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What were your favorite games that you played this year, and why?
What were your favorite games that you played, and why did you feel that way about them?
They do not have to be games released in 2024. Anything you played this year is fair... game.
The contenders
For context, I prefer highly-stylized RPGs and single player experiences, so expect this list to be biased in that direction. (E.g., I played Helldivers 2 with a buddy, but I bounced off it pretty hard).
Best Puzzle Game
Awarded to my favorite puzzle game I played this year
Winner: The Witness
I don't think I've experienced such emotional whiplash in a video game, which says a great deal for a game that arguably has no characters. One moment I'm cursing the game, its creator, and his progeny; the next, I'm coolly boasting my genius.
The Witness puts gameplay front and center, subverting modern video game trends which tend to put high-fidelity graphics and movie-like presentation over everything else. Indeed, despite the game's colorful setting, the majority of the The Witness's puzzle boards would have been equally functional in print, potentially catering to people in the same way that books of sudoku or crosswords do.
Consequently,. The Witness is a game that is exceptionally easy to cheat. If every puzzle is predetermined, then every puzzle can be found online. But in a game which puts the gameplay first, the only person you're cheating is yourself.
Minor post-game spoilers
Which brings me to the genius of The Challenge: a post-game "dungeon" meant to test your meddle by pitting you against randomized, timed puzzle boards. If you relied heavily on a guide, these puzzles will be effectively impossible. Completing The Challenge was one of the greatest video game accomplishments of my life.
Runner-up: CrossCode
Best Backseat-Gamer Game
Awarded to a single-played game that benefits from a couch-full of spectators
Winner: The Witness
For the same reason that The Witness is a wonderful puzzle game, it is also a wonderful backseat-gamer game: sometimes you just need someone else's perspective.
My brother installed The Witness when he was visiting my wife and I in Germany. After watching him play for about ten minutes, I had him restart the game so we could play it together from the beginning. The Witness became our background game, giving us something to do in the morning as we waited for each other to get ready, and something to do in the evening as we wound down for the day. When we got stuck, we would pass the controller, allowing someone else to prove their cleverness. And when we prevailed, we'd complement each other for being "master puzzlers".
Runner-up: Tinykin
Hidden Gem
Awarded to a game I bought on a whim.
Winner: Withering Rooms
I've checked the past few months of the weekly recurring threads, and not a single soul has mentioned this absolute gem of a game.
Withering Rooms is technically a side-scroller horror roguelite, but I think roguelite might be a misleading description. Roguelites tend to be grindy affairs that relegate the story to the background. In Withering Rooms, however, the story is the hook: you are trapped in a dream, set in the grounds of a Victorian manor. The dream is based on the real world, yet magic and monsters run amok -- why? In atmosphere, characters, and quests the game drips aesthetic.
Beyond the first five or so hours, the game isn't that difficult, which is why I again resist labeling Withering Rooms a roguelite despite it technically being one. Instead, it quickly evolves into a sort of power fantasy, allowing you to equip spells and guns that will make short work of most enemies and bosses. Moreover, most items tend to be unique rather than mere stat upgrades (in the spirit of Dark Souls), which makes exploration feel meaninful. And there is a great deal to explore, with new areas of the manor grounds revealing themselves in each new chapter.
Unfortunately first impressions are probably the worse, as you start rather squishy and have to hide from most enemies, making the game feel much slower and grinder than it ends up being. But on the flip side, this means that once you've cleared the first chapter, the game only gets better.
Runner-up: Hylics 2
Best Multiplayer Game
Awarded to a game best played with friends.
Winner: Rabbit & Steel
I discovered this game during AGDQ 2024. As I mentioned at the offset, I'm drawn to stylized games. The artwork reminds me of something you might find on deviantart, the sort of art that isn't necessarily the most technically impressive but is nevertheless quite charming and cute.
But style can only get you so far. I've heard this game described as a non-MMO raiding game, or alternatively, as a cooperative, roguelite, bullet hell boss rush. The objective is to defeat a series of bosses, each of which have their own unique patterns, unlocking upgrades along the way. I enjoyed playing it with friends for the ~10 or so hours I played it, but mastery would likely require as least ten times as much commitment. I found my short stint with it to be a few hours well spent.
Runner-up: Monster Prom
Best Quirky Game
Awarded to my favorite game that left me wondering what the heck was happening
Winner: Hylics 2
@BeardyHat mentioned Felvidek as a JRPG-styled game set in 15th century Slovakia (fascinating!). Hylics 2 is a game of similar character, except rather than be set in any particular place or time on earth, the game is set in a fully alien enviornment.
Most JRPGs involving aliens do not lean very heavily into the alien aspect. The aliens, despite some visual differences, still act very much human. Not so in Hylics 2. Everything in this world is otherworldly, from the environments to the vaporwave color pallet to the music. Even the way they speak is strangely verbose, almost as if their conversations were translated literally from a universal language translator. Consider this little jingle you can find characters singing to themselves:
A hyleyhem is an in-universe object (basically a stalagmite) while frondose means "resembling a large leaf". (This particular character is mining.)
