What are your Games of 2024-

*For context please refrain from using games released in prior years. While I won't be using Lollipop, Capcom Versus, CastleVania: Dominus, Shadow X.. they are technically 2024 'ports/remaster' games so if you feel they justify notice? feel free to use them for your own listings.

Looking forward to reading what games you picked up, what you enjoyed, and what you didn't enjoy.

So below is mine for 2024, feel free to ask questions and share your love and hatred for gaming. But please keep it about the games, preferably 2024 games.

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Across 2024 I played a few new games, not all are great in my eyes. So going to get the big stinker out the way.

Alone in the Dark (reboot/remake) was potentially the blandest game I've played in years. Wouldn't even call it bad, it's worse, it's so passably forgettable. I'm a massive Survival Horror fan, love the genre, and I've just never enjoyed a AitD game. I wanted the new game to succeed, and it manages to be as dismissible as Callisto Protocol

May as well point out another semi-disappointment in 2024.. another Survival Horror game (yes I like this genre) Conscript is overall a nice change from retro inspired Survival Horror games. As it has a realistic setting and no supernatural themes.. it's pacing however is the biggest offender on this list. Even more so than Silent Hill 2. Take the game from a 8/10 to a 5/10 in a matter of hours. Padding for the sake of padding. I can't respect it.

So now onto the games I like:

Then we have the best Survival Horror of 2024. Crow Country is among of my favorite games of 2024: the map, hint system, interesting take on a protagonist is all very refreshing. With some amazing secrets. Best of all it's pacing is near perfect. Can be beaten in five hours on a first run on even the highest difficulty. Music is great, enemy variety, puzzles. While some are pretty sick of games looking retro I would recommend this game to any fan of Survival Horror. It's an absolute joy from beginning to end. With replay-value on a send run. Crow Country has it all!

A breath of fresh air for lovers of the classics and well.. dungeons! The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is just as it states, a Zelda game that lets you play as Zelda herself. A strong focus on puzzles and thinking outside the box makes it standout from many those retro titles which could usually fall back on brute force, as the goal here seems to try interesting and new ideas. While not everything lands in the game personally feel this was more my style of Zelda game over the recent two openworld Zelda games. Just a grand adventure, great puzzles and dungeons.

No game in 2024 did I spend more time with than Dragon's Dogma II; I have wanted this sequel for years and been extremely vocal about wanting this sequel on the forums. And in my experience delivered in what I wanted for a sequel overall, I've seen the stability concerns at launch and a vocal complaint about "pay-to-win" items (which other Capcom games had) and while I did have some stability issues namely in town and with broken waterfalls the game overall ran fine and had a great time. I do have issues with DD2, namely late-game which is why I don't rank it above Astro Bot or Crow Country. It's still a great ARPG with combat second to only the Monster Hunter series.

Silent Hill 2 Remake is a game I had zero faith in succeeding, as I honestly think prior to this remake Bloober Team is a shit developer. I do, played every game they've put out and consider them to horror games what Bioware is to RPGs.. Glorified trash, with maybe one or two acceptable games. Silent Hill is a series I'm very passionate about and I'll eat my hat and say Bloober did this game justice.. kinda. While I know many are not happy with the censorship myself find the biggest offender the pacing and padding-out. The remake is roughly 10 hours longer than the original. That's a lot of baggage. And you really feel it well before the credits roll. Bloober didn't add interesting content during these extra hours either. Feel if they just cut one third of this remake it would have been way better. & that's why Crow Country is the superior Survival Horror of 2024

Now onto my favorite game of 2024. Because this post has already gone on far too long and many know I loved Playroom.. It's Astro Bot. What a delight, basically Playroom but made into a full game, with far less gimmicky motion controls. A love letter to Platforming fans and a celebration to gaming itself!

