Editor’s Note: In the Spirit of the Season, we’ve decided to promote one of our writers’ side projects. If you’re interested and want to support them please do so. Anyone who works with Phenixx Gaming is a part of the PG family, and thus we want to support them when they ask for it. Please check out this sponsored post.

The Asymmetrical Controller Podcast is a relatively new podcast that features four gamers who have participated in various parts of the gaming industry. The podcast consists of HoiSin who is a game developer, Daeva who is a Minor League Esports player, Shark who is an ex-voice actress, and myself (Matthew Lomas) who is a games journalist. In our most recent episode, we went through all of the nominees for the 2023 Game Awards and voted on which ones deserve to win the category. The full podcast episode of our decisions and discussions will be posted at the end of this article, but I thought that I would highlight a few of the categories that we felt the strongest about. Let’s dive in!

Game of the Year: Baldur’s Gate III

With the insane amount of hours worth of content and the incredible amount of support that it has gotten since its release, Baldur’s Gate III seems to be the obvious winner for Game of the Year. While the industry may not want to admit it sometimes, Baldur’s Gate III does set a new bar for the standards of a great game. While the slowly arriving Grand Theft Auto VI may also raise that bar a bit, Baldur’s Gate III remains the pinnacle of gaming as we leave 2023.

Best Narrative: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Swinging into our lives, Spider-Man 2 offers a great game that has phenomenal writing and a story of two spiders that weave perfectly together. The series’ first two entries were going to be difficult to top, but Insomniac did an amazing job at giving Peter and Miles room to breathe without having one dominate the other in terms of the story. That is why Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is our choice this year for Best Narrative.

Best Art Direction: Lies of P

Of all the great games to come out this year, Lies of P surprised us with its interesting artistic take on the Pinnochio story. The city of Krat is your playground as you attempt to stop the puppet threat while also attempting to solve the mystery of what exactly went wrong. The art direction beautifully blends Steampunk and Victorian Era styles to create a dark and gritty story that is perfect for a Souls-like game!

Best Audio Design: Resident Evil 4 Remake

Resident Evil 4 brought many of us back to our childhoods of playing Leon’s second adventure for the first time on the GameCube. While some of us were too young to be playing that game at the time, we are now all adults and have come to appreciate this new remake that allows us to experience the game in a whole new way! Everything in the remake, from the enemies to the music to the environment, sounds amazing and helps to bring a shiver up our spine!

Best Performance: Yuri Lowenthal (Spider-Man 2)

While it was a tough choice between all of the amazing performances of 2023, Yuri Lowenthal’s time as Spider-Man 2 continues to delight us in so many ways. While Peter’s face in the newest game still takes me a bit of getting used to, Yuri lends his talents wonderfully to this phenomenal game and works well with his counterpart Nadji Jeter. If the next game in the series matches the same caliber, I would not be surprised to see Nadji Jeter chosen as our pick for Best Performance in the future!

Best Ongoing: Final Fantasy XIV

While there were a few interesting picks in this category this year, Shark fought tooth and nail for Final Fantasy XIV. The amount of passion that she has for this game proved to us that this was the one to choose for the Best Ongoing Game of 2023. Fortnite came surprisingly close in our deliberations, however, it got outvoted due to a few reasons. Maybe next year.

Best Independent Game: DREDGE

While this category ended up being a bit of a toss-up due to how familiar we were with the other titles, DREDGE ended up earning our vote. This was to my delight as this game is easily in my top ten of the year! For those who are unaware, DREDGE is a fishing horror game where you have to upgrade your boat to catch exotic fish and escape eldritch horrors. Are you ready to go fishing for your life?

Best Fighting: Mortal Kombat 1

While there were quite a few prominent fighting games this year, Mortal Kombat 1 proved to stand atop all of them once again. While the story seems fresh compared to what they have done in the recent entries, the thing that stood out to a lot of us was the absolutely bonkers DLC characters that will be coming to the game within the upcoming year. Let’s hope that Mortal Kombat 1 can continue to amaze us in 2024. Also, can we get the Switch version fixed?

Best Family Game: Party Animals

One of the greatest games of this year, Party Animals is a game that all four of us have enjoyed! With its quirky mechanics, cute animals, and dozens of maps, it has everything that you need for a relaxing evening with friends or family. There is a bit of a learning curve to this game and a few people who can get a little bit extra on the chat system, but overall Party Animals is a great pick for Best Family game!

Best Adaptation: HBO’s The Last of Us

While HBO’s The Last of Us certainly isn’t the greatest video game adaptation that we have ever seen, it still managed to win our vote due to its attention to detail and the overall feel of the series. Peacock’s Twisted Metal was a distant second, but not all of us had seen enough of that series for it to beat out The Last of Us. It will be interesting to see if Amazon’s Fallout series ends up on this list next year.

Best Esports Game: Valorant

While there were quite a few popular choices for this year’s Best Esports Game, Daeva and HoiSin overwhelmingly supported choosing Valorant over all the others. Daeva was a bit biased since the minor league team that he is a part of plays Valorant, but HoiSin agreed due to the overall experience that he has had playing Valorant compared to the others. Counter-Strike 2 was a close second but obviously didn’t make the cut.

Best Esports Event: 2023 League of Legends World Championship

Daeva and HoiSin definitively agreed that the League of Legends 2023 World Championship is the pinnacle of Esports events for this year. It had such a significant amount of production thrown behind it that it would take any other esports tournament a lot of work to come close to it. From music to the venue to the competition to the prize pool and so much more, it is clear why League of Legends is still so prominent after all these years!

These are just a few of our choices. If you want to watch the entire podcast episode and go through all of the categories with us, feel free to click the link below! If you want more articles like this, check out Keiran’s article on the increased security measures for the 2023 Game Awards right here.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!