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My 10 Favorite Games of 2023 (Part 2/#5-1)

5.Final Fantasy XVI [PS5]

A bold and necessarily divisive take on Final Fantasy. Turn based? No. Bayonetta action set in a bleaker Fullmetal Alchemist-like world? Yes. This game is about spectacle, and more than any other game in 2023, it's spectacle is unprecedented in its jaw-droppingness. It's ridiculously large scale and produces moments that justify all the hardware needed to run it.

4.Resident Evil 4 Remake [Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PS4, PC]

Capcom set out to recontextualize one of the best games ever made; job done. RE4 remake is the best version of a cultural landmark. It’s everything that makes the series special and then some. Like RE4 OG, RE4R again provides the best entry point to the series. Supreme execution.

3.Alan Wake 2 [PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X]

Alan Wake 2 is the boldest big budget game of this generation. Its horror, both in the manifestation of actual monsters and the monsters we create when we create, is so unbelievably layered. AW2 is mad genius design. It's a game that requires your curiosity, pushes you into an ocean of strangeness and is constantly providing you delicious fragments that cohere from all angles. In short, a new horror classic is born.

2.Spiderman 2 [PS5]

Spiderman 2 is the most fun you can have simply controlling and moving a character; it's pure joy. That joy is also married to a world that recognizes Spider-Man’s true calling as a community worker. Insomniac realizes a new power fantasy in Spiderman 2, the studio's best game in their history. Insomniac realizes the fantasy of swinging, flying and soaring through New York as the webbed icon. What elevates it all to another level, is how SM2 recognizes the creation of a better world begins by helping people in your community. SM2 features more humanity than any superhero game ever has and likely ever will.

1.Baldur’s Gate 3 [PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X]

Baldur's Gate 3 set a new standard for the genre. The interactivity, level of choice and space for possibility is unprecedented. This is a game that lets you authorize so much of your story, dares you to manipulate systems and actually role play. You'll find yourself reaching for the walls of possibility to see just how far it all goes. As you continue to create your story, you'll be consumed by characters, locations, politics, puzzles, conflicts and evolving options that collectively characterizes a generational piece of gaming design. There is no game that better synthesizes what it means to be a Role Playing Game, and for that it stands as possibly the best RPG ever made.

#final fantasy #final fantasy xvi #re4make #resident evil #resident evil 4 #alan wake 2 #Spiderman 2 #baldur's gate 3 #ps5 #xbox series x #pc #video games #mtop10vg23

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My 10 Favorite Games of 2023 (Part 1/#10-6)

10.Rytmos [PC/Switch/iOS/Android]

A puzzle game that's less about challenge, and more about meditation and euphonic appreciation. This game is at once museum, fidget toy and music box all in one.

9.Cocoon [PS4/5, Xbox One, Series X/S, PC]

The spiritual successor to Limbo and Inside has some of the most inventive mechanics of 2023. Having worlds themselves be literal puzzle mechanics is unheard of. Better yet, Cocoon takes that core concept to mind-blowing peaks.

8.Diablo IV [PS4/5, Xbox One, Series X/S, PC]

Diablo IV may be an RPG, but underneath everything, it's truly a blade sharpening simulator. How deadly can you make your character? How efficiently can you do hilariously high damage? These questions will drive you for 60 hours with an addictive loop that keeps slamming your reward center. The numbers go up, the hours go up.

7.Jedi Survivor [PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC]

Jedi Survivor makes Fallen Order look like an audition. Massively upgraded level design, better platforming, better combat, better characters. More really can be better.

6.Hi-Fi Rush [Xbox Series S/X, PC]

One of the best surprise releases ever, Hifi Rush is a turbocharged PS2 game in the best way. Mashing rhythm game into a DMC action is a great elevator pitch and it's an even better game in practice. Hi-Fi is absolutely lightening bottled with disarming sincerity, consistently excellent design and incredible music curation.

