Use code ERUPTION50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3j2qIdS! Also let me know what games you thought were stinky. IM SURE I MISSED SOMETHING. 2023 is done, in the bag and it's hard to believe we release this much content this year. That's 24 videos for a total of 975ish minutes. OR RATHER, 16 hours of me rambling about some kind of video. That's nuts. I can never thank y'all enough for the support here, and I hope to continue to entertain for years to come! Big
Fun Fact: Because of how briefly The Day Before was on sale on Steam, the devs actually won't see any money from it. Steam hasa policy where they keep any money from sales for the first month and only pay out at the end of the following month. Meaning the devs even failed at scamming their customers!
The publisher is still insured and gets a payout regardless of whether the game tanks or sells. Seeing how the publisher and the developers are very closely tied I bet they are splitting the write-off coming from it.
Either because they just have a knack for grabbing the right licenses ( kid shows) or they occasionally put out a average game ( sounds like the recent nickelodeon brawl game is good) lol.
When Critikal released a video about the game I had to laugh because at one point he just forms a smile that is so full of glee when a person mentions they remembered having the game on PS2 lol.
The nicest I've seen about Bluey is "The best you can do when doing the bare minimum." said by Yathzee Croshaw. Personally, I think a game that can be beat in less than an hour without straining yourself, and 100 % in less than 3 hours, should NOT be $40!
Sonic Superstars also had the unfortunate timing of coming out the same day as Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which was the exact opposite of the playing it safe rut they had fallen into with the New series. It just never stood a chance.
It's a shame really. They should have went the Mario 3d world route instead of Sonic 2 for Mega drive multiplayer. Didn't work 30 years ago not working now.
To be fair, he put it under personal disappointments, though its such an odd thing to mention the physics when they're extremely accurate to the originals+Mania. I also don't know how he can say its as safe as Sonic 4 when just the second zone alone had rail grinding, something we haven't seen in a long time on 2D games, or even JUST the Chaos Emerald powers
@@lucariotrainer16 yeah it true, I can certainly get people being personally disappointed by it, especially with how annoying the boss fights are, but I just don't get the "safe" claim at all, there's a a whole new character, brand new mechanics (for better or worse), multiplayer and it's the first game in over a decade to not feature green hill, chemical plant or any re-used zone, I think Superstars is anything BUT safe... Still, I don't think it belongs in a list with the likes of The Day Before or Rise of Kong lmao
Yeah, that's an absurd entry for this list, Like, I hear the game was underwhelming and launched with that classic SEGA techincal difficulties, but like, to even have it on this list, even if he says the game itself isn't bad, is rather confusing.
@@massimodalessandro108 Yeah, baffling choice in complaints, Like, what? How did he think it's somrhow he most generic 2D Game in the series, most people complain that they changed some things too much in ways that they didn't jive with when criticizing the game.
Everything that’s quality good will always be better than sonic, like imagine being 30-40 years old and you’re excited to play shit from an irrelevant bad franchise that should’ve died in 1998, only being praised by the worst fanbase I’ve ever seen in my life.
The big disappointment for me this year was Loop8: Summer of Gods. On paper it should have been everything I wanted and it had some REALLY good ideas. A small Japanese town and throughout the month aliens will take over the body of one of the inhabitants, so you raise your relationship with other characters to go rescue people and how well your party members do in battle is based on how much your party member likes the person you're saving. It had a LOT of good ideas, but for the most part it was slow, repetitive, and ended up being a total bummer. In the right hands and with a better story, this one could have been a slam dunk!
I was also cautiously optimistic about it but the way your social links apparently completely restart each go sounds like such a phenomenally bad idea. My hope is the devs at least patch that part then I would give it a try anyway once it's cheap.
Watched a video going over this one in depth, and man. It's like an H game where they took out all the H last minute and forgot to make the game actually good after. Shoutout to the main game ending being getting together with your cousin, not to mention certain more...problematic elements somehow worse than the story playing hard into the weird H cousin fetish.
The gameplay loop was awful. Who thought it was fun to redo the same conversations with no differences. I was really hyped about it and was pretty dissapointed with how it turned out
When I played Kong, the reason I bought it was to stream it and see the jpg scene through my own effort. Wouldn't you know it, the cutscene happens and the jpg didn't even load in properly. It took me 9 hours straight to finish that game
My niece was so excited for Jumanji, she's been talking non-stop about wanting it for xmas...and she got it. And when i went over i have never heard her sound so disappointed about a game. Luckily though she also got Mario RPG...and i turned up in a Mario onesie (long story) so i'd say her Christmas was OK.
Man, as nice as it was to hear that you got her something good, I'm still kinda sad because it sounds like she was a really big fan of the new Jumanji movies and I'm remembering what it was like back in the day when you really liked something and found out that man, it had a video game! I like the thing! And I like video games! Surely those two things combined will be DOUBLE AMAZING! And you learned. You learned that bitter lesson many a time... if it hadn't been for Turtles in Time and Capcom's and Sega's Disney-games showing me it CAN be done, I'd be a far more cynical man than I already am. Shame she had to have her hopes dashed like that.
Yet another year of publishers and share holders dictating when a game is ready for launch. I'm still pretty salty about D4 being a rushed out cash grab / beta test for 70 - 90$ I hope the yacht Bobby bought sinks.
D4 isnt nearly as bad as it was on launch. Its like, actually playable now. Season of blood has been fun. … please dont immolate me and put my head on a pike
I wrote for 5 pro-wrestling games & was a pro-wrestler for 5 years. I absolutely love FFVI, Personas 4&5, and Suikoden. And I couldn’t be bothered to play WrestleQuest. It just didn’t look good to me, and reviews were mixed. It looks like Drawn To Life Wrestling RPG. Shame. Also, I did mocap in Wanted Dead (mostly as Herzog and the main villain). Glad you liked it!😊
@@JustinLeeper it was a lot of fun. I played through it twice and would love a sequel. I love how quirky it is in-between levels and balls out during missions.
