Nick's Gaming Year In Review (2023)

    We just had one of the best years in gaming history. Like 1985, 2001, and 2017, The Year 2023 will be revered as a year that shifted the gaming paradigm. Exciting new IPs and long anticipated follow ups released this year, some breaking new ground. One of these monumental releases was Baldur's Gate III, which not only improved on the CRPG formula, but also introduced the genre to an untapped audience. Alan Wake II was Remedy’s magnum opus, acting as a confluence of their lessons as a development studio, and pouring their experience into  their most artistic game to date. By contrast, legendary studio Bethesda released the long awaited Starfield, a game that seemed to fall short of capturing the Bethesda magic players have come to expect. Admittedly, I didn’t play any of these games. I kept up with the discourse surrounding them, and have them on my shortlist for games to play in the near future. But I’m not here to talk about the games that defined our 2023, but instead the games that defined my 2023. The games that I sunk hundreds of hours in. Games that not only gave me a space to socialize with friends, but also games that reminded me of what makes this medium of art so special.

So here is My Year In Review.

Counter-Strike 2

    Counter-Strike 2 is Valve’s latest entry in their legendary FPS franchise. Having played both Counter-Strike:Source when I was young and playing Counter-Strike:Global Offensive on and off for most of my adult life, I couldn’t wait to sink 100s of more hours into Valve's next installment when it was announced back in the spring. Now, at about 400 hours of playtime, I find myself head over heels with Counter-Strike 2
 

    This game is more than just a sequel, it’s a paradigm shift for the franchise. Moving from the series away from a modified version of Source 1 to the technically impressive Source 2 engine, giving Valve, and the modding community, a gambit of new development tools to update the game in new and creative ways. Beyond the shift to the new engine, Valve has made some minor tweaks to the gameplay. One of the most technically impressive changes that shifts how the game is played is the smoke grenades going from being a static image to becoming a volumetric 3D object. What does that mean exactly? Well, in short, ‘volumetric smokes’ are fully interactable 3D objects. If you throw a frag grenade at them, the smoke cloud will momentarily dissipate, if you shoot at the cloud, bullets create tiny holes that you and your opponent can see through. Though this feature appears more realistic, the goal of this change is to offer players additional counter play against smoke grenades. In previous versions of CS, smoke grenades are immovable walls of visual cover that neither team can see through, where the only counter play would be to run out the smoke and gamble your life. With the changes made to Smokes in CS2, you aren’t as safe behind them as you used to be. Their intractability opens up a wealth of new possibilities. Few gameplay features have made my brain buzz with glee quite like shoo-ing away a smoke and peaking out at an unsuspecting opponent. But beyond it being fun, it makes gameplay dynamic. Having the opportunity to take action against smoke grenades has helped speed the game up and make for less waiting around, and more involved, intentional action.

    The gunplay in CS2 is the best in the series. Every shot feels crisp and responsive, more so in CS2 than they ever did in CS:GO. And not only did the gunplay get a face lift, so too did the maps. Valve has made minor changes to these perfect arenas, resulting in these classics being more vibrant and imaginative than ever before. Inferno has never looked so vivid, Nuke has never been so luminescent. Even though the maps have gone through a substantial visual overhaul, they still play the same and maintain their core identity. Strategies players used to run on CS:GO maps still work on their CS2 counterpart. If you were expecting these new maps to be complete overhauls I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. Some tweaks have been made to certain positions on maps to help improve visibility, making some angles more defined and, in some cases, mildly changing how a peak plays. But regardless of the changes, if you were good at running an execute on a site before or were a savant on a certain angle, your skills still transfer over to these iterations. The individual identity of these 20+ year old maps are still intact, they’ve just been touched up for modern audiences, and I’d say it’s for the best.

    There are many positive changes CS2 makes over CS:GO; the ranked system is not one of them. An obtuse and confusing ranked system is nothing new to Counter-Strike. During the last three years of CS:GO it felt like most matches in the middle ranks were a toss up when it came to match quality. A wide swath of ranks would all meet in one match, something a rank based matchmaking system ought to prevent. In some cases, you’d see players from the top 5% compete against those in the top 50% percentile. With the implementation of the new ELO based matchmaking system in CS2, Valve made the claim that issues like this would go away. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Though I will say I enjoy seeing a number associated with my skill rating, It appears that the rank balancing issues of CS:GO are still present in CS2. Though Valve has made substantial efforts to tweak the rank system, it still needs some tender love and care. Now matchmaking isn’t all bad. Some matches I play feel balanced and remain engaging. I trust that, with time, Valve will find the balance me and so many other players are looking for. Given the current build of the game I feel less like a competitor in a healthy matchmaking system, and more so one of Valve’s Guinea Pigs.