I realize that some people might consider writing like this to be exhausting, but it really does work. The game remains intelligible even if you don't want to look up some the stranger utterances, but doing so will give the game that much more flavor.
The game is short enough to not outstay its welcome (under 10 hours). Battles occur when encountering enemies in the over world (i.e. not random), and once an an enemy has been slain, it stays dead for good.
Best Release of 2024
Awarded to my favorite game that released in 2024.
Winner: Withering Rooms
I picked this game up from Fanatical's Halloween bundle, as I (an American living in Germany) was pining for something Halloween-themed to do on Halloween. My first pick was Monster Prom, while Withering Rooms was just another game I needed for the bundle discount.
But it was a well reviewed game, despite me having never heard of it, and it definitely had the spooky Halloween vibes I so craved. So I started it up, and I could not put it down. I finished the game over a couple days, including the new game plus playthrough for the true ending.
The gameplay loop is fairly simple -- basically just clear rooms and loot -- but the world building kept me engaged the whole time.
I look forward to playing the game again next Halloween!
Game of the Year
Awarded to my favorite game I played in 2024.
Winner: CrossCode
You might be tempted to think CrossCode a (gorgeous) pixel art action JRPG. And you would be correct until you get to the first dungeon and realize it's actually a puzzle game. Since most people are initially drawn by the snappy combat and colorful environments, the puzzles themselves can be somewhat divisive, with many complaining that they're too hard. But I think the puzzles are what takes this game from great to GOAT. It is not uncommon for video games to diversify gameplay through puzzles. However, few games actually do this well, often incorporating mind-numblingly simple "puzzles" amounting to the video game equivalent of passing a square through a square-shape hole.
In CrossCode, the developers clearly put as much effort into the puzzles as they did everything else. As an example, take this puzzle involving the fire element. The goal is to light both touches in the raised platform. By bursting the water orbs with the fire element, you can create a gust of wind, which will temporarily power the "windmills". That puzzle is comparatively simple, but the complexity gradually increases over time as more elements and mechanics are introduced. Compare that puzzle with this one from the final (dlc) dungeon, which incorporates almost every element.
So with excellent gameplay and gorgeous visuals, does the game also have the story to match? Yet again, CrossCode excels: set in a VR MMO, a problem with your voice synchronization prevents you from communicating with other players. It's a spin on the silent protagonist trope with major consequences later on. Suffice it to say that the story is original, gut-wrenching and uplifting when it needs to be, and paced well throughout.
I've played over 120 hours (across two playthroughs) on a game that regularly goes on sale for $10 with the dlc. That's a steal for a game that is, in my opinion, one of the best indie game of all time.
Thanks for the great write-up! You've given me some new games to try out.
I actually have The Witness in my library, but I've only played it for about an hour. I stopped when it appeared that the game consisted of slight variations on the same puzzle separated by geography. I was expecting something more like The Talos Principle or The Turing Test. Does it eventually introduce more variety, or is it mainly for people who really like that particular type of puzzle?
I'll just say that the game wants you to burn so much of that puzzle format into your brain that you'll start seeing connecting lines everywhere you look.
The idea is that more and more types of rules are introduced and later combined, which will increase variety. There are other things to do in the island, little easter eggs to find, audio logs, movies, even a time trial. Knowledge of The Puzzle can also gate access to certain paths and shortcuts; there's certainly an exploration and observation component. But if you absolutely hate that puzzle format then the game might never click for you.
@Protected summarized the gist well. Ultimately all the puzzles are just variations on the maze puzzle that you're introduced to in the tutorial area, but there is certainly a greater variety of puzzles in The Witness than a book of Sudokus. Portal is similarly "just" variations on portal puzzles, but I'm not sure that limitation detracts from Portal.
So let me give some examples taken from someone else's playthrough (note that althrough their playthrough is only 4 hours long, most players spend more than 20 hours on the game). Puzzle spoilers below.
As already mentioned, the game starts with maze puzzles, which form more or less the core mechanic of the game. Variations like "mirror puzzles" are gradually introduced, requiring one to simultaneously solve the board twice with the input mirrored across an axis. Other boards ask you to partition dots of different colors. Still others yet challenge you to solve the board while forming tetris shapes.
Most puzzles exist independently of the environment, a fact that some might find a bit bewildering given how strongly the game leans into its aesthetic. However, exceptions abound: occasionally a board's solution will only be revealed when viewed from the right angle.
Note that I have explained some of the gimmicks, but part of the puzzle is simply figuring out what the gimmick is. The game never explicitly reveals the rules for different puzzle types, instead asking the player to infer the rules from simple boards. In this sense, The Witness is a masterclass in game design: rather than risk over-explaining with tutorials, the game only assumes that one has the most rudimentary of video game knowledge, i.e. the ability to navigate a virtual world with a controller/keyboard/mouse. Everything else is learned through play.