I'm guessing they've been getting a lot of AI slop at some point, and it's not surprising they'd remove those kinds of games given they've already banned crypto games for a while.
@@calebproductions1264 I mean, yeah. AI is in no way ready to produce good games yet and companies should know that, but I suppose they care more for the easy approach.
I've read in a steam review that Survivor Castaway Island is actually a reskin of another game called Koh-Lanta / French Survivor and that's why some of the dialogue is kinda strange (it was translated weird)
@@rainierdanredondo1278 To me it just feels like Factors commercials are essentially Whopper commercials without ever showing a Whopper 😂 Not even a fake Whopper or exaggerated, just nothing
Just skimmed through the vid and shoutout for not taking perfectly average games like Forspoken and lumping them in the "worst" of the year category out of sheer laziness like other channels have been doing.
Is insane the quality of what an average game is now cus in the ps2/gc to PS3/360 we had thousands of awful games that were barely functional and nobody bat an eye
@calebproductions1264 uhm, I don't think mk1 is a remake, and I personally disagree with the re4, but I don't think hearing my opinions would be productive. What do you look for in a remake? Perhaps you could give an example of a good remake?
@@smollmoth6376 I mean besides the graphics being at a good quality (Though these days video game companies do it in a bad movie simulator way), there should be no cut content that were from the original games, add more stuff that'll make them worth to buy, and they need to be at lower prices (And I'm not talking about sale prices dropping, I meant they need to go back to being $20-$30 again). I'm not an expert on remakes, but I can tell the difference between soul and soulless.
@@calebproductions1264 I see, you didn't uh give an example of a remake you like, if you don't want to give one that I'd completely fine, I am just curious.
my friend who's a fan of the space sci-fi starfield was going for, and he bought the game day one, he even streamed it and got exactly one viewer, me, and i saw him lose all excitement in real time, unable to get hoocked in or find any excitement, and refunding the game at the end of the stream.
The payday 3 thing is no surprise at all. I'll never forget people telling the devs that the console version of 2 was broken. His response was to buy a PC.
22:03 When the game launched in April, Speedstorm had no monetization, you just paid 30-40 bucks for the game and after that nothing until it went free to play, you just played to level up your characters and used your coins to get upgrades. I love the game but have not spent another cent on it since real money was implemented , I just play 1-2 hours a day to grind for my characters to be a good level. The music remixes are pretty good
Oh yeah, Austin. You may be my favorite RUclipsr this year. Every time i saw you upload i grabbed myself a snack and something to drink and you never disappointed. Keep up the good work
My worst and disappointing games of 2023: Disappointing: 10. SlavicPunk: Oldtimer 9. Clive 'n' Wrench 8. Wanted: Dead 7. Blood Bowl 3 6. Pharaoh: A New Era 5. Company of Heroes III 4. Forspoken 3. PAYDAY 3 2. RedFall 1. Starfield WORST: 10. Skinny and Franko - Fists of Violence 9. Torchlight: Infinite 8. LOTR: Gollum 7. Redfall 6. The Settlers: New Allies 5. Wild West Dynasty 4. Stray Souls 3. Skull Island: Rise of Kong 2. Enchanted Portals 1. The Day Before This was full of extremes - there was at least one Gollum on every Hogwart's Legacy, one Enchanted Portals on Pizza Tower and one Skull Island: Rise of Kong on Spider-Man 2. Nevertheless there were also many, many great games and I hope that coming 2024 will be greater what I wish for you and for myself :)
Totally agreed about WrestleQuest. I can't imagine how a turn based RPG and wrestling fan DOES NOT like the game. How bad could you haven't failed to mess up this badly.
Forgive my long dumb ass novella, BUT I still assert that the concept of a Gollum video game is NOT the doomed idea everyone assumes it is. It’s just that the one developer that tried, executed the idea terribly. Loyalty to Tolkien lore or no, in 2023 no one is interested in playing a dense & boring prison sim for 15 hours! When I initially heard the pitch of a Gollum 3rd person stealth action/narrative game I imagined interesting mechanics where you have to stealth kill foe after foe while also making binary narrative choices based around puzzle solving and the internal struggle between Gollum and Smeagol. Its a mechanic that, if done correctly, could influence the rest of your gameplay and narrative in the way that classic Bioware games did. Gollum also being a “tricksy” devilish creature should use stealth killing in so many gruesome and dynamic ways. I think the idea of Gollum being an unstoppable killing machine while in the shadows pairs wonderfully with the character being almost too weak to withstand multiple straight on attacks. It would force players to utilize Gollum in clever strategic ways. As far as the lore is concerned as someone that barely considers themselves a casual Tolkien book fan I don’t need slavish devotion to the story of Gollum and his whereabouts if it results in hours and hours of dungeon/prison play. That’s NOT fun. Surely I don’t care if Gollum was captured and imprisoned for so long during his journey if it results in the devs making that the entire backdrop for the game! In all my point is that the concept of a Gollum game was and is not inherently terrible. Like with most high profile entertainment flops people learn the wrong lesson. A terrible Gollum game like a terrible comic book film (Batman & Robin) doesn’t mean the concept or genre is faulty, dead or never worth exploring. The problem is always in the way it was approached and executed.
