The 2024 Moosies Video Game Awards...Part I.

In 2023, I kinda let the Moosies get out of hand. These are always long, probably too long, but that year in particular, I just let myself go overboard. Or, more accurately, because I spent less time writing about games individually (outside Zelda), I ended up with too much to say when the end of the year came. So, for 2024, I vowed to write more about games individually, to hopefully alleviate this. And, while I certainly did a good job writing about most of the games I had things to say about... The Moosies still got out of hand this year, so... I had to split it into two parts again. Sorry! I just love games too much.

I'll be frank, a lot of things in the world today suck. 2024 was a pretty bad year and all signs are pointing to the the years to come being even worse. Even just focusing on video games, as good as the games are, I just can't bring myself to say any year is good for video games now when so many people lose their jobs so regularly.

BUT!

If there's anything that I can feel good about, it's that I did put a decent amount of effort into my writing, and some of it was pretty good. One piece in particular that I'm very proud of, and loyal readers may be able to guess which one it is. It's a small victory, but one I will take nonetheless.

Anyway, I don't know that 2024 will go down in history books for its games as a whole, but the best games were excellent, and there were a lot of them! I even started a list of games I missed and would like to get around to eventually. The biggest omission in terms of games one might have expected me to have played is Life is Strange: Double Exposure. I've heard...mixed things about it, but I still fully intend to play it.

Also, not full games, but things I probably should have played this year: The expansions for Elden Ring and Persona 3 Reload. I know, I know! The only excuses I have are other things came out and I got distracted. In the case of Episode Aigis, I saw SMT V Vengeance for cheaper than that DLC, so I went for the bang for my buck route on more Atlus JRPG, rather than the follow up to a story I may or may not be emotionally ready for. Not touched that yet, I was smart enough to know I couldn't beat both a Ubisoft open world game and an Atlus JRPG before the year ended!

Regardless, this preamble has gone on long enough. So, it's finally time for...

10. Little buddy of the year: Nix (from Star Wars Outlaws).

Friend!!!

Look at this little guy. Look how cute he is! He's adorable! Like what if an axolotl was big and a land creature. Especially within the realm of an art style aiming (more or less) for realism, Nix is a top tier critter design. Not only visually, but the way he moves, acts, and speaks (not in any sort of identifiable language, just cute gurgling and growling courtesy of go to creature voice actor Dee Bradley Baker) is absolutely spot on. Not necessarily to how a creature like Nix would act realistically, but to how I want someone like him to be in Star Wars.

He's not just cute, he's useful too! He can push far away buttons, distract enemies by playing dead (extremely adorable), pick pockets at range, sabotage alarm panels, and...ignite explosive barrels or set off grenades in people's pockets... Listen, maybe sometimes I feel a little bad making my cute little buddy commit murders, but it's a video game! A Star Wars video game! Anyway, I always make sure to reward him with a good scratch on the head.

There's countless different reasons why Star Wars attained the popularity it has (even if it feels like it's in a down period now), and I firmly believe one of the core reasons is it's goofy. It's a universe unafraid to have whole planets stuffed with weird little creatures, and guys, and robots. Yes, some things stray away from it. Andor is absolutely the best modern Star Wars, if not the best thing to come out of the franchise as a whole, and that has very few weird little pals. Though, B2EMO is a top tier sad droid, so even Andor understands that Star Wars needs at least one weird little buddy.

That, more than anything else, is what makes Star Wars Outlaws a good game. Not just Nix (though I love him), but that it does a great job replicating that universe. The towns are filthy, rundown, and filled with weird little freaks just trying to get by in a galaxy more than happy to stomp them into the dirt. And being an open world game with a more lackadaisical pace, it gives its worlds time and space to breathe, and not quite feel “real,” but feel Star Wars real.

Sleepy...

It's funny to think about how in the year 2024, it's been decades since Star Wars games became commonplace, and yet Outlaws is kind of the first of its kind. First open world(s) Star Wars game for sure, and the first major one in a long time to...at least not have a Force user as the main character, or any heavy emphasis on anything like that. When I wrote the first draft of this, before I finished the game, I made a joke to the effect of, “don't blame me if I post this before I finish the game and REDACTED shows up at the end...” Then REDACTED showed up near the end. So I had to re-write this part. It probably would have been better without REDACTED, but it doesn't ruin the game by any stretch.

