2024's Best of the Rest

(Also some other stuff I forgot)

Mine is European so all the logos are blue but you get the idea

See? I fucking said there were too many goddamn video games in 2024, but did you believe me? Noooooo. Now look at what we’re dealing with! A follow-up! Mostly it’s just a couple games that came out in 2024, but I would be remiss if I did not also spill a little ink on some older stuff that I got Extremely Into in the last year as well, so why not do a part two?

Well, because it’s a silly fucking idea, but hey, I haven’t finished getting my thoughts in order to talk about SIGIL II or Berserk yet. I mean I will talk about Berserk a little here because of one of the things on this list, but, you know, I’m only just at the Eclipse in my re-read so I can’t really get too carried away here. Now that I have wasted a bunch of time by nattering on for two paragraphs, let’s get into the stuff that came out last year I forgot to mention (or didn’t mention because the damn blog was getting too long, or both).

Note: Not Subway Surfer-adjacent

Best Sad Robots (presented by Nier Automata): 1000x Resist

This is a weird one! I went into it thinking it would be one thing, but it ended up being something else! Which is to say, I thought it was going to be a sci-fi thing about revenge and SMASHING THS SYSTEM (and it kind of is, I guess) but instead it was a sci-fi thing about being a shitty teen and the Hong Kong riots and the immigrant experience – particularly for shitty teens. Also there’s big aliens and you bounce between different time-points and it’s really, really good. Don’t tell me how it ends, I still have a bit left to go (courtesy of my wandering attention).

Best DLC that wasn’t Shadow of the Erdtree: Alan Wake 2’s Season Pass

Cheating here by putting both Night Springs and The Lake House in the same entry, perhaps, but look, I don’t number lists and this is a follow-up thing anyway, so leave me alone. I really, really loved Night Springs – it was funny as shit, for a start, and also managed to play with the history of video games in a way that had me hooting and clapping and excitedly texting my brother “I cannot believe what they are fucking doing” as I hit it. Just Remedy having an enormous amount of fun with the medium, the sort of fun that you can feel coming out of the screen at you.

Then there’s The Lake House, which is a much more traditional-feeling piece of work by comparison. That does not stop it from being a fascinating commentary both on the use of generative AI and also a great view of Science Going Too Far with a little Destruction of a Relationship sprinkled on top. It’s got some real good enemy design, and honestly it was fun playing an agent of the FBC who didn’t have any special powers or anything, just a working knowledge of How This Shit Usually Works. It also featured yet another new song from POE, a brief ARG that reveals we’re getting a new POE album at some point, and some more Alan Wake Lore.

Oh right and a teaser for Control 2. You know, in case you wanted to be more excited about Control 2 than you already were (I am very excited for Control 2).

Best Video Game Console: The Sega Dreamcast

So some stuff happened in November – most notably for me was the Remap charity stream which included a ranking of video game console startups. Seeing the startup for the Sega Dreamcast reminded me that I’d always wanted one of those things, and I idly navigated to ebay to see just what one of those bad boys would cost me.

As it turned out, not that much! So, €110 later, I took delivery of a frankly gorgeous Sega Dreamcast, complete with controller, cables, VMU, and rumble pack even! The first thing I did with it, once I’d hooked it up to my tv via SCART (my tv is old enough to still have one of those), was use it to listen to Minus the Bear’s Planet of Ice, because I didn’t have any games for it yet (or more accurately, they hadn’t been delivered yet) and it had been a while since I’d listened to that album, so why not?

Every so often I look over at where it is sitting on my floor and giggle madly. I love this fuckin’ thing! It’s a great console! There’s good games for it! Sega’s transition to a software-focused company has always been kind of a bummer to me, but hey, if you’re gonna go out you might as well go out on a high note – and the Dreamcast is a hell of a high note.

Best Dreamcast Game I Played: Shenmue II

One of the first titles I grabbed once I’d pulled the trigger on getting an actual Dreamcast console was, of course, Shenmue. Then I remembered that while the US never got Shenmue II (until the HD release, anyway), they did in fact release it in Europe, and I went looking.

This is the most expensive Dreamcast game I’ve bought (so far), and cost the price of a modern video game at €70. This was worth it! I’m astonished at how much stuff they crammed into Shenmue II, and the story takes some nice twists and turns that sure, are not particularly shocking, but they were satisfying nonetheless. The third disc in particular just feels fucking enormous, I am constantly amazed they went through the trouble of mapping out all these empty floors (and you can go in most of the empty apartments! Why would you do this?) and also that they made the fighting feel like 100 times better than in Shenmue. When I do moves they actually come out reliably! Also, you can see enemy health so you have a way better idea of how much there is to do.

These were big deals back when this came out! I need to finish it up so I can start up Shenmue III, which I am sure will wrap everything up in a tidy little package. I just have like, one or two more things to get through. I kinda lost momentum over the holiday break because I wasn’t about to cram my Dreamcast into my luggage.

Best Dreamcast Game Kentaro Miura Wrote the Plot of: Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage

Like I said earlier, I got really into Berserk (am still really into Berserk, will probably continue to really be into Berserk for the foreseeable future) this past year. I knew that a Dreamcast game was made, and even knew that it featured the vocal talents of one Cam Clarke (aka Leonardo/Liquid Snake himself) as Puck, and had even played a little bit of it thanks to the magic of Dreamcast Emulation. It was inevitable then, that I’d have to see what such a game actually went for on the ol’ retro game market.