I do hope you do a compiled list of indies + AA you loved this year Austin! so many gems in my opinion: cocoon bomb rush cyberfunk el paso, elsewhere (max payne homage) venba en grade! (this year's sifu)
Payday 3 is what you get when people decide to follow through on comments like "when are we going to get a league of legends 2?" or "We need a r6 siege sequel!" because to do so you are gonna be starting over completely and unless they change the game up so much to where it's justified, it'll just feel like a lesser version of the predecessor
Hellpoint's Jumanji definitely made me do a double take. I really liked Hellpoint. It's kind of mid in a lot of ways but it also has a ton of really fun twists and cool ideas on the formula to make it worthwhile. So uh, hey assuming these are the same people making this and not a gutted studio with the same name, go get paid I guess. What ever keeps food in the table and the wolves from the door. There was good talent at that studio, they deserve to get to try another non-ip mill game someday 😅
Do you ever look to your left? I’ve found it so distracting that you always look to your right every few seconds but never to your left. What’s over there?
The Crime Boss section reminded me of my short tenure working in a Chick-fil-A kitchen as a teenager where I worked with one try-hard that would constantly drop classic one-liners like "s**t, man, this s**t is some good s**t" and everyone would just look at him like "yeah, you're not actually cool."
I wouldn't call the Bluey game bad. It's short and the writing is almost on parr with the show and my 4 year old (the target demographic) loves it. It's kinda just what happens when you make a game out of a show in which the episode length is 7 minutes per episode
Cool vid but would love to see you go back to covering the best games of the year too. I think its much more fun to celebrate great games and also would just be cool to hear your opinions
21:10 I honestly should have known wo long was going to be disappointing from the title... spoilers ahead The title is a reference to Zhuge Liang, the biggest, most overhyped manipulative bastard of the three kingdoms and someone I sort of grew to hate after looking into the real history the novel was based... though to be fair, that goes for like, 90% of the kingdom of shu those guys SUCKED. Anyways, the game is secretly about how great Zhuge Liang is and is secretly all about him/setting him up, which sucks. And yes, this is a nerd complaint.
Haven't played Starfield, but what makes me so sad about it's reception is that it's somewhat rare for a developer like Bethesda to gamble on an entirely new IP. Just sad to see the gamble turned out so poorly. It'll just reaffirm to devs that people don't want new stuff. Just iterations on existing IPs.
I’m quite thankful that I avoided truly bad games this year due to usually avoiding games that look terrible. Even Sonic Superstars, which’s included here and is the “worst” game I’ve played this year, is still an enjoyable and fun time, but just held back due to several key issues. All I know is that I’m 100% glad I only got it for $35 on Black Friday, since getting it for $60 would’ve hit me with a huge heaping of buyer’s remorse. Not to mention that I couldn’t have bought it even if I wanted to due to Sega thinking it was somehow a good idea to release mere DAYS before both Super Mario Wonder and Spider-Man 2.
Payday 2 launched in the same way Payday 3 did. PD3 has so much potential, but I agree it needs a ton of work. Give them time and i'm sure they'll turn it around. PD2 has been around for over a decade now so they had plenty of time to fix it up (but people forget that PD2 didn't have the best launch either)
Yeah, well I haven't played it but I think people just look back at the current state of Payday 2. I remember Payday 2 having some problems and it was kind of bare (compared to now). Though I did hear the connection problems at launch were really bad, I remember having connection problems in PD2 but not that bad.
Got Bluey the Video Game for me and my kid to play. It took 1 hour from start to finish and that includes me falling through the stage multiple times and having to clear to the menu and reboot. Disappointing for an otherwise clever and well crafted IP
Disney Speedstorm is so disappointing. It genuinely looks nice graphically, has some interesting gameplay quirks to set it apart from other kart racers, and has some really neat track design. But the amount of microtransactions coupled with the amount of grinding necessary to be competitive just instantly ruins the game entirely.
No, it's not a shocker, the First game was solid in terms of gameplay, and was made by passionate devs who got screwed over by Gamemill and Viacom in terms of a strict deadline and tiny budget. But the first game sold very well, and it lead to Ludocity being given a proper budget and more control adn capability to fix all the complaints people had about the first game, polishing it up and having more content.
You dont unlock new moves in Wo Long for the most part. Nioh 1&2 is constantly showing you cool new moves, near endgame youre doing wildly cool and different things from when you started.
I was lucky to have escaped the bad games this year. I got into Baldurs Gate 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Octopath Traveler 2, Mortal Kombat 1 and so on. Best advice is to wait for the reviews.
My biggest disappointment was Starfield. I have loved Bethesda like Elder Srolls and Fallout for so long but the awful exploration compared to those killed it for me. I sort of hate how much I like Disney Speedstorm though. It's so fun to play and the racing is just good. I should hate it because its a free to play gacha but I just keep playing. Kind of crazy how Gamemill pushed out so many awful games. Dreamworks Cart Racer was decent though. Not Mario Kart 8 or Crash Nitro Fueled good but not bad.
I might've been under the influence when we played Jumanji but the way the camera whips around in multiplayer made it the most difficult game to try and follow.
@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller since Austin was first player, the camera followed him instead of, like, zooming out to compensate for all 3 other players. It was a mess
11:43 To be fair: SAO Fatal Bullet is actually really good (as far as SAO games go) and you create a character in that one. You don't play with Kirito (outside of that one DLC which lets you unlock the sword and gun combo). The Complete Edition often goes on sale for like 12 bucks or so.
I only managed to buy a single game this year, since practically every single game I was interested in either started as a bad game or got “patched” into one very quickly.
Rockay City was Epic Exclusive because they knew it was bad. Every terrible game releases Epic exclusive to shield themselves from Steam reviews during the launch period. Saint's Row reboot did the same thing.
