2024 Game of the Year...RIGHT ON TIME

Hey y'all! Who likes reading GOTY lists in December? May....that is when the fervor has never been hotter for a Game of the Year list from the hottest creator this side of the internet. So, I know you all haven't slept for the last 6 months when waiting for this. No longer. It is time for the best games of 2024, according to moi.

Number 10: Children of the Sun – Imagine Sniper Elite if you could control the bullet.  Turn it around corners, make impossible shots through windows and hallways, turning a bullet mid path in order to take out an unsuspecting bad guy.   Children of the Sun focuses on the absurd ability to manipulate your bullet’s flight path and the way it leans into this mechanic is fascinating.  Combine this mechanic with a delightfully dark narrative and you have one of the more addictive games I played this year.  I hope we hear soon what may be coming from this developer because after playing Children of the Sun I am absolutely in for trying whatever Rene Rother makes next.

Number 9: UFO 50 – It’s almost unfair to put UFO 50 on a list because it literally contains 50 different video games.  I could make a top 10 list just from games included in UFO 50 and it would be filled with bangers.  My main complaint with UFO 50 is that it is almost overwhelming.  The variety of options at your disposal with these games creates a situation where I just want to see what the next game is to sate my curiosity.  While I didn’t spend a ton of time with every game, certain games, like Magical Garden, sucked hours away as I attempted to complete all of the level based challenges.  UFO 50’s fake console and its manufactured history make for a genuinely good time.  This is a game that I will be coming back to for years to come and what they’ve accomplished is an achievement on so many levels.

Number 8: Thank Goodness You’re Here – Spoiler alert: I’m not British.  I think if I was, this game would be higher on the list.  What I am is a fan of adventure games and point and click games.  Thank Goodness You’re Here is an elegant evolution of these genres of games.  Moving around as my little dude, solving the various problems presented to me in this “quaint” British town kept me smiling from nose to tail.  The imagery ranges from cute to grotesque, the humor is unique yet familiar to me as a fan of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers.  It also manages to capture the simultaneous joy and annoyance of living in a small town.  Most importantly, Thank Goodness You’re Here is unique and joyous, surprising the player at every turn with scenarios that build in complexity and hilarity.  I can’t imagine a fan of video games not getting something out of this game. 

Number 7: Cryptmaster – Sometimes I like to be a computer gremlin.  Hunched over a keyboard in my dark basement, exploring some unique PC environment and shutting out the world around me.  Cryptmaster lured me into its world with a simple concept.  You are dead, you need to escape the underworld.  How do you do this?  By playing a typing based series of minigames.  Cryptmaster is equal parts puzzle game and Typing of the Dead.  All of your interactions in this game rely on learning magic words and typing them to various effects in the world.  The stripped down black and white visuals give you the sense that you are somewhere forbidden, somewhere that is just….wrong.  Filled with riddles to solve and enemies to fight, this game tests your creativity and your typing acumen in equal measure.  At my best, I am typing word after word to combo attacks, breaking down my enemies defenses and slaying them with ease.  At my worst, I am flubbing words, misspelling simple phrases, and getting pounded into the dirt by some asshole skeleton.  In both scenarios, I’m laughing my ass off and having a blast.  Cryptmaster consumed me for about 4 straight nights until I saw the credits, and I’ve been back twice since I finished it.  If you have a PC capable of mid-range games, you have to try this.  It is a wholly unique PC experience.

Number 6: Persona 3 Reload – I am normally someone who loves to play games when they come out.  I like being part of the conversation and my willpower is next to zero when faced with a new shiny game I want to play.  However, when Persona 3 came out I was unaware of it and I didn’t even have a console capable of playing it.  Since then, I have played Persona 4 and 5 and enjoyed them immensely so when Persona 3 Reload was announced, it was a no brainer for me.  I knew I would like this game.  What I didn’t know, but should have, was that I was about to engage with one of the best narratives I have ever experienced in a video game.  The gameplay was familiar to me as someone who has completed 4 and 5, and even a little stripped down when it came to the social links.  This allowed me to really sink into the narrative and let the story of the game wash over me.  What happened by the end of my 70 hours was that I had developed a love and respect for a game I had heard so much about.  The ending had me in tears and I think about this game as much now as I do about P4 and P5.  This is a special remake, especially considering that I had no frame of reference for the original.  It felt very much as if I could have been playing Persona 6, which is the highest praise that I believe I can give it. 

Number 5: Balatro – What is there to say about Balatro that hasn’t been said?  The most addicting game I played all year.  Like Tetris, I would go to bed seeing images of Jokers in my head, mourning combos that just didn’t work out, celebrating the victories I had on runs that seemed doomed from the start.  I remember the magical moment you align just the right mix of jokers and the cards fall just right, when you get to sit back in awe as the numbers erupt in flames and your score becomes impossibly high.  This is much more than a card game.  Its meditation.  Its chaos.  Its peace.  Its fucking Balatro.