    Though the game isn’t without its flaws, I still find myself sinking 100s of hours into the game, night after night. The reason is plain and simple, Counter-Strike 2 is a ripe space for high-octane gameplay moments. Out dueling opponents, executing effectively onto a site, clutching up in that pivotal 1v3, Counter-Strike 2 is as fun now as the original game was in 2000. All Valve needs in order to make this the definitive version of Counter-Strike is to make the last necessary technical touch ups and start adding new content to the game, once that’s done, we’ll be living in the next golden age of Counter-Strike.

Trepang2 

    Conceptually, Trepang2 is ripped straight from the imagination of a 2000s era teenager - you play as an experimental superhuman soldier with enhanced abilities, taking on black ops agents, monsters, cult leaders, the paranormal, what more could you ask for?  I loved every minute of the schlocky action on offer. One example of the 00-isms is the featured ‘Bullet Time’ mechanic where, when activated, everything around the player slows down, giving them an  advantage in almost every gunfight. But that’s not all, the player has access to an invisibility cloak, allowing them to reposition and get the drop on their unsuspecting foes. Being able to hide around a corner, quickly reposition, and then get the jump on some sorry sods was beyond satisfying. These abilities, in tandem with a suite of capable movement options, made me feel like I always had the means to sway the fight in my favor. These abilities are limited, like in all great games, they are a resource you have to manage. In addition to the special abilities, Trepang2 doubles down on the badass-isms by giving the player unique interactions with all human enemies. If there’s an enemy who’s unfortunate enough to be in arm's reach, you can use them as a human shield, offering additional cover if you’re caught out in the open. If you don’t want to grind to halt, but still want to stun a foe, you can slide tackle them, turning them into a screaming clay pigeon. To add insult to injury, you can kick someone with both of your legs, knocking them to the ground and hoisting you into the air. The tools awarded to the player make for a frenetic and high paced power fantasy that requires proper resource management and quick thinking to succeed.

    The greatest part of Trepang2 for me, is the weapon areseal. The weapons in Trepang2 are as lethal as they are iconic, ripped straight from action movies of the not-so-distant past. One of these weapons of infamy is the Spas-12. Trepang2 has one of the best iterations of the iconic weapon in gaming, by a mile. The shots are thunderous, the reloading of each shell is percussive, and the pump being pulled to chamber a new round is foreboding. Each time I shot at a foe, I knew I was on the right end of the boomstick. Other iconic weapons, like the Kriss Vector and the USP, show up as well, each offering punchy and frenetic feeling that align with their portrayal in other games and films. The gunplay in Trepang2 is a fluid blend of Max Payne and F.E.A.R. The game is not difficult, albeit there are a few gimmick deaths here and there I learned to work around, but Trepang2  is a power fantasy first and difficult game second.

    Though not a point against the game, the narrative department is the least fleshed out part of the whole package. There’s only a few key missions that tether into the ‘main story’, a majority of the missions being arcadey side affairs with their own contained mini-story. Despite not every mission coalescing into the main plot, it helps convince the player that the world of Trepang2 is one where the paranormal and supernatural are lurking around every corner.  It’s not immediately apparent, but as the player continues through the story, it slowly dawns on them that the least of their concerns are guys in tactical gear. You start the game off escaping from a prison, and eventually fighting against monstrous amalgamations, ghosts, and demons. These creatures make for amazing action and horror setpieces, both adding to the narrative and pushing the players limits.  I wish more games had it in them to withhold their gambit of enemies to the extent Trepang2  does. The end result of this is the player is never secure in what could be around the next corner, helping to maintain suspense throughout a playthrough.