There is also a mind-bending realization that virtually every player will eventually come to, but I'd rather not spoil it.
A small hint
It has to do with the obelisks.Personally I really enjoyed playing The Witness with a group, so if you decide to give it another go, I'd encourage you to try it with a friend or two. As it's not a particularly video-gamey video game, it also lends itself to being a good game to play with a partner who otherwise might not play video games.
Stray. Perfect mix of cute and horrifying.
My wife and I each did a playthrough of stray last year, and they were awesome. It was super cute and absolutely had its tense moments. I'd love to find more games like that.
In no particular order, my favorite games that I played this year were Hi-Fi Rush, Ghost of Tsushima, Balatro, Shadow of the Erdtree, Risk of Rain 2, Destiny 2: The Final Shape, Warhammer 40k Boltgun, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Astro Bot, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet for all of them. Hi-Fi Rush was just such an excellent vibe and such a happy game. I appreciate games in this day and age that are no bullshit and not every game needs to be 50+ hours and full of content. This was a 10 hour game for me, but I so thoroughly enjoyed that time. The aesthetics, music, art, mechanics, and level design were all top notch, I don't have a bad thing to say.
Ghost of Tsushima started dragging towards the end for me (still haven't finished), but the world is so lovingly crafted that I like just hanging out there and doing side quests. I kind of don't care that I haven't finished the main story yet because I just like to drop in every few months to do some samurai adventures and then come back to it later.
Balatro is just a perfect roguelike deckbuilder and it definitely stole 50+ hours of my life this year. I fell off it a bit, but I'm sure I'll be re-addicted once the new content comes out. I've refused to download the mobile version because it will ruin my life.
Shadow of the Erdtree was more Elden Ring and I love Elden Ring, so yipee! I did love the new zone and enemies. I did enjoy the challenge the final boss brought even though much of the community thought it was "bullshit".
With Risk of Rain 2, I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, but watching gameplay from 2 never enticed me. It just felt like something was off with the art or the world (it felt kind of "empty" when watching). I was super duper wrong. I picked this up this year and played like 20 hours in a week. I won't endlessly play it, but I got to play a bunch of co-op with a friend, too, and it's super fun.
I had been playing Destiny before this year. I've been playing on and off since D1 came out and got really into it in 2022. When The Final Shape came out, it was a proper close to the 10 year saga. The story was epic, the raid was somehow even more epic. The 12 player co-op finale was even more epic than the raid somehow? I couldn't have asked for a better expansion this year. At this point, I'm very burned out and not really playing anymore, but I played nearly 200 hours of Destiny 2 since TFS came out, so I can't really say that I didn't get my money's worth. I do appreciate how far I came in the game in just two years, though. I went from someone who played the story casually on and off for years. Once I picked it up again in 2022, something clicked and I eventually worked my way up to an accomplished raider, even doing some contest mode raids. I'm glad for the time I got to spend in the game and with friends, but unless something is wildly different with the upcoming expansion, I think my time is done with D2.
Warhammer 40k Boltgun: this just hits me in the nostalgia bone so well. It does such a great job of looking and feeling like a retro shooter while also feeling modern at the same time. It's just a joy to blow shit up with plasma rifles.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was an excellently crafted metroidvania, maybe my favorite metroidvania. The mechanics, exploration, lore, characters, story, world, and art really vibed with me and I was addicted to this for a couple of weeks. It would have been my game of the year if not for...
Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Wow. I didn't pick this up until a couple weeks ago. Despite loving previous bioware games and companion based RPGs, I wanted to wait on this due to how divisive reviews were (I was scared that I wouldn't like it). This game is just fantastic and is truly made for me. I'm still working on it, but I'm loving every minute. I should have a lot of time to play in this upcoming week.
Lastly, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. CoD has been a guilty pleasure for my entire gaming life. I've played every single one and even when the franchise started taking a dive in quality after Black Ops 2 (with a few bright spots like MW 2019), I still always kept the newest CoD on rotation because it's usually pretty consistent, still remains fun to me, and it's a great game that I can just put on if I don't really know what to play or if I just want to talk to friends or listen to music and want to keep my hands busy. Black Ops 6 is the most fun I've had in a CoD and the most I've played a CoD since Black Ops 2 or the original Modern Warfare 2. Something just clicks with me and the game stays consistently fun for me even though I've already played 120 hours since release just two months ago.
I have played many, many more games this year and enjoyed more than just this list, but these are the ones that I either spent the most time with or felt were the most special this year.
Edit: I somehow completely forgot about Astro Bot even though that was definitely one of my favorites this year! I’m so extremely happy that happy, simple 3D platformers can still have that level of care put into them and can succeed! It’s almost shocking these days to pay $50 for a non indie game that’s so extraordinarily fun with absolutely zero bullshit.