#hi fi rush #cocoon #rytmos #diablo iv #jedi survivor #star wars #Xbox #pc #ps5 #nintendo switch #mtop10vg23

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Luigi's Mansion

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Good lord, anime elitism is something I don't need to revisit in the year of our Lord 2023

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Foggy Morning

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Being the Existential Cowboy

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Over the past years, Mitski's understandably pulled away from the madness of fame on the internet and its translation to her actual material life. So much so that Mitski, an ever mysterious musician, was ready to leave music. That enchanting, warming, melancholy of the Mitski experience was almost cast away with the rest of her career. It really did seem like it was over, but now she's back. She came back with Laurel Hell, a slightly esoteric indie iceberg that felt distant and head scratching in ways. However, come back is a come back even if it felt like some things were a little lost in translation.

With her new album, it's clear that while she came back with Laurel Hell but has actually returned with The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We.

Mitski has paired down the overall sound of the record. Past records have had interesting sonic contrasts, with undeniable harmony. A song like Be the Cowboy's Washing Machine Heart springs to mind. It's oddly thick, rubbery synths bouncing back distant guitars and circlus-melodic layers. That 2018 song was a microcosm of Mitski's past work. The Land is Inhospitable is often at its most satisfying with low, blurry acoustic guitars and parred-back-but-pulsing percussion.

A handpicked choir and a lone dusty acoustic guitar, with some sparring keys for accent and shimmer; just essentials for this new album's first track Bug Like an Angel. It's a potent, paired-down fixture that amplifies Mitski's soothing vocal ability and her magical-yet-mundane metaphorical abstractions. And while Mitski's 7th record excels in quieter moments, it's not to say that she's completely done away with vast compositions; there's still big swells but they're less strange.

Mitski has gone with an influx of steel guitars and enriching string arrangements that invoke the cinematic westerns of another lifetime. Truly, The Land is Inhospitable stands out as Mitski's most distinctly American sounding record to date.

The layers of sound are one thing,but the lyrics powering this half hour of existential cowboy dread propels this record into the stratosphere. The songwriting on The Land is Inhospitable is some of Mitski's best, hell it might be her very best. The way her metaphors and imagery take a dip into southern gothic highlights the beautiful strangeness of Mitski's surrealist meditations on the mundane and the macabre. Her intimate poetry explores love, life, loneliness and nature both in physical landscapes and inside ourselves. It all lends to some of her most imaginative lyricism to date.

Mitski is a once in a generation musician, someone able to conjure songs overwhelming with humanity in ways that are so deeply felt and existential. The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We is apex level work, truly peak form Mitski. What we have here is a lonestar cowboy moving through realms, and she moves at her own pace. We're just lucky to witness her shifting journey, and the incredible fruit it bears.

#music #mitski #the land is inhospitable and so are we #indie #folk #Americana

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Baldur's Gate 3.

That is all.

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A picture from when I was living mais before another round of covid

#my face #gpoy

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Delfino Plaza - Mario Sunshine

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Worth it.

I've decided, after 14 years, I will watch the clone wars series. I've made piece with episode 2 being among the worst movies ever created and now I can go on this journey.

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Jedi Survivor & Going Big

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In Rise of Skywalker's wretched shadow, there were 2 reasons to not completely question your faith in the franchise; The Mandalorian and Jedi Fallen Order.

Despite its flaws, Fallen Order was a great comfort meal of influences from mechanics in games like Uncharted, Dark Souls and Metroid. A great tribute act to better games housed in a rock solid Star Wars skin.

The sequel, Jedi Survivor, still has flaws. It still has some similar flaws from the first game, mainly sorta shoddy performance. Survivor's flaws however are completely dwarfed by its confidence, ambition and substantial evolution.

Jedi Survivor's leap over Fallen Order, it's biggest catalyst for evolution, is a it's totalizing cohesion. No longer is this slice of Star Wars a pretty good hodge podge of influences. In Fallen Order, Uncharted influences would move into clear Soulsborne influences with a dusting of Metroid. Things felt disjointed and lacked synthesis to truly make an original game. Survivor is now better aligned with the essence of the overall Universe of Star Wars. Survivor's influences are fueled by the distinct sensation of Star Wars-ness. The game uses its pieces to maximize a Star Wars experience and its limbs now feel attached to a cohesive, forward moving body. Everything is submerged in the idiosyncrasies of Star Wars and everything has a clearer and more distinct purpose.

