Screw the preamble and The Man as we jump right into number ten.

10. UNBEATABLE

UNBEATABLE is a raw, powerful mess.

A rhythm game seven years in the making, UNBEATABLE is artistic splendor made manifest. Its style is frantic, aggressive, in your face and downright rebellious. It’s all in service of a story with something to say, a story of grief and self-actualization. A story about finding the strength to hang on to what matters when it feels like the whole world just wants to beat you into the pavement.

UNBEATABLE is the story of Beat, Quaver, Treble, and Clef, members of a renegade punk band in a world where music is illegal. Each chapter covers a different era in their journey as the game bounces between variations on rhythm games, from DDR style up-down telegraphs, to a day at the batting cages.

These sequences are especially impressive when they’re scrambled up, or reintroduced with a twist in future chapters. I admit, they don’t always quite land; some events don’t have the same level of polish or execution, especially any section where you tap as a faint white circle appears. But, when these set pieces come together, it’s nothing short of magic.

You might be wondering why, with such lofty praise, UNBEATABLE only ranks in at number ten. The answer is messes cut both ways. A lack of refinement is endearing, especially in a game about beauty in the rough edges of creation, but these edges get too rough; cutscenes start and stop with an abrupt punch, characters sometimes speak too fast, too slow, interrupt each other in odd places, or maybe even don’t speak at all. On several occasions I kept waiting for the next line in a cutscene that never came. Typically these were solved with a simple checkpoint restart, but on several occasions the game needed a full quit to unstick. Sometimes mess is endearing, but as you’re barreling towards the end of an emotional roller coaster, this jank brutally undercuts otherwise heartrending events. It’s a real shame, because quite frankly, no other game on the list made me feel such raw emotion.

UNBEATABLE helped me find the inner teenager I thought I’d lost, even with some intermittent jank. Maybe even because of it. The young punk with a chip on his shoulder is still in there, yearning to prove a hostile world wrong.

9. Dynasty Warriors: Origins

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think Dynasty Warriors would make my top ten list ever. I certainly enjoyed the series back in like 2005, but every time I dipped my toes back in, it didn’t seem like the series had evolved past the Playstation 2 era. Origins marked a huge shakeup to the series, losing the giant ninety-minute battles for more small-scale engagements, and also drops selecting the historical murderfest general of your choice for a new protagonist.

As Ziluan, you’ll befriend just about every major figure from the Han Dynasty before it inevitably splits into three warring factions. From there, it's up to you to decide which Kingdom deserves the throne as the future ruler of China. The world map in particular makes an unexpectedly big difference — all the iconic battles are here again, but the topographic map illustrates why each one was so important. You get a much better sense of what sea routes were at stake, or why retreat wasn’t an option.

In changing up the formula, Origins also manages to tell much more personal stories that better represent the source material. In old Dynasty Warriors games, major events fly by in a blink. The famous generals say some whacky shit, challenge you to battle, then you kill them and move on. In Origins, you get a much deeper sense of who these people are, what they wanted, and what drove them towards conflict. In fact, you’ll get to know all the major generals intimately before the real bloodbaths begin.

In all the ways that matter, Origins feels like Dynasty Warriors is finally what it always wanted to be.

8. Battle Suit Aces

You know how long I been waitin’ for this?

Back in 2017, I fell in love with a little game from Trinket Studios called Battle Chef Brigade, a strange little mix of Nickelodeon cartoon, monster hunting, and bejeweled. I eagerly awaited their next project... And waited. And waited. And finally, in 2025, we got Battle Suit Aces. What we got is not at all what I expected, but still worth the wait.

Much like Battle Chef Brigade, Battle Suit Aces adopts a cartoonish style, evocative of Avatar: The Last Airbender or perhaps more apt, Voltron. The plot, however, is more akin to something like Gundam Wing — ends up the galaxy is full of various factions, all with access to giant robots. Your particular faction, The Patchworks, is tasked to research and eliminate a new intergalactic threat. The Frenzied are popping up in every corner of the galaxy, and your crew is on the hunt for wherever they may appear.

And you eliminate Frenzied by — wait. Take a guess. What’s the genre on display? Lock in an answer. Okay.

