about delivering a complete and utter disaster of a work that loops back around into making it impressive; to get it that wrong, you need to know exactly what you're supposed to do, and then intentionally subvert it. What seems like a complete failure at first blush is actually a realization of a perfect project, but delivered from the opposite direction to make a statement: "I'm proving that I can make perfect art, yet I'm only giving you the worst thing imaginable". There's a certain auteur flair to that. Depriving people of a perfect work, yet delivering it all the same. It's paradoxical, but it works. Be a stuffy art snob for long enough, and the stuff that's made to be atrocious on purpose starts seeming more interesting than that which was made to be perfect from the outset.
Anyway, that's all unrelated to Silent Hill: Ascension, which is just a huge piece of shit.
Runners-Up: [No competition]
Some things in this world are so bad that they are, in themselves, masterpieces. There's something about delivering a complete and utter disaster of a work that loops back around into making it impressive; to get it that wrong, you need to know exactly what you're supposed to do, and then intentionally subvert it. What seems like a complete failure at first blush is actually a realization of a perfect project, but delivered from the opposite direction to make a statement: "I'm proving that I can make perfect art, yet I'm only giving you the worst thing imaginable". There's a certain auteur flair to that. Depriving people of a perfect work, yet delivering it all the same. It's paradoxical, but it works. Be a stuffy art snob for long enough, and the stuff that's made to be atrocious on purpose starts seeming more interesting than that which was made to be perfect from the outset.
Anyway, that's all unrelated to Silent Hill: Ascension, which is just a huge piece of shit.
Runners-Up: [No competition]
Robot_Rock
4 months ago