With a massive boost to its world and level design. Cal Kestis' spelunking Nathan Drake influence is now properly elevated by level design that encourages Metroidvania exploration and the traversal abilities to make it satisfying and dense. Jedi's Souls combat takes places in much bigger spaces that have life and a sense of place which bolsters options of engagement and tools in fights.

The story, like nearly everything else in Jedi Survivor, is much better because of its exponential increase in layers. The plot itself is thematically darker but richer than Fallen Order. Cal steps out confidently as a much deeper and endearing character in this sequel. The cast is fantastic and deliver amazing performances to ground the world. The motivations are stronger in purpose and emotion. All of this is housed within areas and play spaces drenched with detail and consideration. Respawn have outdone themselves with these narrative pieces. They understand how to maximize these elements cumulatively to deliver a satisfying Star Wars experience in a narrative regard; one that uses every tool it can to deepen context and world texture.

Jedi Survivor is a huge leap for from promise to potency I haven't felt since the distance from Assassin's Creed 1 to 2. It's a visually stunning game that looks, plays and sounds far beyond the original. Really special work here, and despite its issues, Jedi Survivor's ambition is massive, exciting and passionate.

#video games #star wars #ps5 #xbox series x #pc games #jedi survivor #jedi fallen order #chewreview

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AU where everything is the same but Scar wears Adidas sweatpants

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Resident Evil 4 Remake & Redefining Brilliance

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Resident Evil 4 is not in short supply or hard to access. You could could boot up the OG on Nintendo's lunchbox and still play an all time great as it was initially conceived. You could also play an HD version on damn near every console under the sun. You can play it in VR. You can even play it with some Bush-era Nintendo waggle.

This is a game that has lived many lives and grandfathered many more. Some of these grandfathered games have gone on to become goliaths in their own right, like The Last of Us and Gears of War.

The minute RE4's 2023 remake was announced, there was elation, and then a question:

"Did we need an RE4 Remake?"

The answer is probably no, Resident Evil 4 didn't need a remake.

This statement is true, but after playing RE4R, that is simultaneously untrue and irrelevant all at the same time.

RE4R obliterates a lot of different marks. It respects the source material, it continues Capcom's impossible winstreak, and most importantly, it reimagines a classic as something simultaneously familiar and pungently different.

This remake emphasizes and cleverly reframes the original game's brilliance. It's an action game that is always communicating, always conditioning and always. It let's you know when to fight, when to chill, when to explore, when to be curious about ways you can fight, and it routinely likes to interrupt it's own rhythm just to diversify it's full course meal of gameplay.

More than most remakes, RE4R highlights how great the time-tested design of the OG is by adding new pieces to explore new dimensions of those older ideas. The Knife now adds parrying, making you a damn near Sekiro like killing machine. The ability to crouch, in addition to said knife, creates legitimately viable stealth in sections now balanced for that additional gameplay axis. Ashley is a wholy redeemed as a great character this time around with agency, has utility and adds a legitimate emotional foil to Leon's action hero this time around.

RE4R just never falters. It's manic, wildly deep box of toys marks it among the best still doing it. Smart opportunistic changes find different ways to relit well known set pieces and whole sections that make modern action games feel almost criminally deprived ingenuity. Capcom has found ways to take the visual character of the RE4 OG, and overcharge it with artistic menace; It doesn't miss a chance at a lighting change, character design or camera angle. It looks and feels different, and it feels different often because of how it looks.

RE4R is just sublime. A game so satisfying, so fun, so scary and so masterful. Almost 20 years on and one of the best games ever made, finds new ways to be one the best games currently available. Capcom keeps find ways to have their cake and eat it too, they just can't miss right now. RE4R is embarrassingly and effortlessly incredible.

#resident evil #resident evil 4 #resident evil 4 remake #leon kennedy #xbox series x #PS5 #Capcom #chewreview

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