Ah jeez, I’m only a month late posting this here.

2024 wasn’t the greatest year for me, personally, but throughout all the highs & lows, my favourite hobby sustains me. I’ve loved video games since that first time I interacted with an NES at my childhood babysitter’s and I REALLY wish I’d given Twitch a chance years before I finally did. In the end, there were plenty of games to play and escape from reality with. Some good, some boring, some heart-wrenching and some cathartic. The real world wasn’t great, but 2024 was a stellar year for gaming. 😉

Usual rule, my friends: these don’t have to be 2024 releases to qualify. Case in point:

10) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

It took 16 years and a PS5 re-release, but I’m happy I’ve finally experienced this gem for more than 90 minutes. It’s so weird playing OoE now because many times throughout, all I could think was “oh, THIS is where Bloodstained got that idea.” I wish I hadn’t burned out on 2D Castlevanias back in the day before really experiencing this game, because it’s fantastic.

9) Rollerdrome

Imagine a Tony Hawk game but the tricks you performed filled your gun ammo and there were dozens of people on the course trying to kill you as you did tricks. That’s Rollerdrome. It’s fun and cathartic AF.

8) LEGO Horizon Adventures

Oh, what a surprise, T-Prime has a Horizon game in his Top 10. 😁😂 In a year in which I fully committed to my inner fanboy and built an actual, physical Lego Tallneck set, Lego Horizon Adventures scratched a great itch. It’s fun, colourful and funny, something that never really realized the Horizon universe had in it. It was nice to be proven wrong.

7) Silent Hill 2

The Silent Hill 2 remake is a flummoxing game. I want to love it more but it seems to fight me at every turn, which may kinda be on theme now that I think about it. It reminds me of games like RE7 in one specific way: it does its job far too well, ‘cause every time I play it I start to feel sad and depressed. The atmosphere is second-to-none, the story plumbs depths I wish I’d never plumbed, the puzzles actually make me use my brain and the combat AAAAHHH LEGS IN MY FACE LEGS IN MY FACE SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH!

6) A Plague Tale: Requiem

Requiem does everything I’d hoped a sequel to Innocence would do. The puzzles are still make you think a little without being too head-scratching, the setpieces are still feasts for the eyes, Amicia and Hugo are still equal parts adorable and slamming-head-on-desk annoying, the rats are more terrifying and the combat is still frustrating, therefore still satisfying to pull off properly. It adds a couple of tweaks to an already-outstanding formula and perfectly encapsulates the expression “if you aren’t going to do anything new, at least do everything right.”

5) Astro Bot

When you just can’t shake yourself out of a bad mood, sometimes exactly what you need is a silly, adorable & extremely well-controlling platformer about a robot trying to rescue his fellow bot friends from a mean alien. I was not a PS1 kid so that nostalgia does nothing for me, but I enjoyed the heck outta Astro’s Playroom, so a fuller, denser sequel to that? Yes! Yes please.

4) Sea of Stars

Speaking of fuller and denser, Zale and Valere’s story is filled with so many fantastic genre tropes, but it’s the numerous in-game modifiers that make it easier to progress the story than any of the many JRPG’s of the 1990s that Sea of Stars takes inspiration from. I loved the characters almost immediately, it looks stunning, the music rocks, and even with the difficulty equips the combat feels challenging and satisfying. I appreciate this game for the same reason I appreciated FF XVI: it doesn’t waste my time. It lets me get to the good stuff, and oh boy is there a lot of good stuff.

3) Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Six full playthroughs of Life is Strange over the years has solidified it as one of my favourite games of all time, and I really thought I was done with Max Caulfield’s story. Imagine my shock when Double Exposure was announced, and my further delight when it turned out to be everything I could’ve hoped for and wanted out of a continuation.

