Awards! Who needs them? Who wants them?
Well I do apparently and I hope you do as well because you are about to get a bunch of them. Yes it's the yearly companion piece to my end of year retrospective as I single out games remarkable in ways both good and bad. It's the New Year and as the last vestige of festive cheer fades into the night I'd like you to raise your hands and your voices for the following awards presented in order of general importance and 'prestige'. I did once more think of abbreviating the name of the awards and calling them The GPLYA's or The GoPlaya's but I was once more shouted down by the committee, damn their hides! Instead we shall award these general non-branded trophies to the following games in the following categories...
The Most Surprisingly Bad Game Award
Let's kick things off on a sour note with a game that managed to surprise me by somehow being even worse than its reputation suggested. This was a game already living in infamy, ironic infamy perhaps but infamy nonetheless. This was a game that courted controversy from its very beginnings, it had politicians talking about the subject of video games in a way that suggested they actually knew nothing about video games. It had vampires in it but they were vampires in anonymous black discount ninja outfits wielding some kind of weird blood sucking gun because the makers of this supposedly controversial game were a bit wary of how many actual vampires they could show on-screen. I am of course referring to this year's winner, the inimitable Night Trap - 25th Anniversary Edition. I wasn't expecting much and expectations were only just barely met.
The Most Unexpectedly Good Game Award
We live in an age where it is hard to be shocked or surprised. We are drowning in a deluge of data, a morass of marketing, a surplus of social media engagement. You feel like you have watched everything even when you haven't and you figure there is no point in consuming anything you haven't already heard about. It's both easy to get your product out there but also hard to make it stick out. Then there was this year's winner of this award. An original idea that blends the humble rogue-like with poker. It's a multiplication game enhanced with random power-ups to make those numbers go ever higher. You gain in confidence as you progress, you get more confident despite the fact you are only ever one bad hand away from disaster. It might be inaccurate to say this game was unexpectedly good, there was a lot of noise out there gushing over this game but I was not prepared for just how good this game turned out to be. That game is of course Balatro for its superb re-imagination of the humble card game, rarely has multiplication been so exciting.
The Game That Eats Time Award
Another year, another game that takes the cake when it comes to abusing your free time! A couple of games immediately came to mind and as it happens they are all from the same bundled collection. I am of course referring to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition as the winner of this year's award with a close runner up being Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. To repeat a line that comes up every time I do these awards, this does not mean these are bad games. Far from it in fact especially with the second one. They were long though and whilst you might expect classic RPG's to be long games the shortcomings of the first game perhaps made it feel longer than it actually was. I can't pretend it was a uniformly excellent experience and in my end of year round-up I think I have it a fair score which balanced the richness of the experience against its shortcomings. I doubt I'll be playing it again but for what it's worth it was a fine game for at least 75% of the time I played it.
The Cross Promotional Synergy Award
The humble tie-in is often a much maligned subgenre in gaming. Games that are developed off the back of successful movies, TV series and books don't have the most sparkling track record. For that matter I don't think the hit rate is much better the other way around either with quality adaptations of games being a mostly modern phenomenon. To get back to the subject one game stood out in 2025 for it's wholeheartedly earnest translation of the bleak near future of Old Detroit. I am of course giving this award to RoboCop: Rogue City for its sincere attempt to make a great game out of a great movie. Does it succeed? Perhaps not entirely, the dark humour and satire could have been turned up a notch for my liking but the game itself has to be the best game of RoboCop ever made. The violence is there, the unapologetic villainy is there, the corporate scumbags are there and all against the backdrop of a decaying city where everything is going to hell.
Runner up prize goes to The Expanse: A Telltale Series for a short but sweet venture into an altogether different variety of the dark future.
The Over Too Soon Award
The mirror world counterpart to the game that eats time is that rarest of things or so it feels like. A game with just the right duration that ends when the going is good. A game that doesn't overstay it's welcome or tire out it's audience. There are plenty of good games and there are plenty of shorter games but the crossover between the two is where we find the winner of this years award for well judged brevity in gaming. Yes the winner is Killer Frequency for giving us the involving, characterful tale of the late night radio DJ and his producer who try to save their small town from a masked serial killer. Some great dialogue, some mild puzzle solving and a hazy purple tinged 80's aesthetic to boot. In a small package, this game delivered big. A mid-budget experience that may lack many of the bells and whistles of AAA gaming but gets the most out of what it had available. Yeah I'm all about this one.
The Melting My Brain Award for Difficulty
The award for most difficult game didn't have many contenders this year. Oh sure there were games that were frustrating or poorly designed but in terms of intentional difficulty that was both well judged and pretty difficult the candidates were few and far between. There could only be one winner here and in 2025 the most difficult game I played was Frostpunk. I've always had a soft spot for top down strategy games with a rich sense of atmosphere and a strong narrative underlying a largely open experience. Its been a while since I've had a quality experience in this vein and this game definitely delivered. Dwindling hope, fraught relations with the workforce and the escalating sense of dread as the bitter cold became increasingly dire made for an exceptional experience that was always challenging.
