The "Best of the Rest Awards" of 2023

Alright, here we go. Before I write up my Top Ten for the year, I want to write up my "Best of the Rest" list - games I dabbled with a bit, didn't finish, or did finish but didn't make the top cut.

I'll try to keep these all brief!

Also they're not in any particular order, so don't get mad at me!

Donkey Kong '94 (Game Boy)

Spent four hours on an extremely cold morning at a dealership getting my windows tinted with this one. It was one of my first games I had on my Game Boy, but 7 year old me didn't quite have the chops to think through navigating the levels, collecting all of Pauline's accoutrements. Some 30 years later...well, I'm a little better at it. Phenomenal game, gonna absolutely keep chipping away at it.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Switch)

I still think it's ugly! I still think the music thing is annoying! And kicking you to the map after every death is an unatoneable sin on Nintendo's part. But after finishing Super Mario Bros. Wonder (let's not talk about those final two levels, please, let's say I finished it), I was hankerin' for some more Mario, and finally giving this a fair shake...yeah, it's alright. It's not bad. It's irritating! But it's fine. Gonna keep at it.

Brotato (Switch, Android)

In a year where Vampire Survivors got a bunch of DLC and a Switch release...well, I played quite a bit of that. And it's good! It's still good. But it's exhausting, and goes on forever. Brotato knows you've got a life to live, things to do. Its level is plain and simple, its enemies not...super diverse, but the gameplay loop scratches that same itch, and does it in far less time than a Vampire Survivors run. Finding out that it's on phones, too...dang. What a treat.

YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! (Switch)

The thing about a game finally making good on the click-baity games shown in mobile game ads is that "those games"...ain't much to write home about. But if you choose to engage THOSE GAMES in the way it seems it wants you to (playing enough to fulfill your daily missions)...it ain't bad. Some games in it are better than others (the money stacking game and parking lot game are miserable, the pin pull and test tube levels are nice little challenges), but the carrot-on-stick of the "Gotcha" machine, granting you little titles and title backgrounds nobody but you will ever see, is juuust enticing enough.

Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space (Switch)

Look, I don't know if that's the name of this version for sure, they only released EDF 2, 3, and 4.1 in Japan on Switch (thanks to Japanese Amazon sellers and the weak yen for making my getting these things happen). EDF2, as all EDF games are wont to be, is a hoot and a holler. Sure, I gotta hold my phone up with Google Translate on to navigate some of the menus and read weapon descriptions, but at the end of the day, blowing away colossal ants and UFOs...that's a universal experience with no language barriers, baby.

UnderMine (Switch)

God what a clever little game. A roguelike dungeon crawler that plays like the older top-down Legend of Zelda games, you throw miner after miner down into the depths, collecting as much gold per run as you can, beefing it to a bug or a rat or an elf wizard or something, upgrading your gear a bit, and going in again. Great look to it, great feel to it. Highly recommend it.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed - Ecto Edition (Switch, Steam)

A game tailor-made for 4 year old me, I guess! The asymmetrical 4 vs. 1 gameplay isn't perfect (it has its share of bugs, and playing as a ghost...either takes getting used to or isn't much fun, I'm on the fence), but the matches are quick, and running around, PKE meters out, sussing out ghosts and trapping them as a team...some real calculated dopamine/nostalgia tapped right into the veins, for me at least. Plus, you can give your character the The Real Ghostbusters Egon hair, and listen to Dan Aykroyd ramble at length. What a game.

Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch)

Never had a GameCube, never could get the hang of the motion controls on the Wii version, so now in 2023, I can say I've played Metroid Prime and - it's alright. It's OK. To its credit, it really does do the inconceivable (at least, y'know, to folks 21 years ago) of bringing Metroid gameplay to the first person perspective. Everything about it feels pretty damn good. But the visor and weapon type juggling for Space Pirates and Metroids at the end of the game felt like an extremely clunky, wholly unnecessary slog. So I'm banishing this to "it was fine" status.

Quake (Switch)

Oh heck yeah. I've somehow never played Quake til now, but this is fantastic. God this game just books, moves at a clip...it's fast? There we go. Nowhere near done with it, gonna take a while to do so, but can't wait to have the time to dig back in there and blow up those, uh, weird...buff snake torso things.

