As we race to the end of the year, it’s time once again to kick off our Game of the Year awards, diving once more into over a dozen different categories and celebrating the best video games of 2023.
Where most categories look back over the last twelve months of games, Best Remake or Remaster looks back even further. Developers and publishers have got into the habit of mining for nostalgia from decades of video game history, and 2023 was no different. In fact, this y showed how some companies have turned what was once all about a quick port and up-rez into an art form in its own right.
And now, with the 90s well and truly mined through the likes of Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy, Resident Evil 2 and the ongoing Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, they’ve turned their gaze to the mid-2000s.
Resident Evil 4 is one of timeless classics that nobody thought could be improved, let alone remade. Capcom, ever brave, took on the task and man, did they deliver. Easily one of the best games released this year, definitely the best remake this year… No, the best remake in gaming history to date.
Capcom took the original, already decent, formula and somehow made it a technical masterpiece. The shooting, the manoeuvrability, and of course, the parries all mesh together to form something rather special in a story retold, faithful to the original yet perfected in ways we couldn’t imagine.
Good remakes should never make their origins feel redundant. They should coexist as something where both versions can be enjoyed in equal measure, and Resident Evil 4 Remake executes this perfectly. I’d happily go back and enjoy the hell out of the original, and then revisit this one over and over again for years to come.
– Nick P
Dead Space – Runner Up
If any game in the EA’s back catalogue deserved a second life it was Dead Space. Critically acclaimed when first released but then sullied by sequels that forced in microtransactions and multiplayer, the amazing studio that created the title was eventually shut down and that was the end of Isaac Clarke.
Fast forward to 2023 and EA, like many others, are bringing back old games for new audiences, with Dead Space being completely rebuilt from the ground up. The result was the classic game but with a whole host modern features, including new sections of the USG Ishimura to replace loading screens. Sure, there’s still a few signs that the game is from two generations ago, but that doesn’t matter when the core concept – a haunted house in space – is so strong.
Motive achieved the near impossible and made a stone cold classic even better. Now if we could just get EA to ‘do a James Cameron’ and pretend Dead Space 2 and 3 don’t exist and create a new sequel that would be just dandy.
– Tuffcub
Advance Wars: 1+2 Re-boot Camp – Runner Up
Advance Wars was a jewel in the Game Boy Advance’s crown, its tiny army men making tiny war across often less-than-tiny maps. Nintendo and Intelligent Systems had seemingly hung up their helmets in favour of Fire Emblem’s fantastical relationships, so it was a delight to find that a remake was on its way, and one that pulled together the first two games in the series.
Advance Wars: 1+2 Reboot Camp initially worried fans by updating the iconic visuals, but after spending time with it you start to see the advantages of the modern looks, all accompanied by awesome anime-esque animations and convincing snippets of dialogue that bring the game to life in a way that the original players could only have dreamed of. There’s an immense wealth of content on hand, and it’s just as engrossing in 2023 as it was in 2001.
– Dom L
Honourable Mentions (in alphabetical order)
What was your personal favourite of the year? Let us know in the comments below, and make sure to stick with us through the rest of this month as we tick our categories off one by one.
SLRC98
RE4 gets my vote too. I think I still prefer the original (though that’s probably the nostalgia talking) but Capcom definitely did a phenomenal job.