    Regardless if a level is a narrative detour or a key portion of the story, every locale on offer is both stylized and fantastic. From an unassuming modern office complex with a hidden subterranean lab, to a grandiose cathedral littered with mask wearing, fire grenade lobbing cult members, Trepang2  understands what a memorable set piece is. Environmental storytelling helps set the game’s tone and push its narrative forward. The abandoned arctic research facility with multi-dimensional anomalies is a prime example for how this game tells its story.  Without warning, one of these anomalies warped me away from the icy lab and I was faced with a musky, yellow carpeted “Backrooms'' dimension. Wave after wave of enemies in hazmat suits and tactical military gear attacked me in this “Backrooms” horrorscape. I’ve seen so many games take the mythos of the Backrooms and use the space as a horror labyrinth. Trepang Studios did something novel, and allowed a character stuck in The Backrooms to fight back, a gripping and novel subversion of this internet literary subgenre. As you progress through the level, you flip back and forth between the lab and The Backrooms. The research here was being done flippantly, the scientists were toying with things beyond their understanding. That is made clear by how unstable this portal to another world is, and it’s done using ‘show-not-tell’. As I traversed through both dimensions, I eventually found the device responsible for the dimensional anomalies, resulting in an all out brawl between the guards defending the device and me. As the last soldiers fell to the ground, and the whirring interdimensional device powered down, the mission was complete. Action and objectives serve as the cutscene. Suspense and horror, especially in this level, are the secret sauce to Trepang2’s world building. This level is not an outlier, it’s the standard the game continually upholds from start to finish.  

    Though Trepang2 is not flawless, this game serves as a reminder as to what AA studios are capable of, and that I should be keen to check out more offerings from Trepang Studios and developers like them.

 

The Finals

    Since my last article on The Finals it was stealth dropped during The 2023 Game Awards and has kept a respectable player count, and shows no signs of slowing down. It’s become my off-main game. I'm always able to get in a few good matches throughout the week when I’m not playing Counter-Strike. I talked extensively about the game in my last article, so today I’m just going to focus on my experiences with the game since launch. If you want to learn more about the game and what I thought about the game initially, click here.

    Embark, the developer for The Finals, has put in a fair bit of work to improve the core experience as well as balance various weapons and tools within the sandbox. Small bugs I noticed from the beta are gone. As new issues pop up, Embark has squashed them. Beyond fixing bugs, the devs are always tweaking the damage values, rate of fire, and overall effectiveness of some of the weapons on offer. When a developer is this dedicated to balancing their newly launched game, it means they are worthy of our confidence as players.  

    The Finals is the breath of fresh air FPS players deserve. Outside of Apex Legends there aren’t many popular long Time To Kill games out there. A snappy, quick TTK game gets my heart going, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I want a bit of variety, and I bet you do too. Quick TTK games are as exhilarating as they are frustrating; one moment you turn a corner and erase a whole team, while other times, you’re getting turned to dust before you can even move your mouse. Quick TTK games are exhilarating, but variety is the spice of life. The Finals offer a great middle of the road TTK. You can outplay 2 or more players, if you hit your shots and use your tools well, but it’s not going to be easy. If you get shot in the back, you have the opportunity to reposition or regroup, versus instantly dying. Despite individual plays being possible, be mindful that teams that play together, win together. Individual plays do matter in The Finals, but like Apex:Legends, players have to synergize with their team to consistently win.

    FPS games are like specialty spice blends, the base elements are nothing new, it’s how those elements are brought together that makes for something novel and exciting. The Finals is brimming with all the right FPS ‘spices’. You have dynamic destruction that surpasses anything Battlefield has done in any of its entries, you have tools(like the Goo Gun) only seen in Immersive Sims, there’s classes here that blend core philosophies from other hero based shooters and distill them into the light, medium, and heavy classes. The amount of recognizable elements is overwhelming, and yet, The Finals blends them together with panache. What it comes down to is a cohesive vision and a creative blend of the familiar. Though the concept of destruction is familiar, the level at which it occurs and how dynamic it is really warps how I look at this game's map versus something more static games like Call of Duty. When I see a wall in The Finals, I don’t see a barrier, I see a door I've yet to open. This level of dynamic interactivity is, without hyperbole, a true next step forward for FPS games. In a curious twist though, what makes The Finals electrifying isn’t just the innovations it’s pushing, it’s equal parts that and how well it executes familiar FPS mechanics.