I'm glad I didn't buy any of these. I'm more disappointed with MW3 2023, AAA games have no excuse to be this bad and lazy. Though The Day Before should win the poo crown. Getting deleted after only 4 days, wow. And to think we used to get good licensed games like: The Punisher, The Darkness, AVP2, The Chronicles of Riddick Escape From Butcher's Bay and Dark Athena, etc. Spongebob The Cosmic Shake was fun.
I was able to grab Wo Long on sale and I really really enjoyed it. Still working my way through it, but with so many games coming out next month it might be a minute before I see the ending. But it is fun I swear!
Man, I think that this might be the first video which actually describes what it's like to PLAY Rockay City, instead of just laughing at the premise. As someone who hasn't played Payday I thought it'd be more a story-based game, like maybe Max Payne or Army of Two. Not sure I'm into what I saw here.
It's a shame Infinity Strash sounds so mid. I watched the anime but have never played a DQ game before, so I was hoping it might be a good jumping in point.
17:20 I am so excited for FF7 Rebirth, you have no idea! Also Persona 3 Reload. That reveal came as a total surprise and I freaking love it! Now if only Capcom would announce a Legend of Dragoon remake/master I'll be happy.
PAYDAY 3 hurts the most, because PAYDAY 2 is the greatest heist game ever made. Here’s hoping Ulf and co hit it out of the park with Den of Wolves. GTFO was already much more polished than PAYDAY ever was.
Use code ERUPTION50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3j2qIdS!
Also let me know what games you thought were stinky. IM SURE I MISSED SOMETHING.
2023 is done, in the bag and it's hard to believe we release this much content this year. That's 24 videos for a total of 975ish minutes. OR RATHER, 16 hours of me rambling about some kind of video. That's nuts.
I can never thank y'all enough for the support here, and I hope to continue to entertain for years to come!
Big
Love It austineruption Bro.
diamond bolt made a video like this, 2
Crime Boss was underrated IMO
all of the Telltale Walking Dead games are good and Survival Instinct wasn't too bad either.
actually most people quite like Starfield, a lot of those negative reviews on Steam are from trolls.
Fun Fact: Because of how briefly The Day Before was on sale on Steam, the devs actually won't see any money from it. Steam hasa policy where they keep any money from sales for the first month and only pay out at the end of the following month. Meaning the devs even failed at scamming their customers!
It's almost like they weren't trying to scam anyone and just felt bad for making a mediocre game.
Naw
The publisher is still insured and gets a payout regardless of whether the game tanks or sells. Seeing how the publisher and the developers are very closely tied I bet they are splitting the write-off coming from it.
@@aBitTediousWhat? What sane insurance company would let a company take out a policy that pays them out of their game sucks ass?
@@aBitTedious I'd very much like to see a source on how some guys in Russia with their company set up in New Zealand would manage that
Don't forget people GameMil was the company behind Big Rigs, how they didn't go bankrupt after that "experience" I'll never ever understand
Either because they just have a knack for grabbing the right licenses ( kid shows) or they occasionally put out a average game ( sounds like the recent nickelodeon brawl game is good) lol.
that game was most like mad on the budget of a bag of flour and a flash game
@@brutalnobody5240 ... what
@@TheCommanderTaco NASB2 is genuinely one of the best platform fighters. It was made by a studio who had already proven themselves with Slap City.
Not only did I not forget about Avatar Quest For Balance, but I was crazy enough to get the platinum trophy for it
Are you okay?
When Critikal released a video about the game I had to laugh because at one point he just forms a smile that is so full of glee when a person mentions they remembered having the game on PS2 lol.
@@nofacefound no
Okay, but considering how Gollum actually died, that "Wait! Wait! Not Yet!" trophy is actually kinda cute. It made me chuckle.
Oh THAT'S what that meant. Ngl pretty funny.
The nicest I've seen about Bluey is "The best you can do when doing the bare minimum." said by Yathzee Croshaw. Personally, I think a game that can be beat in less than an hour without straining yourself, and 100 % in less than 3 hours, should NOT be $40!
Sonic Superstars also had the unfortunate timing of coming out the same day as Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which was the exact opposite of the playing it safe rut they had fallen into with the New series. It just never stood a chance.
It's a shame really. They should have went the Mario 3d world route instead of Sonic 2 for Mega drive multiplayer. Didn't work 30 years ago not working now.
This, all of this, even the comment above me
I really think Sega needs better quality control for their games.
Even if it is slightly better than Pokémon.
I was flabbergasted by the fact that it had no online co-op
3 days before wonder actually but yeah
There's a BIG difference in quality here between Sonic Superstars and EVERYTHING ELSE lol
To be fair, he put it under personal disappointments, though its such an odd thing to mention the physics when they're extremely accurate to the originals+Mania. I also don't know how he can say its as safe as Sonic 4 when just the second zone alone had rail grinding, something we haven't seen in a long time on 2D games, or even JUST the Chaos Emerald powers
@@lucariotrainer16 yeah it true, I can certainly get people being personally disappointed by it, especially with how annoying the boss fights are, but I just don't get the "safe" claim at all, there's a a whole new character, brand new mechanics (for better or worse), multiplayer and it's the first game in over a decade to not feature green hill, chemical plant or any re-used zone, I think Superstars is anything BUT safe... Still, I don't think it belongs in a list with the likes of The Day Before or Rise of Kong lmao
Yeah, that's an absurd entry for this list,
Like, I hear the game was underwhelming and launched with that classic SEGA techincal difficulties, but like, to even have it on this list, even if he says the game itself isn't bad, is rather confusing.
@@massimodalessandro108
Yeah, baffling choice in complaints,
Like, what?
