It was certainly a year of new beginnings for me as I continued to settle into a new home, continued coping with a high energy Golden Retreiver baby who turned 1 in July, and received the news that I am to be a parent in early 2024. However, I still made time to play games, watch shows, and experience experiences. I went to multiple American football games, traveled multiple times, told my wife I don’t really identify with my assigned gender, and even had a colonoscopy (a better experience than Attack on Titan). It was certainly one of the years of all time. Let’s dive in to some specifics of my 2023 (please note that the order is flimsy at best!).
20) Super Mario Bros. Wonder & Super Mario RPG (2023)
I just got both of these for Christmas and I haven’t had enough time to properly evaluate them. The nostalgia is hitting me really hard on SMRPG along with some very smart updates while Wonder is doing lots of really cool things around a very satisfying game to play. If I had more time I’d see one of these at the top of the list.
19) The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
It has been a long time since I found myself invested in what was happening to Team Venture as I had been a fan back from the start but fell off somewhere around the back half of Season 4. I watched all the recap videos and read summaries to catch me up to speed for the movie, and it was exactly what I wanted. I still miss Henchman #24.
18) Puzzmo
I was never really into crossword puzzles, but maybe it was just because I felt a disconnect with what the clues were. Puzzmo’s offerings go beyond getting me excited to do a crossword every day with me frantically trying to do the FlipArt puzzle in under 30 seconds and relearning how to be mediocre at chess.
17) Physical 100
We went to Walt Disney World for a spring vacation, but after grabbing my precious Wawa sandwich (shoutouts to Wawa) I found out that the rental home we were staying at had Netflix. As someone who cancelled it last year I took the opportunity to force my family to watch this. All of the hype about it being 100 people just really admiring eachother’s bodies was correct. Cancel all other competitions and invest in more of this wholesome body-worshipping skills contest. Disney was cool too.
16) Omega Strikers
My brain entirely shut off when I saw the Nintendo Direct that showed this game featuring this adorable slime creature playing what is basically Blitzball. The characters are mostly amazingly designed for a game that oozes personality. The combination of quick-sports and RTS-gameplay makes for an experience you should check out!
15) CREATIVE FREEDOM V2
I feel a slight sense of shame that this occupied so much of my brain this year. This song came up on my YouTube feed after listening to Big Shot from Deltarune and became my most listened to song according to YouTube wrapped-thing.
14) Street Fighter 6
Don’t ask me why I haven’t played more of this because I don’t know. They really did a fantastic job making this game be really cool and satisfying. If you’re reading this please invite me into your fight club Discord so I can never show up but say that I wish I could play a few rounds.
13) Barbie
It was a fun film which had plenty of high quality moments, but the big moments for me were when early in the film Barbie was taking in how beautiful the real world can be and the moment Barbie got to confide in her creator. Maybe it’s the to-be-parent in me, but after the line “we mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they have come,” I started quietly sobbing and was ready to do the same for my child.
12) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
I wanted to like this more, and I don’t dislike it, but I do dislike building things with the Ultra-Hand. It’s really interesting, but I lack the vision and patience to craft my vehicles/solutions every time I walk into a new area. It has been very fun, but I also haven’t played it since summer and didn’t get very far.
11) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is incredibly refreshing. If your only experience with the turtles is their movies and the occaisional video game then it is easy to forget that there is a big roster of little freaks to work with. This movie takes a lot of different approaches to the franchise including No Shredders Allowed* and having fun with the lore and motivations of the turtles. It’s not my favorite iteration of Splinter, but again very refreshing. What we get with this film is something very fun, extremely stylish, and features a killer soundtrack with a stellar cast. The humor of the film is also worth celebrating as I didn’t expect the amount of milking that is discussed and I wouldn’t change a thing.
10) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass
Later this year in 2024 the original Mario Kart 8 will turn 10 years old, but no update it has received has been more substantial than this. While half of the new tracks released last year we saw the true value of the booster pass this year. New tracks like Yoshi’s Island and Squeaky Clean Sprint were welcome along-side the powerful reimagining of Bowser Castle 3 and other great classics. We also received eight new characters, eighteen new Mii suits, and intelligent updates to online lobbies that further improves the game’s quality of life as the game continues to be a cornerstone of the Nintendo Switch. I wish that there were less Tour tracks and a bigger willingness to reimplement some N64 or DS tracks that may have already been repurposed previously for the Wii or 3DS games. However, I can also acknowledge that the game went from 48 tracks to 96 and that’s wild.
9) The Skull
Author Jon Klassen has a knack for writing picture books that are very matter-of-fact and silly. He is best known for I Want My Hat Back, a book in which a bear goes around trying to find his hat. One animal, a rabbit, lies to the bear and the bear believes him, but about 10+ pages later the bear realizes the ruse, storms back, and without a word or depiction the rabbit is gone and the bear has the hat with the strong implication that the rabbit is literally deceased. His art style and tone are mystifying to me with a dark humor and willingness to just let his characters be silently pissed off.
Anyway, this picture book is of a girl who has ran away from home and is all alone in the world until meeting a skull. They get along immediately and are quite the quirky, but fun duo who are both harboring a tremendous amount of trauma. The climax of the book is something I won’t spoil, but if you can find the book at a library or as an ebook I highly recommend taking it in.
8) Void Stranger
As of writing I am somewhere deep within this game, having solved about 130 rooms and no end in sight. Each time I reach a spot to rest I feel a sense of dread that this might be the last time my player character, Lady Gray, gets to sleep before some sort of horrible nightmare appears to reveal that her soul has been long lost already. Maybe it already happened about 40 floors ago when I met a shadow creature who may or may not have been me? Maybe it was when I accidentally murdered a civilian who was also trying to escape the void. I’ve lost count of how many blocks I’ve pushed, traps I’ve fallen into, and times that I’ve been struck down for my hubris.
System Erasure excels at putting its player into high highs and low lows as its machine keeps whirring and throws players into despair that is very-much worth escaping from. I have yet to fully realize the true nature of this beast and when I do I feel that by that time Void Stranger will have cemented its place in my brain forever.
7) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
I know that the first Spider-Verse movie really introduced this animation style that really makes movies like the previously mentioned TMNT: Mutant Mayhem stand out to me, but Across the Spider-Verse is absolutely gorgeous and does so much with the differing styles and mediums of different spider-people. The various threads and problems that face Miles through-out the film are incredibly engaging, leading to some incredible scenes such as all of what we see in Mumbattan with Pavitr Prabhakar or the big chase scene later on in the Spider Society. I didn’t love how the ending kept piling on more and more, but either way I am very excited to see what comes next for Miles.
Also, can we talk about Gwen? I liked her before, but her character really stepped up as was given room for us to see the multiple dimensions to her. I’m a huge fan of all of the things the art direction does with her. I hope that she gets more opportunities to shine in the sequel or other Spider-Verse films. Also I love dad Peter B. Parker.
6) Sonic Symphony
What a truly fascinating experience. I’ve only been to a handful of concerts, but this one was a very pleasant way to experience the symphonic parts of Sonic’s history as well as all of the absurd friendship rock. I like the actual orchestral more, but it was definitely something to sing the lyrics of Fist Bump in an theater full of other people who knew the words to Fist Bump. It was a similar setlist to what the YouTube performance was a couple of years ago and unfortunately the Crush 40 lead singer was sick so he couldn’t perform, but it was very much something I am very glad to have had the opportunity to see.
5) Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
This year was one full of me catching up on anime I should have already watched like Trigun: Stampede and Spy X Family as well as finishing stuff like The Witch from Mercury, but Scott Pilgrim unexpectedly took my top slot for favorite anime of the year. I’ve been a fan of the franchise since the game made me aware of the books and then the movie, but a lot of that love fell off years ago. This fresh take on Scott Pilgrim was exactly what I didn’t know the franchise needed. I feel so much more aware of mental health and how to responsibly talk to another person now than when I first went along Mr. Pilgrim’s adventure. It feels like the anime was a chance for the IP to grow too as it gives us so much more nuance to most of the Scott Pilgrim cast. Characters patch things up, talk out their problems, get new chances at life without a dependency on Scott, and its all incredibly wholesome.
