Merry belated Christmas all! It's that time again, the time to look upon my last twelve months in gaming. Reflect upon the dizzying highs, the deep lows and the indeterminate set of feelings we find in the middle. Obviously it was a quiet year in literally every other respect. Nothing significant happened in the political, cultural or social spheres, honestly it was a pretty unremarkable year. I'm almost entirely sure that what the world needs right now is more red hot blog content about my year in video gaming. Yeah that sounds about right, nothing else to see here. So without further ado, what did I play this year and what did I think about it in brief?
Fortnite (2017)
Starting off 2024 with the big beast of live service gaming, I finally delved into Fortnite after years of gazing from afar and being somewhat dubious about the cartoon aesthetic and heavy duty monetisation within. Strictly speaking I started this one at the end of 2023 when they offered a Solid Snake skin as a bonus extra in the then current season but much to my surprise I loved the game and kept coming back to it throughout this year.
In short this might be one of the most well-poloshed battle royale experiences I have ever played. It all feels very tactile, clicky and responsive. Very good 'gamefeel' if such a word exists. Fun in solo and when partying up not to mention the whole plethora of extra modes that come with it. I think I've had more fun with Fortnite Festival than I ever did with Guitar Hero and Rocket Racing is a blast to play as well.
A recent headline suggests that several years after release it's games like these that are eating up fthe most ree time and making it hard for new competitors to enter the live service space. Having now played this game at length I can certainly believe thid is the case. Multiple well-designed game modes all feeding into your progression and all designed to keep that 'one more go' feeling intact. This could have only be five shotgun wielding bananas out of five!
The Finals (2023)
Much like the previous game I started this one at the very tail.end of 2023 but have spent a great deal more time with it over this year. Having shadow launched this time last year I got in on the ground floor with this one and wow this game is great. Made by some ex-Battlefield developers and featuring some seriously fun level destruction, this game hit the sweet spot in sheer playability. Picture The Matrix as a violent virtual game show complete with announcers and you get a picture of how it comes across.
Shiny, well designed levels contain cash boxes, one team of three must grab the box, take it to one of the designated cashout points and defend it until the money is banked. Other teams will of course try to steal it for themselves. Cue the to and fro of frenetic action. Visually it's reminiscent of something like Mirror's Edge but it has more than a hint of those Battlefield games which really put destruction at the forefront of level design
Micro-transactions are here in this free to play game of course but I feel they get the balance right with the store not weighing too heavily upon the overall presentation. It's also probably the best system I've seen for mixing and matching costume and skins so you see a lot of variety visually in this game. As I type this up I've been grinding the last few levels of the season 4 battle pass and I'm not usually someone who does that. This game is a winner, five cheese slicers out of five!
Rollerdrome (2022)
Now we're into 2024 proper with the first game I actually property started this calendar year. A roller-skating combat game where you pull off stunts and evade enemies whilst shooting some well aimed bullets back at them. All presented as if it's taking place within a sci-fi film from the 1970's. This I very much enjoyed with it's responsive, fast-paced gameplay and it's polished presentation.
The story was perhaps a little under-developed with some nods towards the wider dystopian world in which these lethal games are taking part. What is there does add more to the experience than it subtracts. I got the feeling that this was a big idea that wanted a bigger budget but what we got was pretty nifty regardless. Four and a half mid-air trick shots out of five!
Battlezone (2016)
Naturally after playing a bunch of current, modern, relevant games I decided to pick a random one from the old times. Not too old of course, not as old as the original Battlezone which goes back to 1980. Nor the 1998 game or it's re-release in modern times. This was the Battlezone released for VR devices and then patched so it could be played without them as well.
You are a tank in a world that looks and feels a bit like TRON. You proceed through levels completing objectives. You defend, you attack and you pursue your enemies. You upgrade your abilities along the way. The core of this game was solid but between the slower pace and the sharp difficulty curve, it did struggle to hold my attention somewhat. Had I played this at launch when the multiplayer was a touch more populated I may have had a good time here. As it is in 2024, it's a solid game that falls somewhere in the middle of the curve. Three abstract wireframe turrets out of five!