    Outside of the sandbox and the wonders that come with it, what keeps me coming back to The Finals is the inclusion of seamless crossplay. Though crossplay has inched closer to becoming an industry standard for most multiplayer games, many still omit the feature. So whenever I see games that my siblings and I can all hop onto, I make a point to tell them all about it! After giving them the elevator pitch on the game, we’ve been playing once or twice a week, every week. With all of us being on different games platforms and living a couple hours away from one another, The Finals has become one of our key social hubs. The game feels well balanced for controllers and Mouse & Keys alike, and the game is optimized well enough for all systems that it feels like everyone is on equal footing.

    The Finals has burst onto the market, and is now one of the most promising FPS games on the scene. If you prefer to play what’s on the cutting edge of gaming, then The Finals is where you need to be.

 

Quake Live + Quake Champions

    I spent most of my summer nights cutting my teeth on Quake Live and Quake Champions. Playing a few matches before bed was my evening ritual. Strangely enough, playing Quake Multiplayer before bed was soothing, meditative even. Both games are devoid of clutter. There’s no overwhelming visuals, crazy colors or flashing lights. Quake is as no-nonsense as an FPS can get. Quake is held up by three core gameplay elements: movement, map knowledge and proficiency. When you carefully balance all three, you gracefully earn a kill. If you fall short in any category, your opponent will best you. The feeling of getting a kill is unambiguous, you know you’ve earned it. In an industry with so many shooters that work their hardest to keep you invested in the game through superfluous means, Quake's design is more interested in the merits of the player shining through, even at the cost of alienating some. There’s next to no proverbial  equipment for a player to participate in the all too common ‘mental gymnastics’ seen in many other Online First Person Shooters. You’re either great at Quake or you’re on your way to becoming great. I'm usually the latter, but when all the pieces come together, I’m certainly the former. That tranquil feeling of authentically owning the outcome of every gunfight and every match was, and still is, a place of FPS zen. During my time with these games, I got measurably better at tracking with the lightning gun, flicking with the railgun, volleying rockets, and with that growth, a sense of real FPS catharsis through accomplishment.

    ID Software has spent the last 7 years rebooting the Legendary DOOM IP, and now that the demand for ID to make their old IPs into modern titles has grown, there’s never been a better time to release a Quake Reboot. I spent many hours this year playing through Quake Multiplayer and The Quake Remasters, and I have to tell you, the games still hold up to this day. Nothing would make me happier to see ID capture lightning in a bottle again with Quake as they did with DOOM back in 2016. Right now, there’s only rumors it’s in development. Maybe before the decade is over, we get a Quake revival? A guy can dream.

Ultrakill (Layer 7: Violence) 

    There are few things in gaming I’m more excited for than the eventual 1.0 release of ULTRAKILL. The game has been in early access since 2020, and it’s one of my chicken noodle soup games. I revisit it on a rainy day, when I need a good pick-me-up. There’s too much to like about. Whether it be the satisfying weapon combos, the PS1 era stylized aesthetics, the kinetic, at times moody, original soundtrack, the tougher than nails bosses….  the list goes on. When a new update comes out, the hairs on my neck stand on end. Though 1.0 isn’t here yet, Solo Developer Arsi "Hakita" Patala, released the first layer in the three layer Final ACT. Layer 7:VIOLENCE  gives us a peek into how off-the-wall and boundary pushing the final act of ULTRAKILL will be. 

    Hakita starts the layer with a somber intro, dropping the player into an ethereal, ambient, and eerie spaceWalking out of the spawn door and into the tunnel, I was confronted by a foggy, white void with dilapidated and crooked crucifixes littering either side of a narrow path. A lean, plinky piano piece played as I walked into the nearby greco-roman building. After roaming around the empty rooms for a few moments, Hakita unleashed one of the many new enemy types to the game: The Mannequin. This uncanny demon is as lethal as it is unwelcoming. Usually spawning in as a group of 3 or 4, Mannequins climb around on the walls and fire lethal blue orbs that can deal massive damage if you don’t effectively dodge or parry them. Between their high mobility and massive damage output, they make for a solid addition to the lower tier mobs category. Once the player has reached layer 6, lower tier mobs have become trivial thanks to their now robust arsenal and heightened mobility. The inclusion of The Mannequin makes lower tier mobs lethal once again. There are plenty more new enemies I could go on and on about, but I’ll save discussion about them, and much much more, for my article on the eventual release of ULTRAKILL 1.0.