Did you land on... Card battles?

Yeah, every battle in Battle Suit Aces is basically a short Magic: The Gathering showdown. Each of your pilots has unique abilities and stats, which won’t be very impressive at the start, but build up as the game continues. Each time you meet a new faction, you’ll also get opportunities to add their pilots to your lineup. The trick, of course, is to create a deck full of symbiotic cards that pack a wallop when everything falls into place. There’s also plenty of card-related puzzles to solve, where you’ll be presented with a seemingly hopeless situation, but there’s one way out to deduce using a pre-determined deck.

The narrative itself meanwhile, is surprisingly robust — and the best parts are curiously optional. Between battles you’ll have the opportunity to mingle with your crew, learn all their goals and ambitions, and of course, watch some dopey cartoony antics unfold. After that and a little tinkering with your cards, it’s off to the next mission.

If you have even a passing interest in card games and deck builders, this one is a must.

7. Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Yotei had huge shoes to fill. Ghost of Tsushima is still perhaps the closest thing to a competent, hollywood-level video game script. Couple that with a shockingly organic open world and breakneck action, and by God, you’ve got yourself a hit.

Yotei retains some of what made Tsushima sing, but does choose to abandon the more grounded historical backdrop for a traditional revenge plot. The game opens with a flashback to our protagonist Atsu’s childhood, as her family is murdered by a gang known as the Yotei Six. Many years later, Atsu returns to Ezo (now known as Hokkaido in the modern day) to hunt them down. It certainly lacks the depth of Tsushima’s narrative, but you know what? I’m a sucker for revenge stories.

Mechanically, Atsu loses Jin’s katana stances for a whole arsenal instead. By the end of the game she’s rolling around northern Japan with a spear, twin katanas, a kusarigama, and even a freakin’ odachi. That’s not even to speak of other classic techniques, like pocket sand or firebombs. Atsu gets arrows too, but they’re practically an afterthought once you’ve assembled the rest of your murder implements.

While Yotei largely delivered more of the same, what lands it high on the list is atmosphere. What Sucker Punch lost in historical accuracy, it gained in artistic design. So much of Yotei feels like running through a living painting. The action is fun and rewarding, but it isn’t what I remember. What I remember is casually strolling through a field of white lilies on a horse while Atsu strums the shamisen. I remember galloping across an open field only for an entire herd of horses to join in. And I remember hiding out in an Inn while Lord Saito’s soldiers interrogate the locals as to my whereabouts, a disaster brought about not by some quest, but simply organic happenstance.

Yotei may have not done much to change up an established formula, but the immaculate, striking design invites you to stay a while, strum a shamisen, and enjoy the journey.

6. No, I’m Not Human

The only horror game to make the list this year, No, I’m not Human places you in the safety of your own home as the world outside falls apart. This apocalypse is brought to you by The Visitors, an alien race capable of appearing human. They walk among us, talk like us, even act like us, but it is all just a ruse to bide time until they eat us in our sleep.

Each day, survivors come to your door, begging for shelter. And each day, you’ll have to choose if you’ll provide that shelter, running the risk every time you might be letting a fox into the hen house. In the game’s cruelest twist, you aren’t the one who pays the blood price — the other survivors are. And until you weed out whoever amongst you isn’t human, it happens every night, again and again, until there’s no one left to eat but you.

No, I’m Not Human stews in a pervasive tension. It always feels like you have just enough to get by, all while painfully limited in your available actions per day. The objective is simply to survive however many days it takes for the nightmare to end, but once a Visitor sneaks in and begins a nightly feast, survival quickly feels beyond reach.

A playthrough of No, I’m Not Human only takes a few hours to complete, but there’s a surprising amount of permutations to experience. With ten endings to see currently, some of which are downright esoteric to achieve, this one will require multiple attempts. Heck, it took me a few tries to survive at all.

5. Hades 2

Considering how many hours I poured into Hades 2, it’s surprising it ranked so low. Even now, as I hit publication, it feels wrong... And yet, when I look at what awaits, I simply must call it where it lies.