The 'Meh' Award For Outstanding Contribution To Mediocrity
What about those games that are neither especially good or notably bad? Who is looking out for those guys I hear you ask? Fear not dear reader for we have the award that recognizes this very quality. So many releases sink into obscurity because pop culture memory can only hold onto the exceptionally good or the hilariously bad. Try as I might to discern such games and filter them out of my to-play list they nonetheless made themselves known to me in 2025. This years winner is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022) as whilst it was rarely a dull game there was a distinct sense of going through the motions about it. Like everything the game does has been done better and often in other games called Call of Duty as well. That it shares a name with the much superior game from 2009 only serves to bring it's shortcomings into sharper focus and really make you wonder why they used that name with this game.
Runner up award goes to Delta Force for trying and kinda failing to move into the space that Call of Duty used to inhabit so very well. A strangely lackluster experience but at least it doesn't eat up most of your hard drive when you install it.
The Novel Idea Award For Originality in Gaming
When I was considering this award I got to thinking about games with personality, a distinct sense of personality that sticks out from the crowd and it occurred to me that there aren't many of them around. They aren't complete strangers to the release schedule especially if you consider the wealth of indie titles out there but when you think about it so many high profile games either have the same bland sense of personality or no personality at all. I think that's why I responded so well to this year's winner which is Thank Goodness You're Here! for really going all out in its loving send-up of the North of England. It wasn't the deepest or most intricate of games but the surreal sojourns across the town of Barnsworth made for a memorably batty experience that was always enjoyable and never boring. This game has a distinct sense of identity which only added to the experience in my humble opinion.
The Feast For The Senses Award
Lots of games will bombard you with sensory overload, often in the hope that it will distract you from the shortcomings found elsewhere in the experience. Rare is the game that looks, sounds and feels just right for what it is trying to do. Games where you sense the art designer thinking over every small detail to help deliver the best possible experience. Games where the sound design and the soundtrack work beautifully together and deliver the perfect atmosphere for what your storytellers are trying to achieve. This year's winner had some excellent presentation going on that perfectly complimented the surreal themes and analogue feel of the game itself, I am of course referring to Oxenfree II: Lost Signals for achieving that perfect harmony of ideas and execution in a rare sequel that was almost as good as it's excellent predecessor.
Runner up award goes to Lumines Remastered for it's trippy visuals that were doing their level best to open further doors of perception in my mind. I don't know if it worked or if it made the game any easier but it looked memorably cool on any case.
The Most Random Game I Played That Year Award
I'm not sure about the winner of this year's award. I mean I am pretty sure it was my most random choice of game selection. I'm just not sure as to whether 'game' is the right word here for what I played. There are game elements to be sure, a character you control and navigate around a three dimensional space but still I am not sure if I am doing this title a service or disservice by describing it as a game. This year's winner is Interaction Isn't Explicit, the part game part thesis statement released for free on the PlayStation store a short time back. Barebones as a game.and a touch basic for an academic work, I guess it's decent from something that is distinctly low budget with small scale and modest ambition. You know what? I think I'll stick with my choice, my most random choice in 2025!
The Deja Vu Award
Have I played this before? It's a common feeling in the modern gaming landscape. Everyone is chasing live service always-online experiences. Everyone wants to be Fortnite or have the revenue that Fortnite generates but precious few games get to occupy that spot and be successful enough to stick around. It also means that a lot of high profile games tend to feel very samey. Like no matter what you play you can't help but feel you've already played some variation of it already. Sorry Ch was the feeling with this year's winner Delta Force for it's unwavering commitment towards reminding you that Call of Duty used to be a much more universally beloved franchise than it is now. It really is hard to think up things this game does that haven't already been repeated to exhaustion elsewhere. The end result is not a bad game as such but it is an overly familiar experience.
The 'No Idea What's Going On Here' Award
Let me see if I can summarise the plot of this year's winner. Let's see? Cops in a near future dystopian Yokyo preside over a supposedly crime free utopia of sorts when a murder happens and the situation spirals out of control which then exposes the harsh totalitarian truth of the situation. Yeah that about sums it up I think and at a high level I can just about do it. Dig down though and the threads get very hard to follow as overlapping narratives interact and everyone appears to be not who they said they were at the start. I love a good crime thriller but The 25th Ward: The Silver Case was not that at all! The internet would have me believe this is a cult favourite of some kind but honestly I do not see it. It feels more like a victory of style over substance here as the game ploughs on ahead to the finale which made me wonder if all the confusion was worth it? Spoiler, it wasn't.
