Gaming Year in Review 2024
January
The Talos Principle
I replayed this for a short bit, but didn't finish it. It's as good as I remembered.
For the King 2
I did not beat this game. The battlefield for it felt like a meaningless addition, and the overall presentation felt like a step down from For The King 1.
Inscryption
I replayed this for a short bit to try out the roguelike mode in it. It is a good game, but in my opinion it does not really have that much replay value.
Alien Hominid HD
I played this for a short bit. It also came with Alien Hominid Invasion. It's a metal slug-like shoot 'em up, and for the time it was a great game, but nowadays I think it's kind of meh.
Among Us
I must've played it with friends in January. The game sucks unless you have 8 people to play it with. With 5 players you have 1 imposter, which means it's very quick to find who's the bad guy as there's not much alibi you can use. With 6 players you have 2 imposters which rigs the game in their favour, as if they get 2 kills, it becomes 2v2 and is an auto win. As a result, 8 players is where it's interesting. Compared to Gmod TTT where 6 players can make for an interesting game, this just means I don't play much with friends. The matchmaking for it sucks.
February
Hyper Light Drifter
I must've played it briefly in February. Highly recommend this game, I've played it from start to finish at least 4 times in the past.
March
Slipways
Ok strategy game, lasts about an hour for each playthrough. I didn't really get it.
The Citadel
Gory, almost fetishistic first person shooter. It has some interesting ideas with gunplay and, the feedback from the guns and shooting in this game is quite unlike any others, but very visceral and satisfying and contrasts harshly and nicely with the otherwise clean aesthetic. I beat this game and it took me 5 and a half hours to beat from start to finish. The environments are mostly forgettable, and it is seriously held back by it's wolfenstein 3D level design, as most levels are just glorified mazes and key hunts. Towards the end, its idea of difficulty turns into spamming hordes of enemies, which isn't very interesting.
Death of a Wish
I just lost interest in this one after playing half an hour, but I think it's because it does the same things as its predecessor, Lucah Born of a Dream.
Pseudoregalia
Phenomenal 3D platformer game. Had a blast playing through it from star to finish. It falls into the Super Mario 64 category of 3D platformers where it's easy to pick up, but has a very high skill ceiling, partly down to how it handles wall jumping in a proper way and not in a lazy way. I beat this game and it took me 4 and a half hours.
No One Lives Under The Lighthouse
Short horror game. I feel like it runs out of steam towards the half way point and starts doing horror exploration which it fails badly at. The first half of the game is very interesting though, and it presents for the first time to me, 2nd person perspective gameplay, where you see through the monster's eyes as it chases you, and you control yourself running away. It's a bit gimmicky, but interesting in its presentation. I beat this game and it took me 2 hours.
Perspective
Very strange and unusual free game. It comes from the Digipen institute of technology so it's from a game development school. The idea is pretty much controlling yourself in a 3D environment and switching in and out of platformer mode. When you're in platformer mode, where you are in the 3d environment determines how gravity works, what's a blocking wall etc. It took me 40 minutes to beat this game, but it was unique and I really enjoyed it and would like more experiences like this. The puzzles fit into the easier side of things, demonstrating a cool idea, but not punishing people hard for that idea.
Ultrakill
This is a very popular boomer shooter FPS game. I played it for half an hour but the controls and everything about it felt a bit jank. I'm sure it deserves its popularity, but it felt rough to play. Perhaps I'll come back to it in the future.
April
Content Warning
Ok game about exploring random places and making videos in it. Personally, I don't think it has much staying power, and I felt that in how friends would rarely ask to play it.
The Battle of Polytopia
Replayed this following the spies update. It really changes things up and means there's no longer a clear "optimal strategy" in this game now. I enjoy this. It still suffers from a snowball effect where after a certain point it's clear who the winner in domination is, but it's just a slow slog from then onwards. The points gamemode in it is more balanced, but feels less cool than its domination gamemode sadly.
Fallout 76
Replayed this. Surprisingly, it's more fun than how it was on release, but still feels relatively lifeless compared to Fallout 4.
HYPER DEMON
Sequel to Devil Daggers. I enjoyed it, but found it harder to enjoy than Devil Daggers. It certainly has a very psychedelic aesthetic though.
Guns of Icarus Online
Fun steampunk gunship game. In my opinion, it's not as fun with 2 people. Better as a game with 3-4 players.
May
7 Days to Die
Has major performance issues. Played it for 20 minutes, could not get it to run smoothly without looking at the floor. Likely due to it not doing any occlusion culling, or being cheap around the culling techniques.
