Oh yeah of course, I haven't follow much starfield at all, despite the fact its my most awaited game at the moment.

That's because I have a powerful PC but its back home, I'm working abroad, so I kinda dismiss that starfield even exists, as I will probably only play it a year from now. I also will not buy an xbox just for this game, considering my PC is more powerful than the series X, and considering I have way more games than I can handle.

Know I don't post much anymore these days, but I really want more people to know about this game:

My favorite new game this year so far is Perfect Tides, and since you've never heard of it, let me just introduce you by saying that it's the hands-down best point-and-click game I've ever played before. I've got a number of reasons for feeling this way:

1) This is a game about life. And that's it. More specifically, it's about the life of a particular teenage girl named Mara Whitefish lived out over the course of the year 2000. And that's more than enough. Seriously, I actually think games recourse to supernatural or sci-fi plot devices far too often, or else are just straightforward simulation games that may be mechanically sound and entertaining to a point, but, for lack of a better way of putting it, lack the feels. Perfect Tides is among only the tiniest handful of games I've ever played that have been something else, and I wish there were more like it.

2) The relationship between the player and Mara is perfect. There are many dialogue choices in this game and they make a difference, but while many games with substantial choose-your-own-adventure elements wind up reducing their protagonist to simply a shell -- but a stand-in for the player's own personality, often complete with a title instead of a name -- Mara remains very much her own person throughout, and this fact kept me emotionally attached to her. Like for example, the Mara who writes an intimate, yearning letter to internet friend-turned-love-interest Staggle is the same person as the Mara who writes that friend a friendly-but-guarded letter instead, but once the letter is sent, Mara’s response to Staggle’s reply letter is her response, not the player’s. You have control over her movements and over many of her narrative choices, but not just all of them, and this balance makes the difference in terms of rendering both Mara herself and her journey through love and friendship and school, work, home life, scorn and conflict, something truly involving and special. The relationship between the player and the game's narrator is also one I find interesting in its nuances.

3) The story this game tells. If you want a remarkably accurate snapshot of what American culture was like back at the turn of century, you will find it here, carefully preserved in loving detail. But more than nostalgia for this infrequently-revisited point in time, the setting also stands out. Perfect Tides is the name of the island that Mara lives on; a place that's known first and foremost as a vacation spot, but one that maintains a small year-round community, each of whom handles their relative isolation in different ways. The island is in the process of being gentrified in a fact that Mara develops wildly different feelings about as she herself develops. You'll play through a few key, formative days of each season of the year on the island, and the set pieces for each are ambient and inspired. The dialogue is witty, honest, and immersive to a degree that's almost unique in this medium. Seriously, I cannot do justice in words here to how well this game is written! Mara's struggles for attention, trust, friendship, love, meaning, self-improvement, peace within her family, and peace within herself are not only memorable, but something special in their specificity, complexity, and accuracy. Her chats on the online fan-fiction community she logs onto via AOL dial-up (you get the full experience, complete with the scrambled dial tone, word that the song you found finished downloading overnight, etc.) feel very much like the real deal and effectively convey how moving and important one's online life could be even in those early days of popular internet and rank among the game's many highlights for me, along with its distinctive art style that strikes a wonderfully delicate balance between true-to-life, nostalgic, and endearingly cartoony.

4) Okay, this one's just a special bonus with meaning to me, but...toward the end, Perfect Tides also includes what sure the hell to me looks like an extended, loving homage to the oft-forgotten 1995 point-and-click adventure Chop Suey that always makes my all-time top 10 list every year and it's the most joyous thing I've experienced in a video game before, period! Nobody remembers Chop Suey. Or so I thought! I couldn't believe it. I couldn't..fucking..believe it! Knowing that the creators of this game were influenced by Chop Suey specifically was the proverbial icing on the cake for me. Just made me feel seen, and loved.

Perfect Tides is very likely to wind up being my pick for Game of the Year, and it definitely is so far as of this date. The runners-up for me right now are Stray (which I've recently completely and definitely recommend!) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. Speaking of games with retro vibes though, I also want to just give a shout out to Sonic Origins, which collects, and offers improved versions of, Sonic 1, 2, Sonic CD, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, because I've really enjoyed it and consider it the definitive Sonic classics collection.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga easily. The bugs were annoying AF but a lot of them seem to be fixed. It's my favorite Lego game to date.
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge is probably my runner-up.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will probably rank high or take the crown.

I love how many people are acting like Elden Ring isn't popular enough to win. Makes me laugh.

It sold remarkably well, got amazingly high review scores across all three brands (PC, PS, XB), the team/company has a history of winning GOTY in the past (Sekiro and I believe Demon's Souls both won their respective years), it has remarkably high engagement even 6 months later, and people are still playing it.

IT fills all the requirements. While I'd be happy to see something like God of War Ragnarok win this year, since the last one was a near-perfect game, I do think that from all objective measures Elden Ring currently has the best chances of winning. It's a monumental success in every category. Yeah, some people hate it (the ones that declare it a failure or otherwise hate the popular thing are hilarious), but that doesn't change the facts.

Sure, there are other options and everyone's taste is subjective but, like, there is no metric wherein this game is a failure.

Probably Turtles so far but I haven't played Kirby or Horizon yet. For me, the only other contenders this year would be Bayonetta 3 or maybe the Metroid Prime remake, depending on what they do with it.

Either elden ring or god of war will win, no question about it. Elden ring will have been the most popular game this year, dismissing the usual sports games and calls of duties.

The last god of war was far from perfect, in fact in my opinion god of war 3 is a better game as it has better puzzle parts and I loved to open the chests and the style of it. God of war got repetitive quick, enemies were all the same, I cant even remember 1 single memorable boss, compare that to god of war 3 where all bosses were memorable.

But game of the year has to have not only gameplay and graphics, animations, but also voice acting, writing, direction, etc that's why I think god of war will win.

The only problem I see with it, is that from the videos we've seen it looks far too similar to the previous god of war, there doesn't seem to have much innovation.

Horizon forbidden west is another contender, it had the graphics, beautiful open world, animations, great voice acting and writing, but it also is far too similar to the previous one.

Then again, game of the year doesn't mean much to us gamers, most people giving the awards, don't even play videogames. And each one of us has their preferences despite the awards, example, sekiro was game of the year and I disliked the game, people kept also saying ghost of tsushima should be game of the year but I also dislike that game. So who knows. To be honest, so far no game should win anything, we are just getting sequels, or games that are too similar to each other, ghost of tshushima is just basically assassins creed 8 or 9. We need way more innovation in video games, things are very stale this generation, the only games I remember being innovative were Returnal and Death stranding, we should have way more games like that, doing something different. Where's the passion?

There's not going to be a metroid prime this year.

I'm almost switching my vote to "As Dusk Falls".

How far along are you in it? I've just finished Stray and am literally just starting As Dusk Falls right now. I'm about an hour in right now and liking it too so far. Would you say that further in the game stays solid or that it actually improves?

Just finished chapter 3, I think I'm about 4 hours in. This is my kind of game, I love Visual Novels and Adventures. It reminds me of the golden era of Telltale Games (The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us).

I say that it gets really tense after 1 or 2 hours. Some choices are really hard, and the plot gets very. very dark.

I can't say it already beat A.I. The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative because I still need to play both more to make a final judgement. I'm pretty sure As Dusk Falls is a strong candidate to some awards at TGA.