2024, huh?
If you want to skip ahead to the bulleted list where I talk about games I liked outside of the top 10, I don’t blame you, but if you’ll indulge me for a second in a bit of reflection I’d appreciate it. With the closure of cohost I don’t have a great outlet for long-form writings anymore (if you have any tips for that I’d appreciate them!), so… this is about the only place I can get the things on the inside outside right now.
I spent a long weekend in the hospital in mid-December due to my ulcerative colitis again. There’s a test that doctors run that’s basically a measure of “how inflamed your GI organs are”, and people whose immune systems aren’t trying to destroy their own organs tend to get a result of about 10-50 on this test. Me? I got back “>3000”. Not even a specific number, just “Hey things are bad. How bad? We stopped bothering to count the exact number of how bad it is.”
I tried to avoid going to the hospital for as long as possible despite feeling weak and exhausted all the time and apparently worrying my entire family half to death because I looked like a ghost, but eventually my tolerance for pain wore out and I ended up admitted again. Unlike last time, where it was a complete mystery of what was happening and I had let it run for about a month, resulting in a week-long stay plus a blood transfusion, I had only let it run for about two weeks so this stay was only four days, and the only things given to me in an IV were saline and copious amounts of medication.
I’m also going up a step in medication potency. Before, I was just taking the entry level UC medication, a delayed release pill that targets specific immune pathways in the colon, combined with a general “Hey, immune system, we as a living organism need you to take a massive breath” pill that’s the same type of medication they give people who are rejecting transplanted organs. Now I’m still taking those but am going to start an infusion of a biologic drug, a monoclonal antibody that (by my very much not a doctor, I just read Wikipedia sometimes standard) works by binding to an aspect of white blood cells that attacks what it shouldn’t and telling it to stop. It’s also apparently derived from antibodies found in mice, so I’m sure my cats will be thrilled.
All this is to say, between events that run the gamut between personal and world-wide, I’ve had the opportunity to think way too much on this thing I’ve done for going on 13 years now. There’s definitely a part of me that wonders why I keep doing it. I think I straddle the line between old-style, “mixed bag”, buying guide-y types of writing, newer styles of critique, and “influencer” in a massively poor fashion. I came along well too late for the former, I don’t think I have the lived experience to reflect intelligently in a unique way that isn’t covered by dozens of more talented writers on the second, and I don’t have the social battery to maintain any amount of persistence for the latter. So that part of me is definitely wondering “what am I even doing, who cares.”
But the other part of me, the part that’s still a bit bigger in my brain, leans over to that first side and whispers “Because it’s fun.” And truly, it is. I just think it’s a lot of fun to talk about things I like. Even if the audience is nobody and no one, I like writing about things I like. It’s a bit circular, but I think it’s enough to keep doing this until I can’t. Especially looking to the future, sometimes you have to find the joy where you can. For me, right now, it’s talking about cool video games. So, let’s talk about some.
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
Number 10 I don’t really know why I found the Alone in the Dark remake quite as interesting as I do. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to recommend, per se. There’s a lot of jank around the gameplay in an extremely “This feels like a European developer jumping into 3D games that they don’t tend to make very often” way, which: I mean, turns out is accurate. It ends up being perfectly serviceable in terms of “being a video game that you can play through”, though it’s nothing exciting. But I think looking past the gameplay, there’s a lot in the performances and cutscene direction that ends up weirdly compelling. When I was playing it I was advised not to make this comparison, but I feel like there’s a lot of Deadly Premonition in the cutscenes. With performances played unnaturally straight compared to the oddness of the situation unfolding, fairly static camera angle choices, and the musical score that kind of meanders in and out of focus, the end result is a game that I was happy to get through the middling combat just to see what was going to happen next, which is an odd feeling in a game that’s a remake of game from the early '90s. It’s also a shame that Pieces Interactive, the developer, ended up shut down by Embracer after the game’s commercial failure. I think there were a lot of solid, if very unrefined ideas at play here, and the absolute bloodbath of developers being shut down after single failures over the past few years means that a lot of interesting games like this won’t get the chance to improve over the course of sequel development.
Number 9 I don’t remember if this has really been a thing since I’ve been doing these lists, but I do tend to have a deep appreciation for when series get weird. Changing out gameplay styles or protagonists is an often bold move that tends to result in a pretty interesting shake-up for the series, and Echoes of Wisdom is no exception. I had a ton of fun playing as Zelda and summoning her army of crabs/snakes/birds while bopping around Hyrule solving various puzzles. The Link’s Awakening remake art style fits extremely well with the whimsy on display, and as we work towards the last hurrahs of the Switch I can hardly think of a better game to wind down the system on.
Number 8 Speaking of series that get weird, Prince of Persia is back! In Metroidvania form! I think the previous Prince of Persia game before this one was Forgotten Sands? The one that was made to tie into that Jake Gyllenhaal movie? With 14 years away, Prince of Persia hasn’t missed a step with an incredibly fun, fluid platformer with frenetic combat and a bunch of extremely useful quality of life improvements that should become standard moving forward in Metroidvania design. Whoever thought up the whole “Take a screenshot and stick it on the map so you can remember why certain paths aren’t explored” is a genius.
Number 7 By using the framework of an old-school survival horror game with enough modernized gameplay decisions, absolutely killer character design work, and stellar writing, Sorry We’re Closed is a pretty incredible debut from à la mode games. It blends fixed camera, Silent Hill style exploration and puzzle gameplay with first-person combat styled after Killer7 in a way that’s shockingly effective. The characters, not only aesthetically amazing, are written with such complexity and depth that they feel extremely human. All the pieces work together in harmony to create both a fun horror experience, as well as a poignant story about love as well.
