The great thing about the state of the hobby, there is very little in that screenshot that appeals to me, yet I still had a great year with other games. The variety right now across the market is fantastic.
Having lived though the NES/Master System Era this really rings home.
Between what was available in your local stores, the limited number of units produced and the high prices for the time, you really had a limited set of options on what to play. Even if you could set in the money, chances were that unless you were some hyper gaming fan back then the available choices at any moment in the market were limited to a number well under OPs picture.
Only by the PS1 era is that I remember starting to see a lot more variety in stores, and gaming sections on electronics/games stores starting to have shelves packed with different products, let alone being able to casually order stuff not in stock though catalog.
Steam was a game changer. As much as this digital first era has brought in a lot of problems one thing that it really made better was creating ways for everyone having a niche to draw from and having always something new or interesting in the horizon with no more what ifs if that title would come out in your region or your store would have copies.
Even hardware wise it has never been as democratic as it is today. I can hop into Steam with my mothers basic laptop and find fun stuff for her in her retirement that runs pretty well on a very basic setup, whiles lets say the year is 2004 and my PC at the time could barely run World of Warcraft without crawling to its knees anytime I entered a city
Dude I spent my childhood playing Terminator 2 the gameboy game and Jeopardy: Sports Edition. Why? They were just about the only freaking games I had and they sucked! But man, at least I got to play something. Kids today don't know how good they have it...
I have kids and a busy job. But it's crazy how, even if you only have time for two or three games a year, you still get to play something that will make your GOAT list.
There's a lot of mid, but no matter what your flex there is also some truly great stuff coming out
I remember this, I remember looking at previews and reviews and wondering if I'd be able to play these games. Unless it was a big game it was a gamble if you're local store would even stock the title you had your eye on and the fact that everything was physical meant that if it wasn't there, the game might as well not exist. I distinctly remember that there were two games I asked for for holidays, and I was informed beforehand that the company stopped making the game, so it'd be impossible to get. (Now, 1 of the two my parents were able to find, but that's not really here nor there)
It was only when Funcoland came to my city in 98/99 that it felt like you could count on any game being available with any degree of certainty.
Not sure if I would call this pre-order since at least in my region you really couldn't buy them in advance, but you had to make some soft pressure to the business owner to actually order what you wanted.
This may sound odd, but store would likely get either the stuff the owner thought would sell or a selection of games that dealers would ship in as a bundle, and if you were lucky the good stuff was there, but if you wanted something that may not be the most marketed games then you had to put in a local visit and say that you were interested.
Except many times companies wouldn't ship just one single copy, so you had to convince whoever runs the store that said game was going to be amazing and he would be the guy running a store with something special in super limited number. Sometimes this would fly, most of the times you would be brushed aside.
My particular exemple was Duck Tales 2, I tried to convinced my local store to order it but they never did, I even went there with my cousin and my best friend trying to convince the guy that there was interest from more than one person but he never budged and pointed us towards the several copies of the first game he still had in stock.
Pre-Ordering in the sense that we see today I think I first saw in my local stores with Tomb Raider 2, but it was a far different era. People would pre-order because it was very much obvious that the game would sell out on release day, and stores although more keen on stocking up on games were still run very much with gaming as a side business. The PS1 era was wild, it started slow in my region but after the first months it brought gaming to a lot of living-rooms, especially with bundles with fighting games and soccer games. In about a year from the release we finally started to get dedicated larger sections on stores for videogames and even more conservative store chains would start to try to get a slice of the business for themselves.
By the PS2 era, in particular with GTA we started here to get lines in front of the stores on release day and you would have this strips of paper on the gaming section about 1 to 2 months from the release to buy in advance the game and they would secure you a copy on day one.
As a World of Warcraft nerd in my teens (and therefore after) my wildest experience was probably the Burning Crusade expansion launch with a midnight party at my local store, a line that would stretch to the entrance of the shopping mall and security guards confused with all the people there in costume or seemingly camping in a waiting line like some demented circus of nerdiness.
Limiting it to just things released this year, I enjoyed, and not on the graphic.
Doom the Dark Ages
Tempest Rising
Avowed
Dawn of War: Definitive Edition
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors
Borderlands 4
Oblivion Remastered
Metal Eden
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
10.The Outer Worlds 2
Honorable mentions:
RoboCop Rogue City. They did this as an independent release, but it's basically a large DLC for the original game.
Cleared Hot: Only out in Early Access. What's out there is really fun though.
Time Splitters Rewind: Early access only. Who knows if they will ever actually finish it, but it's free.
I’ve not tried the second Kingdom Come but I couldn’t get past the tutorial for the first game. It was a game that I felt was going to be right up my alley but I got stuck and after trying a few hours I decided it to give it up
I made a comment on a Johnathan Blow youtube video where he basically said all games suck now and most developers are terrible. I mentioned that 2025 has been one of the best years in gaming, so many good games came out just this year, it's insane to say all games a shit right now, and especially in poor taste to say developers are shit now, especially coming from someone who has released 2 games in like 2 decades, when I know people that have done a lot more than him in that timeframe, and those games barely hold up to what's coming out these days.
I hate youtubers like that. The one that makes it YOUR problem that they can't find something to play and try to insists that it's the industry's fault that they're so jaded. Nah fam, we eating good it's a YOU thing.
While I agree with your overarching point that he’s being an ass and gaming is greater than ever, there’s no doubting Blow’s resume. Braid and the Witness are great games, and totally stand the test of time.
