Game of the Year 2024 and the 3rd Annual Willies Awards (Archive)
The following is just an archive of a prior post I made and does not represent my current thoughts and feelings.
Let the bad times continue, I guess? 2024 could have been better for games for a multitude of reasons. Between large-scale layoffs inside and around the industry, massive commercial failures, studio closures, brutal crunches, and the continuing trend of games being released in unacceptable states, it doesn’t seem like video games are doing all great these days. Don’t get me wrong, the quality remains stellar, as have the last few years, but it feels like a few hundred people lose their jobs for every excellent game that reaches our screens. Still, we have some bright points on the horizon with the release of GTA VI and the successor to the Nintendo Switch (assumingly) next year. Despite it feeling a bit weird talking about games when the industry at large is in such a poor state, I still think it’s important to celebrate some of the great works released this year. This year, from individual passion projects to large studio masterpieces, has shown that excellent games are still being made. Apologies for Astro Bot, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Animal Well, Silent Hill 2, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, Thank Goodness You’re Here, Tetris Forever, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster and Cryptmaster for not getting to you this year.
The Willies Awards
Best Game I Didn't Play: Silent Hill 2
The Silent Hill 2 Remake, by all accounts, should have been a complete disaster. It seemed like a perfect blend of ingredients to ensure that Silent Hill 2 failed. Bloober Team has a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to horror games, Konami post-Kojima appears to be doing its best to fuck everything up, and the Silent Hill franchise’s last entry was Ascension, the TV show choose your own adventure… thing that by most metrics was confusingly bad. Despite that cavalcade of bullshit weighing it down, Bloober Team pulled off the unthinkable and made a great Silent Hill game. When Jess O’Brien, who was visibly upset when Bloober Team was announced as developers, praises the game, you know it has got to be good. All odds were against it, which is why I didn’t play it. I’m not a big horror game guy, but I love atmospheric games, and Silent Hill 2 was lauded as one of the best. I bought the Silent Hill HD Collection on PS3, but that wasn’t going to do it. The only thing I had left was this remake, but since it had so much against it, I didn’t play it. Hopefully, when the spooky mood hits me, and the game goes on a decent sale, I’ll pick it up.
Runners Up: Animal Well, Cryptmaster
Most Disappointing: Shadows of Doubt
This one hurts to write.
I have been playing Shadows of Doubt in early access for most of the year. It is honestly one of my dream games. I love detective stories and games but have yet to have an authentic detective experience. Games like LA Noire had the story and mood of that fiction style, but it was always so linear. If the game even gave you a choice, it was usually between two options where it made the deduction for you. You weren’t the one figuring out who did it; it was the character you were playing. Other games like Return of the Obra Dinn and A Hand with Many Fingers somewhat scratched that itch, but it was limited in scope. There is only one ship in Obra Dinn and only one database in Many Fingers. That would change with Shadow of Doubt, the first true detective game using procedural generation to create a world where you would have to chase down leads, find evidence and make your own conclusions. It was a game I had waited years to finally come to life. Sure, it was early access and plagued with a locust swarm of bugs, but once the developer polished it up and took it out of early access, it would be one of those dream games people so rarely ever get. That did not happen. What makes Shadows of Doubt such a colossal disappointment is that it was given a full release when it should not have. It still has a mountain of bugs, whether it was items spawning inside walls, character pathing being wonky at best or apartment rooms clipping into other apartment rooms. Clearly, the polish I wanted from this game had not happened. Don’t get me wrong, I still love this game, and I’m confident that it will reach that level of polish at some point, but getting my first murder case in the full release only to see the victim’s body clipping through a door just filled me with such disappointment that I had no choice but to place it here.
On the positive side, Blizzard managed not to fuck up and make a hat trick out of this award, so good for them.