I played No Man's Sky for the first time this year and really loved it! I enjoy survival/crafting/building/exploring gameplay in general, especially with beautiful visuals. NMS has some gorgeous landscapes. I also didn't think I'd enjoy the spacecraft piloting part of it so much, but once I got a hang of the flight controls I really enjoyed flying through pretty skies and cosmos.
Really looking forward to getting into this in VR one day
According to my Steam Year in Review, I played 129 games this year (not including the many on my emulation handhelds and GoG), though I've probably only completed like maybe 5 games this year. At any rate, here are my standouts:
Skald: Against the Black Priory - A fantastic RPG with a throwback art style. Once I picked this game up, I absolutely couldn't put it down. The tactical combat is great, the story is engaging and very dark and the exploration is fantastic. Easily one of my top RPG's ever.
Dishonored 2 - I played almost entirely through this back in 2017, stopping only a mission or two from completion. Back then, while I enjoyed the game, I was in a pretty different state of life and so I never really got fully into it. I'd always meant to go back and this was the year for that, apparently. Finally started and completed it over the last several weeks and just loved it to pieces. I've been an ImSim fan since I first played Thief and Deus Ex back in 00 or whatever it was and Dishonored hits just right; I'd been looking to replay Thief recently, hoping to jump into the recently released The Black Parade, but I didn't get around to it. But Dishonored 2 scratched that itch better than I could've imagined.
Felvidek - Last but not least. I had this on my wishlist for quite awhile and my friend had picked it up as a birthday gift for me over the summer. After finishing Dishonored 2, I was looking for something else to play, preferably on my Steam Deck and this one was already installed and ready to go. It's another RPG, this time styled after a JRPG without all the traditional trappings I hate (in particular, random battles) and also with an interesting historical bent, taking place in 15th century Slovakia. It really doesn't break any new ground in terms of mechanics, but the art style is very fitting and the music is absolutely Fan-Fucking-Tastic. Something I would have never guessed with such an anachronistic Proggy soundtrack; probably only the second soundtrack I would ever listen to outside of a game itself. Anyway, it's cheap and if you like RPGs, especially something that's short and not going to eat-up your entire life, check it out.
Glad you enjoyed Dishonored 2! I'm one of the people off their rocker that has done no kill, no detection runs. I love them so much, it may be time for another play through.
I will say the third one isn't as bad as people say, but it does pull back the curtain on the outsider a bit too much for me. Its cooler when he's a bit more vague for me.
I hear the new Indiana Jones game has some Dishonored esque gameplay. I can't wait to pick it up on sale in a few years and see!
I do intended to play Death at some point, but I'll likely try to play the other Arkane games I have first before buying more. I've never tried Deathloop and I never made it very far with Mooncrash.
I'm a big fan of Prey, haven't tried Mooncrash itself as I prefer the story driven stuff. Deathloop was not my kind of game. I really like making saves and planning out a careful route in Dishonored, and Deathloop kinda demands you wing it 50% of the time. Might be your cup of tea though!
Yeah, I to back and forth. For D2, I was trying hard to get no kills and ghost, but I also wasn't super committed, so as long as I was generally low chaos, I was fine with things.
Yeah on my replay of Dishonored I'll probably run that route. But I do think being able to save adds a lot to the ability to plan things out, and I missed it on Deathloop.
Which, I know, is the whole point. But still.
Yeah, honestly I'll probably feel similar about Mooncrash. I think that was a big reason I didn't play it a ton, cause I also would rather be able to save and retry immediately, rather than die and jump around to different characters.
I played a few games this year thanks to the backlog burners, but the one to jump to the forefront of my mind is Wandersong. It's such a simple game, but it was enjoyable all the same. The mechanics are well implemented and not frustrating or tedious, the characters are well-written and the character development feels natural, and I just had a sense of fun throughout it. It's a game where you can feel the developers' passion for it.
I think my favorite part was how it used the achievements system as part of the story.
Big Story Spoiler
While we play as the Bard, there is an actual Hero in the story, and she's the one who gets all the achievements. The first hint is when we find a monster defeated and see an achievement for that despite doing nothing. Then we get to play as her for a brief scene, and suddenly we're rolling in achievements. Stuff like jumping, charging the sword, slaying enemies X amount of times...
It also adds a layer to how Audrey was manipulated. The whole purpose of the "Hero" is to end the world so a new one can be made, which most people wouldn't want to do. Audrey though is hinted to have very low self-esteem, and she outright states that she sees being the "Hero" as the thing that makes her valuable. Being the Hero isn't about doing good and helping, it's about receiving recognition and praise from others. So those achievements for things as simple as jumping would just fan her ego and feed into that desire for praise.