The man made bangers and there’s no downplaying that imo
I think it just depends on your tastes. My favorite genre are third person linear single player games like Tomb Raider (reboot ) or Uncharted or Gears of War and the only game this year like it was Mafia the old country. So it’s pretty dry for me.
I mentioned that 2025 has been one of the best years in gaming
I hear this every year. I think it ends up being more like
"2025 is the best year in 2025 for gaming."
It sucks that you got doxxed for that! I love chatting about games. Though I would take the opposite position. I think most games are sucking, and 2025 hasn't been memorable and will probably be forgotten. Just like 2024 which, by the way, was one of the best years for gaming. Not to be outdone, or possibly outdone, by, and who could ever forget, add some more comas, 2023, which was quite possibly the greatest year for gaming if you discount, or possibly count, all the years after 2010. And also 2008. And 2006. And 2004.
I'm glad people are happy with the games though. I'm starting to make my own game with a small team (exciting!). But if I were to go through this list.
There are games I've enjoyed and I appreciate the people behind and the work they did. Blue Prince is nice. But I wouldn't go out of my way and put it as one of those that really made 2025 stand out from other years. I think the developers did a great job and brought a sweet new approach to some kind of puzzle-rogue like. Maybe it deserves to be on the list.
I'm a big anno 1800 fan. But the new Anno? This is a tough one. It's barely innovated and hasn't done for a while. Anno 1800 has a lot of content, but also a big price tag with it. Anno 1800, for a few people that a fan of the series, is the better Anno for now. So to say the new Anno game again makes 2025 stand out is....well it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Expedition 33 to me is the one that will definitely earn this post some negative thumbs down, and that's okay, but whilst I really was enjoying the story. The gameplay to me is ughhh. There's what? 4 different counter buttons. It's like they said "Let's take the idea of a turn based game. And then take the point of it being turn based out of the equation". As someone big into game design and a particularly love of animations. Here's where Expedition 33, and Fromsoftware for that matter because they are big offenders, get it wrong. Because the animations simply don't line up with the dodging.
Don't dodge with your fecking eyes in these games. You have to time things. Turning these games into rhythm games. That for me made me stop playing Expedition 33. Because whilst I can overcome the challenges. I simply do not want to. I do not enjoying playing the counting game on attacks to dodge at the specific frames they want me to do as opposed to simply trying to passively enjoy the game by reacting to the incoming attacks.
Expedition 33 did make me want to go back and play The Last Remnant though.
Hades 2? I love all the God Dialogue but when it comes to Rogue like gameplay. I get the feeling people havn't tried Ravenswatch. I like the character banter in that game when you play co-op. When it comes to gameplay. Hades feels too bullet hell for me and too much spamming my buttons. I liked Silksong too but my thumbs are getting tired from pressing jump constantly in boss fights.
Metal Gear Solid 3 remake? I just find that odd to say it's been an amazing year only to put a remake in it. It's not exactly an entirely new game especially for a game that typically hails the story and characters as a chunk of it.
I've not seen anything about Donkey Kong. I never even heard about it. Not until the game awards. Then people have been joking and meming about it. I still have not seen a single screenshot of the game. So that's weird...
I've only heard complaints about Monster Hunter Wilds. I tried the demo but just felt I couldn't justify the price tag. Glad I did too because the complaints I got from friends was "not enough content".
I'm looking forward to watching Dispatch. "What an amazing year for games". I'm serious though I really like the look of Dispatch. Just...again. The statement "amazing year for games" feels odd.
Mario Kart World? It had to be packaged with the new console. Only heard complaints about it though where as the new Sonic Racing game has been praised. So I think Sonic Cross Worlds should be on that list in its place. Buuuuuuuuuuut.....I've played all these sonic racing games and this one is...well not exactly the worst one. I think it is the best one. However. The racing was better in the previous games. Even Team Sonic Racing. Cross Worlds just has more content. And that's reflected by them jacking up the price to a literal insane amount that doesn't reflect how much content it has AND then having day 1-ish DLC announced and turning it into something that feels more like a live service game. "Amazing year for gaming". Like...2006 was a great year for gaming [Oblivion Horse Armor].
Silent Hill F was alright. Felt like it followed the formula. Can't think of anything it really excelled at. Nothing really stood out.
Xenoblade Chronicles I tried. Grindy. Like a single player MMO.
Kingdom Come II and Ghost of Yotei are probably the best on the list. Both of which I have not played. It's just not what I'm personally looking for. I like to make my characters and I like having a good amount of choice in what direction I can go with my character. Like being a warrior or a mage. They are very different. This isn't a complaint about the game though, and I wouldn't want them to change the game because I think they both look fantastic and deliver a quality experience. I just don't like my breadth of choice basically being "sword, or spear?".
I can't really say much about the rest of the games.
So out of this list. We got Blue Prince, Kingdom Come II, Ghost of Yotei. Dispatch - which I'd argue isn't much of a game. Apparently Nightreign isn't on here.
I would DEFINITELY not put Nightreign on the list. Even though this is the game I've played way more of this year than any other game. Like I mentioned with Expedition 33. Nightreign is an absolute monster (in a bad way) in terms of design. I enjoy playing it sure, but that's because I want something 'like this'. I don't have any choice but Nightreign. And I know many people, even if they don't know it, feel the same way.