Zool Redimensiined (2021)
Another trip down the nostalgia rabbit hole with this re-master of Zool, a platformer originally released in 1992. I can't imagine there was almighty fervour for a remaster of this game but I did have some fond nostalgia for it. Mainly from watching people play it on GamesMaster or Bad Influence or any one of those 90's TV shows that cashed in on the video game boom back then.
Anyhow you're the titular alien Zool platforming their way through a series of colourful stages no longer adorned with the Chupa Chups branding (much to my dismay). Honestly that's my main memory of this game, this and Cool Spot went heavy on the in-game branding long before it would become commonplace. The game itself is fine, one of many Mario clones from the time that were vying for the crown but ultimately failed to stick around. Can't say it plays like a lost classic or a hidden gem because that's not the case, it's simply fine but the nostalgia kick was a little too short-lived. Two legally required product placement removals out of five!
Silent Hill: The Short Message (2024)
So Silent Hill is back apparently with Konami remembering they had that whole back catalogue of video game IP that they weren't using to make actual video games. That was until now with a whole slew of titles being announced in 2022 and now bearing fruit, starting with this free effort that sees you navigate the waking nightmares of another main character as they attempt to untangle the burdens they've placed upon themselves.
Empty, dilapidated apartment buildings, thick fog, haunting visions of strange people. It's all here and truly it does feel like Silent Hill. It also does feel like it's missing a certain something however. Like it's someone doing a pretty decent job of reconstructing the original experience without having played hem themselves. Add one too many difficulty spikes as monsters stalk you through the corridors and the shine does come off the experience by the end. Still a decent effort even if the actual connections to Silent Hill are hard to find here. Three haunting text messages out of five!
Day of the Tentacle Remastered (2016)
Back to the past with this modern remaster of a game from 1993. Day of the Tentacle is one of those quintessential gaming experiences for players of a certain generation. From a time where games were rarely funny and rarely looked good, these point and click adventure games stood out on both fronts. For me the cartoon aesthetic and the sharp writing really help the experience but there are frustrations along the way.
As mulled upon previously, I can appreciate these games in the historical context, as stepping stones along the way to what came later. Alas playing them in the here and now I struggle with the general idea of these games. The jokes are funny but the periods of inscrutable frustration between them do make me wonder if the experience was really worthwhile or not. I like puzzles but figuring out the abstract sense of humour is not as fun as you might think. Two time travelling toilets out of five!
Maniac Mansion (1987)
This wasn't originally on the bingo card for this year until I realised the whole game is included as a easter egg in Day of the Tentacle. So in for a penny I checked it out and yeah this was a step too far back into the past for me. It's not a remake or a remaster, it is presented very much as it was upon its original release. So it works as an example of historical preservation, I'm just not sure how well it holds up as an actual game these days.
Don't get me wrong you can certainly see why certain elements of this stood out at the time. The humour and the presentation are working hard to overcome the strict technical limitations of the time. It is a slog to play through however and I rarey felt the payoff warranted the frustration. There are nascent signs here of what would make later LucasArts games so well remembered but here it still feels like a very rough first draft. One and a half mad scientists out of five!
Full Throttle Remastered (2017)
The third part of my classic point and click adventure marathon, Full Throttle is the tale of a man, his gang and their motorbikes. So plenty of decent wry humour with a cartoon aesthetic as they battle an evil business type who is scheming a hostile takeover of their beloved motorcycle manufacturer. A tale as old as time!
So there are more puzzles that require you to get on board with the humour more than a general sense of logic. There are also some admittedly impressive set pieces that would have certainly stuck out upon its original release back in 1995. Much of what applies to Day of the Tentacle applies here though. Yes I laughed, then I stopped laughing for a prolonged period as I tried to figure out the next puzzle and then after an awkward gap I laughed again. Repeat until the end of the game. Two convoluted solutions out of five!