Mechanically, Hades 2 is a tremendous improvement on the first Hades. Our protagonist, Melinoë, has a new arsenal, new powers, new foes, new friends, and even some new Gods in her corner. Her story also represents an escalation in stakes. Where Zagreus simply wanted to see the surface, Melinoë must instead descend to the depths of Hades for a single task: Kill Chronos, who’s usurped Hades' Throne.

It isn’t long until another path presents itself, one up to Mount Olympus itself where the other Gods are locked in an eternal battle with Chronos’s forces. There’s essentially an entire other game to experience up there, with a whole new lineup of bosses and allies. The structure of each route is quite unique, which makes for a great change of pace. Much like the original, your runs are interspliced with bite-sized interactions amongst whichever friends are hanging out in the Grove.

And while I will sing praises for Hades 2 all day when it comes to mechanics, structure, creative weapon choices and the like, you will find much less praise for the narrative this time around. It is easily the most unsatisfying conclusion to any game on the list, so much so it actually killed my enthusiasm to keep playing after the credits. Supergiant has since patched the ending, so if you are somehow just now hearing about Hades 2 from me, hopefully you’ll have a better experience.

Despite my frustrations with the conclusion, Hades 2 makes for a strong follow-up to Supergiant’s previous smash hit, and their continued support suggests latecomers will get a more satisfying experience overall. While you all have fun with that, I’ll place it here in the fifth spot.

4. Dispatch

Easily the biggest last minute shakeup to the list, Dispatch quickly ascended the charts. Dispatch is an episodic super hero story, with some obvious Telltale history in its DNA. Hey, remember how every Telltale episode took months or years to release? So did AdHoc, and they didn’t like it either. Dispatch’s entire season came out only a week apart, just like a TV show (before the days when streaming services dumped ten episodes at once in your lap, anyway). With that news alone, things were off to a strong start.

Where to start with what’s to love here? First off, you have a stellar voice cast, with Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul as the leading man, Robert Robertson. Almost anyone who’s appeared on the world’s number one D&D podcast, Critical Role, is here as well, playing the endless cast of freaky superheroes and villains. Second, this all star cast has easily the funniest script of the year as their material. There’s just so many S-tier zingers and abrupt, comedic slapstick.

Like the episodic Teltale games of the old regime, most of Dispatch comes down to making a series of binary choices — but unlike Telltale games, you’ll notice I said “mostly.” Dispatch is effectively split into two halves; the major story beats, and your daily routine as an eponymous hero dispatcher. A disgraced former superhero known as Mecha Man, Robert Robertson now sits behind a desk helping lead the Z-Team at SDN to victory. Each shift you’ll be presented with a problem, and it’s up to you to assign the right heroes for each task. The Z-Teamers are, of course, the worst crew at SDN, assembled from all former villains looking for redemption. It’s a big uphill battle to mold them into a proper team, but by the end, they’re a loveable band of misfits.

If you choose to take on the role of a dispatcher, you’ve got some hard choices ahead of you. Good luck navigating a love life full of superheroes.

3. Absolum

Back when 2025 started, I thought for sure Marvel: Cosmic Invasion would steal a spot on this list. Beat ‘em ups win me over with ease, one seems to make every list. While Cosmic Invasion is extremely good and I would recommend it, Absolum took it a step beyond. It set a new standard in what I even think a modern beat 'em up can be.

Absolum introduces you to a cast of Dollar Store Dungeons & Dragons characters, as well as its own pantheon of deities known as Root Sisters. There are four playable characters in total — a gruff dwarf, a blue elven swordmaiden, a frog wizard, and a clockwork automaton. A motley crew that would fit right at home on a Saturday Morning Cartoon in the 90s. The four of them are the last hope to unseat the despotic warlord, Azra.

Roguelikes are in, and while there’s been a few beat ‘em up experiments with roguelike mechanics, Absolum nails the concept beyond comparison. Each run, you’ve got multiple paths to take. After each segment, you’ll pick an elemental upgrade to one of your abilities. Like any good rougelike, once you get a good combination going, you become a living wrecking ball. The right choices turn you into a walking lightning storm, or grant you an endless spectral skeleton army.