I like the Jedi games a lot, and in a lot of ways more than Outlaws (story's more interesting and I think the laser-swordplay is more compelling), but modern Star Wars focuses so much on the Jedi that it's overdone. Mandalorians too, I'm pretty much sick of them at this point. Meanwhile, the vast galaxy of outlaws and ne'er-do-wells has been horribly neglected. Again, Andor spends a lot of time in that space, and the Solo movie too, but for games?

Outside of Shadows of the Empire, an N64 game, I struggle to think of anything. Bounty Hunter was in this realm, but again, also kind of Mandalorian-y with Jango Fett as the lead. Old Republic probably had an “outlaw” path you could take, but that game seemed so broad it was trying to cover everything Star Wars.

Outlaws, on the other hand, centers of Kay Vess, a down on her luck small time thief. So eager, or more accurately desperate for the one big job to get out of the rut she's stuck in, that she's willing to take any risk. A few risky mistakes later, and she's on the run from one of the most ruthless crime bosses in the galaxy. Death Mark on her head, her only path to survival is to go even deeper into all the worst hives of scum and villainy in the outer rim, and hope her luck gets better along the way. Going for the classic heist movie thing, and building a crew for the real, one last big job. Of those in the crew, ND-5, the hot/rude droid from the key art is definitely my favorite. His no-nonsense attitude is funny in his own way, and he has his own depth too. Plus a few moments of levity where he lets his guard down, just a little, because Nix is just too cute for even him to resist.

High five!

It's nothing super original, but it's a solid premise, and held together by a really good performance from Humberly Gonzales as Kay. On paper she is kind of a typical Han Solo derivative, but she has enough of her own charm and personality to be a fun character to inhabit. Plus, I really appreciate that for a video game released in the year 2024, they did a stellar job making her hair look like something from the seventies or eighties. Just something about it feels like she's using a copious amount of product from that era.

Hairstyle aside, the thing that makes Outlaws work is its focus on not just feeling like Star Wars, but this particular, down in the dirt and mud type of Star Wars. Yes, you get in dogfights out in space, and yes you sneak through Imperial bases so clean it's unsettling, but most of the game has a thick layer of grime and grease smeared all over it, and I love that about it. Everything feels like it's on the verge of falling apart, or breaking down entirely, and that is Star Wars to me.

As a game play related example of why this flavor of Star Wars is so compelling, it lets you just straight up cheat at Sabacc, its in universe card game. Why draw only the legally allowed one card at a time, when you can simply do a minigame to draw a second? Just keep that other card hidden under the table, nobody will notice! Oh, you have to roll some dice? Why not use secret magnets to make sure you get the number you need?

Those are actually the second and third cheating abilities, and the first centers of Nix. Your cute little buddy scampering about to look at the other players' cards, and doing a different minigame. The visual for this is so funny, with Nix just popping up behind them, and also...at no point does it even attempt to explain how Nix is conveying to Kay what the cards are. Nix doesn't have any psychic powers, he can't speak, doesn't have hands to hold up fingers or anything like that.

No one notices a thing.

Now, you may have noticed, I've written about Little Buddy of the Year Nix, about the charming Kay Vess, the hot droid ND-5, and how the game does a great job representing the grimy parts of the Star Wars Universe...but I haven't really written about playing it. And that's because it's a Ubisoft open world game, for better and worse. The shooting is fine, but not amazing. The stealth is passable, at least as of a patch that hit a few days before I bought it. As far as I can tell, there's no more instant-fail if you're spotted sequences, you at least have a chance to take out the enemy before they trigger an alarm. And they added icons over enemy heads when they're about to notice you. Yeah, that was in the patch notes, so it wasn't there before!

There's no towers to climb, but there's plenty of NPCs having conversations to eavesdrop on, which gives Kay intel for small caches to go loot. Better and bigger quests too, those are definitely much more worth doing. It's been a while since the last Ubisoft open world game I played (AC Odyssey), but unlike that, Outlaws doesn't have any sort of XP or leveling. Instead Kay can complete challenges from certain NPCs (or rather, once you do their side quest, their challenges appear in the menus), and those unlock new abilities, or upgrades to her health. If I'm being honest, I've played many RPGs, and other games with leveling, but my interest in that particular type of character progression has...waned over the years. So I definitely prefer this...at least for this sort of game. I've played enough open world games with three skill trees to work my way up!

