TheGamer’s Game of the Year lists are coming up soon. If you aren’t aware, each of us gets to do our own special little list ranking our faves from the past 12 months and writing precious little blurbs about how much the Alone in the Dark remake healed our inner child and why the TMNT Hades clone is a love letter to turtle fans.
If you can’t tell by my tone, it’s basically my favorite thing to do and I look forward to it all year long. If we could stop giving scores to games and just write at the bottom of the review where it would rank in our yearly top ten, I would be so happy.
Related
What Do You Think Of DLC Being Allowed To Win Game Of The Year?
It feels like a concession made specifically for Shadow of the Erdtree. I don’t think it will end up really affecting outcomes in most years – you could probably count on one hand the number of DLC expansions ever released that even merit a nomination, let alone the win. Ultimately, I think this just telegraphs that Erdtree is being seriously considered, and they needed to change the rules to make it happen. Not a great precedent, but also not one that I think will matter in the long run.
The rules for our GOTY lists are pretty loosey-goosey. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full-priced game, DLC, or early access (or ended its early access, as was the case for our overall GOTY 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3). My lists tend to be pretty eclectic, with a mix of free-to-play, indie, expansion packs, and triple-A games. I’ll put anything on my list. Last year I included the (now-defunct) unofficial digital client for Disney Lorcana. I put Satisfactory on my GOTY list in 2021 even though it started early access in 2019 and left early access this year (guess what’s going to show up on my list again this year).
The point is, I draw the line pretty thin, but there’s still a line. So here’s my Game of the Year List for all the things that can’t be Game of the Year. No reasonable person would consider these games that came out in 2024, but they still made a big enough impact on me that I feel compelled to recognize them in some small way.
5. Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice came to Steam on March 20, so you might have been tricked into thinking it’s a new game. It’s actually been on mobile and Itch.io since 2021. This is kind of like an Among Us situation, if Among Us was still a niche game that only weirdos knew about.
Slice & Dice was for me what Balatro was for pretty much everyone else this year. This bite-sized roguelike meant to be played in short bursts managed to take every free second I had throughout the first half of the year. I got through multiple 12-hour plane trips just spamming Slice & Dice runs, and the time flew right by. It’s a great little dungeon crawler that does for Yahtzee what Balatro did for Poker, and I can’t recommend it enough, even if it’s not a 2024 game.
4. The Monster Hunter Wilds Demo At PAX West
Golly, I can’t wait for Monster Hunter Wilds. I was one of those people who sank another 200 hours into Monster Hunter: World this January after Wilds was revealed in December. I’ve been dissecting every frame of every trailer like they’re the Zapruder Film. I’m trying to say I want this game badly.
The open beta that ran a few weeks ago was an expanded version of the PAX West demo. At PAX you only had about 20 minutes to play and you could only hunt a Doshaguma. The recent beta let us see more of Wilds, but you can’t beat the hype of playing it for the first time at PAX. 120,000 people attended PAX West this year and the line for the Wilds demo was capped for the entire day as soon as the floor opened every single day. The booth was massive and the energy around it was intoxicating. PAX is great every year, but this was one of its best moments ever.
3. The Stern Pinball Insider Connected App
I became such a pinball guy this year, fully enabled by the excellent Stern Pinball IC app. It’s cool to discover a new hobby because it makes you see the world around you in a new way. I’ve been living in the same city for five years and just discovered this summer that there’s a thriving pinball scene. Stern’s new game this year was John Wick, and I used the pinball tracker in the app to find out where I could go play it in South Orange County. It turned out that pinball was all around me and I just didn’t know it.
The app lets you track all the games you’ve played, your high scores, and it has trophies, so every time I go play pinball I feel like I’m making progress. I have this checklist of games to play and I’ve gotten to visit different places I’ve never been to in my area and meet lots of people. Maybe this is just a preview of my impending mid-life crisis, but I’ve enjoyed getting into the pinball scene this year, thanks to the Stern app.
2. The Bazaar Closed Beta
The Bazaar is a sort-of spin-off to Hearthstone Battlegrounds developed by esports legend Reynad’s indie studio, Tempo, and it’s going to be a phenomenon when it launches next year. I have a lot of hobby-style games that I’ll put a little time into every day just to keep up with, and The Bazaar has quickly jumped to the top of that list. It’s a brilliant strategy game and secretly the best co-op of the year.
If all goes to plan, The Bazaar should be coming out in January, so I expect to be talking about it a lot more next year. For now, you can get access to the closed beta by purchasing a Founder’s Pack, and sincerely recommend that you do if you want any chance of beating the these sweaty kids that have been crunching the numbers and grinding matches to find the most broken builds all month long (me).
1. The Doom: The Dark Ages Trailer
This entire list was just a ploy for me to give the new Doom trailer a GOTY award. Woo-Wee. Wowza. Holy crapola. Have you seen this thing? The chainsaw shield? The mini-gun that fires crushed-up demon skulls? Watching that trailer was the best two minutes of gaming I had this entire year. I know the entire world is going to get pulled into Grand Theft Auto 6’s orbit next year, but medieval Doom has my number. Also, it would make a pretty sick pinball table. Just sayin’.