Keeping in line with modern roguelike sensibilities, there’s always minor adjustments and upgrades to make at your home between runs. Here, the characters occasionally interact and reveal something about their place in the world. You’ll learn new moves, new arcana, increase stats — all the good stuff to make the next run smoother.

The world building, character designs, and upgrades are all well and good, but we’ve seen those before. Where Absolum carves out a niche is how it reinvents the beat ‘em up with more mechanical depth. You have a dodge button, which can be used to backstep, or shift into the foreground and background. Or, you can even dodge towards an enemy at the right time to parry. Or, you can time a heavy swing to collide with a foe’s for a big clash. This makes it possible to completely decimate fights once you solve a pattern. Likewise, there’s another skill ceiling to explore in combo construction, in mastering all the ways to use abilities and spells to endlessly juggle a weakened foe.

Absolum is one of those games where just when I thought I’d seen it all, there was always one more surprise around the corner. More on that in the bonus awards section.

2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

What is there I could possibly say about The Game Awards Sweeper that hasn’t already been said? I’ll do my best, but in this case, I’ll start by saying sometimes the masses are right.

In the first hour alone, I was struck by a realization; Expedition 33’s setting is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It pokes at the edges of eldritch horror, or the fringe of a post-apocalyptic tale, but never takes form in those well-trodden paths. Instead, the image it takes is one of The Paintress. Somewhere, off on the horizon, she draws a number in the sky every year. Anyone that age immediately withers into rose petals like a graceful Thanos snap. And next year, the number counts down again. As the title suggests, the number hits 33 as the action begins.

Expedition 33 gets off to a rocky start when just about the entire landing party dies in the blink of an eye. The game follows a handful of hearty survivors who venture into a world unknown, all who know they may not live to see the end, but still strive to pave the way for those who come after. It’s a theme so inherent, the leading man Gustave repeats it ad nauseum during fights.

Mechanically, anyone who longed for another Legend of Dragoon or Super Mario RPG had to be delighted. While Expedition 33 plays like a turn-based RPG, there’s plenty of active mechanics to put your reactions to the test. Attacks have different button timings to maximize damage, not unlike the previously mentioned titles, but that’s the least of the DNA borrowed. When a foe attacks, it’s on you to dodge, parry, or jump appropriately. Dodge has a more merciful window, while parry requires perfect timing and nets a free counterattack if executed perfectly. Likewise, jump is only called for against larger enemies, but also nets a counterattack. These mechanics reward a player’s mastery, and to some extent, their willingness to lose. Each loss is another opportunity to improve, learn the timings, and eventually decimate any boss.

The lineup of characters is limited, but there’s a world of depth in each one alone. Sandfall did an excellent job carving out a unique identity for all the surviving expeditioners. Maelle shifts stances with each stab, Lune acquires elemental chroma she then expends for stronger effects, Gustave’s strikes power up his mechanical arm, and Sciel uses card skills to build stacks and deal massive damage. As each character levels up, they gain skills that expand upon these simple goals. With only six skill slots, the real trick is putting together the right combination of moves to cause explosive chain reactions.

If you were to ask me why everyone latched onto Expedition 33, I’d say it comes down to the alluring, contradictory world; Sandfall crafted a beautiful, mysterious setting, but the beauty is dangerous, and equally unfair. And when a group of inspiring, kind people are trapped in such a heartless world, you can’t help but strive for victory.

1. Blue Prince

While it feels like most games trust players less and less each year, Blue Prince stands in defiance. It believes in your natural curiosity and deduction skills and hands you a mystery box, content in the belief you'll seek to solve it.

Simon P. Jones is the sole inheritor of the Mt. Holly Estate, an ever-shifting mansion overlooking the fictional nation of Fenn Aries. However, his uncle’s will has two stipulations — in order for Simon to claim his inheritance, he must find the mansion’s secret 46th room, and he also cannot sleep in the mansion overnight. So every morning, Simon sets foot in a new Mt. Holly, to continue the hunt for the elusive antechamber.