Runners Up: Persona 3 Reload - Episode Aigis, Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
Biggest Surprise: Balatro
The Balatro demo came out during one of the Steam Next Fests early in the year, and I played it based on recommendations from a few friends on a Discord I frequent. I played one round, then another and another, and suddenly, I put 15 hours into a demo. At that point, I was hooked and salivating for the full release. When Balatro came out, I bought it for PC and Nintendo Switch on the same day. I cannot remember even once in my 25 years of playing games that I ever bought the same game for different platforms on release. Balatro is just one of those games I know I will be playing until I die. It is utterly timeless in its design, being both simple to understand and devilishly difficult to master. It is one of the very rare games that I could literally recommend to anybody, regardless of experience. It is up there with games like Tetris, which have that universal appeal. So, a game like that coming quite literally out of nowhere might be a big surprise to me.
Runners Up: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Marvel Rivals
Best Game That Did Not Technically Come Out This Year: Prey (2017)
Prey (2017) (which, from this point, I’m just going to call Prey cause who cares about Prey (2006)) is just one of those games that combines all of my favourite things about games. Atmosphere, multiple solutions to problems, interesting secrets. But what makes Prey so wonderful in my eyes is the small details scattered throughout. The way the space station sways when outside debris collides with it, the subtle shimmer effect on mimic objects, but my favourite detail, perhaps in any game ever, is that every single corpse is named and trackable in Prey. If you find an audio log telling you David Russel went into the vents in the cargo bay, that is where you will find him. That is the kind of detail no one in the industry does. Every time I enter a new area in Prey, I am excited, trying to find all the details in the environment. Sure, the combat is kinda bad, and it is way too long, but it hits every part of my brain that thinks, ‘That’s a good fucking video game right there’. It sure would be nice if Arkane Austin got the chance to improve on a sequel, right Microsoft? Right?!
Runners Up: Super Mario 64, Mafia Definitive Edition
Best Character: Heismay (Metaphor: Refantazio)
Atlus and the Persona team don’t have the best track record for adult characters in their JRPGs. Even if you ignore the ‘adult dating a high school student’ thing (which is gross, and I wish they would stop), most of their adult stories aren’t great. Remember Eri from Persona 4 or Ichiko from Persona 5? If you do, it’s because you looked it up. What makes Heismay such an excellent character in Metaphor: Refantazio is that it is an adult character with an adult story that hits its perfect balance of tragedy and touching, which is so hard to hit in video games. It doesn’t just touch upon the ‘Child dies and Dad is sad’ trope but goes beyond that to a deeper degree. How do you carry on with what happened? How do you forgive yourself for your actions? How does the community around you respond? These are all questions that Metaphor goes into with Heismay, and it was honestly one of the most moving things I’ve seen in a game. It is so refreshing to see a character written about dealing with grief that isn’t just a violent asshole. I must credit Philippe Spall, the actor who played Heismay, who, despite looking like a weird freaky white bat, gave him that gravely but earnest performance that goes beyond his appearances and matches him so perfectly. I can’t imagine anyone else voicing him.
Runners Up: King Shark (Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League), Jeff the Land Shark (Marvel Rivals)
Best Music: Metaphor: Refantazio
That motherfucker Shoji Meguro, he has done it again. How the fuck can one person go through so many different styles and genres of music and completely smash it every single time? It is honestly baffling how good the soundtrack to Metaphor: Refantazio is. Every single range of scene and emotion has Shoji Meguro put out his absolute finest. From the hauntingly beautiful ‘Call of Magic’, the subtly mysterious ‘Ode to Heroes’ to the bombastic ‘Warriors in Arms’ and the triumphant ‘Verge of Life and Death’. The Metaphor: Refantazio soundtrack is just relentless in its ability to draw you into the moods of the game, whether it’s a touching moment with a dear comrade or a bloody battle with a bitter rival. Based on the current trajectory, the next game soundtrack Shoji Meguro puts out might actually kill me.