    With the release of Layer 7, I’m reminded that Hakita still has his Midas Touch. The Original Soundtrack continues to be a sensational breakcore album in its own right, and the new tracks in Layer 7 hold up to scrutiny. Boss design is above and beyond. The range of boss encounters, in both format and design, is astounding in this single layer. There are no first person shooters that have as many astonishing, impressive, and challenging bosses as ULTRAKILL does. Point blank period. Without saying too much about Layer 7’s boss, it takes an existing boss archetype and remixes it. The 1000-THR Earthmover is one of ULTRAKILL’s colossal bosses, the largest to date. This War Machine that was used in the final war of humanity is now here in the lower levels of hell, causing destruction across the 7th layer. The player character, V1, has to scale this four legged goliath, and then dive deep into the mechanical guts of the monster, having to ward off its defense measures all the while. The boss fight is cinematic, grandiose and challenging. After defeating the mechanical beast, you fly away, and witness the creature explode due to you destroying its core. This boss fight is only the first of three layers. If this is how Hakita is starting ACT III, I can hardly contain my excitement for what he has in store for us when the final ACT drops.  

Honorable Mentions

    There are so many more great games I got to play this year. Though I may write about these games below in another post, I’d be doing these games a disservice if I didn’t at least bring them up in this article.

    I thoroughly enjoyed Sprawl, a grungy dystopian FPS with wall running and bullet time mechanics. The setting, gunplay, and movement are a blend of Quake and Titanfall, with the tone of the game being an even 50/50 split of The First Matrix film and The 2012 Judge Dredd film. Sprawl was a welcome surprise for me this year, a stand out title amongst the ever growing ‘Boomer Shooter’ sub genre. Not only was the story engaging, but the action set pieces felt like distilled cinema that you're in control of. Great shotgun, phenomenal SMGS, and the endgame rocket launcher had stunning animations and design.

     Another great game, that served as my go to co-op game with friends, was Roboquest, a vibrant FPS Rogue-Like that has rich progression, solid game feel, and a wide array of weapons to pick from in any given run. The game is affordable, nearly flawless and all while running as smooth as butter. As someone who isn’t always sold on the Rogue-Like formula, I found myself smiling ear to ear during each of my Roboquest play sessions.

    I’d be remiss if I didn't bring up Max Payne 2, one of the definitive pulp noir third person shooters that launched all the way back in 2003. I had played Max Payne 1 and 3 before, but somehow I never got around to playing the 2nd, so I set out to remedy that this year. After seeing credits roll I was pleasantly surprised. Essentially, the game is a refined Max Payne 1. It has all the melodrama that Max Payne is known for mixed with the fast, lethal gunplay set in the seedy underbelly of New York City. Max Payne 2 struck a few emotional chords I didn’t anticipate due to the tragedy that befalls Max, despite his best efforts. Seeing what unfolds in the second game gives me a greater understanding as to why he runs away to Brazil at the start of the third game, in order to escape the trauma he experienced over the course of the first two games. Now having finished the second game my interest has been sparked to work through all of Remedy’s backlog.

 

Final Thoughts

    That’s my year in review. Yes, all of the games most important to me were twitchy, fast paced FPS games, but that was the genre that spoke to me this year. These games gave me places to not just escape from reality, but also look at reality head on. Counter-Strike 2 served as a digital space for comradery and competition, while Quake gave me a place to reflect and relax after a long day at work. Experiences like The Finals helped keep me and my brothers connected, while games like ULTRAKILL reminded me of the undeniable fact that Video Games are an artistic medium worth respecting. The games I played this year all served as puzzles to keep my mind and hands busy, but in pursuit of that space, these games reminded me of how this medium enriches and enhances my everyday life.

    Thank you to all of those who read this blog. Your readership, feedback, and involvement mean the most to me. There’s a few ideas that I have brewing. They are all in the early drafting stages. If you have any suggestions as to what you’d like to read from me next, feel free email me (nicholasddiaz1@gmial.com). I hope you had a great 2023 and that your 2024 is even better!