The game’s title is both a hint, a pun, and thematically appropriate. Each day, Simon opens the door to his future estate and builds out the rooms via a selection of three blueprints. This means you effectively build the mansion as you go, creating the layout. Some rooms are merely hallways or garden alcoves, but the vast majority contain a mystery. Sometimes the mystery is obvious, like a multi-colored dart board or a series of boxes with if/then statements to puzzle out. Others require a perfect combination of items and adjoining rooms to solve, and half the time, there are puzzles you won't even know are puzzles into until later.

Where Blue Prince ascends to the #1 spot is when a similar realization takes hold — the mansion itself is the puzzle. All the seemingly disconnected decor serves a larger purpose, but it’s impossible to see the bigger picture at the onset. As the mysteries fall back, each one reveals a new, larger layer to uncover. And what’s really fascinating is the way the game is designed, every player will arrive at these revelations in a completely different order; no one seems to have taken the same path to discovery.

Even after the credits roll, the questions persist — and to my surprise, they are discoverable. What I first thought to be sequel bait had answers deep within, beyond the surface. For those curious about the world itself, there’s a surprisingly robust environmental story to uncover after the credits, one of political intrigue, rebellion, sigils, and colors.

Plenty of games on the list this year had profound stories and original ideas. What sets Blue Prince above them all is the design itself; Blue Prince sets you loose with no direction into a giant sandbox, and puts the onus on you to uncover the rest. Pulling this off in a way that would still be satisfying, where it’s always possible to progress, where one reveal does not ruin or spoil a later one despite the freeform nature, is nothing short of a miracle.

Bonus Awards

A feature returning from last year, Bonus Awards are like getting a Bonus Star in Mario Party when you're already down by five. They're not enough to win, but I still always like to highlight other overlooked titles throughout the year — for positive or negative reasons. Speaking of which, let's start with...

Coolest Flop (Formerly “Best Game No One Played”)

Rematch

At the time of writing, Rematch has about 4,000 players on Steam. Considering the all time high was 42,000, things look grim for the future of Rematch, and that’s a shame.

Sloclap tried something remarkably different coming hot off the heels of Sifu, and took their penchant for tight kung fu action onto the pitch for soccer. The result is a soccer game with simple, accessible controls, but a tremendously high skill ceiling. In both presentation and mechanical depth, it is unlike any other sports game I’ve played, and mercifully free of the ancient design decisions of the annual FIFA entry.

You can read more about my thoughts on Rematch during its decline here.

Best Low Budget Indie Surprise

Silly Polly Beast

Silly Polly Beast is what I live for. It’s messy and unrefined, but there’s heart behind the cracks.

Silly Polly Beast kicks off with our protagonist waiting in a park for their friend Alice. You can tell they’ve done something big and dangerous, whatever it is. The cops are on the hunt, and Polly makes an effort to keep a low profile. When Polly ends up falling into a hellish abyss, the story takes a wild turn and never stops until the end.

The game itself is shockingly difficult — combat is fast, frenetic, and over in seconds. Ammo is limited, and while there’s always a fresh round of ammo to collect somewhere on the map, it requires navigating around aggressive hordes to collect. If you decide to check this one out, be aware you’re gonna die. A lot.

In the end, the pain (both in terms of difficulty and occasional bugs) was worth the reward. The story is on par with all the surreal creativity of Silent Hill or Signalis, which is about the highest praise I can bestow upon any title under twenty dollars.

The “Wtf That Came Out This Year?” Award

Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

Back in 2002, WayForward was hard at work on a new Shantae game for the Gameboy Advance. Two years later, WayForward was unable to find a publisher for their (mostly) complete game. With the GBA seemingly on the way out anyway, they made the difficult decision to set Risky Revolution aside and start on the next project instead.

In 2025, Limited Run Games helped fund the development and release of Risky Revolution, more than twenty years later. And the result is actually... Kinda great? It absolutely feels like playing a game dug out of a time capsule — the colors are bright and vibrant in a way only the collective optimism at the turn of the millennium could produce.

In what is perhaps the most tragic twist in this twenty-year affair, I’m inclined to mention this game feels more lively and fully formed than the most recenty entry, Shantae And The Seven Sirens.

Best New Deltarune Boss Theme

It’s TV Time!