And that's an indication of games kind of sucking. It's an obvious statement but some games wouldn't be popular if there were better alternatives. Making a game though is an expensive venture. So to basically make Nightreign but fix all the animation, fix the flawed relic system, fix the a ton of gameplay issues basically that would make the game far more enjoyable, can't be done on a whim.
Enjoy not reading! I'm just waking up. Getting my brain into gear!
I'm so disappointed The Alters got buried and then hobbled by what turned out to be mostly a nothingburger of an AI controversy. It was up against some stiff competition but it's genuinely one of the best-written games I've seen in a long time.
Its $45 for PS5 and Switch on Amazon right now. I got it for $30 in a buy 2 get 1 free sale Gamestop was having so In reality I paid about $20 for it. Great game.
That doesn't make you not a gamer. You can play one game all year and still be a gamer. Honestly people that have played this many games in a year are either students, unemployed or single. And they likely aren't finishing all of them anyways
Are you even a real gamer if you can't fit an entire gamecube up your ass?! Typical fake gamers everywhere. Anyways, I need to get to a hospital really fast due to the discdrive opening inside me.
I'm still running a backlog this year! Has been amazing. I finished Blue Prince and The Alters and I've begun but yet to finish Expedition 33, Kingdom Come 2, Dispatch and Hades 2. Silksong will take a day or 2 more before I finished that.
Premise and atmosphere of Routine are right up my alley but after watching the first half hour played by Cohh I knew immediately I won't be able to play it for accessability reasons.
I get strong headaches and motion sickness from games with heavy chromatic abberation and this whole bodycam type of visuals. I understand it's an artistic choice but unfortunately can't play them for more than 15-20min in one session while also having trouble immersing myself.
I was going to use that bottom right space for December though the only game I was excited for was Metroid Prime 4, but I found it quite underwhelming unfortunately, it's very linear and the mob variety isn't great
I played a good number of these, but I got to the point where I stopped buying games this year. Hell, I still wanna buy Final Fantasy Tactics, Sonic Crossworld racing, Kirby Air Riders, Metroid Prime 4, Rhythm Doctor, Keeper, and way more. It's just time that's a bastard. Also, at some point I'm hoping my kickstarted copy of Mina The Hollwer should arrive.
Edit: To add to this sillyness, I got ODEs for my Dreamcast and Saturn with fan translations of games, I bought a game season pass for my playdate, and I have a bunch of Evercade Cartridges I'm yet to play. *stares at own hands* Why am I like this?
I'm a frugal/patient games, and this is the first year since... I don't even remember how long it's been, that I've played multiple games the year of their release.
Oblivion Remastered, Oblivion was one of my all time favorite games, I just couldn't wait and bought it on release day!
Skate. Early access F2P game.
Battlefield 6, found a great Black Friday sale. After years of trash, Battlefield is fucking back!
Yeah, I'm realizing these days that I just won't have the life time to play all the games I want to play in this life. There's so many good new ones coming out, makes it hard to work on my gaming bucket list >_<
Shredders Revenge was indeed excellent! I really like the unique character movesets and character swapping in MCI though so I think I place them about equal.
I think T2D is gonna be $30, right? That's what it is listed as on the Switch shop currently... I'll be mad if it is more than that
I've only played a couple games from this year (Xenoblade & Chrono Gear, I do have Clair Obscur but I haven't started yet), but man this year has been good.
Another year of good gaming and didn’t even play any of these! 😅 it makes me happy that my hobby is doing so well at making so many different gamers happy all year long.
This is probably one of the few years in my adult life where I haven't played any of the top releases for the year. I haven't touched a single one of those games yet. I counted seven that I would play if I had the time and money. Maybe nine if I had the time to try others I'm interested in. I tend to stick with the bigger story-driven games: Kingdom Come Deliverance, Monster Hunter Wilds, Expedition 33, Silksong, Ghost of Yotei, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Death Stranding 2. I would try Anno, Hades, Silent Hill, Xenoblade, and Dragon Quest if I had the time. I need a decade of PTO to catch up on my backlog. I could really spend a year just playing these games and doing not much of anything else.
ninja gaiden ragebound is not as good as ppl say, you can basically beat 70% of the game just jumping and hit, have good graphics, but lack of the arcade feeling since you have infinite tries to beat the game
Yet we keep being told that only multiplayer live service micro transaction slopfests are able to make money, everything has to have constant updates and new seasons and paid skins and fucking battlepasses...
Great games but my ass only played 3 of them. 1 of them got horrible performance issues that's slowly getting fixed somewhat, but shit my PC is strong enough to push through and I personally had lots of fun with it. Rest of the year I spent playing older games and 100%ing most of them. Overall great year for gaming in general for me. Expedition 33 ftw.
Not really, the mandatory green crystal collecting part alone (watched the SkillUp review) is enough to bring it down to 6/10. Don't get me wrong there is still a solid foundation albeit played very safe and low-effort innovation to the Prime formula.
You can definitely tell how botched the development was and Prime 4 seems like a patchwork. Both the open world desert hub area and the whole Marvel-esque character style feel like they were tacked on later. It's like 3-4 different development teams were involved making the 'modules' of the game but without a coherent artistic vision. Glued clumsily together at the end to release it before holiday season.
abiotic factor my personal GOTY, and in order after that is
2-hades 2
3-E33
4- MH WILDS (if the performance and the small issues got fixed the game would have been second in my list but they didn't fix shit, also MH is my fav series so there's that)
5- silksong
this year I also played older games that I missed. cyberpunk and lords of the fallen 2023 (played more but these two came up to me now) and they can make it in my top 5 easily but I don't think its fair.