Psychonauts (2016)
Now for the conclusion of this gauntlet of Tim Schafer related games, we move onto Psychonauts. A colourful, charming and oddball journey through the collective unconscious as trainee agents of an officially psychic government agency combat sinister forces trying to take over the dreamscape. An endearingly barmy platformer from the PS2 era, this was one of those games that everyone swears by these days but which passed me by at the time.
By far this was the game I enjoyed the most in this marathon session of LucasArts adjacent absurdity. The emulation was decent if not amazing and the humour has aged pretty well for something from 2005. Some fiendish difficulty spikes notwithstanding, I had a really good time with this game as it capably mingled high and low brow humour. A distinctly retro experience that for the most part, holds up pretty well. Four literal cases of emotional baggage out of five!
SteamWorld Dig (2014)
Is this another game from the 'didn't I start this years ago and I swear I will get around to finishing it someday' file? Why yes it surely is! When I started this game I'm pretty sure this was the only game in a series which has since spawned to multiple entries in the time since. You're a clanky robot and for that matter everyone is a clanky nuts and bolts robot living on a planet that's half sci-fi, half Wild West. You've inherited a mine from a dearly departed relation and now you've got to make some money with it.
Cue digging, lots of digging as you search for riches, treasure and the secrets to the aforementioned mine. All the while socializing with the endearingly homespun townfolk. It gets a touch repetitive as you upgrade your tools to dig down into deeper and harder rock but I was never bored with it. It doesn't outstay it's welcome either and upon finally finishing this game, I was definitely of a mind to check out the various sequels and spinoffs. Three and a half pickaxes out of five!
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (2020)
I may already have had one or two entirely sensible things to say about this game when I played it earlier this year. Criterion Games have form when it comes to making excellent games containing vehicles going at increasingly irresponsible speeds. Burnout was one of the games of my teen years and even now I wonder why that series went quiet like it has. Nevermind for we have Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, originally released in 2010 and remastered a decade later.
Not quite the game I was in the mood for, it nonetheless provided me with a good time. Would have been a great time were it not for the slightly over eager difficulty. Nevertheless this is a game that has aged well and has been updated decently for modern systems. Playing as either cops or vigilante racers in the surprisingly turbulent town of Seacrest, I got an experience of breakneck speed with a razer thin margin of error, so I mostly got what I came for. Four illegal street races out of five!
Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
The first big beast on my 'I absolutely definitely must play this game this year' list, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game with a whole backstory of its own before you even load the game. Hazy recollections of its initial announcement a decade plus ago followed by what felt like an age long developmental cycle. Of course this all resulted in the much lamented launch that saw the game barely functioning on hardware old and new.
The pandemic era gaming crowd wasn't going to suffer fools gladly so CD Project Red embarked on a multi-year campaign of repair, renewal and restoration of the game and their reputation. Did they succeed? Yeah I think they did. The benefit of playing games way after everyone else plays them means I got to enjoy a polished and technically impressive game free of much of the baggage that came with it's launch.
You are V and you've got a small case of rogue personality inhabiting your mind after your standard cyberpunk crime caper goes sideways as all such endeavours inevitably do. Cue a string of incidental and coincidental developments as you try to save yourself whilst lending a hand to the fine folks of Night City. The game looks fantastic, sounds great, the gameplay is smooth and all the main character arcs have a resoundingly effective conclusion. In short, in it's current form this game is a home run and one of the best RPG's I've ever played. Five visions of Keanu Reeves out of five!
Mothmen 1966 (2022)
Well executed low-fi pixel art accompanied by text is the flavour of this game. A graphic text adventure that tells the separate but interconnecting stories of a group of strangers who encounter something hostile and unknown out in the sticks of rural America. A pure hit of nostalgia for someone like me who played such things on the hand me down Amstead and Spectrum machines of my youth.