Not that much, as it turned out! I don’t know if I got lucky and someone didn’t realize what they had or if it’s just not that rare, but I was able to come into possession of a copy without much fuss. It’s in good condition too, manual and everything!

I am too lazy to get screenshots of the game so just look at the back of the case for me, please

The game itself is from the good folks at Yukes (who also made a Berserk game for the PS2 later, as you know), and it’s… pretty good, actually! It’s got some good vocal talent – the primary antagonist Balzac is Earl Boen, aka Sergei Gurlokovich for the Metal Gear Solid 2 fans out there, aka Le Chuck, aka… look, you’ve heard the guy before. You will know him immediately – and I already mentioned Cam Clarke. Topping off the Metal Gear Solid cast is Paul Eidig, who plays two people in the game: one of Balzac’s minions (and a mini-boss) and one of the leaders of the Resistance that sort of helps Guts out a little.

The story is solid too – a little adventure for Guts that slots in (according to this wiki entry I looked at) just after volume 22 but before volume 23. I actually would’ve placed it between volumes 21 and 22 myself, but what do I know? I’m not on a wiki. Guts rolls into a town that’s having some trouble with demon plants which might also cure Casca’s madness. Yes, I spoilered that last bit because maybe you wanna read through Berserk without knowing anything. In typical Berserk fashion, it goes badly for everybody involved, but some people come away from it all wiser for the experience and determined to keep struggling. The end of the game in particular does a great job of giving Guts what he wants for like three seconds and then ripping it away from him. Dick move! It’s great! You also get to fight Nosferatu Zodd for really no good reason but hey, he’s always a fun time.

Like basically every 3d action game made at the time, the camera can be a problem sometimes (I had particular trouble with it during the Zodd fight for whatever reason) but for the most part? Pretty fucking solid! The combat feels pretty good and it does indeed feel like you are just swinging a big ol’ hunk of iron around. Most importantly, a little chibi Puck shows up on the VMU and counts how many people you kill in each area. It’s great.

More importantly, it satisfied my desire for more Miura-penned Berserk (okay okay, I am overstating this a little. Technically Miura only provided character design and the scenario draft). Most importantly, the soundtrack was done by Susumu Hirasawa, who did the soundtrack for the 1997 anime which is unfuckwithable. There’s even a Forces remix for the ending credits! The man don’t miss!

Best Silent Hill: Silent Hill 3

The run-up to the release of Silent Hill 2’s remake reminded me I had never played the fuckin’ Silent Hill games, and with a little effort I came into possession of PC copies of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. Oh, and Silent Hill. I also ended up with Silent Hill 4, but that one has not… quite hit the way the other three did.

I played them backwards, because I mostly wanted to play Silent Hill 3, aka the one with which I was least familiar (Run for the Hills meant I knew the plot of 1 and 2). This ended up being a mistake on my part, because Silent Hill 3 is the best one of the three, at least to me! I think Heather is a fantastic protagonist and the game does a great job of giving her the right attitude: that of someone who is extremely Over This Shit but does not quite know what This Shit is or how to make This Shit stop happening.

It helps that the game is a real fucking looker. I don’t know what witchcraft Team Silent was doing to get something that looked that good on the PS2, but the facial expressions in particular are incredible. The acting is (I think) pretty terrific too, taking the weird stilted deliveries of the previous two games (which were… maybe less intentional in some ways, although they clearly were going for A Tone) and making them work but also making the emotion for some sequences really shine through. This is again, mostly Heather’s performance, but Douglas’ actor also puts in some real fucking work here that’s worth celebrating. It’s all delightful! I’m really glad I played this, and if they want to do a remake of another Silent Hill, I would not say no to Silent Hill 3.

Best Sad Robot Lesbians: SIGNALIS

Got my eye on you

This is actually the reason I ended up playing all these Silent Hill games, I think. I mean they were already on my mind because of the remake, but this is the thing that gave me the final push. Mostly because I finished this and it was so fucking good that I lost my mind a little and was like “god damn it I need more games like this” and hey there are a bunch of those as it turns out.

Signalis rules. It’s got the aesthetics and the art direction and the gameplay and the narrative, dear god the narrative! It’s dreamlike and nightmarish and made me think I’d super-fucked up at one point because it pulled a little trick on me. Good going, Signalis! If Crow Country’s combat was a little more like yours, I would like Crow Country a lot more than I do (I mean I like Crow Country well enough, obviously, but you know what I mean). I felt desperate through most of Signalis – desperate to get out of where I was, to find my robot(?) girlfriend, to do a lot of stuff, really. Then I got one of the better endings and felt like a champion. I haven’t started another run of it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I wanna get the Super Secret Ending, after all.

Cosmic horror is good.

Best Space Harrier Game that Isn’t Titled Space Harrier But Come On: Air Twister

Okay actually you are on like a flying lizard... dude or something in this level but I assure you there is a swan

I think I picked this up because I played Space Harrier in Shenmue and was like “damn what if I had this but I was a lady on a swan instead of a guy with a jetpack” and it turned out Yu Suzuki had my back on that one. Thanks, Yu Suzuki.

I think that’s it

Okay, that’s that. No more talking about games from 2024. I reserve the right to talk about Dreamcast games – I also picked up Resident Evil: Code Veronica and Jet Set Radio, and I’ll inevitably end up with Crazy Taxi because Of Course Why Would I Not – but I’m pretty sure I got through all the stuff I played and enjoyed in 2024 here. I think?

I think.