How did he think it's somrhow he most generic 2D Game in the series, most people complain that they changed some things too much in ways that they didn't jive with when criticizing the game.
Everything that’s quality good will always be better than sonic, like imagine being 30-40 years old and you’re excited to play shit from an irrelevant bad franchise that should’ve died in 1998, only being praised by the worst fanbase I’ve ever seen in my life.
“I’m too old and tired to subject myself to another Sword Art Online”
how I feel about the Pokémon franchise rn
or any sport game with 4 digit of year behind it
I mean tbf
Legends arceus was pretty good depending on who you ask
The big disappointment for me this year was Loop8: Summer of Gods. On paper it should have been everything I wanted and it had some REALLY good ideas. A small Japanese town and throughout the month aliens will take over the body of one of the inhabitants, so you raise your relationship with other characters to go rescue people and how well your party members do in battle is based on how much your party member likes the person you're saving. It had a LOT of good ideas, but for the most part it was slow, repetitive, and ended up being a total bummer. In the right hands and with a better story, this one could have been a slam dunk!
I was also cautiously optimistic about it but the way your social links apparently completely restart each go sounds like such a phenomenally bad idea. My hope is the devs at least patch that part then I would give it a try anyway once it's cheap.
Watched a video going over this one in depth, and man. It's like an H game where they took out all the H last minute and forgot to make the game actually good after. Shoutout to the main game ending being getting together with your cousin, not to mention certain more...problematic elements somehow worse than the story playing hard into the weird H cousin fetish.
The gameplay loop was awful. Who thought it was fun to redo the same conversations with no differences. I was really hyped about it and was pretty dissapointed with how it turned out
When I played Kong, the reason I bought it was to stream it and see the jpg scene through my own effort. Wouldn't you know it, the cutscene happens and the jpg didn't even load in properly. It took me 9 hours straight to finish that game
My niece was so excited for Jumanji, she's been talking non-stop about wanting it for xmas...and she got it. And when i went over i have never heard her sound so disappointed about a game. Luckily though she also got Mario RPG...and i turned up in a Mario onesie (long story) so i'd say her Christmas was OK.
Not all heroes wear capes 😎
Man, as nice as it was to hear that you got her something good, I'm still kinda sad because it sounds like she was a really big fan of the new Jumanji movies and I'm remembering what it was like back in the day when you really liked something and found out that man, it had a video game! I like the thing! And I like video games! Surely those two things combined will be DOUBLE AMAZING!
And you learned. You learned that bitter lesson many a time... if it hadn't been for Turtles in Time and Capcom's and Sega's Disney-games showing me it CAN be done, I'd be a far more cynical man than I already am. Shame she had to have her hopes dashed like that.
Crime Boss is just Kill Bill-Bud’s backstory before he moves to the desert to be a bouncer at a… ‘gentlemen’s club’.
Yet another year of publishers and share holders dictating when a game is ready for launch.
I'm still pretty salty about D4 being a rushed out cash grab / beta test for 70 - 90$ I hope the yacht Bobby bought sinks.
D4 isnt nearly as bad as it was on launch. Its like, actually playable now. Season of blood has been fun.
… please dont immolate me and put my head on a pike
Love hearing Jack Black impersonator in any game.
I wrote for 5 pro-wrestling games & was a pro-wrestler for 5 years. I absolutely love FFVI, Personas 4&5, and Suikoden.
And I couldn’t be bothered to play WrestleQuest. It just didn’t look good to me, and reviews were mixed.
It looks like Drawn To Life Wrestling RPG. Shame.
Also, I did mocap in Wanted Dead (mostly as Herzog and the main villain). Glad you liked it!😊
Wanted: Dead is legit one of my favorite games this year. Definitely an unexpected gem for me.
@@streetmagik3105 Fun little throwback. Really enjoyed the absurdity of the scenes I got to do: ramen, 4 balls, etc.
@@JustinLeeper it was a lot of fun. I played through it twice and would love a sequel. I love how quirky it is in-between levels and balls out during missions.
Yeah shout out to the devs all of them, shit was hard this year
Game mill is a perfect name cuz it’s a soulless content mill
I already adored Valve for their games, and banning A.I-produced games, no matter the reason, has just upped my support of them
I mean, yeah, right now AI tech is nowhere near ready to create a full fleshed game, but who knows in a couple decades or so.
I'm guessing they've been getting a lot of AI slop at some point, and it's not surprising they'd remove those kinds of games given they've already banned crypto games for a while.
@@ArbitraryOutcome partly because it's way too easy and lazy
it's much worse than just using asset flip in entirity
The fact that ai is now becoming the lazy route of doing quality over quantity is just sad, just look at the mess we got from spider-woke 2.
@@calebproductions1264 I mean, yeah. AI is in no way ready to produce good games yet and companies should know that, but I suppose they care more for the easy approach.
I've read in a steam review that Survivor Castaway Island is actually a reskin of another game called Koh-Lanta / French Survivor and that's why some of the dialogue is kinda strange (it was translated weird)
I wonder if they were flat earthers over there too
@@austineruption It's frogs, all the way down...
Factor out here selling food without ever showing what it actually looks like 🤨
Given, it's just Hello Fresh, but microwavable, haha.
@@rainierdanredondo1278 To me it just feels like Factors commercials are essentially Whopper commercials without ever showing a Whopper 😂 Not even a fake Whopper or exaggerated, just nothing
Just skimmed through the vid and shoutout for not taking perfectly average games like Forspoken and lumping them in the "worst" of the year category out of sheer laziness like other channels have been doing.