I'm just glad I have the willpower to not just blindly accept E33 as being an all time great OMG best game ever. It's a good game, yes. But there's many turn based RPG's out there that do what it does equally or better.
Everyone saying that Expeditions is GOTY seems to have never played Kingdoms. It's absurd that we have to vote for the best game of the year when the best game of all time is among the contenders.
It was probably my favorite game this year but I understand why it's not on the list for many. The PC optimization (lack of) and the watered-down difficulty on release hurt it a lot. It wasn't challenging enough to engage newcomers, in my opinion, and a lot of people struggled to play it at all. I love it and it runs fine on my beefy rig but it's not so playable for my wife on her older setup :/
The fact that it had so many sales out of the gate to now have this reception says it all, unfortunately :/ I'm hoping they can swing back with a big expansion and optimizations, as the framework is really good
Despite the game itself being awesome, the performance issues rightfully take it out of that conversation. It has a lot of things it does really well, and the combat in that game is the best it's ever been in the series. But as a whole package it is not GotY potential because performance and optimization is part of that package.
It runs so poorly that I just can't play it anymore. Also the baby's first campaign turned me off the game despite the fact that the post game content drops are actually challenging.
The Alters was terrible, actually. It had so much potential, but the actual gameplay was tedious and the writing was terrible. It made sense when I heard about the allegations of AI usage after I got bored with it and quit playing.
Edit: This sub is full of shillbots who downvote anyone who doesn't cheer for the high profile game publishers. Fuck y'all.
The great thing about the state of the hobby, there is very little in that screenshot that appeals to me, yet I still had a great year with other games. The variety right now across the market is fantastic.
Having lived though the NES/Master System Era this really rings home.
Between what was available in your local stores, the limited number of units produced and the high prices for the time, you really had a limited set of options on what to play. Even if you could set in the money, chances were that unless you were some hyper gaming fan back then the available choices at any moment in the market were limited to a number well under OPs picture.
Only by the PS1 era is that I remember starting to see a lot more variety in stores, and gaming sections on electronics/games stores starting to have shelves packed with different products, let alone being able to casually order stuff not in stock though catalog.
Steam was a game changer. As much as this digital first era has brought in a lot of problems one thing that it really made better was creating ways for everyone having a niche to draw from and having always something new or interesting in the horizon with no more what ifs if that title would come out in your region or your store would have copies.
Even hardware wise it has never been as democratic as it is today. I can hop into Steam with my mothers basic laptop and find fun stuff for her in her retirement that runs pretty well on a very basic setup, whiles lets say the year is 2004 and my PC at the time could barely run World of Warcraft without crawling to its knees anytime I entered a city
I grew up in a similar era we are so spoiled for choice today.
Dude I spent my childhood playing Terminator 2 the gameboy game and Jeopardy: Sports Edition. Why? They were just about the only freaking games I had and they sucked! But man, at least I got to play something. Kids today don't know how good they have it...
I'm 1986.
I have kids and a busy job. But it's crazy how, even if you only have time for two or three games a year, you still get to play something that will make your GOAT list.
There's a lot of mid, but no matter what your flex there is also some truly great stuff coming out
I remember this, I remember looking at previews and reviews and wondering if I'd be able to play these games. Unless it was a big game it was a gamble if you're local store would even stock the title you had your eye on and the fact that everything was physical meant that if it wasn't there, the game might as well not exist. I distinctly remember that there were two games I asked for for holidays, and I was informed beforehand that the company stopped making the game, so it'd be impossible to get. (Now, 1 of the two my parents were able to find, but that's not really here nor there)
It was only when Funcoland came to my city in 98/99 that it felt like you could count on any game being available with any degree of certainty.
See this was when a pre-order of a game was meaningful.
Not sure if I would call this pre-order since at least in my region you really couldn't buy them in advance, but you had to make some soft pressure to the business owner to actually order what you wanted.
This may sound odd, but store would likely get either the stuff the owner thought would sell or a selection of games that dealers would ship in as a bundle, and if you were lucky the good stuff was there, but if you wanted something that may not be the most marketed games then you had to put in a local visit and say that you were interested.
Except many times companies wouldn't ship just one single copy, so you had to convince whoever runs the store that said game was going to be amazing and he would be the guy running a store with something special in super limited number. Sometimes this would fly, most of the times you would be brushed aside.
My particular exemple was Duck Tales 2, I tried to convinced my local store to order it but they never did, I even went there with my cousin and my best friend trying to convince the guy that there was interest from more than one person but he never budged and pointed us towards the several copies of the first game he still had in stock.
Pre-Ordering in the sense that we see today I think I first saw in my local stores with Tomb Raider 2, but it was a far different era. People would pre-order because it was very much obvious that the game would sell out on release day, and stores although more keen on stocking up on games were still run very much with gaming as a side business. The PS1 era was wild, it started slow in my region but after the first months it brought gaming to a lot of living-rooms, especially with bundles with fighting games and soccer games. In about a year from the release we finally started to get dedicated larger sections on stores for videogames and even more conservative store chains would start to try to get a slice of the business for themselves.
By the PS2 era, in particular with GTA we started here to get lines in front of the stores on release day and you would have this strips of paper on the gaming section about 1 to 2 months from the release to buy in advance the game and they would secure you a copy on day one.