Aside from that, I had a lot of fun playing Hotel Dusk on the DS. I like puzzle games like that, and it was just really neat to hold the DS sideways to play the game. I only had to use a guide for a couple puzzles. (Fun story: I ended up solving one puzzle by pure luck. We got a paper with three dots that would give us the answer for a number-combination lock, but I thought the number would be a date mentioned in the same room. The combination happened to be just a couple off from that date, so I spent a majority of the game wondering when this paper would come into play. I think that number is randomly generated each playthrough, so it's an even bigger coincidence!)
Another great one is Cassette Beasts. I still need to go back and finish it, but it's just a big breath of fresh air as a lifelong Pokémon fan. I really enjoy the designs for all the monsters, and it's neat that the characters are all from different universes so things like tech or hobbies can vary a lot. The stories for the characters are also pretty interesting, particularly the guy whose edgy anime OC phase came back to haunt him as an adult. That is WAY too relatable to me xD
And more recently, I beat OXENFREE II: Lost Signals. It wasn't as good as the original Oxenfree, but sequels rarely match up to the originals. It's still a pretty great game on its own. The atmosphere is just as spooky as the first game, the conversations are fun, and it admittedly got me thinking about some things. Just wish it had some more branching choices like the first game. There's not as much replay value, but it does tie up the story of the first game pretty nicely. (Also, I also kind of want to try making the recipe on that one cooking show on the radio, just because making a recipe from a game sounds neat xD)
I just finished Wandersong and I loved the way the achievements told a slightly different story than the one we see as the bard, but I hadn't considered how well that fits in with Audrey's character, what an interesting insight! I also enjoyed the sense of fun/joy I got from the game - while there are some darker moments in the story, the game itself felt happy to me in a way that was really refreshing and necessary for me, especially at the end of the last year.
My partner and I are playing Disco Elysium and savouring every moment of this post-Kings Quest mystery. The writing is at once hilarious and thoughtful, and the notion that aspects of your personality make up the skill tree is genius.
How're you doing co-op for that out of curiosity? I've been trying to convince my wife to play it with me because she bought it ages ago yet never got around to it.
She crochets and I play - that's kind of how we do all of them. That said, if you're both suckers for top quality voice acting, humour and the kind of dialogue trees that have you both deliberating out loud together on which is the best choice, this is your game.
It's an excellent, mind-bending narrative with a setting and subject matter to match.
Animal Well is a wonderful celebration of the unique feeling of discovery in interactive media - both the ability to find something between the scanlines, and the unsaid horror that creeps up when the well goes deeper.
I found UFO 50 to be a liberating reminder that, at least as a media consumer, you don't have to exhaust every ounce of everything or enjoy something exactly the same as everyone else. Personally I found Valbrace, Sunset Overdrive, and Overbold to be the jewels in it.
While I think I still ultimately prefer the original Riven over the remake due to some technical issues, it's never due to a failure in vision. What an astounding monument to the original; I'm glad it's here for a new set of eyes thirsty for more after games like Outer Wilds. Same for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, which is a nice set of paint and tweaks over the original.
Who's Lila? is a wonderful batch of existential dread. Great piece of literary media with some depth to its narrative and themes.
The Case of the Golden Idol finally scratched an itch that Obra Dinn both gave me and never satisfied. Also has a wonderful message behind it. Compelled me to donate to charity a bit more often.
I've come to re-love Pokémon Emerald via Archipelago. The map is wonderfully conducive to randomizers with its big loops around points like Mauville and the little roadblocks along the way. Also got me to re-re-love Sonic Adventure 2. What a fucking mess of a game. I adore it.
I unfortunately did my bi-decade compulsive playthrough of Star Fox 64 right before Starship was released, but oh well. The game is a bit more barren than I remember, but it's still a fucking interactive pitch-perfect Saturday morning cartoon. Still adore it for making me feel like a five year-old tuning in.
Thank god someone else has played Who's Lila and its not a persistent hallucination.
Its on the scale of Pathologic in terms of a hard sell since it needs a good overlap of weird tastes, interests and background info. I'm a good few cards short of a full set but I'm content with how the story turned out and a happy to see more representation of wild Lynchian storytelling. Sometimes you got to be on the nose with an Agent Yue to represent the player. And other times you have to communicate the perspective of consciousness by using a frame to separate pecieved physical reality and another to show the inner perspection of the self as projected by a film reel in the metaphysical realm of one's mind.
I'm saving the 8 hour breakdown of the story for my next long haul flight.
https://youtu.be/TiH2SjjowKw?si=TSWHuUr1do7QMMr7
If you're looking for another title with that vibe: Indica is a game that digs into philosophy of life, existance and games, but through a very Catholic lense. The game is also bad in the relm of "intentionally doesn't want to be played" but the voice actor for the Devil is just having the time of his life. Do not play it on any substances though... It can get triply enough.
Plate Up! What separates this cooking game from the rest are the randomized power ups between rounds and the ability to re-arrange the kitchen. It's a ton of fun by yourself and even better co-op.