Number 4: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, have been since forever.  I remember seeing the Last Crusade with my Dad in the theatre and feeling like I had been let in on some closely kept adult secret about how cool movies can be.  When I heard Machine Games was making an Indiana Jones game, I was cautiously optimistic.  Sure, Machine makes great games, but they have mostly been shooters and the Indiana Jones that I know rarely picks up a machine gun and mows down Nazis.  How will they pull it off?  Well, they made a stealth/immersive sim type game that casts off the shackles of what modern games seem to be.  Every chance where they could have made a decision to take Indy down a combat laden path they instead provided the players with a mystery.  A focus on puzzles, exploration, and narrative turned Indiana Jones into a mix of Agent 47 and Corvo.  I was scaling Vatican walls and unearthing Christian relics.  I was solving the riddle of the Sphinx.  I was tracking down artifacts, saving the ones that needed saving, and punching SO many Nazis in the face.  This game does Indiana Jones better than anything has since the 90’s.  What more could you want in a big licensed game?  This was very close to being my game of the year and there are some days where it feels like it could have been.  Such a success, and one that Xbox needed desperately.

Number 3: Dungeons of Hinterberg – The trailer for Dungeons of Hinterberg had me sold.  Imagine an idyllic European summer vacation, just some time away in the mountains to collect and find yourself.  However, the attraction in Hinterberg is the mysterious dungeons that have popped up, attracting scores of would be monster slayers from around the globe.  What appears as a cozy slice of life game on the surfaces quickly reveals itself to be a competent and compelling dungeon crawler.  The 21 dungeons in Hinterberg operate like mini-Zelda dungeons, each with bespoke puzzles and powers that allow you to uncover their mysteries.  This gameplay and conceit on its own would have been enough to get me through the door.  The game evolves as you play it and by the mid-game I was very invested in Luisa and her story.  Why had she come to Hinterberg?  Where was she going?  Would her new cast of vacation friends help her find answers?  Equal parts dungeons and social links swallowed me whole as I devoured everything this game had to offer.  The visuals, the music, the gameplay, the story all came together in a satisfying blend of cozy challenge.  This game blew me away with its confidence in its theme.  Come to Hinterberg to find yourself.  Enjoy your slay.  I still smile when thinking about my time in the mountains, a respite from the rigors of everyday life I was all too eager to get swept up in.  Don’t sleep on this one, this game should be being talked about much more than it is. 

Number 2: Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth – Ok, so listen…..Yakuza/Like A Dragon has become a series that is important to me.  I like Mario.  I like Mass Effect.  I like Gears of War.  I am going to get the Tojo Clan emblem tattooed on me, understand?  I ain't gettin' no COG tags tattooed on me.  I am in love with this franchise.  Infinite Wealth is an interesting step.  I’m not super in love with the Hawaii location, I think the narrative in this name is good but not great, I think the combat has improved but still has a way to go, etc.  But…hanging out with Ichiban, Kiryu and the crew is what you come to this game for.  This game makes good on so many of the stories and relationships I have experienced over the 9 games in the franchise I have played up to this point.  I feel like I know these characters, like we could get together and have a beer to catch up.  The attitude of this game is one that doesn’t care if you’re not in on the joke yet.  It operates with a confidence of a series that has found its faithful and it exists to serve them.  I realize that this is potentially ostracizing for new players.  As someone on the inside, I felt rewarded.  I think constantly about riding a segway as Ichiban to go visit my friend, a chicken, who I am about to give bird seed so that it lays me a golden egg.  That’s a real sentence about this video game.  I cherish every moment spent with these loveable idiots, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. 

Number 1: Metaphor Re:Fantazio – When Atlus announced that the next game from the Persona team was not a Persona game, I was bummed.  Also, what the fuck does Re:Fantazio mean?  It’s different, it’s dumb, I hate it.  Or so I thought.  Metaphor took about 3 hours to get its hooks in and once they were set they weren’t coming out.  The kingmaking quest that his game sets you on is compelling and it sets the stakes very high from the outset.  Making your alliances, building your party, and engaging with this world will feel familiar to the Persona fan.  Yet, it still manages to separate itself in key and interesting ways.  The combat is superb, offering a challenging series of dungeons but never becoming grind-y.  The side quests all feel substantial and worth your time.  Exploring your relationships with your crew builds in a way that goes from just meeting new characters to suddenly caring about their motivations, caring about what they think of you, caring about their needs and wants.  This culminates in a big ass persona like ending that is both familiar and fresh.  80 hours with no interruptions, blink of an eye type experiences that just made the hours fly by.  The thing is that it didn’t even feel like a long game.  It earned every second I spent with it.  Metaphor is by far my game of the year, and I’m thankful that my skepticism was proven to be unfounded. 

WE DID IT! Below are some honorable mentions, thanks for reading, hopefully I post here a little more the rest of the year.

Honorable Mentions:

PoP Lost Crown

Clickolding

Echoes of Wisdom

Paper Mario TTYD Remake

Arzette: Jewel of Faramore

Regency Solitaire 2

Buckshot Roulette

College Football 25