Is insane the quality of what an average game is now cus in the ps2/gc to PS3/360 we had thousands of awful games that were barely functional and nobody bat an eye
I'm loving forspoken
😂
@@indubitablysoyall I thought it was pretty ok. Played it, beat it had a decent time. Perfectly fine video game.
@@indubitablysoyallnice try Fre, i can see right through your ruse!
Dude, AMAZING year of content from you and your editors, can't wait to see what 2024 brings up!
I'm glad to see that mk1 keeps the good old mk tradition of unnecessarily making ports that are super jank
It’s still a trash demake, same thing with RE4.
@calebproductions1264 uhm, I don't think mk1 is a remake, and I personally disagree with the re4, but I don't think hearing my opinions would be productive. What do you look for in a remake? Perhaps you could give an example of a good remake?
@@smollmoth6376 I mean besides the graphics being at a good quality (Though these days video game companies do it in a bad movie simulator way), there should be no cut content that were from the original games, add more stuff that'll make them worth to buy, and they need to be at lower prices (And I'm not talking about sale prices dropping, I meant they need to go back to being $20-$30 again).
I'm not an expert on remakes, but I can tell the difference between soul and soulless.
@@calebproductions1264 I see, you didn't uh give an example of a remake you like, if you don't want to give one that I'd completely fine, I am just curious.
my friend who's a fan of the space sci-fi starfield was going for, and he bought the game day one, he even streamed it and got exactly one viewer, me, and i saw him lose all excitement in real time, unable to get hoocked in or find any excitement, and refunding the game at the end of the stream.
Woooow, holy shit, I feel bad for your friend.
That’s ridiculous
That mirrors my experience with Halo 5. I went from excited to requesting a refund in about an hour.
The payday 3 thing is no surprise at all. I'll never forget people telling the devs that the console version of 2 was broken. His response was to buy a PC.
22:03 When the game launched in April, Speedstorm had no monetization, you just paid 30-40 bucks for the game and after that nothing until it went free to play, you just played to level up your characters and used your coins to get upgrades. I love the game but have not spent another cent on it since real money was implemented , I just play 1-2 hours a day to grind for my characters to be a good level. The music remixes are pretty good
"Like a terrible version of Legacy of Goku"
So Legacy of Goku
Sony hasn't cared much about Backward Compatab6since PS3. And even then that was during the early Phat models.
Sony is has bad has Nintendo when it comes to their old titles.
I only just found out that you can only PS2 games physically on certain PS3 consoles, it sucks that I can’t do that with the PS3 I have.
12:07 "Gollum is a concept that was kind of DOOMed from the get-go."
I caught that. Well done.
I'm 42 and I've never seen Disney look as desperate as they have since 2020 with everything they do
Gamemill makes me extremely nostalgic for Wii shovelware
4:00 did they remaster the old Asterix arcade beat em up? That's not something I expected to see in 2023.
Did he just call the TellTale Walking Dead "not good"?????
Oh yeah, Austin. You may be my favorite RUclipsr this year. Every time i saw you upload i grabbed myself a snack and something to drink and you never disappointed. Keep up the good work
PD 3 is such a shame, its like the devs forgot almost everything they learned with PD 2
Even modders gave up on starfield. Says a ton
And yet I found a good amount of enjoyment in it. That also says a ton... Although if that's about the game or me is up to interpretation.
One modder gave up on it and people freaked out. Ridiculous
Game Mill, LJN is that you?
My worst and disappointing games of 2023:
Disappointing:
10. SlavicPunk: Oldtimer
9. Clive 'n' Wrench
8. Wanted: Dead
7. Blood Bowl 3
6. Pharaoh: A New Era
5. Company of Heroes III
4. Forspoken
3. PAYDAY 3
2. RedFall
1. Starfield
WORST:
10. Skinny and Franko - Fists of Violence
9. Torchlight: Infinite
8. LOTR: Gollum
7. Redfall
6. The Settlers: New Allies
5. Wild West Dynasty
4. Stray Souls
3. Skull Island: Rise of Kong
2. Enchanted Portals
1. The Day Before
This was full of extremes - there was at least one Gollum on every Hogwart's Legacy, one Enchanted Portals on Pizza Tower and one Skull Island: Rise of Kong on Spider-Man 2. Nevertheless there were also many, many great games and I hope that coming 2024 will be greater what I wish for you and for myself :)
I still see people saying they are excited for Torchlight Infinite. I’m like “what drugs are you taking? “
okay, that "fall in lava" trophy name for the Gollum game is kind of funny.
How tf does Starbreeze fail at making the same game they've made TWICE already, but better?.....
4:00 how dare you call asterix and obelix bottom tier
Totally agreed about WrestleQuest. I can't imagine how a turn based RPG and wrestling fan DOES NOT like the game. How bad could you haven't failed to mess up this badly.
Absolutely WRONG actually. It was great all the way through. You're just wrong.
Forgive my long dumb ass novella, BUT I still assert that the concept of a Gollum video game is NOT the doomed idea everyone assumes it is. It’s just that the one developer that tried, executed the idea terribly. Loyalty to Tolkien lore or no, in 2023 no one is interested in playing a dense & boring prison sim for 15 hours!
When I initially heard the pitch of a Gollum 3rd person stealth action/narrative game I imagined interesting mechanics where you have to stealth kill foe after foe while also making binary narrative choices based around puzzle solving and the internal struggle between Gollum and Smeagol. Its a mechanic that, if done correctly, could influence the rest of your gameplay and narrative in the way that classic Bioware games did. Gollum also being a “tricksy” devilish creature should use stealth killing in so many gruesome and dynamic ways. I think the idea of Gollum being an unstoppable killing machine while in the shadows pairs wonderfully with the character being almost too weak to withstand multiple straight on attacks. It would force players to utilize Gollum in clever strategic ways.