Persona 3 Reload My first ever persona game was P5 Royal just last year and in my opinion it was a near perfect game. P3 Reload was great too, though I admit I was ready for it to be over by the end, so much so that I did not play the dlc Episode Aegis.
Sword and Fairy: Together Forever I knew nothing about this game, bought it on sale on the Xbox store on a whim because I like RPGs. It was easily my favorite game I played this year. It's a little janky and the translation is pretty rough, but it's absolutely beautiful and the combat is smooth and fun. I actually got 100% achievements on this game, something I almost never do.
I played loads of other games old and new this year but these 3 really stand out among the rest for me.
Still trying to form an opinion on others, but for definite:
Poetry Pigeon. Beautifully simple concept to learn some poems. Flappy bird, crossed with poetry. You type each letter from a short poem ensuring you don't hit the obstacles, increasing in difficulty for each poem. Oh, and it's free.
GTA: Vice City. By far the game I played the most. There's something about the atmosphere, the music, the design that just pulls me back in, every time. Just driving around with Flash FM on is a great way to kill an hour.
Cards With Cats. Feels like I'm cheating here, but this is one of only two game apps (the other being Tripeaks Solitaire) I have on my phone. Play Spades or Hearts, but with a cute cat theme.
I would also probably mention "World of Art", but the jury is out on whether it'll hold my attention. 1200 art piece jigsaws, with four difficulty levels (and the choice to have pieces orientated randomly or all in the correct position). There's a mini trivia-quiz, and some DLC for 3D puzzles.
Control: Ultimate Edition this came with the AWE and Foundation expansions. I love, love, love, games that feature the manipulation of physical space. I wish that the Remedy Shared Universe would incorporate it more. SCP elements with a sort of tech noir-adjacent vibe.
Alan Wake 2 My second game in the Remedy-verse, I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns in this, and the mystery involved. The fabric of reality itself being manipulated is extravagant.
Resident Evil 0-8 - I powered through the Resident Evil Franchise this year. I grew up watching the Mila Jovovich movies as a child, and I wanted to understand the criticisms from long-time fans of the franchise. These games are essentially monolithic in their position within gaming history, so I took a chance and bought all of them. I tried playing them in chronological order (within the Resident Evil timeline), but took a different approach. Titles like Resident Evil 0, and 5 were rough to endure and led me to believe they are overrated and their love comes more from nostalgia. Others like 2, 3, 4, 7, and Village were amazing and I'm glad I was able to play them.
Once Human - I probably won't play this ever again despite it being a live service and all (actually maybe because it's a live service), but I sank a lot of hours into it this year and I had good fun for a lot of them. Best open world base building I've seen in any mmo, and it was fun to see references and similarities to all the other games the devs "took inspiration" from, on top of some of the interesting actually original designs they had.
Frostpunk 2 - I loved the first Frostpunk, this one delivered more of that but with a different take on the gameplay, which not everyone appreciated but I did. I love me some city builders with compelling narratives, moral dilemmas, and real stakes for you and your populace. Can't wait for the DLCs to drop.
Helldivers 2 - Man, the experience of playing this in those first 2 months of release was something else. The excitement, the laughs, the excessively democratic comradery with strangers, the memes, MALEVELON CREEK. Yeah the gameplay does get rather repetitive after a while, and I did burn out on it since I haven't touched it in months, but those months when I binged it were GLORIOUS.
Diceomancer - This is here instead of Balatro because I just enjoyed it more than Balatro. It's easier, cuter, and probably a good deal simpler. It's got less replayability and potential I suppose, but I just like the vibes of this game more.
Destiny 2 - This is more of an honorable mention solely due to The Final Shape. It really is one of the best expansions in the entire series, with a great story, beautiful new explorable zone, a very solid raid once you actually know the mechanics (those day 1 raid teams are crazy man), and an amazing final mission to satisfyingly end a ten year long plotline. The Destiny devs at Bungie gave every ounce of passion they had left to get this to us and many of them are no longer at Bungie, while the rest have to carry the game to its eventual grave as the playerbase has plummeted after all the players that came back just for The Final Shape completed it to their satisfaction and quit, much like I did. Thank you for a great time and the online friends you helped me make Bungie, I sincerely hope your future endeavors become fan favorites instead of just trend-chasing cash cows and you regain some of the prestige you once had.
I keep a running tally in my personal notes about all the games I've played, and I make it a point to select my personal game of the year each year. This year, it came down to three games - Balatro, Animal Well, and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. The latter got the award - it's a fantastic puzzle game with an insane attention to detail, fantastic sense of style, compelling characters and world, so many twists and turns it made my head spin, just the right difficulty and a control scheme so simple it might be the biggest flex of the whole thing. If you like games like What Remains of Edith Finch, Return of the Obra-Dinn, Professor Layton and The Witness, you absolutely owe it to yourself to try out this gem of a game.
