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2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Atmosphere

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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A game’s atmosphere can make break immersion. This is how much dread it makes you feel just being in the world. It can make you a feeling of nostalgic adventure, it can transport you back to a time when you were a kid…or one of the worst times of your life. It’s very hard to have a game’s atmosphere be consistent and pull you in. This usually isn’t tied to the story or anything like that, but graphics do go hand-in-hand.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake‘s atmosphere is some of the best in horror. It’s unsettling, surreal, and somehow too familiar. There are rarely any jumpscares and instead the game relies on tense gameplay, uncertainty, and putting what might frighten you right there in your face and making you watch it.

Runner-Ups

World of Horror

Dead Space

Resident Evil 4

The Invincible

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Story

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Stories are probably the most important aspect of a game for most genres. It can supersede visuals and sometimes even gameplay if it’s good enough. Sadly, great stories in-game are hard to come by these days. Memorable characters, interesting twists, and turns, and a fantastical world packed full of lore. There are many ways to tell a story either through text, visuals, or voice acting.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II‘s story isn’t just more comprehensible this time around, but feels so unique and different from many other video game stories out there. The mix between live action cut-scenes, the voice acting, the narrative direction, and the overall production values just add up to one fantastic story that lets you catch new things or details you missed with each play through.

Runner-Ups

Mortal Kombat 1

Hogwarts Legacy

Final Fantasy XVI

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Sound Design

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Sounds are incredibly important in a game. They can transport you to another time, realm, universe, or planet. From crunching footsteps in the snow to foreign aliens to screeching animals. Gurgling bloody screams, realistic-sounding cars, and even the boom coming from your subwoofer at just the right time. Sounds are just as important as visuals and can sometimes even compensate for them.

Dead Space

Dead Space isn’t just a scary game, but it sounds like a scary game. The haunting screams, alien sounds, the music, and weapons add up to one terrifying experience.

Runner-Ups

Mortal Kombat 1

Alan Wake II

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Indie Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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We all love our 5-year-in-development big-budget AAA titles, but the indie games are the ones that have been carrying the industry through the slump since the last video game crash of 2008. These games have been the only ones pushing genres forward, defining new series, establishing beloved worlds and characters, and imaginative worlds.

World of Horror

World of Horror is a title that has slid under many’s radar, but it shouldn’t. This Junji Ito inspired game harkens back to the days of 8-bit PC adventure titles. The representation of Junji’s short stories are present here with bite sized RPG stories that have fantastic art and atmosphere.

Runner-Ups

Videoverse

Sea of Stars

Cocoon

Gravity Circuit

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Graphics, Technical

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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We are getting further and further away from the previous generation, but developers don’t want to just let it go. Developing for the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 is holding a lot of games back and very few have made the full jump to next-gen only. Until These consoles are finally abandoned this trend will continue.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II is one of the few true next-gen titles that isn’t being held back by the previous generation. It melts PC cards and not a single one can run the game with the path-tracing at 60FPS right now even with frame generation technology. It looks gorgeous and is a taste of what is to come.

Runner-Ups

Forza Motorsport

Resident Evil 4

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Final Fantasy XVI

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best New Character

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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New characters are something a lot of gamers look forward to. Whether it’s a reboot of an already beloved character or someone who slam dunks their personality onto the gaming world for all to adore and cherish.

Cid – Final Fantasy XVI

So, Cid is not technically a new character, but he is a different character in every entry and is only familiar in name only. Cid this time around is portrayed by a fantastic voice actor and he dominates the screen. He has a ton of personality and is a very interesting character to watch and develop.

Runner-Ups

Shadowheart – Baldur’s Gate III

Kimberly – Street Fighter 6

Sarah Morgan – Starfield

Solomon Reed – Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Rogue-Like

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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Rogue-Likes aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they are a dominating genre thanks to the popularity of Dark Souls frontrunners From Software. While the genre has been around much longer than this it didn’t gain as much popularity until Demons Souls released on the PS3.

Lies of P

Lies of P might take a lot of pages and comparisons from Bloodborne, but it is its own thing. A fantastic art direction, fun combat, and an overall surprise hit in the already over saturated genre of games trying to topple From Software’s efforts for that next golden title.

Runner-Ups

Backpack Hero

Astral Ascent

Risk of Rain Returns

Roboquest

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Shooter

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/31/2023

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This was not a great year for shooters. It was mostly returns of boomer shooters and not much else. What we did get was at least solid and fun and worth playing.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

CDPR’s labor of love for this game has won many people over. The one and only DLC expansion rights nearly every wrong and puts players into a fantastic new story full of action and suspense. Cyberpunk has come a long way and if you held out up until now there’s no better time to jump in.

Runner-Ups

Immortals of Aveum

Turbo Overkill

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

HROT

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Graphics, Artistic

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/31/2023

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Every game has artistic graphics. It takes an artist to put them into the game. However, the best usually have a flair, style, design DNA, or something unique to them that set them apart from any other game. It makes them iconic and instantly recognizable or it can make you stop and soak in every scene and detail in the game.

Final Fantasy XVI

There were many pretty games this year, but nothing compared to the always exceptional art of Final Fantasy. Say what you will about leaving its core roots behind, say it’s more of an action-RPG now, but the art and visual style never disappoints in every release.

Runner-Ups

Planet of Lana

World of Horror

Lies of P

Jusant

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best RPG

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/31/2023

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This was a light year for traditional RPGs, but we still got a few awesome ones. From Western to Eastern RPGs can be one of the best ways to dive into a story and soak in lore and characters. While not groundbreaking normally they can look fantastical and suck the player in and let you become lost in their world.

Baldur’s Gate III

Baldur’s Gate III enjoyed a slow burn in Steam Early Access for a couple of years and came out swinging to become one of the top RPGs in the last decade. No one expected this type of quality and care out of a series that beat it’s remasters to death for over a decade on every platform imaginable. Rich storytelling, memorable characters, and deep RPG gameplay that harkens back to yesteryear of gaming.