As a World of Warcraft nerd in my teens (and therefore after) my wildest experience was probably the Burning Crusade expansion launch with a midnight party at my local store, a line that would stretch to the entrance of the shopping mall and security guards confused with all the people there in costume or seemingly camping in a waiting line like some demented circus of nerdiness.
Wild days
What games have you been playing?
Limiting it to just things released this year, I enjoyed, and not on the graphic.
10.The Outer Worlds 2
Honorable mentions:
RoboCop Rogue City. They did this as an independent release, but it's basically a large DLC for the original game.
Cleared Hot: Only out in Early Access. What's out there is really fun though.
Time Splitters Rewind: Early access only. Who knows if they will ever actually finish it, but it's free.
Based on that list, I'm not sure how KCD2 doesn't appeal to you.
I’ve not tried the second Kingdom Come but I couldn’t get past the tutorial for the first game. It was a game that I felt was going to be right up my alley but I got stuck and after trying a few hours I decided it to give it up
Me and every witcher game. Everything should be right up my alley. But the game never can draw me in.
The second is orders of magnitude better than the first fyi.
Right? There's nothing there that I wanted to play, but I've still had an absolute blast with games this year!
Shinobi was pretty good and very reminiscent of older Shinobi games but is modern
I'm really having a lot of fun with KDC2.
GOTY for me
Game made it past red dead 2 and Witcher 3 to be my favorite game of all time. Really did not see it coming.
It's the first game in a long time where I'm not in a rush to plow through.
I want to take my time and smell the roses
I made a comment on a Johnathan Blow youtube video where he basically said all games suck now and most developers are terrible. I mentioned that 2025 has been one of the best years in gaming, so many good games came out just this year, it's insane to say all games a shit right now, and especially in poor taste to say developers are shit now, especially coming from someone who has released 2 games in like 2 decades, when I know people that have done a lot more than him in that timeframe, and those games barely hold up to what's coming out these days.
His incel brigade doxxed me for that.
I hate youtubers like that. The one that makes it YOUR problem that they can't find something to play and try to insists that it's the industry's fault that they're so jaded. Nah fam, we eating good it's a YOU thing.
While I agree with your overarching point that he’s being an ass and gaming is greater than ever, there’s no doubting Blow’s resume. Braid and the Witness are great games, and totally stand the test of time.
The man made bangers and there’s no downplaying that imo
I think it just depends on your tastes. My favorite genre are third person linear single player games like Tomb Raider (reboot ) or Uncharted or Gears of War and the only game this year like it was Mafia the old country. So it’s pretty dry for me.
He is insufferable.
I hear this every year. I think it ends up being more like
"2025 is the best year in 2025 for gaming."
It sucks that you got doxxed for that! I love chatting about games. Though I would take the opposite position. I think most games are sucking, and 2025 hasn't been memorable and will probably be forgotten. Just like 2024 which, by the way, was one of the best years for gaming. Not to be outdone, or possibly outdone, by, and who could ever forget, add some more comas, 2023, which was quite possibly the greatest year for gaming if you discount, or possibly count, all the years after 2010. And also 2008. And 2006. And 2004.
I'm glad people are happy with the games though. I'm starting to make my own game with a small team (exciting!). But if I were to go through this list.
There are games I've enjoyed and I appreciate the people behind and the work they did. Blue Prince is nice. But I wouldn't go out of my way and put it as one of those that really made 2025 stand out from other years. I think the developers did a great job and brought a sweet new approach to some kind of puzzle-rogue like. Maybe it deserves to be on the list.
I'm a big anno 1800 fan. But the new Anno? This is a tough one. It's barely innovated and hasn't done for a while. Anno 1800 has a lot of content, but also a big price tag with it. Anno 1800, for a few people that a fan of the series, is the better Anno for now. So to say the new Anno game again makes 2025 stand out is....well it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Expedition 33 to me is the one that will definitely earn this post some negative thumbs down, and that's okay, but whilst I really was enjoying the story. The gameplay to me is ughhh. There's what? 4 different counter buttons. It's like they said "Let's take the idea of a turn based game. And then take the point of it being turn based out of the equation". As someone big into game design and a particularly love of animations. Here's where Expedition 33, and Fromsoftware for that matter because they are big offenders, get it wrong. Because the animations simply don't line up with the dodging.
Don't dodge with your fecking eyes in these games. You have to time things. Turning these games into rhythm games. That for me made me stop playing Expedition 33. Because whilst I can overcome the challenges. I simply do not want to. I do not enjoying playing the counting game on attacks to dodge at the specific frames they want me to do as opposed to simply trying to passively enjoy the game by reacting to the incoming attacks.
Expedition 33 did make me want to go back and play The Last Remnant though.
Hades 2? I love all the God Dialogue but when it comes to Rogue like gameplay. I get the feeling people havn't tried Ravenswatch. I like the character banter in that game when you play co-op. When it comes to gameplay. Hades feels too bullet hell for me and too much spamming my buttons. I liked Silksong too but my thumbs are getting tired from pressing jump constantly in boss fights.
Metal Gear Solid 3 remake? I just find that odd to say it's been an amazing year only to put a remake in it. It's not exactly an entirely new game especially for a game that typically hails the story and characters as a chunk of it.
I've not seen anything about Donkey Kong. I never even heard about it. Not until the game awards. Then people have been joking and meming about it. I still have not seen a single screenshot of the game. So that's weird...