I'm really bad at single axis comparisons but let's see...
If I have to pick an overall winner, The Talos Principle 2 is probably it. This did not come as a surprise, me having played the first game in the past. This is an interesting game, clever, fun, looks gorgeous, great characters. It's rare for the games I like to get such a high quality production.
An even better production is Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. It's a great game and beats everything else on raw quality, but is held back by a number of issues, including excessive busywork.
This probably has a lot to do with my personality but A Highland Song was probably the most consistently pleasant experience. There's a purity of exploration and narrative unhindered by anything else, and not a molecule of randomly generated content.
Starstruck: Hands of Time was the most original game I played this year, and that's saying a lot. You know I can usually dredge a handful of other games to compare everything I play to, but there's nothing like this one.
Not everyone who played it would agree but I was most pleasantly surprised by Eastward. Lovely worldbuilding and characters, and refreshed my love for the genre.
I feel a little guilty not listing any metroidvania (a genre I play regularly) but those tend to be remixes or refinements of existing formulas. I want to reinforce that 2024 was a year in which I played a lot of excellent games, including a bunch not listed here or in my giveaway. Almost all of them were worth playing and I'm very happy that I had those experiences.
I've got a solid top 5 for myself this year.
My game of the year is Unicorn Overlord. It's a game that was tailor made for my specific interests. Love me some tactical RPGs, and I absolutely adore Vanillaware's style. Literally my only complaint about it is they refuse to port any of their games to PC.
My two favorite multiplayer games were Helldivers 2 and Rivals of Aether 2 for PVE and PPV respectively. Helldivers was my most played game of the year, and was the game my friends most frequently turned to. RoA 2 is an excellently crafted platform fighter that delivered on most of the things other games in the genre lack, while also just being incredibly fun.
The old game I played for the first time this year was Ace Attorney Investigations Collection. I enjoyed both, but I think the second one might be the best game in the series. The crime scene investigation parts feel much better paced than the mainline games, and final case pulling plot threads from a full game wide conspiracy was masterfully done.
My final shout out is Street Fighter 6, which I've played a bunch of for the past two years now. I continue to find it to be a fighting game that just has everything. The only complaint is that Capcom could be making new content for it faster, but as it is, it is a very complete game.
Caves of Qud is my most recent addiction. I love Dwarf Fortress, but I haven't been able to get the hang of adventure mode. This game scratches that itch for me. It's so difficult and unforgiving, but the pure absurdity of the possibilities is so fun. I would highly recommend it for anybody that yearns for an older style of game where you aren't hand-held (there's pretty much no guidance whatsoever, honestly).
For Qud, how obscured or not obscured are the game’s systems? I tried to get into Dwarf Fortress too and while I don’t necessarily need hand holding, it was too difficult for me to wrap my head around how the game works. Qud looks interesting, but I also wouldn’t want to read a guide to just know how the basic systems work. For reference I do enjoy games like Noita and Binding of Isaac where you’re kind of just thrown in without knowledge, but in those cases, you at least know how the mechanics of the game work.
The basic gameplay is honestly very easy to get the hang of, especially compared to Dwarf Fortress. There's an in-game tutorial that guides you through the basics pretty well.
Beyond the basics, mostly everything can be learned in-game. It's much more polished than DF (the official 1.0 release just happened). The depth comes from how much content there is and how intricately the sandbox elements can interact.
I would highly recommend the game if you're interested at all. It is wildy entertaining
That sounds like fun to me, thanks!
Factorio, of course!
I’ve waxed poetic about Space Age in past threads, so I won’t go into detail here. Definitely game of the year.
I also started Vampire Survivors this year. Now that I’ve unlocked a large swath of the upgrades, I like it as a mindless game.
The obvious ones for me are Balatro, Satisfactory, Factorio - Space Age, Helldivers and RE4 Remake. All amazing games that I'll be happy to come back to in the future.
The ones that are more surprising are:
Witchfire: Maybe its recency bias but I know a game is good when I have to delete it from my performance PC because it gets in the way of work. Destiny soured my taste for any sort of replay-based games with how reductive and grindy they made things in the name of live-service. At the same time extraction shooters like Tarkov and Hunt seem to inevitably fall prey to a mass influx of cheaters and design that's hostile to more casual players. Outside of Helldiver's, i cant think of other games that can maintain a fun experience over groups of players. I think Witchfire finds the best middle ground by just removing any sort of online focus and building around a consistent solo experience. Some of the best games are when you're 5 min in a high vlue corpse run, starved for ammo, calamity clock is 4 ticks down and the only evac is beind a gauntlet of elites. The game is difficult, but you often put yourself in these situations by being a combination of greedy, stupid and overconfident. You're not pointing fingers at your team and at any point you can dial things back to where you're having fun.
I'm going to wait for the 1.0 release for now and i hope the team can keep up the momentum. Enjoying the recent potions update where you're given more opportunity to invest into temporary boosts and i can see hints they'll expand it into difficulty mods and gear.