Ion Fury
I originally beat this a few years ago. I came back to this for the Aftershock DLC. I didn't beat it or get too far in it, not due to any fault in it, but just didn't have the interest in it. I would highly recommend this game to fans of Duke Nukem, Blood or any other Build engine shooter. Alternatively I'd recommend it to fans of DOOM.
Barotrauma
I beat this game with friends all the way to the end. It's a great submarine game, and arguably the only one that I've found that's any good. Unfortunately it has a lot of downtime in it.
Balatro
I feel like I only put in 30 minutes into this game, but put in 15 hours. It's an exceptionally good roguelike deck builder where each run isn't too long. It's also one of the few games to do a single player poker-like gameplay in a fun way.
June
Portal
I revisited Portal to get 100% achievements in it. It's bloody hard in the challenges. Some are downright unfair like the fewest foosteps challenge as it's a physics game where it behaves badly, and I swear that the devs built these challenges asking plays to take advantage of speedrunner bugs and exploits. The base game is fun, the challenges are evil and rubbish. The advanced levels are just the regular levels with a few gimmicks making it a bit trickier.
The Looker
A witness parody game. Free, I spent an hour on it. Most parody games(Like Myst's Pyst) do a bad job, but this one respects the source material and is also very cheeky about it. I liked it a lot.
Terraria + TModloader
Played through Terraria using TModloader to play the Calamity mod. In my opinion... the Calamity mod adds mostly extraneous stuff that doesn't substantially make the game more interesting.
Helltaker
I replayed this to get 100%, but also to do the expansion that was added to it. The expansion is very tricky and time based, so I didn't enjoy it as much as the base game, but it's still a fun experience. Took me 2 hours in total.
Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior
For some reason this was a separate game. See the entry for viscera cleanup detail further below.
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
For some reason, I got this for free with SUPERHOT ages ago. I beat this for 100% achievements. The final achievement required leaving the game up for 2 hours, which is a bad achievement and a waste of electricity. The game itself had some interesting ideas, that does change the gameplay up a bit, but I would have preferred well designed scenarios around them like in SUPERHOT, as opposed to in SH:MCD.
Mandagon
Basic platforming game. I replayed this to get 100% achievements and it was a pleas t erience. Will take you like 45 minutes to beat.
Forage
I 100%'d this game. This game starts out strong and interesting, but towards the end, it gets tiresome and boring. One of those games that I'd say, try it out, have some fun, but expect it to stop being interesting as you get later into the game.
Risk of Rain(2013)
Replayed to quickly get the last achievement I was missing(Drown 20 Whorls). It's as fun as I remember, but Risk of Rain Returns does a good job remastering it.
Delver
Replayed this for a few games. It's a first person roguelike dungeon crawl, that clearly follows the footsteps of Nethack or Rogue. I enjoy it a lot.
Braid
I somehow slept on Braid for a decade and a half, but played it this year, and it was incredibly inspiring. I beat it in about 4 hours.
Teleglitch: Die More Edition
Replayed it for old times sake. Top down crunchy and difficult roguelike.
Risk of Rain Returns
Excellent remaster of Risk of Rain. That said, the providence trials can get a bit frustrating, and some of the alternate abilities feel like they don't exist for the game, but for a gimmicky trial.
A Short Hike
Excellent game that I'd describe as a "small open world" game It doesn't overstay its welcome and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It took me 5 hours to get all achievements in it, but the average playthrough would only be like an hour or 2.
Portal 2
I revisited this to get all achievements. Some of the multiplayer achievements were fiendishly difficult, and I enjoyed them a lot. They're almost puzzles in their own right. Portal 2 is a game I'd highly recommend, even though the narrative makes it feel like it's a puzzle game that thinks its players hate puzzle games and changes things up every other room.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Very good detective game. One of few games that lets me use my cultural knowledge and feel like a genius for it. The game took me about 10 hours to beat, but given the steam achievements say 44% of players have beaten the game... that's either some impressive staying power, or I'm a dumbass.
Moonring
Interesting little roguelike. It's free on steam, so I'd recommend getting it, and it's a game I played and said I'd return to but didn't. I'll return to it some day...
Project Zomboid
Highly recommended. Best zombie survival game out there. And the steam workshop easily makes it best in its class. Imo, it suffers for multiplayer with more than 2 players though, as the game is a slower burn, meaning you need to organise a lot of sessions to get a lot out of it.
