Editor's Picks for Game of the Year 2024

When they first asked me to make a Game of the Year list, I considered putting UFO 50 down 10 times. But considering that I would like to continue to get paid to work here in the future, I decided not to do that and did an honest analysis of my favorite 2024 games. I thought it was a joke to write every entry as Concord, but it would have been like lighting a giant firework and then wrapping your finger around it to figure out what happens.

FYI, 2024 has been a strange year for me in gaming. I'm on the Max video game series “Game Changers” and I happened to be the cover photo for one of the episodes. I look like a failure of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I also wrote an official parody novel about the worst game of all time called Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, which you can buy right now. I've also completed another video game book called Good Game, No Rematch, which will be released next April. Pre-order now for everyone in your extended family and workplace. If you write a year-end list, put your own year-end items on it!

10

tetris forever

If there was one thing I needed this year, it was the friendship between Hank Rogers and Alexei Pajitnov. Their interview is in the non-game section of Tetris Forever, but this collection is so bright and cheerful that it helped me get through some pretty frustrating weeks. Digital Eclipse has done amazing work with all of their Gold Master releases, but this one really has a lot of heart put into it. I'm not even joking about that. It was just great.

Any video game release that makes you rethink Hatris is a miracle.

9

Thank you for being here!

This game is sweet, simple, short, and perfect. You are a British person solving British people's British problems. It's as if someone had cobbled together all of the BBC comedies that aired in the States the second time around when I was a kid. As an American, I am convinced that this is a completely inaccurate description. But as an American, I don't care.

Every scene is a joke, every action is a gag. There is no filler in this game. No dead weight. All you have to do is run around tapping things with these fun little sketch-length bits in the form of puzzles. This might be one of the most perfect video game comedies ever made, and it's truly enjoyable and happy.

8

Silent Hill 2

Bloober pulled off the heist, baby! I was a doubter and was happy to be proven wrong. I still think the original Silent Hill 2 is better in my experience, but this version make again It needs its own freedom. It's not a big deal, but it's enough that it doesn't feel like it's a retread or replacement for the original.

Do you remember the early 2000s when Western studios were remaking dozens of Japanese horror films? Whether it's as good as the original is debatable, but some of it was still great. Basically, yes. A great remake of an incredible horror game from a team that had something to prove and thankfully they did.

7

Home Safety Hotline

I thank God for collecting my games. Home Safety Hotline seemed like a creepy random horror game. So I bought it. I love finding things I've never heard of before, and impulse game purchases can provide the biggest surprises, for better or worse.

And, honey, the home safety hotline is great. If you haven't played it yet, here's the version with the fewest spoilers. You are an operator working for an agency that helps people with problems around their homes in the 1990s. These problems could be strange noises coming from the pipes or scratching on the walls. Your job is to consult a digital guide to the various possibilities (e.g. 'anomalies') that could cause the problem. Then tell the caller the right answer and hope they don't call you back because you accidentally ruined their life.

6

Astrobot

I said it all! You said Astrobot was coming.! Of course, the number of people who played the VR game Astro Bot: Rescue Mission in an elevator may match, but we saw what was happening. We knew! And now Astro Bot has finally established itself as one of the best platformers of all time.

It feels like it's been marketed as a PlayStation reference machine, but it is. very, very good. It's better than that. You don't even need references. I understand why you might need to sell a relatively small IP to a larger, related IP. is it so. But it's a sign of how good this game is that more people will remember it for its challenge levels than for finding robots in Hot Shots Golf. Astro Bot works well and you'll be playing it for years to come.

honorable mention

5

mouthwash

As I was compiling this list, I realized that half the games were extremely cheerful and half were extremely depressing. Find out.

Mouthwash may be the length of a movie, but please, please, please, don't let that make you stop the movie. Not only is this a great horror game, it's a fascinating tragedy about the ways we hurt others to avoid fighting our own problems. Mouthwash uses tricks in its gameplay to tell the story in a way we haven't seen since Eternal Darkness.

It's difficult to give more information without spoilers. Going in blindly is probably your best bet. Not every horror game needs dozens of hours of extra shooting gallery mode. Some people want to make you feel an overwhelming sense of fear. And honey, that's where I live!

4

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Back to happiness! God bless this game. God bless Ichiban Kasuga and the team. The Like A Dragon/Yakuza games are very entertaining because they are marketed in the West as very serious crime dramas. Until we all realized that we also enjoyed the silly minigames and karaoke parts. Fortunately, the main story is great and the minigames are even better. Here's a complete, working Pokémon parody. Here's a complete, working Animal Crossing parody. Even the most trivial minigames are worth repeating.

And, I appreciate that the current mainline of Like a Dragon games are RPGs. i like it. I love fun turn-based combat. I love role-playing games that take on settings other than 'fantasy', 'sci-fi' or '1950s Americana pastiche'. The final category I just created includes both Earthbound and Fallout. But despite the setting of modern-day Japan and Hawaii, we still extremely RPG style story. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth somehow manages to pull off operatic and melodramatic plot beats. and Weird gameplay designed to make you laugh.

Atlus really played the long game with the West, didn't they? for decades different Japanese role-playing companies, aren't they the best now?

Metaphor: ReFantazio is not perfect. Sometimes the theme of ‘intolerance is bad’ is heavy but used effectively. Sometimes the theme of ‘intolerance is bad’ is dropped in a heavy but confusing way. Why does Haismay hate Paripus so much? Have we ever figured it out? Actually, I'm asking if I missed that story beat.

But a game's theme works best when we're not sure. any solution Prejudice would be better. Everyone knows it's bad. How do you actually fix it? The villain is very villainous, but presents a compelling argument one way, while his companions present a different approach, and some characters have their own ideas. What feels like a clumsy message actually lands at an ambiguous point. We all know that prejudice is bad, but we can't stop it simply by noticing that it's bad and patting it on the back. Stopping the hate turns out to be the tricky part.

2

Balatro

Oh my god I love Balatro. God I hate Balatro. More than any other game, Balatro makes you feel like you've done nothing for hours. It absorbs me. Thoughtless and attentive. It is meditative and self-destructive. A good run can feel like heaven until the boss stops you from using the cards you touched in the previous two rounds. This is a very simple game that yields a lot of complex and interesting strategies that completely fall apart at the last moment. This is a deck builder that stands out in the endless sea of ​​deck builders.

If you've never played Balatro, this is your warning. This game will steal your life. You'll realize that two hours have passed and you haven't done anything yourself. All the potential you had is wasted. You'll see that your friends are posting pictures of their career wins and kids online and you'll know that Balatro took that time away from you. You may have met someone. you could have continue ~ is someone. But Balatro exists, and that's more important.

1

UFO 50

I just… I can't express in words how much I love this. I feel good every time I open the game. Some, like Night Manor and Party House, are amazing in their own right. And beneath the surface of it all, UFO 50 hides additional little secrets that add to the mystery and provide an interesting backstory to this all-fictional-but-real-world video game console on which the real game is played.

UFO 50 is like a three-Michelin-star restaurant opening a buffet. In any case, the sheer volume of games does nothing to diminish the clarity or quality of the package. Hell, this collection is actually less confusing to navigate than a lot of collections. actual There are collections and – honestly – probably better games. If you haven't purchased a UFO 50, I don't know what to tell you. There is something for everyone. Take it home for Christmas. Please show me. There's so much to do. There is so much to see. A surprise beyond imagination.