As far as the lore is concerned as someone that barely considers themselves a casual Tolkien book fan I don’t need slavish devotion to the story of Gollum and his whereabouts if it results in hours and hours of dungeon/prison play. That’s NOT fun. Surely I don’t care if Gollum was captured and imprisoned for so long during his journey if it results in the devs making that the entire backdrop for the game!
In all my point is that the concept of a Gollum game was and is not inherently terrible. Like with most high profile entertainment flops people learn the wrong lesson. A terrible Gollum game like a terrible comic book film (Batman & Robin) doesn’t mean the concept or genre is faulty, dead or never worth exploring. The problem is always in the way it was approached and executed.
My dad got me the Gollum game for Christmas lol. Honestly thinking about keeping it in the plastic wrap, maybe it'll be worth something in 50 years 😝
yes $50 maybe, $1 a year max
Never allow it to escape from its plastic prison. You WILL regret it
Any context for why he got it? Or did he know you were a Tolkien fan and didn’t know about the bad reviews?
@@BBoy2015 he know I like lotr but knew nothing of the game other than the title had Gollum in it lol
Well everything is worth something. You just might not be excited what that something is
Fwiw only one guy said he wasn't gonna mod starfield.
Most modders haven't said whether they will or won't mod it.
Hello Payday 3.... Man that one hurt even if I saw it coming a mile away
"365 rotations of the sun around the earth"
I see you playing dark cloud music in the background during the avatar section. Appreciate you.
Great video as always, dood.
I do hope you do a compiled list of indies + AA you loved this year Austin! so many gems in my opinion:
cocoon
bomb rush cyberfunk
el paso, elsewhere (max payne homage)
venba
en grade! (this year's sifu)
Payday 3 is what you get when people decide to follow through on comments like "when are we going to get a league of legends 2?" or "We need a r6 siege sequel!" because to do so you are gonna be starting over completely and unless they change the game up so much to where it's justified, it'll just feel like a lesser version of the predecessor
To be fair Payday 2 launched in a similar state and with way less content.
Hellpoint's Jumanji definitely made me do a double take.
I really liked Hellpoint. It's kind of mid in a lot of ways but it also has a ton of really fun twists and cool ideas on the formula to make it worthwhile.
So uh, hey assuming these are the same people making this and not a gutted studio with the same name, go get paid I guess. What ever keeps food in the table and the wolves from the door.
There was good talent at that studio, they deserve to get to try another non-ip mill game someday 😅
At least they tried, I hope they can make even better titles sooner than later.
I can't believe they literally named the Vanilla Ice character "Hielo"
Do you ever look to your left? I’ve found it so distracting that you always look to your right every few seconds but never to your left. What’s over there?
365 rotations of the sun around the earth?
“Kind of like a terrible version of Legacy of Goku”
So exactly like Legacy of Goku?
The Crime Boss section reminded me of my short tenure working in a Chick-fil-A kitchen as a teenager where I worked with one try-hard that would constantly drop classic one-liners like "s**t, man, this s**t is some good s**t" and everyone would just look at him like "yeah, you're not actually cool."
"This set of 365 rotations of the Sun around the Earth"
Dude, no, what the fuck is that? That's not how any of this works!
Fuck it, while we're at it: en masse is pronounced ON MASS
I wouldn't call the Bluey game bad. It's short and the writing is almost on parr with the show and my 4 year old (the target demographic) loves it. It's kinda just what happens when you make a game out of a show in which the episode length is 7 minutes per episode
5:49 The Saints and Sinners series is a notable exception
Cool vid but would love to see you go back to covering the best games of the year too. I think its much more fun to celebrate great games and also would just be cool to hear your opinions
21:10 I honestly should have known wo long was going to be disappointing from the title... spoilers ahead
The title is a reference to Zhuge Liang, the biggest, most overhyped manipulative bastard of the three kingdoms and someone I sort of grew to hate after looking into the real history the novel was based... though to be fair, that goes for like, 90% of the kingdom of shu
those guys SUCKED.
Anyways, the game is secretly about how great Zhuge Liang is and is secretly all about him/setting him up, which sucks.
And yes, this is a nerd complaint.
Even without diving deep into Eastern culture, game turned out to be really underwhelming in every aspect and a major step back after Nioh series.
for me, it's partly because the game have one of the same mistake Godfall did
It's way WAY too flashy for game claiming to be *Souls-like*
Genuinely, why do MMO/survival game fans fall for the most obvious scams every single time?
they hungry
Haven't played Starfield, but what makes me so sad about it's reception is that it's somewhat rare for a developer like Bethesda to gamble on an entirely new IP. Just sad to see the gamble turned out so poorly. It'll just reaffirm to devs that people don't want new stuff. Just iterations on existing IPs.
Cool!‐ wasn't there already an HD remake of flashback? It even went out of its way to fix poor mechanics and also packaged in the expansion packs.
I’m quite thankful that I avoided truly bad games this year due to usually avoiding games that look terrible. Even Sonic Superstars, which’s included here and is the “worst” game I’ve played this year, is still an enjoyable and fun time, but just held back due to several key issues. All I know is that I’m 100% glad I only got it for $35 on Black Friday, since getting it for $60 would’ve hit me with a huge heaping of buyer’s remorse. Not to mention that I couldn’t have bought it even if I wanted to due to Sega thinking it was somehow a good idea to release mere DAYS before both Super Mario Wonder and Spider-Man 2.
Payday 2 launched in the same way Payday 3 did. PD3 has so much potential, but I agree it needs a ton of work.
