Now we step away from TV for the next two awards, as we look at what you voted as the best game and movie of 2023. It was a very strong year on the gaming front, with new big franchise releases such as Harry Potter and Star Wars, to a number of classic game remakes, and big new titles from Bethesda and Marvel. Plus, that little D&D game… On the movie side, we had big releases from Marvel and DC, the return of Indy and John Wick, plus Turtles, an actual good D&D film, and of course, Barbenheimer… Here are the nominees and winners.
Geektown’s Game Of The Year
Nominees: Alan Wake II; Baldur’s Gate 3; Dave The Diver;Dead Space; Final Fantasy 16; Forspoken; Hogwarts Legacy; Lies of P; Resident Evil 4; Spider-Man 2; Star Wars Jedi: Survivor; Starfield; The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Bronze: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Silver: Spider-Man 2
Gold Winner: Hogwarts Legacy
Everyone else’s GOTY might be Baldur’s Gate 3, but the readers of Geektown pushed that excellent game into fourth place, voting the return of Zelda for Bronze, Spider-Man 2 as Silver, and Hogwarts Legacy as Gold. The Bronze and Silver awards are actually particularly impressive given their releases are limited by platform (Switch for Zelda and PS5 for Spider-Man) compared to some of the other titles on the list. However, it’s difficult to stop the Harry Potter fans, especially when Hogwarts Legacy was such as solid open-world game. Fun quests, a compelling story, and setting it way before the books allowed Avalanche Software much more freedom to play in the Potterverse.
Geektown’s Movie Of The Year
Nominees: A Man Called Otto; Barbie; Blue Beetle; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; Elemental; Gran Turismo; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny; John Wick: Chapter 4; Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One; Oppenheimer; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem; The Flash; The Little Mermaid; The Marvels; The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Bronze: Oppenheimer
Silver: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Gold Winner: Barbie
At one point in the voting, we nearly had a Barbenheimer repeat with both films running neck and neck for a while. However, those Guardians of the Galaxy caught up and wedged themselves between the duo, although just not quite taking enough votes to knock Barbie from her Gold award. I think it came as a huge surprise just how Greta Gerwig managed to make a classic children’s toy into such an excellent movie, using subversive storytelling to poke fun at commercialism, the patriarchy, and even Mattel itself. A deserved win.