All of the Strange Scaffold games: I like that I'm interested in a studio and it has nothing to do with an IP or franchises. They're looking at the problems with the industry and decided to just do the opposite. So in 2 years they put out 5 games that are cheap, short, low tech, high concept, niche and incredibly fun. They go from narrative poker fo a meme game about fulfilling some rich guys weird fetish for momey to treat your cancer to the best FPS Hotline Miami within moths and I'm genuinely excited to see where they go next.
Red Dead Redemption 1: I did not enjoy RDR2 much. Tried it again earlier this year but put it down in the same place, just after the island chapter. And I find it strange because last month i was playing the first game in marathon sessions. Didn't play the original much back in the day so its not the nostalgia talking. Dont know why, but the tedioum of riding through the lower detail desert with janky horse controls feels a lot better than a lot of the fluid cinematic set pieces of the second game for me.
Slime Rancher 2: This is my 3 year olds current obsession and I've never seen her happier than when we discovered the new slimes in the latest update. Its cute and i like the direction they're going with the incredible (and very challenging) new environment and the more narrative driven adventure. I do think they need better automation tools and a way to smooth out some of the resources demand. A more involved in-world economy might work because at some point currency is just meaningless, while resource gathering is a chore.
Definitely put more time into minecraft than anything else this year, mostly because I finally stumbled into the technical aspects of the game (automation, farms, and eventually storage tech) which really opened it up to me.
Also I really loved Lies of P. Super challenging souls-like built around the narrative of Pinocchio. Truly one of the hardest games I've ever played, but loads of fun.
I played Starfield, but for maybe 20 hours total before getting a little "over it". The fallout-ish "you can pick up everything" inventory system but none of the good crafting/dismantling stuff from fallout really left me wanting.
Recently I started STALKER 2. If the major patches rolled out a little sooner, then it may have ended up my GOTY, but I'm only about 8 hours into it because I forced myself to wait until they pushed a few patches before starting. Really excited about it though. So far (just finishing up in the lesser zone now) it's amazing.
I know you're all fed uo, but I'm the crazy one who played Witcher 3 sine beginning of March until October I think. Over 200 hours and kinda 100% done (not actual 100% as you have to take sides in the game and I obviously did only one side each time).
I played more games this year bit this one really dominated the year for me. And I'm glad it was this one. Witcher 3 didn't lose any of its qualities over the years (I played classic version on Steam Deck, no next-gen, actually). It is still very very deep game with very well constructed game world and great characters. This all is combined with many various quests some of them with consequences to various degree.
I played on Deatch March difficulty (highest) and that's the way the game should be played in my opinion. I didn't even try lower difficulties - I got recommended doing Death March right from the start by a friend of mine which is Witcher 3 veteran. I'm no good at this kind of games where you have to use and rely on your either in-game or real world skills and still - Death March is the way to go. And gamepad, no keyboard and mouse (my recommendation).
There is so much to do in this game, so much to explore, so much to uncover...
Witcher 3 is on my list to finally beat in 2025, though I doubt I’ll be spending 200 hours on it, ha! I’m glad you found such a good time sink of a game.
This is why one of the reasons it took me half a year to finish.
Another one is that I haven't used fast travel. I went everywhere by myself (including Skellige where I swam everywhere).
And another one is that the game is so good I just had to invest this kind of time into it.
I played on Steam Deck which means I could play anytime I had a few minutes to spare. It's great way to play as I wouldn't be able to put this kind of time in the game otherwise.
Haven't played many games this year, but I've been pleasantly with most of the new ones I tried, namely God of War + Ragnarok, Slice and Dice, Halls of Torment and recently, PoE 2.
I've got to say that GoW was my definitive favourite of the year, there isn't really a flaw in any of the games. The story, the visual, the mechanics, the difficulty, the voice acting, the music, everything was mindblowing (as someone who hadn't played single player action games in years).
In Stars and Time, I just love these kinds of quirky rpgs. It's basically in the same genre as Oneshot, Omori and Undertale. If you like these kinds of games I'd heavily recommend it It actually released in late 2023, but I didn't even learn about it until like half a year after it released. I don't see people talk about this game enough.
This reminds me of Slay the Princess which is a great visual novel with a huge number of actually meaningful choices.
And I also loved UFO 50 that other epople here talked about already, it's just a very well made collection of 50 full fledged retro-style games.
From games new to me in 2024, I finished The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, Slay the Princess and Midnight Cascades. All of them were very enjoyable. I also gave Caves of Qud, The Room and Warsim a try, but they failed to capture me for long.
From games I continued playing in 2024, I finished a portion of Zero Escape series, and also played a mix of my favourite sandboxes such as Valheim, Dwarf Fortress, Project Zomboid, Oxygen Not Included and Minecraft (with TerraFirmaCraft mod).