The Overall Worst Game I Played Last Year 'Award'
As is usual.now let's give you the runner ups before we proudly acknowledge the worst game I played in 2025, starting with our third place runner up. Now this game wasn't altogether bad, just mostly bad with the odd hit of inspiration here and there. I, for one can see a lot of potential in the setup of a vaguely supernatural drama playing out amongst the regulars of a roadside diner out in the middle of nowhere. It feels like the kind of premise that a mid-budget prestige TV show could get a lot out of. Alas the same is not true of While We Wait Here. It starts off promisingly enough by never quite hits the spot thereafter. There's a sense that it's trying to get as much as it can out of a low budget but the game can't quite come together when it needs to. Shame really, in an average year it probably wouldn't make the cut for bad games played by myself but the average this year was better than most.
In second place is one of a pair of games I am kind of tired of talking about at this stage so I'm not going to go on too much at length about it here. As far as I'm concerned this was an actively bad game where the developers delivered what they wanted to deliver, it's just that it wasn't very good. Confusing crime thriller The 25th Ward: The Silver Case is not a game I will mention much if ever I mention it again. It's confusing, clunky and awkward and the only thing saving it from the top spot here is my even greater anti-appreciation for the game that came before it...
Yes first place goes to the worst game I played in 2025: The Silver Case. Almost everything that applies to it's sequel applies even moreso to the original. This was clunkier. More awkward and at times even more obtuse to the player. Whatever potential positive thoughts I may have had at the outset of the experience were soon dwarfed by a long list of shortcomings. Somehow this is another cult classic that the internet swears by but which I don't get at all. Tales of crime, suspense and mystery have been done so much better elsewhere. Watch a YouTube playthrough if you absolutely have to experience this game but do not waste your time on the game itself.
The Overall Best Game I Played Last Year Award
After all that I feel we need to up the positivity around here and end things on a high note. So this year you get three runners up before the winner is announced. Starting with our fourth place runner up and a last minute entry that just made it in there during the last few months of 2025. ARC Raiders wasn't as much of a surprisingly good game to me as it was to much of the internet. I have been playing The Finals since it's released in late 2023 and was well up for what Embark Studios would do next. Having said that, even I was surprised by just how good it ended up being as my introduction to the extraction shooter. It's atmospheric, tense and makes multiplayer a genuinely compelling experience. I foresee this game taking up a good chunk of my free time in the near future.
Moving on to our third place runner up and another game that hit all the right notes for me in 2025 is Oxenfree II: Lost Signals. I have already bestowed much praise on this game both in this write-up and on my end of year round up so I'll try not to repeat too much of it here. I love stories with characterful personalities that feel like real human beings. I love a solid art style and great soundtrack. I love it when the mundane takes a surreal turn into weird, uncharted territory. So perhaps it's little surprise why I praise Oxenfree and it's sequel so much. Everyone and everything sticks the landing here. I there has to be the splitting of hairs it's that you need to have played the first game to fully understand the second bit that is about it. Night School Studio are a developer to watch for me and I hope it's not too long a wait until their next console release.
Second place runner up.is a game that genuinely and utterly caught me off guard with how good it turned out to be. A card game with a hefty dose of math and a bunch of bonus multipliers thrown in for good measure. Balatro has that 'one more go' feeling about it, where success or disaster is never more than a card away. It's so well pulled off this game for something that largely looks and feels like a card game ripped off a Windows 95 installation CD and mutated into a product of the 21st century. You run the numbers and you weigh your chances as you attempt to reach higher and higher score thresholds. You draw cards, you apply bonuses and you feel that lump in your throat as you realise how close you are to the end of an increasing precarious run. What a game!
Which leads us to the final stop on this journey and the best game I played in 2025. This might be a contentious choice when I look back at it because in some respects the runner ups did outshine our winner. This game had frustrations and shortcomings to be sure but what this game pulled off was something rather remarkable in my view. Translating a game from the mid 90's and making it feel relevant to the mid 2020's cannot have been an easy task but gosh darn was it pulled off with System Shock (2023). This is a game with little time or patience for the niceties of modern gaming. The HUD is minimal, there's no handy checklist of things to do and where you need to go to do them. You read diary entries and listen to audio logs not just for world building but also to figure out what it is you actually need to do next. The jank of the original game is gone and the tense still atmosphere of the Citadel space station is left intact. Whilst much is changed the core idea of the game is remarkably preserved and dare I say even enhanced by this thoughtful upgrade. Those more enthusiastic about the original game may disagree of course but for me this was the game that stood out this year. A great remake that stands on its own merits very well indeed.
That is that! What a year in gaming it was! There were some tricky choices to make there and some narrow near misses. Overall though I feel like the quality threshold was high and that mostly good times were had in 2025. Now to the after party for a selection of salmon puffs, cheese and mid-market alcohol...
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