Runners Up: Persona 3 Reload, Selaco
Best Additional Content: Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Halo 2 E3 2003 Demo
‘Digsite’ is a small single-player level released for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It is incredibly buggy, barely playable, generously about five minutes long, and it is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever played. 21 years ago, Bungie, in the lead-up to the release of Halo 2, put out a gameplay trailer of Master Chief going through the city streets of New Mombasa. You can dual-wield sub-machines, shoot a new single-shot rifle, and did he just kick that Brute out of that ghost?! It was the first trailer I ever obsessed over. I watched a 480p rip of it from a PC demo disc over and over again for a year leading up to Halo 2, and you could imagine the mild disappointment when I saw that level was cut from the game. I never thought I would ever play that demo in a million years, but in November of this year, they released a build of it for everyone to enjoy. Releasing cut content like this is a trend I want to see get more traction. The only time we ever get to play some of this stuff ourselves is when it is leaked, and that can be tricky both in a legal sense and as a technical challenge. The fact that 343i got a small team of modders together to put this out for the world to see is something I wish more developers did. Not just for preservation but just to see a peak behind the curtain. Could you imagine if Blizzard released an official build of Warcraft Adventures or Gearbox officially releasing the 2001 build of Duke Nukem Forever? With Digsite, we can get closer to more of this stuff happening in the future.
Runners Up: Doom + Doom II - Legacy of Rust, World of Warcraft - 20th Anniversary Event
Best 'Video Game Related Thing That's Not Actually A Video Game’: Invincible Finally Dropping After 15 Years
Two significant events in my life happened this year. One of them was the culmination of 7 years of late-night studying, exam-induced panic attacks and months of hard, unpaid labour when I finally graduated from university to become an officially accredited teacher. The other event was getting a flying skeleton horse from a World of Warcraft boss. The horse was still the most significant. For 15 years, I’ve been trying to get this stupid mount ever since I read Christie Golden’s ‘Arthas: Rise of the Lich King’. Arthas is one of my favourite fictional characters. He was a paladin prince so hell-bent on protecting his kingdom from the forces of evil that it consumed him to the point he became the very force of evil that destroyed his kingdom. It's a classic tale of tragedy I have adored ever since Warcraft 3. So the fact that I could get his beloved horse, Invincible, in World of Warcraft just made me so happy. So when Icecrown Citadel became low-level enough to be soloable, I began to farm. I do not know precisely how many times I did it, but it had to be hundreds of times. I did this on and off for nearly 15 years. Every time I had a spare moment in the week, I’d take all my levelled WoW characters to Icecrown for another chance at getting that 0.8% chance to drop. Finally, on August 11th, 2024, it happened. I had never been happier in my life. It might sound stupid to be so emotionally invested in a mount where the wings are just 2D textures, but when you work at something for so long that means so much to you when it does finally happen, it just becomes a pure joy moment whether it's a university degree or some low texture quality horse. When it feels like the whole world is going to hell, we should allow ourselves to have moments like these and cherish them.
Runners Up: Tom Walker's GTA IV Playthrough Series, Steam Deck OLED
The Unity Lifetime Achievement Award for Most Baffling Decision: Microsoft Ditching Tango Gameworks
When your company has been taking L after L over the last ten years, those rare times you do get that W is all the more critical. Microsoft has been on a downward slope ever since the disaster that was the Xbox One launch, and they have been desperately trying to claw its way back, whether it is doing fantastic work with backward compatibility, creating accessible gaming controllers or putting out its first-party software on release with Game Pass. Microsoft had that rare W moment with Tango Gameworks and their latest release, Hi-Fi Rush, a gorgeous and slick game that uses rhythm as a unique mechanic as an interesting twist to an action game. Now, personally, I did not care much for Hi-Fi Rush as I don’t really like games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, but I could even see the quality that Tango put into it, and it showed in its critical reception. People love this game, and while sales were modest, it was clear Microsoft had a fresh new IP that could become even bigger with an improved sequel alongside better marketing.
Then Microsoft fucking killed it and, with that, lost all confidence in the audience. I still cannot believe Microsoft killed Tango Gameworks. Hi-Fi Rush might have been the most exciting new IP Microsoft has had since Crackdown, and they threw it all away for nothing. They have been looking for something like Hi-Fi Rush for years, and they fucking had it. The only saving grace is that Tango and the Hi-Fi Rush IP was sold to Krafton, so there is at least some chance of a sequel. Congratulations to the dipshits running Microsoft.