Toby Fox creates the catchiest earworms, just song after song that infects my brain and plays on loop up there forever. It’s TV Time! is a phenomenal track that brings home a whole chapter spent sparring with your own television set, now made sentient. The frenetic song morphs between daytime TV game show jingle and charged sports anthem in equal measure, as you’re juggled from mini-game to mini-game in the final showdown.

It’s TV Time! wins this one not only for a stellar themed composition, but also for matching the ratcheting tension and frantic pace of this chapter’s penultimate encounter.

Game I Wanted to Dunk On and Instead Found Myself Reminded There is Good in the Strangest Places

Umamusume: Pretty Derby

Originally, I wanted to title this the “Straight to the Glue Factory” award. What the hell happened in June? These horse girls took over the world. Tempting though it is to dunk on this game of anthropomorphic racing horses, I find myself instead moved by the kindness of horse simps. Believe it or not, this game had a measurable positive impact on the lives of real retired race horses, who received donations by the bushel from fans for their upkeep.

On a totally unrelated note, have you considered creating a waifu mascot for your local volunteer fire department?

Best Revival of a Gaming Boomer Franchise

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound

Now this is a Ninja Gaiden game, baby. Ragebound harkens back to the old school, hard-as-nails NES titles, and it sticks the landing unbelievably well. The inclusion of Kumori and her Kunai bring about devious 2D platforming (though from what Silksong players tell me, it's far from the most devious platforming this year).

Worst Revival of a Gaming Boomer Franchise

Double Dragon: Revive

Okay, the title is ironic on this one, yes.

The warning signs were in the air early on this one. The original Double Dragon artist Koji Ogata left an early demo... Well, unimpressed would be an understatement. He had this to say.

I’ll be honest! No one from Technos acknowledges this as a Double Dragon game. [It's] a super cheap, modern-style game that shows no respect for Double Dragon.

My own feelings aren’t as strong as his, mind you, but in a year of extremely good beat ‘em ups, Revive comes up painfully short and forgettable. There’s very little progression, and your basic punches don’t feel like they have much of an impact at all. I find it particularly offensive that Double Dragon: Revive thinks it's impressing anyone with a “punch enemies into the background” mechanic, a feature Batman Returns already did on the Sega CD/Genesis and SNES in 1992. Heck, Turtles in Time even let me throw Foot Soldiers into the foreground.

Biggest Release I Didn’t Play

Hollow Knight: Silksong

While tempting, listen — I’m deep into fighting games over here. The only way I could handle Silksong too is to stop playing everything else. Happy for all of you the day finally arrived, but I’ll get around to this one another time.

Pit of the Year Award

Ball X Pit

If you ever thought the classic arcade game Breakout could use some Vampire Survivor mechanics, have I got the game for you. Somehow this game about ball-breaking an army of square minions also contains base building and upgrade mechanics, and a bevy of unlockable ball launching playable characters.

CloverPit, a Roguelike slot machine game, certainly put up a good fight in this category, but in the end, Ball X Pit was the more robust package.

Best Survivor Clone

Bermuda Survivor

I guess I'll just give out this award every year until someone stops making these, huh? Bermuda Survivor immediately won me over with its absurd premise and character designs. The big change here from the typical survivor formula is a much more objective-based map design. Rather than simply trying to run out the clock, your task is to try and find all the survivors from your cursed expedition.

Once you get a good build going, the game rushes towards the end quickly — but it’s also a five dollar game. And for five dollars, I had a great five hours or so.

Putting the “Rogue” Back in Roguelike Award

House of Necrosis

House of Necrosis has the look of a classic Resident Evil game, but surprise, it actually plays like a proper roguelike. Randomized items, randomized enemies, everything only moves when you do, and you start from scratch every run. This strikes me as a deeply unpopular design concept in the modern day, and yet Warkus committed to the hardcore bit, and I respect it. The retro aesthetic even helps sell the unforgiving experience, setting expectations for a ruthless 90's-era Playstation original.

Funniest Volume Slider

Mario Kart World

In the first patch to Mario Kart World, Nintendo added a much requested feature — the ability to control the background music. Great idea, right? It would be, if you had more than two options. Loud, and normal. Never change, Nintendo.