Number 6 I’ll admit it: when it was first announced that Bloober Team was developing a remake of Silent Hill 2, I did not have high hopes. The original Silent Hill 2 is, more than almost any other game before or since, an extremely well thought out, impeccably subtle, and divinely melancholy horror game. Bloober Team, before this, has exhibited the subtlety of a one man band wrapped in Christmas lights driving an ice cream van through a mime convention. Then came that early trailer featuring sweet James Sunderland combos, and Bloober Team’s desperate plea to not judge their game before you played it seemed harder and harder to take seriously. And yet. Somehow, the team that brought you Layers of Fear and The Medium managed to not only make a remake that absolutely lives up to its predecessor, but even, and I cannot believe I am saying this, surpasses it at points. They managed to make a version of one of the greatest horror games of all time that doesn’t require you to shell out exorbitant amounts of money for a quality experience. It manages to perfectly ride the line of modernizing the game without ruining what made the original so effective, remaining true to the ideas and themes of the original while seamlessly adding new scenes and events in, and complementing the original game as feeling like the way Silent Hill 2 felt back in 2001.
Number 5 Sometimes the video game industry decides to make big budget games seemingly just for me. Star Wars has never been a thing I would call myself a fan of, necessarily. I mean I’ve seen the movies and played some of the games, but I think my problem is that I think Jedi are boring in concept and generally annoying in execution. There’s a really interesting retro-futuristic world in Star Wars, conceptually and aesthetically, but have someone pop a lightsaber out and I tend to start losing interest. Which is why it genuinely feels like Star Wars Outlaws is a Star Wars game specifically made for me. No Jedi, no Force, just good, old fashioned heisting and looking at all the cool world technology designs. I had so much fun sneaking around, zapping imperials, and stealing basically everything that wasn’t nailed down. Even before the patch that overhauled the stealth and combat, I wound up completing almost every sidequest, hunted down all the collectables, and spent probably too much time just tooling around the environment on my speeder, looking for the next place to score from.
Number 4 Last year, when talking about Super Mario Wonder, I talked about how it felt like no one had the science of condensing joy into a playable format quite like Nintendo. Turns out: Team Asobi is a solid second place in that regard. Astro Bot is both a delightful platformer and a fun celebration of 30 years of Playstation history in one package. The game is filled to the brim with adorable references to a ton of games throughout Playstation history, including two that even tripped me up in terms of seeing them and going “I have no idea who this is”. The game provides a trip down memory lane with an extremely solid platformer with fun levels, beautiful visuals, and fun challenges. Even some of the harder, post-completion challenges that I beat my head against for a while were never frustrating or taxing, it just took a bit of time for the path through the level to click.
Number 3 The best puzzle-adventure games do a good job of making the player feel smart when they figure out a particularly tough puzzle. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes does that with every puzzle in the game. Everything is so interconnected that making a breakthrough in one puzzle often leads to a breakthrough in another, and it’s satisfying in the same way that watching one of those fancy domino falling videos is. It’s also just obscure enough that I ended up taking notes that made me look like an absolutely insane person, which is a major positive in my book. Combine that with a fascinating plotline, amazing atmosphere, and Simogo’s penchant for incredible music, and you have a game that I just couldn’t put down until I had explored every nook and cranny.
Number 2 I don’t think there’s been a game that nails the globe-trotting, pulp adventure feel of an Indiana Jones film quite like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, even taking into account the amazing point and click adventure games from Lucasarts in the early ‘90s. Not only does MachineGames offer an extremely fun first-person action game, but their level and puzzle design evoke the best traits of immersive sims like Deus Ex or Dishonored, with so many interconnected paths and ways around problems. Similar to Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, when they set up their more enclosed puzzle areas, each puzzle feels deeply satisfying to figure out and solve, and the aha moments make you feel straight out of an Indiana Jones film. Even better than that, all of the small character moments feel like the best bits out of Raiders of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, like a standout early example featuring Indiana Jones dressed as a priest punching an Italian fascist in a confession booth because he confessed to getting both his wife and mother-in-law pregnant. The writers have nailed, to me, the best part of the character of Indiana Jones: that he’s an academic first, a scoundrel second, and an action-man a distant third. The end result is a game that not only feels like a lost Indiana Jones film from the mid to late ‘80s, but a game that does a fantastic job of making the player feel like an adventuring archaeologist.
Number 1 If you’ve read any of these lists before you probably saw this coming. 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a momentous game for multiple reasons. Trying to establish a new lead character for the future of the series while also completely shifting genres into a turn-based RPG was a gutsy move that seemed to pay off. It seemed to solidify the resurgence of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series in countries that weren’t Japan that started with Yakuza 0. Infinite Wealth refines the RPG mechanics introduced into a mirror sheen, vastly improving on what was introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The increased focus on manual positioning, as well as being able to grant any skill from other job classes instead of just a handful make the battles so much more dynamic and interesting. Bosses have much grander setpieces attached to them, which make them feel even closer to the feel of boss fights in the more action-based games of the series. The story is incredible, though at this point that’s to be expected. I think where the game truly shines is in its performances. Takaya Kuroda is maybe the unsung hero of video game voice acting, anchoring the game’s trademark wackiness with a powerfully emotional performance as aging and dying Yakuza legend Kiryu. Other standouts include Kazuhiro Nakaya’s performance as Ichiban Kasuga, threading the line between “extremely silly” and “deceptively perceptive” with aplomb, as well as Mobile Suit Gundam’s Toru Furuya as the enigmatic religious leader Bryce Fairchild. Without even getting into the surprisingly decent fake Pokemon subgame or the not-Animal Crossing one either, or the fact that I think it has the best soundtrack of the year, Infinite Wealth is another fantastic entry in my favorite video game series of all time, and by far the game I spent the most time in this year, which makes it an easy choice to say that it’s my game of the year. Thanks for reading!