I've only heard complaints about Monster Hunter Wilds. I tried the demo but just felt I couldn't justify the price tag. Glad I did too because the complaints I got from friends was "not enough content".
I'm looking forward to watching Dispatch. "What an amazing year for games". I'm serious though I really like the look of Dispatch. Just...again. The statement "amazing year for games" feels odd.
Mario Kart World? It had to be packaged with the new console. Only heard complaints about it though where as the new Sonic Racing game has been praised. So I think Sonic Cross Worlds should be on that list in its place. Buuuuuuuuuuut.....I've played all these sonic racing games and this one is...well not exactly the worst one. I think it is the best one. However. The racing was better in the previous games. Even Team Sonic Racing. Cross Worlds just has more content. And that's reflected by them jacking up the price to a literal insane amount that doesn't reflect how much content it has AND then having day 1-ish DLC announced and turning it into something that feels more like a live service game. "Amazing year for gaming". Like...2006 was a great year for gaming [Oblivion Horse Armor].
Silent Hill F was alright. Felt like it followed the formula. Can't think of anything it really excelled at. Nothing really stood out.
Xenoblade Chronicles I tried. Grindy. Like a single player MMO.
Kingdom Come II and Ghost of Yotei are probably the best on the list. Both of which I have not played. It's just not what I'm personally looking for. I like to make my characters and I like having a good amount of choice in what direction I can go with my character. Like being a warrior or a mage. They are very different. This isn't a complaint about the game though, and I wouldn't want them to change the game because I think they both look fantastic and deliver a quality experience. I just don't like my breadth of choice basically being "sword, or spear?".
I can't really say much about the rest of the games.
So out of this list. We got Blue Prince, Kingdom Come II, Ghost of Yotei. Dispatch - which I'd argue isn't much of a game. Apparently Nightreign isn't on here.
I would DEFINITELY not put Nightreign on the list. Even though this is the game I've played way more of this year than any other game. Like I mentioned with Expedition 33. Nightreign is an absolute monster (in a bad way) in terms of design. I enjoy playing it sure, but that's because I want something 'like this'. I don't have any choice but Nightreign. And I know many people, even if they don't know it, feel the same way.
And that's an indication of games kind of sucking. It's an obvious statement but some games wouldn't be popular if there were better alternatives. Making a game though is an expensive venture. So to basically make Nightreign but fix all the animation, fix the flawed relic system, fix the a ton of gameplay issues basically that would make the game far more enjoyable, can't be done on a whim.
Enjoy not reading! I'm just waking up. Getting my brain into gear!
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https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1h8peyb/2024_was_a_good_year_for_games_imo/
Every. Year.
Unless 11.5k upvotes is a very meager amount.
I'm so disappointed The Alters got buried and then hobbled by what turned out to be mostly a nothingburger of an AI controversy. It was up against some stiff competition but it's genuinely one of the best-written games I've seen in a long time.
One of the most unique premises I have seen in a game
I loved The Alters. I read there's an update out that gives more to do in the game
Trails in the Sky Remake might be the best remake of all time to me.
I'm 22 hours into the original version of the game (and doing all sidequests so less than halfway), should I stop and play the remake instead?
The original is great and holds up just fine, plus it will be easier to go on to the other games straight after
Donkey Kong Bananza is still probably one of the best 3d platformers I've ever played. That game was magical
They made a new Lumines?! I figured that series was long abandoned.
Nope! Going strong. It's the best he's ever put out. He also did Tetris Effect a while back which I'd also highly recommend.
Wait... He?
Yeah, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Yes yes, I know other people were involved, but it is strongly his vision pushing it.
Sonic crosswords was way better than Mario kart, only good thing about Mario was 24 racers
Strangely disappointed there isn't a sonic themed crossword game retailing for $70
I really want to play it. It just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the $70 price tag.
Its $45 for PS5 and Switch on Amazon right now. I got it for $30 in a buy 2 get 1 free sale Gamestop was having so In reality I paid about $20 for it. Great game.
Crossworlds? It was $30 on some platforms on Black Friday.
I should’ve checked that out. I feel like a fair price is 30-40 for a kart racer.
Yeah the £70 price was a bit high i think
Sonic...crosswords? Man, I knew Sega had branched out into pinball at one point, but this seems even stranger for the series ;)
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You are a great uncle(?)
24 racers is imo one of the worst design decisions in mkw
You can throw arc raiders in there too. Damn we’re eating good.
Based on the list I'm guessing op doesn't play multiplayer games. No bf6 either
I never like extraction shooters before but Arc Raiders is my GOTY. It even gave me a sliver of hope for Marathon. I know thats just copium though
Welp I thought I was a gamer but haven't played a single game on this list.
That doesn't make you not a gamer. You can play one game all year and still be a gamer. Honestly people that have played this many games in a year are either students, unemployed or single. And they likely aren't finishing all of them anyways
Are you even a real gamer if you can't fit an entire gamecube up your ass?! Typical fake gamers everywhere. Anyways, I need to get to a hospital really fast due to the discdrive opening inside me.
Does it matter if you played the latest though? Most games are on my wishlist but I'm enjoying a decade old game instead
That Hundred Line looks intriguing, might get it for the Switch.
it's by the creator Danganronpa, so if you like his work then this should be a treat
I'm still running a backlog this year! Has been amazing. I finished Blue Prince and The Alters and I've begun but yet to finish Expedition 33, Kingdom Come 2, Dispatch and Hades 2. Silksong will take a day or 2 more before I finished that.