Best Dispatch Z-Teamer

Prism

Listen, I thought long and hard about this one. It’s a tough choice. Coupe is tremendously useful, Invisigal is a loveable salty loser, Golem gets it done even while high on weed gummies, Malevola heals injuries.

But then there’s Prism.

If you have an empty slot, she’ll clone allies to fill them, making tasks that normally would require a team of four need only two. Couple that with decent stats and the fact she’s the only hero to reliably show up for work every episode despite any external drama, and she quickly became my most dispatched Z-Teamer.

Worst Dispatch Z-Teamer

Sonar

He’s an egotistical prick for one, which is already a mark against him. While it’s thematically appropriate he therefore has few synergies with other heroes, it makes him not much of a team player. Plus, his stats change after every rest, so you really have to change up your plans constantly to use him effectively.

Best Fake Pinball Table

Tony Hawk Pro Skater’s Skate of the Living Dead

You wouldn’t think there’d be enough of these to make a whole category, and yet, we had two.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 Remastered features a new pinball stage called SKATE OF THE LIVING DEAD, where you skate around a pinball table while a giant Tony Hawk plays it above you. Meanwhile, over in Hotel Barcelona, the local lounge with an ear-trading bartender features an in-game pinball table called PUZZLE OF DEATH.

Despite the fact you can’t actually play the table itself, the award goes to Tony Hawk, simply because this fictional table is more feature-rich. It contains a physical ball lock, a lower playfield, classic drop targets, and a pop bumper field. If someone physically built this table, it would be a great play. If someone physically built PUZZLE OF DEATH, it would be found wanting without all the phantasm enemies popping up.

Best VR Game I Only Played Because it Finally Escaped Meta Hell and Showed Up on Steam

Sushi Ben

Sushi Ben is more of a vibe than a game, but what a vibe we’ve got here. A little mix of mini-games and anime aesthetics, all tied together in a dopey, deeply unserious story about a cutthroat real estate agency trying to level a quaint Japanese fishing town to raise a coastal theme park. The game leans into the anime aesthetics so hard, the english voice cast are all actors for the hottest current shows. Did you enjoy Takamura in Dandadan? Great news, that was A.J. Beckles and he’s here. How about Denji in Chainsaw Man? Yup, Ryan Colt Levy is here. Maybe you liked Kasumi in Persona 5? That’s Laura Post, and yup, she’s here too.

Sushi Ben is all about helping this little beachside sushi hut hold out against an invasive Zaibatsu. You’ll fish, play ping pong, collect cursed items, shoot archery targets, and just roll with some fun beachside vibes.

Best “Shit just got Real” Moment

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy — The First Ending

This was perhaps the closest call on the list — and curiously, both entries deliver the one-two punch right after the first set of credits roll. So in fairness, I’ll highlight the runner up. Real quick though, you do see the word “ending” up there, right? I’m about to spoil the shit out of both these games.

In Absolum, you spend the entire game squaring off against Azra the Sun King. The game title itself never seems to come up... Until you finally defeat him. The world becomes covered in a misty red haze as it is revealed Azra was under the thrall of another God the entire time. And suddenly, you are presented with a new task — defeat Absolum. Ends up, the first successful run was just a tutorial.

Meanwhile, over in Last Defense Academy, a similar earth-shattering revelation occurs when you reach the first ending. During the game, the protagonist possesses the ability to rewind time, which mechanically, serves as a way to undo a poor move in this turn-based tactics game. As you approach the first ending and everything goes to hell, the protagonist unlocks their full potential... And rewinds the whole fucking game.

While both moments strike a similar effect, the award goes to Last Defense Academy for committing whole cloth. In New Game+ the protagonist plays out the narrative from day one again knowing exactly what will happen, and as the player, you get to make new choices to alter everyone’s fate. I only took the time to glean the surface of possibilities here, but to say the least, the amount of deviations is extraordinary. Last Defense Academy’s New Game+ could keep you busy all year.

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And that, as they say, is that. I will see you all next year, where hopefully 2024's most anticipated game Holstin is out. Remember when I thought that'd be on this list? I sure do.