The soundtrack was incredible (didn’t expect to hear Liam Lynch shout “WHATEVER” 20 times, but I am not complaining) and the highlight to me was the scene where Kim and Knives sit down and simply jam out for 2 minutes. It was reallly cool to hear some of the game music work its way back in as well.
The ending of the anime leaves more ambiguity as to whether Scott and Ramona will work out than we ever had before, but that is part of what makes this work so well. We actually know more about Ramona and learn about her as a person who is flawed but trying to do better. I think that’s so much better than being forced the story of the guy getting the girl. I’ll happily take two disaster humans doing their best and learning along the way.
4) The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
They really did it. The Sonic Social Team not only got the permission to make a video advertising a game where Sonic died as an April Fools Day joke, but then they also made that game??? And it’s so good????? Murdering Sonic has been the best decision Sega has made for Sonic in years. Perhaps it is the year of letting the supporting cast shine because just like Scott Pilgrim, when Sonic is dead the other great characters of the franchise get to interact, play, and show us more than simply being a stepping stone for Sonic’s adventures. We are also treated to delightful costumes for the entire cast which means we get to see Knuckles rock the class hat, lil’ worker lad Shadow, and peak fashion Rouge.
I didn’t expect to have to warn about spoilers for a game presented as an April Fools joke, but here’s your warning!
Being a visual novel with a touch of an auto-runner mini-game leaves the game with a lot of work to do with script writing, but the scenarios and character interactions are spot on. We get to see Blaze and Rouge almost detonate a bomb while trying to steal a treasure as well as Shadow and Amy share their love of boy bands. It’s silliness, but it’s believable like we’re witnessing somewhat regular interactions from a day in their lives. However, towards the end we are dealt with a very heavy topic: letting go. The train, which the entire story takes place on and is sentient as well, is assisting Dr. Eggman so that the train never has to say goodbye to the conductor, who is retiring. Faced with that potential grief, the train has the conviction to do whatever it takes to keep their best friend with them. This story beat got to me emotionally even if it was presented to me with a lot of absurdities surrounding it. Ultimately, everything works out for everyone who isn’t Dr. Eggman.
As I said, this is my favorite Sonic game of the 2020s thus far which is already not a short list, but it is even sillier to think that as it stands this is my favorite game of the year. That will probably change as I have more time to get through some other titles, but this game is no joke. It is a project of love for the Sonic franchise and for those we hold in our lives. The executive producer of the game, Katie Chrzanowski, put a Chao in the game that looks like one she raised with her brother when they were kids. Little touches like her getting to put her childhood chao (named John, in case you didn’t know) truly let the creators’ passion come through and makes me truly appreciate that I get to experience these passion projects.
3) The Color Factory
While we were waiting for the Sonic Symphony in Chicago my wife and I were looking for something to do in the city. We had all day to find a distraction and enjoy ourselves until the show, but if I’m real with you what we found was even better. The Color Factory is essentially an art installation exhibit that works with local artists to create a unique experience to the city each location is in (technically built in 2022, but its my list ok?). The best way to explain why I enjoyed this so much is to take you on a brief tour.
The first official room that we entered offered us one of a variety of different colored macaroons to taste while they explained some intricacies of the experience such as getting a little photo card that lets us get curated photo moments around the factory. Then we went into a room full of giant horns that gave each color their own sound allowing us to create a symphony as we ran past each horn that was motion-activated. We then found a very vibrant maze room that looked like I was in a vintage but very cool painting no matter where I posed. We then came upon a small theater entrance where the usher told me about the taste theater we were about to enter. We were given four different candies in plain bags labeled 1 through 4 and were invited to try to figure out which color each one tasted like (we got the answers after the theater). Then we found rooms with giant floating balls that drifted up and down for us to play with before entering a confetti room that was there to rain down on us to then throw at each other while enjoying some blue taffy. Next was a room that split into two so that groups were put into a room divided in half where we would sit across from another person and try to determine the colors they represent along with some other fun drawing activities.