I am so not bored this year!!!
In order of played
December exists too, Routine is quite a surprise and I personally enjoyed metroid prime 4
Premise and atmosphere of Routine are right up my alley but after watching the first half hour played by Cohh I knew immediately I won't be able to play it for accessability reasons.
I get strong headaches and motion sickness from games with heavy chromatic abberation and this whole bodycam type of visuals. I understand it's an artistic choice but unfortunately can't play them for more than 15-20min in one session while also having trouble immersing myself.
Haven't heard of routine i'll check it out
I was going to use that bottom right space for December though the only game I was excited for was Metroid Prime 4, but I found it quite underwhelming unfortunately, it's very linear and the mob variety isn't great
I have been waiting for Routine to come out for 13 years. I hope it was worth the wait. They had me interested since their first trailer!
I played a good number of these, but I got to the point where I stopped buying games this year. Hell, I still wanna buy Final Fantasy Tactics, Sonic Crossworld racing, Kirby Air Riders, Metroid Prime 4, Rhythm Doctor, Keeper, and way more. It's just time that's a bastard. Also, at some point I'm hoping my kickstarted copy of Mina The Hollwer should arrive.
Edit: To add to this sillyness, I got ODEs for my Dreamcast and Saturn with fan translations of games, I bought a game season pass for my playdate, and I have a bunch of Evercade Cartridges I'm yet to play. *stares at own hands* Why am I like this?
I'm a frugal/patient games, and this is the first year since... I don't even remember how long it's been, that I've played multiple games the year of their release.
Oblivion Remastered, Oblivion was one of my all time favorite games, I just couldn't wait and bought it on release day!
Skate. Early access F2P game.
Battlefield 6, found a great Black Friday sale. After years of trash, Battlefield is fucking back!
October was my peak for the year. Absolum and Ball x Pit are my first ever platinum trophies
For me it's march Split Fiction was just this good.
I and my wife felt the same
And then me and my wife played Clair Obscur
Very good year, indeed!
I mean, January had Citizen Sleeper 2, Eternal Strands, Dynasty Warriors Origins, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black.
December has already had Metroid Prime 4, Octopath Traveler 0 and Skate Story.
There's tons in the other months not listed here as well.
Yeah, I'm realizing these days that I just won't have the life time to play all the games I want to play in this life. There's so many good new ones coming out, makes it hard to work on my gaming bucket list >_<
Don't forget this month! We got a total banger already with Cosmic Invasion and I'm cautiously optimistic for Terminator 2D: No Fate in a couple days
E33 is def GOTY tho!
I am excited for Terminator 2D aswell but the price is a bit too steep for me
I liked Cosmic Invasion but I think shredder's revenge was better
Shredders Revenge was indeed excellent! I really like the unique character movesets and character swapping in MCI though so I think I place them about equal.
I think T2D is gonna be $30, right? That's what it is listed as on the Switch shop currently... I'll be mad if it is more than that
My favorite games this year were
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Stellar Blade (PC)
The First Berserker: Khazan
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
Cronos: The New Dawn
I always seem to live in a different world than this sub.
Me too man. Me too.
Same brother, same.
I've only played a couple games from this year (Xenoblade & Chrono Gear, I do have Clair Obscur but I haven't started yet), but man this year has been good.
Another year of good gaming and didn’t even play any of these! 😅 it makes me happy that my hobby is doing so well at making so many different gamers happy all year long.
Me: That's a cool list. Goes back to playing my handful of games that I always play.
WHICH PIXEL IS YOUR FAVOURITE??
Haven't played any of the games yet but october is the only month where I want to play all games listed
This is probably one of the few years in my adult life where I haven't played any of the top releases for the year. I haven't touched a single one of those games yet. I counted seven that I would play if I had the time and money. Maybe nine if I had the time to try others I'm interested in. I tend to stick with the bigger story-driven games: Kingdom Come Deliverance, Monster Hunter Wilds, Expedition 33, Silksong, Ghost of Yotei, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Death Stranding 2. I would try Anno, Hades, Silent Hill, Xenoblade, and Dragon Quest if I had the time. I need a decade of PTO to catch up on my backlog. I could really spend a year just playing these games and doing not much of anything else.
The Drifter) also came out this year, and it is very good.
Best month for back to back bangers is November of 2004
1)Halo 2 2) Jak and Dexter 3 3) Metroid Prime 2 4) NFS Underground 2
Just kidding, it's all the games that were released just in one week of November there also:
1) CS: Source 2) Roller Coaster Taycoon 3 3) Ratchet and Clank 3 4) TloZ Minish Cap 5) EverQuest 2 6) Half Life 2 7) Vampire: the Masquerade 8) MGS 3 9) Spider Man 2 10) And freaking WoW
Games haven’t been good in a long time
Blue Prince and E33 were 2 of the best games that I've played in MANY years. April is King in my book.
I look forward to playing all of these in 5 years when the sales hit
Kingdom Come deserves it but I guess everyone likes European Persona...
ninja gaiden ragebound is not as good as ppl say, you can basically beat 70% of the game just jumping and hit, have good graphics, but lack of the arcade feeling since you have infinite tries to beat the game
I think it's just me but I found this year to be just "pretty good".
Yeah, I'm not into Death Stranding or Silksong, and I haven't played Expedition 33 yet. So it's probably me.