TLDR?:

1) Astro Bot

2) Crow Country

3) Dragon's Dogma II

My top 5 games this year so far are:

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

2. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

3. Astro Bot

4. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

5. Dragon’s Dogma 2

Honourable mention: Tekken 8

Here are my top 10 games of 2024: (All been played on PC & PS5)

10 - Dragon Age: Veilguard. The gameplay is way better than in Inquisition but the writing, companions and even the pacing was really bad. Solid gameplay and its release was a solid surprise with no bugs or any glitches coming from the Frostbite Engine.

9 - Star Wars: Outlaws. I'm a fan of Star Wars stuff, but Outlaws as the first open-world Star Wars game proves it can be done with more efforts. The Stealth was mediocre but the latest patch fixed it to were you won't be penalize for it any longer. The Space combat was really great, the dogfighting was the most enjoyable thing throughout the game IMO.

8 - Horizon: Forbidden West PC. I gotta say, Forbidden West coming to PC in 2024 was expected, and in fact, the gameplay has been improved from the previous game. Aloy's Journey to the (Forbidden) West exploring new areas, and characters and fighting newer Dinobots was the best part of the game itself.

7 - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. This is probably the best Ubisoft game to be released this past January of 2024, a really enjoyable 2D scroller Prince of Persia was challenging at best. The exploration was the fun part and the game gives you a lot of tools to work around whenever your in a heat of battle.

6 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. This game got overlooked by most of the gaming world, but Don't Nod is good at doing something different. Banishers is a good linear game, not the best or worst but an ok game that really captures the Colony and the Salem Witch era I think it was worth checking out and glad it made it to my top 10 list. And it has a little of Dark Souls formula I might add.

5 - Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2. As someone who likes the Warhammer universe, Space Marines 2 felt like I was back in the 7th gen when we used to get this quality gameplay and storytelling. As much as I like Space Marines 2, I still kinda prefer Gears of War over Warhammer 40K despite Warhammer 40K predates Gears of War when it comes to aesthetic similarities.

4 - Ghost of Tsushima: Directors Cut PC. Not gonna lie, this was a pleasantly surprise to come to PC this year of 2024, I had to put this on my list as this game has solid fun gameplay, this was the true Assassin's Creed set in Feudal Japan I've been waiting for, for so many years. Sucker Punch knew what they were doing, and boy, it really captured the world of Feudal Japan. And if you love the TV show Shogun, you're gonna love Ghost of Tsushima!

3 - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Machine Games did the impossible, they gave us a better Indiana Jones experience than whatever Disney put out whatever the hell that was...I think it was Dial of Destiny? Yeah that must be it. Well anyway, I've played it on Game Pass PC, I didn't think the game could work in FPS over TPS but glad it was set in FPS, I like to be immersion in any FPS.

2 - Stellar Blade. Stellar Blade is the only game I played on my PS5, and the only game I turned on my PS5 this year. Stellar Blade is an enjoyable game without the BS you'll see from gaming media but that's beside the point. The game is basically an anime Sekiro: Shadow Die Twice as you'll need to learn how to parry more as the game went on. The fun factor is there, the fan service is there, just wish it got more attention from the gaming media world IMO.

1 - Black Myth Wukong. Boy oh boy, my expectations were slightly low at first but once I've played the game during the opening, my expectations when through the roof! BMW gameplay is surprisingly fluid, dodging mechanics were on point,and the graphics for an Unreal Engine 5 was really impressive. When it comes to "Journey to the West" material, BMW does a great job getting you immersed as the game goes on, finding hidden secrets is well rewarded. I for one really enjoy it more so than anything coming FromSoftware games...including Elden Ring to an extent but, BMW is not a "Soul" genre game, and I appreciate what Game Science did and went out of their way to do their own style game. BMW has surpassed my expectations, it's why it's truly my GOTY of 2024! (Glad it won the Player's Voice awards during the VGA 2024 as I've voted for that game anyway)

(I'm sorry I include PC ports from prior years that were released on consoles in the past, but the ones I listed did release within this year due to PC version of 2024. But none of those are remasters so...)

I would say Loco Motive. I haven’t played it yet, but it’s gotten some great reviews.