This sort of continues for like another 6 rooms of finding your color horoscope, smelling a wall full of different colors to see what red smells like, wading through a forest of colorful strings, and so on until you reach a massive ballpit room that I genuinely needed to swim through. We got more free stuff (I got a emotion wheel and then was offered some purple ice cream) after managing to escape the balls and wandered through some more rooms until finally getting out.
The entire experience is unlike anything I ever seen or done. To call the experience Wonka-like is not unreasonable as I was fully prepared to step into some sort of wild vehicle powered by colored foam or find a room full of geese laying different colored eggs. It is something that will stay with me for a very long time and I’m already thinking about how to get myself to the other two Color Factory locations and revisit this one when my child is older. I have nothing but the highest recommendations for this for everyone universally to check this out. Going to the Color Factory is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
2) Poker Face
Every time I see Natasha Lyonne, the star of this television series who plays the role of Charlie Cale, I smile. She’s a very endearing person and maybe I’m imprinting my love for Charlie onto her but I am just fascinated by her mannerisms and bright personality that is shown on the screen. I was incredibly invested in her character not being murdered each week hoping that she could someday just go back to having her quiet uneventful life. Along with her charm is her uncanny ability to notice when people are lying, a superpower that feels somewhat believable in an otherwise realistic fiction, that seems to get her more into trouble than out of. The entire series spirals from a casino manager trying to take advantage of Charlie’s gift but Charlie getting the upperhand. She’s delivered a death sentence from the owner of the casino and she goes on the run finding a different mystery to solve each week even if she doesn’t necessarily want to get involved or attract attention to herself. The format is really fun to watch because almost every episode stands on its own with only the season finale truly requiring prior knowledge of past episodes.
I really love the way this show works in that we already know the dirty details before Charlie becomes a factor and then we watch her try to solve the mystery. It isn’t lost on me that this isn’t exactly new and Columbo, who had a pretty nice resurgence last year but I have not watched, mastered this style before Charlie Cale ever played a hand of poker. This wouldn’t work on template alone, however, as each case brings its own suspense and drama. It is really fun to see how it all play out even if we already know specifics of each murder. Episode 3, The Stall, gives us a pretty standard set-up and resolution of the characters unknowingly turning themselves in (complete with a wonderfully unsophisticated recreation of the murder by Charlie), but keeps you invested with great character work. Episode 5, Time of the Monkey, gives us some wild twists and sees Charlie go on a low-speed chase with assisted living residents. Seeing her bond with people each episode who may or may not be murderers, but her willingness to trust people who don’t set off her bullshit-radar each time is incredibly endearing even if it almost gets her killed routinely.
It is worth noting that the cast of the show is a big selling point because the guest stars for this thing are wild. From the first episode all the way to the end we get folks like Adrien Brody, Tim Meadows, Stephanie Hsu, Rhea Perlman, and more who all contribute with their strong acting to further support Natasha Lyonne’s award winning performance. It was a lock for my favorite show of the year until October, but I eagerly await what comes next for the series assuming there is more!
1) Our Flag Means Death
Season 2 of the show dropped in early October, but I had criminally unappreciated the show’s existence until mid-September. This need to be a part of the moment led me to give the show a chance. For a solid 2 months I had pirate brain-rot that consumed my entire being where I watched every episode multiple times of both seasons and cried at least 10 times while watching my idiot pirate children navigate the seas and their feelings. Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi, who play Stede Bonett and Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, headline a cast of incredible performers who bring this gentle pirate crew directly into the hearts of those who watch. It is clear from the moment they meet in season 1 that they’re meant for eachother, but various twists of fate lead us to a bittersweet cliffhanger that picks up immediately in season 2. A lot of the characters have wonderful progression through that first season (Jim, played by Vico Ortiz, is a non-binary icon and I’d love to be stabbed by them), but as much fun as some of the non-plot-forward episodes are in season 1 we get so much more development of these characters in season 2.