Runners Up: Concord (The Whole Thing), Embracer Group’s Stupid Renaming & Friends
Life Ruiner Award For Game I Spent Too Much Time Playing: Satisfactory
I’m not joking when I say this: Satisfactory for about three weeks was actively wrecking my life. I was deep in that factory building hole to the point it was affecting my day-to-day. Regular eating times were a thing of the past; housework was neglected, sleep schedules were ruined, and whenever I had to do something else, all I would think about was improving my factory at the expense of every other thought. Play sessions ballooned to absurd lengths. I actually got the 12-hour playtime warning notice multiple times. I stopped talking to my friends and barely saw my family. For three weeks, all I did was play Satisfactory. It was bad. It was 2009 World of Warcraft bad. In total, I clocked about 90 hours during that short period of time, and I have no doubt I would have gotten worse had I not stopped. What broke me from Satisfactory’s evil grip was finally getting to the final tier, seeing all the work I would have to do to rework my factory again, and just giving up. I had already spent dozens of hours reworking my spaghetti mess of a factory before, but I would be required to do it again to get nuclear power, which was enough for me to step away. Satisfactory is an evil work of the Devil. Curse you, Coffee Stain Studios, for inflicting this upon my soul!
Runners Up: Balatro, World of Warcraft: The War Within
Most Anticipated Game of 2025: Grand Theft Auto VI
I don’t think there is a piece of media, real or hypothetical, that will be more anticipated than Grand Theft Auto VI. Even games like Half-Life 3 or a Bloodborne remake only appeal to a hardcore audience. Grand Theft Auto VI appeals to the mainstream audience in the most significant way possible. Every single adult with a tangential relationship with video games will buy consoles to play Grand Theft Auto VI. Everyone I know and everyone you know will be playing it when it releases next year. It will probably be the last time a video game release will be an event that news outlets will report on. Businesses will be forced to close because so many people will be absent from work on release. The world will stop for at least a day because of Grand Theft Auto VI. Even if you think I’m exaggerating, if I asked you what game has the highest chance of this actually happening, it would be Grand Theft Auto VI. There is a reason publishers are scared to announce dates for their 2025 releases, and it’s because they don’t want to be anywhere near Grand Theft Auto VI. How can it not win?
Runners Up: Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Ghost of Yotei
Game of the Year 2024
#10 - Shadows of Doubt
Shadow of Doubt is the detective game I’ve been dreaming about for a long time. Finally, a game that allows me to collect evidence, chase down witnesses and make my own deductions to find the killer. Its procedurally generated world, while a bit janky, sets a perfect mood for a neon-lit city block filled with misfits, criminals, and degenerates. Even though it is still unpolished and unfinished in its current state, I still believe it is worth wading through the bugged ventilation shafts and wonky AI behaviours to experience a video game that is truly unique.
#9 - Another Crab’s Treasure
As someone 100% sick of FromSoftware-styled action games, Another Crab’s Treasure is such a wonderful breath of fresh air. It is a wonderfully creative game that uses its premise and setting to full effect. It was a delight to go through its fantastically designed worlds just to see how they incorporated the plastic waste dumped in the sea. The Shell system was a great take of equipment, and the characters were all fun little weirdos that I loved interacting with. If Rare made a Dark Souls clone, it would be a game like Another Crab’s Treasure.
#8 - Helldivers II
Helldivers II has an intensity only a few games have. The feeling of your team barely hanging on while not being overly punishing is hard to balance and maintain, but Helldivers II does it with ease. It has such weight to the shooting and movement that makes it wholly unique to the genre. It just feels excellent mowing down a horde of fucked up looking bugs or seeing a bunch of Terminator-looking robots crumble to piles of metal. Helldivers II proves that you can have a successful multiplayer-only game that does not resort to excessive microtransactions and high time commitments. We need more games like Helldivers II.
#7 - Marvel Rivals
Marvel Rivals is the game I wished Overwatch 2 was. It is a beautiful and well-crafted hero-based shooter that is not afraid to try different things, whether it’s the destructible cover, team-up abilities or using obscure Marvel characters like Jeff the Land Shark and Squirrel Girl. Yes, it is an Overwatch clone unashamedly, but it does the fundamentals well enough to stand on its own easily. Marvel Rivals is going to be my hero shooter of choice until Blizzard unfucks Overwatch 2.