I am fully aware that another path exists, but I went with the “someone dies at the end of LiS” starting path and Max is still dealing with her trauma. The pain she still feels after ten years was also mine, and dealing with it while also trying to solve a fresh murder along with Max was cleansing for me. Max’s confusion at her powers reemerging was my confusion, her discomfort at being asked about her past was my discomfort, her horror at the revelations that came about was my horror and her resolve to solve the new mystery was my resolve. My joy at seeing her again was all my own, however. 🥲

2) Alan Wake II

Playing the first Alan Wake was an incredibly unique experience that I didn’t think could be matched, so imagine how I felt when its successor blew me out of the water. I’m only slightly perturbed that I played Control before either Alan Wake and learned the Remedyverse lore in the wrong order 😆 but so be it. I ultimately believe that was a helpful thing. I had replayed Control on a bit of a whim, then got interested enough in the breadcrumbs of lore that its DLC drops to finally crack open Alan Wake, then almost immediately jumped into Alan Wake II,  and my god what a rollercoaster ride.

Judging Alan Wake II on its own merits, it is a heck of a game. I usually felt unnerved AF regardless of whether I was in reality or The Dark Place, but I was also intrigued and curious enough to want to press on, looking for answers. It walks the line between mystery and horror very well, and the times it needs to indulge itself with crazy musical numbers add to the surreal feeling quite amazingly, so much so that I’ve been listening to chunks of the soundtrack on my own for months now. It isn’t quite perfect; there are a few obtuse puzzles and my completionism brain makes some sections drag pretty badly looking for cooler lock combos and FBC dolls, but Alan Wake II is a stunning achievement that I’m sad I can only experience for the first time once.

1) Stellar Blade

I’m almost embarrassed that I enjoy Stellar Blade as much as I do, but I also finally realize that I shouldn’t worry about that anymore. Yes, it’s true that Eve is eye-candy personified but this game turned out to contain something deep and incredibly fun to play the further I dug. Like Bayonetta and Lollipop Chainsaw before it, its sheer & audacious spectacle and the combat’s decent learning-curve make it hit an incredibly satisfying sweet spot. After a false start, it quickly became one of those, “oh god, is THAT the time already??” games that I love.

The setup of Stellar Blade is good, dumb clichéd fun: cyborgs try to defend a ruined Earth from alien invaders, aliens wipe the floor with most of the cyborgs, the last cyborg soldier Eve must fight her way through several dungeons and an open-world full of incredibly gross monsters to reclaim Earth for humanity. Yes I know, “how original”, but it’s presented so well and so ardently that I bought into it.

I don’t quite know what I was expecting on the whole when I started this game. Once I got past the tutorial section, it seemed to be a linear, level-based hack-and-slash in the aforementioned Bayonetta mold for the first few hours, with some of the most beautifully-haunting background music I’ve heard in a video game. When the hub city was unveiled and it opened up into a game with sidequests, errands, collectibles, several dozen costumes to unlock and tiny bits of world building everywhere I looked, I think I actually, physically rubbed my hands with glee. An open world game with plentiful mysteries to solve, jaw-dropping scenery & combat that hurts but never reaches the level of “unfair?” Yes please! Would I have stuck around to learn and love said combat system if Eve didn’t look the way she does? Maybe. I really don’t know. But I enjoy the combat nonetheless. I want to push through and get better at it, but it also doesn’t feel like it’s punishing me too harshly if I just need to button-mash my way out of a fight, as long as I also remember how to dodge and heal and make ample use of the many skills I’ve learned and leveled up.

Eve and her stoic earnestness, Lily’s bubbly optimism perfectly contrasting with Adam’s gruffness, several twists and turns that left me dizzy yet excited, there are a thousand more things I could mention and ramble on about, but I’ll try to keep this pithy: Stellar Blade blew me away this year. There were some incredible video games the past twelve months, some great competition, and it was a bit of a close race in the end. But when I sit down and really ponder it, I feel confident in saying that Stellar Blade is my 2024 Game of the Year. May your memories live on forever, Angel.

(Originally published January 28, 2025)