The GOTY review of 2024 (updated)
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
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Simply because of what it appears to be on the surface, 420BLAZEIT2: GAME OF THE YEAR -=Dank Dreams and Goated Memes=- [#wow/11 Like and Subscribe] Poggerz Edition will not be winning any GOTY awards. Which is a shame, because it definitely wins my award. Underneath the appearance of offensive amounts of 2014 brainrot is a genuinely fun and well-designed shooter with a lot of creative setpieces and weapons, and a plot that manages some interesting developments despite a lack of narrative depth. It's better than Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, anyway.
Animal Well is extremely well-designed and clever, but unfortunately it's a little bit too clever for me. I wasn't able to figure out how to get through the last part of it, and it's the kind of game where I really don't feel right looking at walkthroughs, so it's probably just going to sit in my library unfinished forever. Not that I regret playing it, but go into it with your expectations of your own ability to solve it tempered somewhat.
Balatro is just fun.
Regarding games that didn't come out in 2024, but that I first played this year (I forgot to make the thread and this one kinda took it over a little), Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow manages to balance all the elements of the latter Castlevania games in a way that, out of the ones I've played, only Symphony of the Night really managed. And Aria beats Symphony on level design by not having the Inverted Castle, making a game that while a little bit short is still a great time for its whole runtime.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is not bad. I wouldn't say it's as good as the 7th-gen titles, but it at least doesn't fall flat on its face like Ghosts, Infinite Warfare, or any of the titles developed by Sledgehammer Games. There's one mission that's legitimately peak, and several that are just kinda there (especially the side missions, minus the puzzles you have to solve before starting them). If you have any hope at all for modern Call of Duty, it'll probably help reinforce that idea, but it won't change your mind if you don't.
Animal Well is extremely well-designed and clever, but unfortunately it's a little bit too clever for me. I wasn't able to figure out how to get through the last part of it, and it's the kind of game where I really don't feel right looking at walkthroughs, so it's probably just going to sit in my library unfinished forever. Not that I regret playing it, but go into it with your expectations of your own ability to solve it tempered somewhat.
Balatro is just fun.
Regarding games that didn't come out in 2024, but that I first played this year (I forgot to make the thread and this one kinda took it over a little), Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow manages to balance all the elements of the latter Castlevania games in a way that, out of the ones I've played, only Symphony of the Night really managed. And Aria beats Symphony on level design by not having the Inverted Castle, making a game that while a little bit short is still a great time for its whole runtime.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is not bad. I wouldn't say it's as good as the 7th-gen titles, but it at least doesn't fall flat on its face like Ghosts, Infinite Warfare, or any of the titles developed by Sledgehammer Games. There's one mission that's legitimately peak, and several that are just kinda there (especially the side missions, minus the puzzles you have to solve before starting them). If you have any hope at all for modern Call of Duty, it'll probably help reinforce that idea, but it won't change your mind if you don't.
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Tunic is just amazing at every level. Though I got several manual pages outside the expected order because I accidentally stumbled upon the HOLY CROSS super early in the game. I actually didn't realize that what I was using was the HOLY CROSS mentioned in the manual until much, much later.
If you like the language translation stuff as a core mechanic, check out Heaven's Vault. It's a few years old now, but the language is interesting enough to play with. It's not just a modified substitution cipher like Tunic's language, though it does use English-like word order.
I know of it and it's in my wishlist. It never goes on sale so it keeps ranking down, but I'll probably just up and buy it sooner rather than later.
Chants of Sennaar is another fun game about translating and correlating different languages, although it's a little too forgiving with the guesswork, and the arcady bits are a little hit and miss.