2024 has hardly been a year of wall-to-wa💦ll banger💜s as 2023 was. Most of this year has been eaten up by my honourable mentions, and the games I expected to put here at the start of the year have all been delayed into next February.
Still, there have been some fantastic games all the same. And as my colleagues each write their lists full of games I haven’t played (which you can find on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:our Game of the Year hub), it’s꧋ time for me to throw my hat in the ring, too.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Why Ea൲ch Nominee Deserves Game Of The Year
We're writing a piece every day for each o🍸f the six games nominated for the Game Of The Year award. This hub will keeℱp track of them all.
10 🍬 Hell🅺divers 2
I never really got involved with Helldivers 2’s ongoing wars. I’d often hear about a planet being liberate🉐d, or about so and so weapon being nerfed to so and so percent, and shrug. Helldivers 2, to me, was the chance to blow things up𒐪.
It🅰 might not have had enough to it to suck me into its grand metagame, but Helldivers 2 was just the right mix of dynamic ch𓂃aos, fantastic hero moments, and chunky gunplay to grab me.
9 𒈔 Shadows Of 🐼Doubt
An open-ended detective game in a cyberpunk setting, the depth of its sleuthing and the level🙈 of detail in Shadow o꧙f Doubt’s rain-slicked, procedurally generated city, is often mind-boggling.
It isn’t until you’ve successfully clambered through a vent to find a human head in someone’s fridge that Shadows of the Doubt begins to really 🌟shine. If you can crack its complexity, and tolerate its jankier (or, less charitably, buggier) moments, it delivers the hard-boileꦓd noire detective fantasy better than any game I’ve played before.
8 Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown 🦩
Who’d have thought a few years ago that we’d have a great, new Prince of Persia? And that it wouldn’t be the Sands of Time remake, which is now looking at 2026. Going back to the se🅠ries’ 2D roots, The Lost Crown was rife with nooks and crannies to explore and abilities to try out, alongside some meaty boss fights and clever puzzles.
Exuding style throughout, The Lost Crown (and The Rogue Prince Of Persia a few months later) managed to successfully move the Prince beyond the Sands of Time trilogy into a new, experimental era. If we could get more of Sargon sooner rather than later, that’d🧸 be fabulous.
7 ꦓ Tetris Forever 🌄
As tired as the statement is, Tetris really is the perfect game. I can spend hours stacking tetrominoes as my brain slips into a blessed fuzz of white noise, but to my shame I didn’t know much🎃 about its history.
I’ve not seen that Taron Egerton movie, sorry.
Tetris Forever is a lovely tribute, combining interviews with people closely involved in its origins with a playable museum of the game’s greatest hits. The addition of the new time-hopping Tetris Time Warp, helps cap off my new favourite way to slip in✅to t𓂃hat glorious, blocky haze.
6 ꧑ Dragon&🐼rsquo;s Dogma 2
I neve𒊎r got💜 on with the first Dragon’s Dogma, so I was cynical going into Dragon’s Dogma 2. But, with time, I settled into the groove of working with my pawn and navigating the world, and was shocked at just how much it sucked me in..
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is full of idiosyncrasies. Elves you can’t understand, diseases turning your Pawns into city-obliterating monsters, ghostly carriages rolling through the night, falling off griffons from great heights, and, of course, a p🌱hysics system that ranges from clever to outright jank. All those oddities amount to a game that’s far more than the sum of its parts, and gave me some of my favourite gaming mo🍸ments this year.
5 Thank Goodness You&rsquꦡo;re Here 🐠
Having grown uꦬp fed a strict diet of Carry On films, Ealing Comedies, and Morcambe and Wise, Thank Goodness You’re Here just feels comfortable. It’s like an interactive Beano comic, as yꦡou wander the streets of Barnsworth finding the next bit of trouble to get in to.
Clearly the sort of game only specific audiences can fully appreciate, Thank Goဣodness You’re Here commits to its inspirations with a level of detail and heartfelt appreciatio🔴n you rarely see in games. It helps that it’s also outrageously funny; even months later, I sit and burst into a fit of giggles thinking about “Reggie’s wife could learn a thing or two”, or the massive sausage, or Big Ron’s Big Pies.
4 Stil♋l Wa🅘kes The Deep
Though it’s the second game inspired by ‘70s Britain on this list, Still Wakes The Deep is as far from Thank Goodness You’re🅰 Here as you can get. A dark and brooding fight for survival on a devastated Scottish oil rig, Still Wakes The Deep combines frantic horror and Poseidon Adventure-esque survival with some of the best character work we’ve seen this year.
I’ve largely fallen off narrative-heavy games over the years, but Still Wakes The Deep helped remind me how powerful a well-told story can be. This is The Chinese Room at its very best and🌠 not pulling its punches. It isn’t a plodding, dozen-hour amble through the countryside like Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture; it’s a cold plunge into the North Sea, short and ruthless in the story it tells.
3 💖 Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl
After a rough development, it’s a marvel that Stalker 2 even came out. Having played the original games almost half my life ago, I had no hope that we’d ever see Heart of Chornobyl actually come out, let alone t🙈hat it would be this good.
Stalker 2 manages to deliver on everything I never expected we’d actually see. It’s updated for the modern day and streamlines♏ some of the original trilogy’s more annoying quirks, while maintaining that tactical shooting, emergent gameplay, and, most importantly, that overwhelming sen🦂se of atmosphere.
Note: I just wish it wasn’t quite so broken at times, o🐎r this easily could have topped the list.
2 Astro Bot
While most of 2024’s ga𒁃mes tell grand stories in sprawling worlds that offer up buffet tables of emergent systems, Astro B🃏ot simply celebrates video games. It’s a joyful romp that’s brimming with ideas, taking a simple platformer and stretching it as far as possible with creative gimmicks and perfect level design.
It deftly manages to flip between light-hearted sillines▨s one moment, to rock-hard precision platforming the next, prov✅ing that Astro more than deserves to stand up there with the greats that cameo in his game.
Honourable Mentions
1 Balatro
I have an awful habit of ignoring recommendations. All year, friends and colleagues have been telling me to play Balatro, and I ignored them because I am a unique little daffodil who finds his own hidden gems, thank you very much. And then I played Balatro and it’s incredible, further proving I am my own worstꩵ enemy.
At this point I’m seeing𓆉 Joker cards in my sleep. My brain is constantly ticking over, working out what my next build is going to be, or reliving the highs of getting 100,000 points in a single turn with a carefully woven web of 𒆙multipliers.
It’s hard to explain just how much Balatro has taken over my life in the months since I finally caved and played it. Not even the heavy-hitter triple-A games of this year have been unable to get this much of a reaction out of me. Sorry friends, you were right all along:ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ🦹ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Balatro slaps.
Who Will Win The B𒈔est Indie Game Of Theꦉ Year?
The ⭕B🌠est Indepedent Game category is one of the most competitive at this year's TGAs.
