Year In Review: 2024

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My Game of the Year is a strange decision this year. The game that affected me the most deeply was Mouthwashing, although it's more a “two-hour interactive story” than a full game, I'd say. The most engrossing experience was Shadow of the Erdtree... although, that's a DLC. Does that count? It's certainly almost as large as a full game.

I think by default, Helldivers 2 wins this year. What I like about the game is how dedicated the developers are when it comes to making a compelling and healthy live service experience. They don't always get it right – in fact, more often than not, their updates get a lot wrong – but I have to give the devs credit. You can feel the passion. They're trying to make an awesome game, they work hard, and it shows.

But, if we're going just by the lasting affect a game had on me... it's gotta be Mouthwashing.

  • Helldivers 2 – [8]

    The viral success that was on no one's radar – you love to see a small title suffering from success. Although the game was almost unplayable at launch due to the servers being WOEFULLY under-equipped for the explosive player population, this is a solid co-op shooter and solid foundation for adding more factions, events, and mission types in the future. Decent battlepass/premium currency system too.

  • Dragons Dogma 2 – [6]

    This one takes some work to “get into,” so to speak. But, honestly, I'm in awe of how dense and fun the open world is to explore. Some of the best sense of open world exploration since Elden Ring, even if it just boils down to gathering crafting mats to sell back in town. The combat is loads of fun as well, with each class having a surprisingly distinct feel. Spinx best girl.
    However, until we get to the last hour or two, the story in this game is absolute bog-standard fantasy dreck, and is boring to the point of actually dragging the game down. And while some of the quests are quite interesting, the majority are incredibly janky in a pre-Skyrim Bethesda kinda of way, lacking polish and breaking often. The class balance is also a little off – some classes excel at their class fantasy (Thief, Archer, Fighter), some are good but really only have a handful of skills worth using (Mystic Spearhand, Sorcerer), and then there's Trickster which is just a jumbled, painfully boring abomination.
    I originally had this at a 5, but damn, that endgame finally takes the story in some interesting directions!

  • Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree – [9]

    A sprawling, fascinating DLC with an open world unlike anything I've ever played. The world design here is staggering – so many zones layered vertically on top of each other, with so many possible directions to explore. This is all tied together by the Scadutree Blessing “horizontal leveling” feature; if you ever hit a roadblock, you are encouraged to explore in another direction until you are strong enough to prevail.
    A small nitpick is a few zones in the world are disappointingly empty – not every nook and cranny needs some legendary artifact, but it did occasionally feel like I was a clearing a group of enemies or exploring a plot of land for basically no reason. Although – this begs the question – what more rewards could they have even populated such a large world with? What would players find appropriately rewarding at this point? There are already a huge amount of new weapons and armor, and the Scadutree and Revered Ashes both reward exploration, so what else? General sentiment seems to be the recipe books are a poor reward (few players interact with crafting), although I didn't mind them. Smithing stones are great for upgrading new weapons, but begin to seem redundant after a short while. The answer, I think, isn't populating the world with more rewards, it's making the world slightly smaller. Even more compact. Trim just a bit of fat.
    The oft-maligned main issue with the DLC is of course the boss move sets. In a way, this feels like the natural endpoint of Dark Souls escalating its difficulty in response to players becoming better. Fast, aggressive bosses with long combos, few openings, and frequent punishes are a fun hurdle – but when it's every single boss it can get exhausting. Bloodborne and Sekiro both have gameplay systems to handle encounters like this, but quite a few bosses in this DLC simply demand near-perfect reflexes, or heavily encourage the use of summons – either way, I miss the more methodical back-and-forth, 1-on-1 dance of earlier Souls games. And sheesh! Even Melania gave you the courtesy of a slow opening; meanwhile, Bayle doesn't even give you time to interact with the story mechanic in his arena before he's on your ass!
    But what else can be said? The scope of this DLC is staggering, and at the end of the day, nobody does it like FromSoft. Best boss was Messmer, followed by Midra. Worst, by far, was Commander Gaius.

  • Hades 2 (Early Access) – n/a

    A promising start! I played this through to defeating Chronos once, and at that point, the game was more or less out of content. Will definitely pick it up again on the full release.

  • Space Marine 2 – [7]

    Solid! A simple, fun campaign. The co-op is nice too – who doesn't love making their own special snowflake Marine chapter – but maybe a bit too grindy considering there's only 6 missions now at launch.

  • Silent Hill 2 – [8]

    There is no replicating the lightning in a bottle of the original, but this is an admirable modernization. Similar to last year's Dead Space 2 remake, this installation is a fairly faithful update that also expands the game's length and scope without drastically altering the story. Most of my complaints here are superficial and subjective – I don't like James' new face, and I don't like the weird prominent zippers on the Lying Figures (or that they don't look “plastic-y” enough). I also miss some of the original's more unique static camera angles and surreal VO, with its endearing Lynchian charm. But honestly, this is an excellent homage to one of my favorite games of all time. Pleasantly surprised.
    If I could levy one more significant criticism, it's that the increase in scope and enemy density does make combat feel repetitive after a while. The length also hurts replayability.

  • Star Wars: Outlaws – [2]

    I'm so sick of this style of open world game. A passable stealth core can't elevate a boring story with no drive or motivation. Gets a point for faithful old Star Wars environments. But, less of this forever, please.

  • Mouthwashing – [9]

    An excellent little narrative game. Similar to Signalis, the story and themes really haunted me long after I stopped playing. Great sound design. Loved the oppressively bleak atmosphere. My only criticism is the stealth “monster chase” segment feels just slightly too tedious – but, on the other hand, I also feel the game perhaps could have benefited from one or two additional “mini-game” sections with a different mechanic. Just to round things out, and make the game more of a... game. It's always tough to balance interactivity with story pacing in narrative experiences like this.

  • Alan Wake DLC: Night Springs – [4]

    Three short throwaway stories in the Alan Wake-verse, told via the framing of the not-Twilight Zone show “Night Springs.” It was an OK distraction, but it's basically a hold over until the developer finishes the Lake House DLC.

  • Alan Wake DLC: The Lake House – [7]

    A short and digestible addition to the Alan Wake x Control universe. There story is simple but has some interesting inferences to make on the nature of art, including a sorta subtle dig at AI-created art. Agent Estevez – the main character – kinda has a Whedon-esque habit of making quips a little too frequently for my liking (especially given the DLC's brisk 2.5 hour-ish runtime). It feels super hacky and rote at this point, and honestly detracted from the experience for me. Also, jumping back in to this game cold, the core issues with AW2's combat are very apparent. But, I love the FBC.