The Basement Collection
Mainly played this to replay through TIME FCUK, as I remembered enjoying that puzzle game when I was much younger. Still enjoy it. Plus it's an Edmund Mcmillen game, so I'd recommend it to any fan of Super Meat Boy or Binding of Isaac.
July
The Beginner's Guide
An exploration of some guys dead and forgotten projects as a game dev. Interesting narrative game. I beat it in 90 minutes. It also does a good job of criticising critics who look for deeper meaning in art.
The Binding of Isaac
This was the Flash version. I replayed this to go through and get 100% achievements. It was bloody hard, but felt very rewarding to do so. The 30fps hardcap makes it a bit difficult though. Going back to it, I prefer that old art style over the new Rebirth Art Style. The hardmode difficulty is very hard, and it lacks items that are an "instant win" unlike in Binding of Isaac Rebirth.
Disco Elysium
I played this for a short while. I enjoyed what I played of it for 3 hours, but the lack of autosave after a discussion meant I lost a lot of progress and got frustrated and left it. Someday I'll return to it since the game is very cool...
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
I played this to play some borderlands game. I'm going to be honest, I think Gearbox has no idea how to make a fun and interesting borderlands game anymore sadly, with Borderlands 2 being the last good borderlands game. I recommend against this game.
August
Totally Accurate Battlegrounds
Interesting physics based PUBG-like game. I'm not a fan of it, though it is free. Played it for 20 minutes.
FPS Chess
Strange chess game where when you take a piece, it becomes a 1v1 between 2 pieces with different abilities depending on what piece it is. It's a free Digipen institute game. It's hard to be too critical of a student game, but with this, my only problem is that whoever has higher raw FPS skill, wins, and that the Chess-based knowledge isn't really used. It's a fine gimmick but Straftat(look below) does the 1v1 style of game better.
Muck
Strange free rust-like but not really rust-like survival-ish game. I played like 5 hours of it. Once you beat it, there's almost no reason to go back and replay it.
Chained Together
Very frustrating 3D platformer about jumping while chained to a friend. I played 6 hours of it. It's a fun gimmick at first, but quickly becomes rage inducing.
Dark Souls Remastered
I played a lot of this. I have yet to go back and finish it off, but as far as I know, I was close to finishing it. Contrasting this to Elden Ring, I preferred this, as its style of exploring the world was a lot more fun to me.
Dread Delusion
I played it for a short bit. It has performance issues for me on Linux. It didn't used to have these issues in Early Access... for now I can't recommend it sadly..... :(
Castle Crashers
Replaying it for fun! :D Just as good as it was on Xbox 360. Also, the Painter Boss DLC will be interesting to see when it releases.
Tiny Breakers Camp
Interesting pixelated breakout-style game with spells and treasure but it sucks from a control perspective and all the levels are the same, with nothing notable as you get further in it. I dropped this one shortly after.
September
Lorn's Lure
Aesthetically very unique, but gameplay-wise... it's mostly just a walking simulator except now they made it walking on walls. Feels like they should've done some kind of physics system for that, closer to what White Knuckle does.
Deadlock
I got to see it it early. I am really not a fan of Deadlock. The game feels bad to play as an FPS, and the MOBA knowledge requirement is also a big turn off for me. Only played 3 hours of it and overall? Meh.
Antichamber
Replayed it for fun. Just as unique as always.
October
The Witness
Exceptional puzzle game. It'll take you ~20 hours to beat imo. It took me 30 because I'd beaten it once before last year This time, I didn't use a single guide, which made it all so much more enjoyable.
Viscera Cleanup detail: Santa's Rampage
See below. For some reason the Christmas DLC is its own game.
Viscera Cleanup Detail
Physics based garbage disposal and clean up game. This doesn't have any staying power if you're playing it singleplayer, but with a friend, or as a streaming game, it's got a lot, as it's very laid back, repetitive and simple. That said, while a lot of levels have cool or interesting gimmicks, a lot equally do not have interesting gimmicks and are a boring slog to clean up. The DLC levels were by far the most interesting, but also the longest clean up. I definitely preferred the levels with a lot of easter eggs in them. It took me and a friend about 80 hours to beat the game in total.
Super Hexagon
I returned to this to get the last dastardly achievement. It's a very good game for what it does, but is very hard.
SUPERHOT
I returned to this game to get the last few achievements. Unlike SUPERHOT MIND CONTROL DELETE, the achievements it has, are a lot more interesting. That said, I feel like some of the challenges should've been removed, as they are irrelevant next to some later challenges. Overall, a fun game that I'd highly recommend.