The release schedule of the episodes had a strong purpose to them as we get Ed’s full diaster era in the course of the first three episodes that all dropped at once. We’re quickly introduced to some new members of Blackbeards crew, or at least those who survived (RIP Ivan), including us meeting Archie, played by Madeleine Sami. I highlight her because I also watched the show Deadloch this year and now I feel like I am beginning to form a strong knowledge of New Zealand shows, but also I see her a lot in Vico Ortiz’s TikToks and both they seem like fun to hang out with. Another actor who seems like a lot of fun is Con O’Neill, the actor of Izzy Hands. In the next episode drop we got episodes 4 and 5 which ultimately led to the softening of his character. Izzy from the jump had been a very aggressive character who still had his charms but seemed to have a lot of friction with the crew of the Revenge. After surviving Ed’s tortures Izzy is left drifting along until the crew formally makes Izzy a new prosthetic leg. It is in this moment that Izzy is truly a part of the family and seeing his glow up from villain I loved to hate to my most precious son that I would love to get a wittled shark from.
We finally get what so many viewers were waiting for in Calypso’s Birthday, episode 6 of season 2: so much love and celebration and gay love for this cast. The entire subplot of Ned Low’s attack on the ship is fine for overall progression of Stede’s notoriety, but I just want to see Wee John and Izzy dress in drag, Jim and Olu dance, Roach setting off fireworks while Ed and Stede make love, and the entire crew just having a beautiful moment together. Once again I am moved to tears by Izzy, who sings so beautifully in this episode, and finally getting the moment where Stede and Ed give in to passion was very cathartic. What follows for the next episode is of course necessary in everything exploding so that we can get the gang banding together against the government. Big spoilers incoming for the season finale if you haven’t watched it. Please watch Our Flag Means Death.
The final episode of the season hurt me very much. I understand why it had to be this way, but it hurt either way. I am crying thinking of it. We get so much love from Izzy about his pirate family through a passionate speech about how what they have can never be taken from them and never recreated. Stede and Ed dedicate themselves to eachother and finally settles their erratic beginnings to quite simply be two men madly in love with eachother. While things look bad for pirates as a whole, Zheng leads the crew of the Revenge to take on the British army by the end of it. However, my beautiful and cranky son… it hurts to merely type it. Izzy dies and leaves a huge hole in the hearts of everyone. He finished his redemption arc from the man that turned in Blackbeard to the English to the man that brought his entire idiot pirate family together. He had passed on his wisdom and spirit to everyone. He gave everything he had to the crew of the Revenge. I have such strong feelings about this character, and frankly I feel a lot for all of them. It was a big relief to see Lucius survived the end of season 1. I was so happy for Olu to be able to pursue his love. I hope to see Frenchie, Roach, Fang, Black Pete, and more, who are all dear to me, get to be happy and stick it to the British army. I know that generally things don’t end well for pirates, but it was an honor and privilege to see them live their best lives by the end of the second season. That’s what Izzy would have wanted: for his family to be free.
I think this took me like 2 weeks to write because I kept remembering stuff. A lot of cool experiences and media affected my life this year. I didn’t even write about my baseball sluts who vibed their way into beating the best baseball team in the playoffs (and then sputtered at the last second against an inferior opponent but that’s Philadelphia sports) or all of the queer books I read as I tried to figure myself out (Too Bright to See came out a while back but is a good middle-grade novel about being transgender). It’s hard to capture a time in your life and put it into words eloquently, so I’ve made a silly list where I poorly tell you how cool stuff was. I hope that in 2024 there is more cool stuff made by amazing creative people that I can share with the wonderful people in my [adjective here] life, whether it is written beautifully or just me screaming at the top of my lungs DID YOU SEE THAT??? in your general direction.
Keep being you. Thanks for reading.