Give them time and i'm sure they'll turn it around. PD2 has been around for over a decade now so they had plenty of time to fix it up (but people forget that PD2 didn't have the best launch either)
Yeah, well I haven't played it but I think people just look back at the current state of Payday 2. I remember Payday 2 having some problems and it was kind of bare (compared to now). Though I did hear the connection problems at launch were really bad, I remember having connection problems in PD2 but not that bad.
A fresh eruption vid is the highlight of every week.
Got Bluey the Video Game for me and my kid to play. It took 1 hour from start to finish and that includes me falling through the stage multiple times and having to clear to the menu and reboot. Disappointing for an otherwise clever and well crafted IP
That avatar game doesn’t look like a Zelda clone, it looks like a genshin clone that probbaly controls worse
Disney Speedstorm is so disappointing. It genuinely looks nice graphically, has some interesting gameplay quirks to set it apart from other kart racers, and has some really neat track design. But the amount of microtransactions coupled with the amount of grinding necessary to be competitive just instantly ruins the game entirely.
I didn't even know Playstation told you what they already used to tell you, what games you played
The fact that Nick All Star Brawl 2 is actually good and worth playing is the real shocker.
No, it's not a shocker, the First game was solid in terms of gameplay, and was made by passionate devs who got screwed over by Gamemill and Viacom in terms of a strict deadline and tiny budget.
But the first game sold very well, and it lead to Ludocity being given a proper budget and more control adn capability to fix all the complaints people had about the first game, polishing it up and having more content.
You dont unlock new moves in Wo Long for the most part.
Nioh 1&2 is constantly showing you cool new moves, near endgame youre doing wildly cool and different things from when you started.
I was lucky to have escaped the bad games this year. I got into Baldurs Gate 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Octopath Traveler 2, Mortal Kombat 1 and so on. Best advice is to wait for the reviews.
My biggest disappointment was Starfield. I have loved Bethesda like Elder Srolls and Fallout for so long but the awful exploration compared to those killed it for me.
I sort of hate how much I like Disney Speedstorm though. It's so fun to play and the racing is just good. I should hate it because its a free to play gacha but I just keep playing.
Kind of crazy how Gamemill pushed out so many awful games. Dreamworks Cart Racer was decent though. Not Mario Kart 8 or Crash Nitro Fueled good but not bad.
I might've been under the influence when we played Jumanji but the way the camera whips around in multiplayer made it the most difficult game to try and follow.
It's even hard to watch in any gameplay video i could find
@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller since Austin was first player, the camera followed him instead of, like, zooming out to compensate for all 3 other players. It was a mess
Love your vids, cheers to another year of them 🎉
11:43 To be fair: SAO Fatal Bullet is actually really good (as far as SAO games go) and you create a character in that one. You don't play with Kirito (outside of that one DLC which lets you unlock the sword and gun combo).
The Complete Edition often goes on sale for like 12 bucks or so.
I only managed to buy a single game this year, since practically every single game I was interested in either started as a bad game or got “patched” into one very quickly.
Wo Long was fun as hell
Bro! Wo Long Fallen Dynasty is in this list??? WTF?
The barren and unpolished mess that was House Flipper 2 was my personal worst disappointment of this year.
As someone who loves ff16
Your brief comment about it is accurate lol. Why do fat dudes take so many hits?
What did you think about the story though?
I have heard absolute zero about that crime rockay city thing
Rockay City was Epic Exclusive because they knew it was bad. Every terrible game releases Epic exclusive to shield themselves from Steam reviews during the launch period. Saint's Row reboot did the same thing.
Disney Speedstorm gate locking you into purchasing microtransactions for progression now isn't nearly as bad as a couple of months ago
I'm glad I didn't buy any of these. I'm more disappointed with MW3 2023, AAA games have no excuse to be this bad and lazy. Though The Day Before should win the poo crown. Getting deleted after only 4 days, wow.
And to think we used to get good licensed games like: The Punisher, The Darkness, AVP2, The Chronicles of Riddick Escape From Butcher's Bay and Dark Athena, etc. Spongebob The Cosmic Shake was fun.
The free weekend of MW3 was disappointing for sure.
PayDay 3 can still improve and your reasoning for it not existing is kinda lame
I was able to grab Wo Long on sale and I really really enjoyed it. Still working my way through it, but with so many games coming out next month it might be a minute before I see the ending. But it is fun I swear!
it is sooo much better now than it was at launch, and i was a big fan of it then
Man, I think that this might be the first video which actually describes what it's like to PLAY Rockay City, instead of just laughing at the premise. As someone who hasn't played Payday I thought it'd be more a story-based game, like maybe Max Payne or Army of Two. Not sure I'm into what I saw here.
Obviously we need "The best games of 2023" next
It’s just the worst games list in reverse
6:37. Ooh, Wise Owl Forest from Dark Cloud. Good taste.
#1 disappointment - Diablo IV
#2 disappointment - Starfield
It's a shame Infinity Strash sounds so mid. I watched the anime but have never played a DQ game before, so I was hoping it might be a good jumping in point.
Try DQXI instead, you will love it.
Great viewing buddy❤
Apparently now, Payday 3 just kinda died. No, wait, I think it definantly died.
17:20 I am so excited for FF7 Rebirth, you have no idea! Also Persona 3 Reload. That reveal came as a total surprise and I freaking love it! Now if only Capcom would announce a Legend of Dragoon remake/master I'll be happy.
PAYDAY 3 hurts the most, because PAYDAY 2 is the greatest heist game ever made. Here’s hoping Ulf and co hit it out of the park with Den of Wolves. GTFO was already much more polished than PAYDAY ever was.
Say what you want about bluey but having it on the switch running about with my mrs and 3 year old has been an absolute blast