This was something of a refreshing palate cleanser after the full fat experience of Cyberpunk 2077. A brief trip into retro nostalgia and the mostly forgotten games of this type that were way popular many decades ago. Truth be told this game feels a bit more polished than it's forebears and is probably a bit more consistently well written as well. It's a strong effort, if a little light on playtime and that's coming from someone who usually complains about games outstaying their welcome. Three and a half shadowy g-men out of five!
Inside (2016)
Back to basics gameplay with minimalist story, oodles of art style and zero dialogue. Why yes this came from Playdead the creators of much acclaimed indie hit Limbo. Tempting as it always is to be touch contrarian about these things, Limbo was indeed a very sound bit of game and art design which stood out in the far less crowded indie gaming marketplace of 2010. It's follow up would be released in a far busier time for idiosyncratic creative efforts in the gaming space, so how does Inside fare when played in 2024?
In short, very well. The story of a boy escaping capture by unknown but ever present forces hits its stride almost immediately and certainly grabs your attention for the duration of it's short playtime. Then just when you think you have it all figured out the game plays a final card that made for a genuinely surprising conclusion. In short I really enjoyed this game and would recommend it as the sort of thing you could easily clear in an evening. Four ominous beams of torchlight in the darkness out of five!
Action Arcade Wrestling (2021)
Professional wrestling. Few words bring as much joy to my soul as those two. Whilst I'm something of a lapsed wrestling fan these days, I've always kept an eye out for games based on this noble sport whether they be from established names or relative unknowns. Such was the case here with the game formerly known as CHIKARA: Action Arcade Wrestling and renamed following the closure of that company a few years back.
Amongst wrestling fana of a certain generation there is a certain nostalgia for arcade simplicity, larger than life aesthetics and good old fashioned button bashing. It's very much this crowd the game is tailored to. For me though it felt a little shallow, not without fun certainly but it was missing that certain something you need for it to be a lasting experience. The visuals are bright, clean and distinctive but the game loses much of its novelty a few hours in. Two battle royales out of five!
Enter The Gungeon (2016)
Here we are again at the second stop of the 'didn't I start this years ago and I swear I will get around to finishing it someday' train. This is a game I must have spent an age on when counting up all the cumulative hours across multiple platforms. So many hours and yet I still haven't finished it, yet it still feels like time well spent.
In a retro pixel art style, you storm the various levels of a castle occupied by cartoon bullets with smiley faces who are all out to get you in rogue-like fashion. Random procedural level layout, survive as long as you can lest you get sent back to the start upon death, that kinda thing. It's a challenge but in some ways it's the best kind of challenge, the kind that keeps you playing in the hope of making just a little more headway next time.
It's all very well-designed with some charming aesthetics and very responsive gunplay. It is a difficult game though that possibly adds a few too many variables into the mix to make it a resounding success. No doubt I will return to it intermittently in the future but I'm not holding my breath for successful completion any time soon. Four and a half upturned tables out of five!
XDefiant (2024)
Look at me playing a game then same day it came out, a Call of Duty-esque free to play shooter populated by all the various gaming properties owned by Unisoft. Wait a minute I'm having fun with this. Hey this is not half bad? Oh what's that? Unisoft aren't happy with the performance of the game and have announced they will be sunsetting it in mid-2025? Was it something I said?
Shame about the incoming closure of this game but such is the precarious state of a free to play market occupied by the big dogs of Fortnite and Warzone. I've found this to be a mostly fun experience with some good maps and decent gunplay. It wasn't the most polished game I've ever played though and perhaps launching it with some outstanding issues didn't help it's chances in the long run.
I still feel that there is a market for something like this as an alternative to Call of Duty that doesn't eat up your free hard drive space but alas it won't be XDefiant. Fortnite, The Finals and Apex Legends took up most of my free to play time this year and even then it felt like I was playing at least one game too many. Three headshots out of five!
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Boom and we're done for part one. Join me next time as I bring more games, more thoughts and more thoughts on games in my never ending quest for more content.
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