#6 - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I don’t know why it took so long for an excellent Indiana Jones game, but the Great Circle certainly delivers on that front. It is a very rare game that actually feels like it's from the franchise it is using. It has the hallmarks of classic Indiana Jones movies translated into games: great action combat, inventful puzzles, gorgeous environments, excellent performances and writing that you could have sworn came from Spielberg and Lucas themselves. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle already feels like a modern-day classic.
#5 - Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload has everything I want from a faithful remake: keeping intact the core fundamentals that made the original great, like the story, characters and combat system, but tweaking enough things to make it feel fresh. Big things like Theurgy attacks are great to see, but the more minor things are what make the difference. For example, having all levels of social links completely voiced is such a great touch. It gives me hope that Persona 6 will be as good, if not better, than Persona 3 Reload.
#4 - Metaphor: Refantazio
Games like Metaphor: Refantazio is the reason why RPGs are my favourite genre. There is nothing like being brought into a unique world, experiencing its story and engaging with its characters. What makes Metaphor so excellent is that it is not afraid to tell you what it's about. In a time when publishers try so hard to stay as apolitical as possible, Metaphor embraces its themes with a style and gusto that only Katsura Hashino and his team can provide. Excellent soundtrack, engaging combat, exquisite progression systems and the best UI design you will ever see. Metaphor: Refantazio is defining original JRPGs for this generation.
#3 - Selaco
Selaco is the pure video game. Just an exceptional first-person shooter that understands what makes boomer shooters work. Its fluid movement and feedback systems are some of the best in the world. Every time you first see a bullet that flies through a glass window and into some dude’s head, it taps into that primordial monkey part of your brain that just adores fucking shit up. I don’t normally put early-access games on my top ten list, but even with half the game missing, it is still polished to mirror shine with hours of content to back it up. It is the best modern boomer shooter released in the last 5 years and one of the greatest early access releases of all time.
#2 - Balatro
Balatro is not one of those games that comes out every few years. It is one of those games that comes out once in a generation. Games like Tetris or Peggle understand that you can be one of the best games ever made if you develop and polish one concept to perfection. It is a game that is so simple to understand, hard to master, but infinitely replayable. I can very much see myself playing this game for decades and still not get tired of it. Balatro is one of those rare ‘forever games’ that will last well after I’m dead.
#1 - Satisfactory
Satisfactory broke me.
Every time I play Satisfactory, it consumes me wholly. I don’t think about anything other than what I’m doing and what I need to do. It builds upon and exploits the bad part of my brain that likes organising and planning things, but it never stops. You are always building towards something else in Satisfactory, and it is always something you want. Whether it's better power generation, advanced transport, or efficient resource gathering with every step you take, the worse that part of your brain gets. You unlock fuel generators for power? It's time to spend 2 hours building out a refinery. Need more screws? Spend an hour running halfway across the map to build a dedicated screw factory. Made enough Smart Plating for Tier 2? Spend 2 hours redoing the constructor network to convert it into making Versatile Frameworks. After a few hours, it culminates into you getting up to get some lunch and seeing it’s 8:30 at night.
That is what Satisfactory does to me. It just consumes all the hours of my day and turns it into a plastic container production line. It does this not through any obvious nefarious means but through pure craftsmanship. The developers at Coffee Stain Studios made a factory game for factory sickos but made it accessible and engaging enough for regular people to turn them into factory sickos. Despite how complex it can get, the game is almost entirely bug-free, the game performs excellently, and the dialogue is witty and enjoyable but not frequent enough to be annoying. The one thing that made it crystal clear that Satisfactory was made with love, care, and attention is that the massive world was hand-crafted. It wasn’t until I started playing with a friend that I realised it was not procedurally generated but crafted by talented designers who knew what they were doing. Any other factory game at this scale would have done procedural generation, but Satisfactory cares enough to ensure the world you are playing in is interesting and beautiful.
I’ll probably die of malnourishment if I start another playthrough, but despite that, I still would call it my Game of the Year for 2024.