Since everyone loves listening to articles and it’s so damn easy to do, here’s another one. Unfortunately Metacritic haven’t done a list of their own for the best games of the year, so I just took it from their website. It required a couple of extra clicks which is annoying because these lists are all about minimal effort on my behalf.
So, let’s see what obvious games made the list of best games of 2023 according to Metacritic. Note I’m only doing the top ten much like there’s a top ten worse games.
#01 Balder’s Gate 3 – 96. This was obviously going to be top of the list. It even won that Geoff Keighley award for best game of the year. Does that mean anything? Anyway, it’s an RPG that everyone seems to love. Apart from Xbox fans who seem unhappy it’s not immediately on Game Pass. Because heaven forbid you buy a game.
#02 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom – 96. The follow up to insanely well received and insanely successful Breath of the Wild, it’s actually surprising how successful this game did critically. Kinda a impressive way to bookmark the success of the Nintendo Switch.
#03 Metroid Prime Remastered – 94. It is really impressive that a remaster managed to make the top three best games of the year, with such a high score too. Metroid has never been a big franchise but it seems Nintendo are putting more faith into it as of the Switch era. The first first person Metroid game, this is definitely one of the better remasters.
#04 Asgard’s Wrath – 93. This is definitely surprising to see. A virtual reality game has made the top ten list. I’m sure it’s from a great developer and publisher. Lets have a look… oh.
#05 Against the Storm – 93. If you love city building games, then I guess you’ll love this. Personally never played it and unless it’s Cities Skylines or one of the Sim City games that’s not the 2013 travesty, I don’t actually have any interest in these kinds of games. Though I suppose now I think of it, I do enjoy the original The Settlers on the Amiga.
#06 Resident Evil 4 – 93. A whole full on remake of a classic game that first came out for the GameCube, one has to wonder whether the fifth and sixth not so good games will get a remake. And if so, can Capcom make them good? Also why has the first game not received a remake? They skipped the first and went straight to the second. Kinda weird.
#07 Super Mario Wonder – 92. Finally, Nintendo stopped making the bland uninspiring New Super Mario Bros games and tried to do something different. I mean, different within the realms of the 2D Mario universe. The plot is always the same. But this time there’s a sense Nintendo are leaning further into the drugs lore with crazy things happening at points throughout the many many levels.
#08 Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – 92. Another big surprise, though I do own all three games, I’ve only played part of the first. I really should try and play the rest and then maybe find millions of hours to play the second and third. But apparently these kinda open world RPG games with full on British accents are well loved with the critics and are seeing decent sales.
#09 Street Fighter 6 – 92. It’s Street Fighter. Only now with a new edgy logo.
#10 Turbo Overkill – 91. At first I thought this was going to be an arcade racing game with a name like Turbo Overkill. But then I saw it’s actually a fast paced first person shooter. Although it’s on all current and last generation systems, I get the distinct impression it’s best played with a keyboard and mouse. But I mean, I’m just upset it wasn’t an arcade racer so I really don’t care.
It’s very interesting to look at this list of top ten games of 2023 and see that there are four exclusives in the list. And not just exclusives but first party exclusives, and all of them are for one console. That being the Nintendo Switch. Even this late into the systems life, Nintendo has managed to release four big scoring exclusives. Impressive. Wonder where Microsoft’s Starfield and Redfall came? Actually I can’t be assed to check.