Polarity
Short, fairly easy puzzle game that I played for 3 hours and 100%. I wouldn't recommend it as it has some bugs and issues in it. In particular, if the framerate isn't locked to 60fps, which there's no ingame setting to do this, some of your jump presses i ot be registered.
Stacklands
I returned to this to 100% it. It's a short game about 4-5 hours long. I had fun with it, but it's fairly forgettable.
All Our Asias
A walking simulator game, with a narrative that focuses more on the topic of what it means to be asian. I thought it was ok, but the developer's other games, Anodyne for example, are better.
For the King
A very fun board-game like roguelike that is great to play with 3 friends. I enjoy this more than For the King 2.
Nodebuster
Fairly simple game that's a sort of Vampire Survivor's like game, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and it has an end to it. About 3 and a half hours long.
November
Quake Live
Played to compare it to Quake 3. Also to play some 1v1 duels against a friend.
A good snowman is hard to build.
Fun sokoban-style game about rolling balls into a snowman. 100%'d it, and it has a very interesting meta puzzle around it, that involves how you position the snowmen in the puzzles you do.
Euclid's Inferno
Tight and great topdown shooter. I played it for 80 minutes and didn't beat it, but I can tell it's fairly fun to play. Personally, I don't think it does much beyond being a solid topdown shooter, so if a plain but solid topdown shooter isn't your fancy, give this a miss.
Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition
A solid shooter about being terminators in an abandoned ship and killing xenos. It does what it does well, but personally, I still think Space Beast Terror Fright is the better game. I also think this game is garbage to play singleplayer, mostly it's held back by rubbish AI.
Risk of Rain 2
Fun game, I replayed this to get 100% after getting 100% earlier in the year. The new DLC feels like a major letdown though, and I haven't played it much since then. I would go so far as to say, the game is better without that DLC enabled which honestly... shouldn't be the case... Classic Gearbox, ruining anything they touch.
Braid, Anniversary Edition
A remaster of Braid with better graphics and developer commentary. For me, this was worth it for the developer commentary alone, given how much I enjoyed Braid earlier in the year. The graphics are also a remarkable improvement, but other than these 2 things, it does nothing more to really justify it.
STRAFTAT
Interesting game, that does quick 1v1s in a Call of Duty style environment very well. It's free, it's a simple concept and it does it well. Fun with a single friend. The matchmaking isn't as fun though.
Cruelty Squad
I replayed this to get 100% achievements in it. It's a lot of fun, but ultimately, I didn't feel like the Extravagant suit or Hope Eradicated difficulties really added much to the experience. A lot of the implants in it feel like padding, but even if they are padding, it's fun to explore the world in it. I enjoyed it a lot. As I previously played this outside of Steam using WINE, and this time it worked with Proton, my time to 100% it was about 15 hours.
Core Keeper
Fun little top down Terraria-like game. I felt after you beat the first 3 bosses in it, the game begins to slow down and get a lot less fun. I personally found it to get tedious at this point.
Worms W.M.D.
Excellent game for local coop of online coop fun shenanigans. Singleplayer it probably sucks though.
Project Borealis: Prologue
Badly optimised Unreal Engine 5 source-engine-like tech demo. Ultimately... I found it to be meh. It's interesting, but beyond a tech demo? Not really much there.
Buckshot Roulette
Played this earlier in the year, singleplayer it gets repetitive fast. I replayed this for the multiplayer update, with 2 player and 3 player games. In 3 player, it's often 1 guy deciding who wins, which is pretty bad from gameplay. In 2 player, it's usually whoever has good items by RNG wins as you can absolutely steamroll an opponent with the right items. Otherwise it's just random roulette gameplay. Ultimately, it's a bit of a pass from me for either sides of the game. The aesthetic is unique though.
Lunacid
Very fun King's field-like. I 100%'d this. Some of the last achievements, like waiting for a real life full moon, are a bit bullshit, but getting an ending doesn't require that. It has an interesting weapon levelling up system, which is both good and bad for it. It's good, as it encourages you to try new weapons... it's bad because it discourages you from trying out max levelled weapons. This means by the end of the game you'll have a lot of max level weapons you'll have not even swung once sadly.
Northern Journey
Very unique adventure exploration game. The first half of the game is more metroidvania and the last half of the game is more linear, but it throws a lot of unique enemies at you, and a lot of unique environments too. To the point it's very inspiring and surprising it was all made by a single game developer. It took me 11 hours to beat in total.
Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
I came back to this for the online multiplayer DLC. This is a hard pass from me, as it's unplayable if any player isn't in the same country, but you can feel the latency even if they are in the same country. Terrible netcode made for a terrible multiplayer experience.
Webfishing
Relaxing game about fishing. The chatroom element in it is interesting and there's some fun side minigames like scratch cards and drawing on the floor. It's a relaxing game, but gets boring fast. If it had some more side things to do, it'd be better, but oh well.
BABBDI
Since I played Straftat earlier this year, I played their other game too. I found it fun, though pretty short. I got about 2 hours of gameplay out of it, while trying to 100% it.
Lethal Company
A very fun multiplayer game, that when using mods to increase the player count makes it a lot more fun. Works as a sort of party game in the same was as Among Us or Garry's Mod TTT.
shapez
Simplistic Factorio-like game. To me, I found it boring after a while, and the fact it's so harsh and abstract unlike Factorio, makes it harder to get into too somehow. I also found the lack of copy paste until you get blueprinting unlocked multiple hours later to be frustrating.
December
Zero Sievert
I bought this game in early access and only recently played it. Personally... I found it to be a lifeless game and quickly lost interest. If you want to play STALKER, go play STALKER, not this.
Factorio
Fun game. There's a reason it gets the name CRACKtorio.
Arx Fatalis
Unique game, but sadly the stats system in it make mage the best class in it. You rarely see bows and arrows in this game, so range is a straight up skill trap, which imo, is pretty bad design. The gesture system for magic is very unique and interesting, and it leads to preparing spells, which is the first game I've seen that does this well. It means preparing for fights is worthwhile. Additionally the immersive sim parts of it, like potion making, weapon forging, etc, but not the most important imo.
Deep Rock Galactic
Fun 4 player coop game. Still offers a good challenge. A good pick for cooperative games.
Garry's Mod
Fun game for playing Prop Hunt or TTT. We did our last Gmod session of the year earlier this month, and it's just as fun as when I played it in 2019.
Devil Daggers
Delightfully difficult game, that does one thing, and does it well. It's not a random survival game, and it's got a very very high skill ceiling. I have still yet to "beat" it, in other words, getting a time of 500 seconds.
Stephen's Sausage Roll
Very difficult sokoban-style game. Each level has a strong idea with it, but personally, I think some of the levels don't really lead to figuring out that idea too well. I've also noticed that some levels have too many newly added elements that make it very difficult to get started on them, for example the tower of sausages level in it. If you enjoy puzzle games that are both simple but hard, and like them when they don't beat around the bush and treat you like an average gamer who hates puzzle gam , n you'll enjoy this, otherwise, give it a pass.
Zachtronics Solitaire Collection
Various Solitaire games collected together from the various Zachtronics games. I enjoy it a lot, and if you enjoy solitaire, you'll probably enjoy this too. Otherwise, give it a pass.
Monster Hunter World
Replaying this with some friends. The cutscenes in it are just as frustrating as when I played it for the first time...
Helldivers 2
Excellent cooperative shooter game. First game I've found that have done crew-served guns that require 2 people well. The only other game I can think of is Foxhole, but that's mainly for artillery. That said, they're kind of diminished a bit as you can reload them yourself still... Personally, I feel like the pacing in this game has some issues, as it oftens stays fast paced and high tension for too long that it tires you out. Monster Hunter recognised this and had bits of breathing time moving between arenas in it as the small bit of downtime in it. One thing I appreciate in Helldivers 2 is that all strategems are viable and the ones you'll use will vary with the mission you do. Very good game. One thing I dislike in it aesthetically, is the capes, as they force them on, but as a programmer I understand why... as nice flowing soft body physics are a bit tricky.
Undated
Vintage Story
Basically terrafirmacraft but done well and without the Minecraft baggage. That said, I feel like after you've played it once, you've played it enough, and there's not a lot of replay value in it(even though it's a sandbox game). The gameplay is also slow and you're often not gonna be doing things with people, so multiplayer feels a bit moot and pointless often in it, though you do help each other out so for an SMP-style server it works well. While the new update looks cool, I'm unsure if I'll return to it when it officially releases and comes out of release candidate, because it's very... same old, same old...
Unreal Tournament 1999
From an Agora road thread, I joined in the regular Frag night fridays. It's good fun. They don't make games like they used to... and it's an interesting game to compare and contrast to Quake 3.
Quake 3
From another Agora road thread, I joined in regular Sunday Quake 3 games. It's also good fun.
Morrowind
Undated as I play using OpenMW. This is good fun, if difficult to get into from modern sensibilities.