Nah it's cool, a P.C. port is essentially a remaster and while I avoided using Shadow X Generations, Marvel Versus Capcom, and The Thing did note that if you feel it counts that's welcome.

Happy gaming and great lists everyone! Enjoy seeing all the different favorites each has.

A fair point. I didn't think about the remaster part for the PC version that is😅

Edit: Looking at your list. I'm really surprised you didn't include Rebirth...or have you play it already? (I haven't play it yet as I'm waiting for the PC version...which is coming out Jan 2025)

@davillain: Never really dabbled into Final Fantasy games proper. I've tried two in the series and I just don't think they're for me, too focused on spectacle over substance.

In layman terms more of a Monster Hunter player than a Final Fantasy one for them really long investment experiences.

*Out the games you've listed I do own a copy of Stellar Blade, and plan to play before Monster Hunter: Wilds comes out. As I'm a big fan of 3D Hack n' Slash (Devil May Cry/ Bayonetta/ Ninja Gaiden) because if I'm frank, once the new MH comes out every other game may as well not exist for a year or so_

My top two are Metaphor: Refantasio and Age of Mythology: Retold.

@ramoraydrake63: Chill with the A.I. no one is impressed.

Maybe UFO 50, Shadow of Erdtree, FF7:R, Astro Bot, DQ3 HD2D, Galuga

The 2 best games I played this year are Zelda Echoes of Wisdom & Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as well as World of Goo 2.

1 final fantasy rebirth (PS5) 2 indiana jones the great cycle (XSX) 3 astro bot (PS5) 4 stalker 2 (XSX) 5 silent hill 2 remake (PS5) 6 stellar blade (PS5) 7 hellblade 2 (XSX) 8 black myth wo kong (PS5) 9 prince of pesia lost crown (XSX) 10 dragon age veilguard ( XSX) 11 alone the dark ( PS5) 12 stars wars outlaws (XSX) 13 banishers ghosts of the new eden (XSX) 14 yakuza infinite wealth ( PS5) 15 Neva ( XSX) 16 quite place road ahead (XSX) 17 visions of mana (PS5) 18 rise of the roni ( PS5 ) 19 life is strange double exposure( XSX) 20 horizon zero dawn remaster ( PS5) for me happy new year

For me this year is a bad year for console gaming. i mean beside wukong not a single good game.In the start of year i really though this is going to be ubisoft year but they messed up big time. Now i think this is the year of mobile gaming.The best game for me is Truck Simulator Ultimate which i downloaded from https://playtruckultimate.com/ and call of duty mobiles from playstore.I mean atleast i can see the progress these mobile studios are making not like ubisoft who re just stuck in year 2010.

Didn't play many new games that I liked.

Helldivers 2 - Awesome.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Great.
Space Marine 2 - Pretty good.

My top 3 games of 2024

• FF7 Rebirth - my game of the year. Loved the journey and it made me positive we can save her... in episode 3. Though I absolutely hated hardmode the balancing of that mode suck, which I feel such a missed opportunity as Remake hard mode was one of the best hard mode I ever played.
• Unicorn Overlord - great tactical rpg and a surprise due to I dont think the developer could pull it off. I own the game day one but I only managed to played last month due to the insane amount of JRPG releases I played.
• Metaphor Refantazio - great game but the dungeons sucked massive asssss. It almost falls apart mid game I was getting bit bored when we reached the 3rd major town but the great series of twists near end game helped increase my interest and overall its a solid 9/10.

Honorable mentions - Rise of Ronin, Granblue Relink and Trails through Daybreak.

That seems to be the big issue.

Relying on a publisher like Ubisoft to deliver the goods in any give year. No different from Bethesda now. Shadow of former glory.

Never been a fan of the whole Ubisoft template (generic open world/ climb checkpoints) but even then at least they made games for its niche crowd. Now, well Ubisoft are just crap to even the most committed Assassins Creed & Far Cry loyalists. For everyone else it's like beating a dead horse.

@RSM-HQ: yeah lets hope Ubisoft regain their former glory from ac shadows but it seems un likely