Lotion Samurai (Switch)

This game is like $3 on Switch. You can get and the sequel dirt cheap on Steam. Trust your gut. Pick it up. The story makes no sense (you're told you were captured and turned into a lotion samurai, so you...kick off walls and slide around, sword first, around short maze-like levels, killing ninja as you go), but it goes all in on it. Slipping around to a constant refrain of William Tell Overture finale, trying to get the best time possible...that's what gamin' is all about.

Murder by Numbers (Switch)

Picross with a heavy dose of Phoenix Wright style visual novel detective story. It's goofy, it's unabashedly queer, the story is maybe a tad predictable, but it's a good time, so long as you can stomach a ton of Picross (of course you can).

Undertale (Switch)

The only thing really keeping this one out of my top ten was that it's...it's so dang hard and I'm so dang old. I just don't have the reflexes for these little bullet hell fights. I had to get that Temmie Armor to beat the game, and can't even get past Undyne in the (frankly miserable) Genocide Run. But, all that aside, a delightful game. I "get it" now. I'll have to check out Deltarune eventually (but I'm probably not going back to the Genocide Run, no matter how bad I wanna experience the Sans fight).

Prodeus (Steam, Switch)

Fired this up (as of my writing this) last night and was immediately hit with a sense of..."aw yeah." God I need to get better at writing, I'm sorry folks. Just a solid feeling "boomer shooter," at least so far. Eventually gotta check out some of the custom maps, see if people did anything fun with it, or if everyone just tried to recreate E1M1.

Mr. Sun's Hatbox (Switch)

You don't realize how much you miss Metal Gear Solid V's Fulton balloon mechanic until you play a game that adopts it wholesale. A goofy, somewhat random run-based game where you kidnap, brainwash, and adorn an army of quirk-afflicted weirdos with weapons and hats, all in the grand quest to retrieve the titular Mr. Sun's Hatbox. Great game that I only bailed from after losing some of my best, least-detrimental crew members. Some day...

Red Dead Redemption (Switch)

"The game that got me to buy a flatscreen TV," now in my awful meaty palms (not really, I play Docked Mode like 95% of the time). It's Red Dead Redemption, it's some 13 years on from its original release, and it's still fantastic. Still nothing like the contextual music kicking in, the soaring western whistling as you ride through the scrub brush countryside. Also you don't need to commit a million mechanics to memory as you do with Red Dead Redemption 2 (I'll play it some day! But when I do, I gotta commit, because if you leave that one for a while and come back, hoo boy...).

We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie (Switch)

For whatever little misgivings I have with this port, as I did the prior Switch port of Katamari Damacy...it's We Love Katamari. It's one of the best damn games of all time, frankly.

Mortal Kombat 1 (Steam, Switch)

Yeah I know, I dogged it pretty hard in my last write-up, but as said, stripped of...reasonable expectations, but still, expectations. Stripped of those, the game is a good time. Fighting feels good, the characters are all pretty nuanced and fun to play as. It's alright. I just start thinking about the sleazy monetization and what could and should have been and start gettin' all frothin' mad...

Spelunker (NES, Switch)

Taking the place that Splatterhouse usually occupies in my year, Spelunker (either the NES version, or the fancy HD Deluxe remake or sequel or whatever on Switch) is a game I just keep getting drawn back to. Am I good at it? Absolutely not. But there's just...something to it. Something about the clunkiness, the brutally punishment you get for your miner falling more than 5 inches. It's something implaceable, but...I think I love me some Spelunker...

Suika Game (Switch)

Yeah yeah it's that watermelon game. I think they should stop updating it to take out the holiday themes (let me have options, especially since there's only one song that plays otherwise!), but as-is, Suika Game is a solid, brain-turned-off puzzle game. Easy to kick back and just...drop that fruit. Will I ever get two watermelons to touch? What will happen when they do? Maybe some day I'll find out... (I mean, I know, I looked it up, but bear with me)

Fortnite (PC, Switch)

I was out! I was out!! I had deleted the game! Given up on it! Soured on it! But then Chapter 5 dropped, and along with it, the one thing I thought would never come - Peter Griffin. And now, after a year and some change of beating my fists against my desk, demanding Peter Griffin, I gotta get back into the grind, hit level 70, and make it happen. Doesn't hurt that this new map is leagues better than the last one. I guess...I guess I'm back in.

And that's it! For the rest, anyway. The True Top Ten...will be go up sometime later I guess. Still gotta write. Keep your eyes peeled, set your clocks, whatever.