But also I have no interest in playing any of those games either. The games I did have interest in playing this year were...pretty good.
IDK, it's no 2017.
The 2000s were the peak of video game development.
All bar a couple are single player games.
Yet we keep being told that only multiplayer live service micro transaction slopfests are able to make money, everything has to have constant updates and new seasons and paid skins and fucking battlepasses...
good year for gamers, lets hope it stays like this for 2026.
Anything in next year to look out for?
Wolverine, 007 First Light, Reanimal (new IP from Little Nightmares devs), Nioh 3, Resident Evil Requiem, and of course GTA 6.
Alrighty.
For me personally Oct peaked! It was also hella stressful because backlog be backlogging @.@
Great games but my ass only played 3 of them. 1 of them got horrible performance issues that's slowly getting fixed somewhat, but shit my PC is strong enough to push through and I personally had lots of fun with it. Rest of the year I spent playing older games and 100%ing most of them. Overall great year for gaming in general for me. Expedition 33 ftw.
Not to mention Prime 4 too - IMO critics hated on this way too much - it's awesome
I'm like 75% of the way through. The desert is a huge slog.
Not really, the mandatory green crystal collecting part alone (watched the SkillUp review) is enough to bring it down to 6/10. Don't get me wrong there is still a solid foundation albeit played very safe and low-effort innovation to the Prime formula.
You can definitely tell how botched the development was and Prime 4 seems like a patchwork. Both the open world desert hub area and the whole Marvel-esque character style feel like they were tacked on later. It's like 3-4 different development teams were involved making the 'modules' of the game but without a coherent artistic vision. Glued clumsily together at the end to release it before holiday season.
abiotic factor my personal GOTY, and in order after that is
2-hades 2
3-E33
4- MH WILDS (if the performance and the small issues got fixed the game would have been second in my list but they didn't fix shit, also MH is my fav series so there's that)
5- silksong
this year I also played older games that I missed. cyberpunk and lords of the fallen 2023 (played more but these two came up to me now) and they can make it in my top 5 easily but I don't think its fair.
Any list that contains the bugfest that is monster hunter is, for me, instantly void of plausibility
What is wrong with bugfests? Silksong is my game of the year and is full of bugs.
The game isn't buggy. it's poorly optimized
"one game that is poorly optimized, and has no relation to any other game on this massive list, AUTOMATICALLY makes this list utter shit!"
This is how ridiculous you sound.
Good year for gaming 100% tho its getting expensive. i think i only bough silksong and E33 full priced
I'm just glad I have the willpower to not just blindly accept E33 as being an all time great OMG best game ever. It's a good game, yes. But there's many turn based RPG's out there that do what it does equally or better.
Lol the haters on that title are getting just as tiresome as the stans. Pendulum swinging the other way.
nah the dick suckers are more annoying.
they're shitting on other JRPG's to prop up that game.
Everyone saying that Expeditions is GOTY seems to have never played Kingdoms. It's absurd that we have to vote for the best game of the year when the best game of all time is among the contenders.
It seems crazy to me that monster hunter wilds isn't in the GOTY conversations
terrible optimization + lack of content + game being really easy compared to previous entires + shoehorned story elements
Yeah the handholding was bad i guess it did take the hunting aspect away. It ran fine on console for me though and the gameplay itself was great.
yeah Capcom doesn't miss when it comes to gameplay, even their 'worst' single player game of the 2020s (Dragon's Dogma 2) had stellar gameplay
It sitting at 66% on Steam probably didn't help.
It was probably my favorite game this year but I understand why it's not on the list for many. The PC optimization (lack of) and the watered-down difficulty on release hurt it a lot. It wasn't challenging enough to engage newcomers, in my opinion, and a lot of people struggled to play it at all. I love it and it runs fine on my beefy rig but it's not so playable for my wife on her older setup :/
It is my game of the year too but I’ve not had the time to play expedition or death stranding 2 yet.
It’s a shame they have fumbled it this badly, I was oblivious due to being on console and loved the gameplay which is always king for me.
The fact that it had so many sales out of the gate to now have this reception says it all, unfortunately :/ I'm hoping they can swing back with a big expansion and optimizations, as the framework is really good
Despite the game itself being awesome, the performance issues rightfully take it out of that conversation. It has a lot of things it does really well, and the combat in that game is the best it's ever been in the series. But as a whole package it is not GotY potential because performance and optimization is part of that package.
It runs so poorly that I just can't play it anymore. Also the baby's first campaign turned me off the game despite the fact that the post game content drops are actually challenging.
It streamlined the experience to the point I feel like I'm playing Soul Calibur but with animals in it.
Looking forward to what the portable team brings out next to be honest.
The Alters was terrible, actually. It had so much potential, but the actual gameplay was tedious and the writing was terrible. It made sense when I heard about the allegations of AI usage after I got bored with it and quit playing.
Edit: This sub is full of shillbots who downvote anyone who doesn't cheer for the high profile game publishers. Fuck y'all.
The AI thing was entirely a tiny placeholder monitor screen texture.
I thought the game was great, my main issue with it was the fact that I don't like playing games with time limits, except roguelites.
ooh you got salty about the downvotes lul, i love it, keep crying
Really shows you how fucking worthless these Ratings are. Trash like DOnkey Kong, Kojima Game or DIspatch having a higher rating that KCD2 LOL.
There are maybe 3 Games on that picture that even deserve a 85.