The Best Old Games of 2023 (That I Played)

I always enjoy coming up with these lists of my favorite things from the previous year but, while looking at the "old games" I actually completed, I'm not sure I have ten I feel particularly strongly about. Because of that, here's a top 8. I know I could fill out a list with ten items but the bottom few would only be there out of obligation and that probably wouldn't be a list worth reading.

8. Resident Evil 3

While I wouldn't say I hated this (it's on this list, after all) I wish I liked this game more than I did. Nemesis effectively "following you" through the game feels like a worthwhile followup to the handful of scripted appearances that Mr. X (or whatever he was called) had in Resident Evil 2 and the way choices are handled is novel (though not novel enough for me to want to play it a second time). It's a totally solid game and I enjoyed it, but it's definitely near the bottom of my RE-rankings.

7. Resident Evil Gaiden

This'll probably seem like sacrilege putting this ahead of RE3, but this game was interesting. It's repetitive, pretty short, and the story is pretty barebones but they made a dang Resident Evil game for the Game Boy Color. Most of the game is similar to the others in the series with a top-down camera showing you as you explore an abandoned cruise ship but they've incorporated a sort of rhythm game to the combat to emulate the randomness and inaccuracy inherent to the combat in these games and I found their solution incredibly novel. As an artifact of its time I found it remarkably worthwhile even if it's ultimately little more than a relic of its era.

6. Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

After my slight disappointment with the Resident Evil 3 I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Capcom still had it. Steve sucks, sure, and the plot has some, y'know, issues, but this is another pretty fantastic classic RE game. It has full 3D environments for the first time and despite being named like a spinoff, this in all honesty should have just been called "Resident Evil 4". A bit frustrating at times, like every other game in the series, but it does enough to mix up the formula to keep things interesting throughout. It also revisits the Spencer Mansion from the first game and puts it into a new context and I was surprised that I was already starting to feel some nostalgia for that place.

5. Dead Space: Extraction

I am continually surprised by how much I like this game. It's a lightgun shooter set at roughly the same time as the original game, and in many of the same locations, and it manages to get so much mileage out of that premise. The opening sequence has you, almost literally, retracing Isaac's steps from the end of Dead Space and as a companion piece to that this was honestly just a lot of fun to play. I'll also add that Downfall, the first animated movie, together with this game helps paint a more complete picture of the events onboard the Ishimura and I greatly enjoyed seeing all three takes on the same events. It was a fun multimedia (ugh) experience.

4. Pyre

Pyre is a game I'd started two or three times in the past but always dropped it. The combat is engaging enough in the moment and the writing is solid, but something about the pace of it all sorta bored me. You have these encounters that, on their own, are almost never particularly narratively important and the time between rites is spent watching a lot of the same animations. There is a hump to get over with this game and before you pass it I totally understand why someone might give up on it.Once you get past that hump, though, there really is something special at its core. It's a Supergiant game after all, so the art, music, and worldbuilding are all incredible.

3. Resident Evil (2002)

Resident Evil. That dang Spencer mansion already made an appearance earlier on this list so it should come as no surprise that a more fully-fledged revisitation of that place would rate even higher. It's pretty close (between this and RE2), but this may be the best RE game I've played up to this point. It's a bit tricky for me to put into words exactly why this one works so darn well, but somewhere between the improved visuals and mechanics it feels like such a more fully-featured game than all the ones to come before it, if only thanks to the fact it's an outright remake.

2. Dead Space 2

For years I've been a fan of the original game but after a few brief hours with this sequel I set it down and never went back to it. Until this year, that is. For years my closest friend has been telling me that this was better than the first but, due to how much I adore the original, I had my doubts. I still think I prefer the original game, but Dead Space 2 builds on and adds so much more that, as a sequel to the original, it's hard to come up with any real complaints. I've heard people say it's the Aliens to the original's Alien and, yep, that feels pretty apt.

1. Silent Hill 2

Holy moly what a game. There are some games that seem like such pillars of the medium that it's hard to believe they can ever live up to their reputation, but Silent Hill 2 actually was as great as I'd been led to believe it was. The combat is serviceable (and enjoyable enough) but the narrative on display here is just as nuanced and complicated as you probably think it is. James Sunderland is a deeply flawed character and while some of the maturity present in this might not seem all that out of place today, it blows my mind that something like this was a contemporary of, like, MGS2 and Halo. I totally get why this game has stuck with people for as long as it has, and why it's getting a remake (even if it may be coming from some... questionable developers).