Its other fairly unique gimmick is that Kay has a reputation with each of the game's crime syndicates, that goes up or down depending on what she does. Do jobs for them, it goes up, or get caught stealing (or fighting) their goons, and it goes down. Get in good enough, and they let her waltz into their territory, and if it's bad enough, they shoot her on sight. They might even call hit squads on her if it gets really bad, but even trying to see what happens when they dislike her, I never let it get that bad. Only the Empire ever hated her enough to do that, at least with me at the controls.

That's the issue with this system, it's too easy to game, and get in good with everyone (aside from the Empire, the game does not let you be a collaborator). Also, even if it weren't, as it is, it's not really that interesting. After hitting max rank with a syndicate, there's still be areas they won't let her in, so you'll still have to sneak through if you want to rob their vaults (not that being able to go anywhere would be interesting either). Since there's no way to permanently make a syndicate opposed to Kay, there will always be opportunities to get the meter back up to good, so it's just a bit too gamey. Never mind that after every job, ND-5 always finds a counter offer to let Kay screw over whoever she got the job from, and help someone else instead. Again, way too gamey when this happens every time.

The game just FEELS like Star Wars.

As I mentioned earlier, I wrote most of this before finishing the game, but I did manage to get to credits just in time. I kept going back and forth on if it should make my top ten, but now that I've finished the story, and all the major side quests? Yeah, I'm feeling good enough about it to knock another game out of the top ten, that I know a LOT of people will think I'm a lunatic for placing this on here instead, but hey. It's my list, and I stopped doing the “most disappointing game that still made my list” awards years ago. These days, I think I'd rather have a shorter list than include something like say, Fallout 4 or The Outer Worlds just to make sure I hit a round ten games.

Sure, it might not be one of the “best” ten games of the year, but it's definitely one of my ten favorites. It's got a lot of heart, and a lot of weirdos. The sort of game that makes me think a sequel could really hit it out of the park, assuming they have the chance to make it. Learn the right lessons, and iron out the bugs (it's still janky; I've had it crash on me a few times), and it could be really great. But who knows, with Ubisoft the way it is now. For now though, I'm having fun, and I'm glad I'm playing it. There is still a part of me that finds joy in Star Wars when it's good, and I think this is a good Star Wars.

Kart Racer of the Year: Nightmare Kart.

For years, YEARS people have been asking, begging, PLEADING for a follow up to Bloodborne. Games have come and gone, attempting to capture the same magic, but none quite reaching that same pinnacle. And though well received at least one of them may be, I still haven't played Lies of P. But one I have played, the true, ultimate successor to Bloodborne...

Nightmare Kart.

It has a variety of options for visual filters and PS1 like effects.

Originally, and literally called Bloodborne Kart (until Sony's lawyers caught wind of it), Nightmare Kart might seem like a joke at first glance, but it's a legitimate game. And a pretty good one too! Especially for free. Honestly, this game is too good to be free, there's too much stuff in it, and it plays too well. It's good!! It's “pay what you want” on itch, for those who want to support fun projects like this from small devs.

The core driving feels solid, there's some good variety in the different karts/characters, the tracks are really good overall (and there's a decent number of them), and the soundtrack! Does it sound anything at all like the moody, orchestral swells of Bloodborne? Maybe just a tinge, but mostly it's a jazzy upbeat soundtrack, and it's fantastic. Exactly what a kart racer needs.

On top of all that, it has a story mode, that plays through a non-copyright infringing retelling of Bloodborne's story. There's even a trio of hidden collectibles that need to be found for the true ending! If you like kart racers, and enjoyed Bloodborne at all, do yourself a favor and download Nightmare Kart. Is it top ten of the year material? Eh, not for me, but I had a lot of fun with it, and I'm happy to try to get more people to play it.

Nightmare Kart also wins:

Racing Game of the Year.
Jazziest Soundtrack of the Year (composed by Evelyn Lark).
Akira Slide of the Year.
Legally Distinct Game of the Year.
Eldritch Horror of the Year.
Spooky Game of the Year.

9. Jack Garland Presents the Award for Best Chaos Fighting of the Year: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II.

I love these tanks.

Warhammer 40,000 is kind of an oddball franchise to me. A tabletop miniature game, pseudo-spinoff of another tabletop miniature game, that has since grown and expanded to a wide universe crammed to the brim with lore pertaining to just about any nook or cranny you might be interested in. These days especially, the games feel like they're a dime a dozen (soon to be a dollar a dozen with inflation, am I right? (too soon?)).

Yet, for me personally, I've only actually played a few of them. The original Space Marine (Shpace Muhreen!) back on the PlayStation Triple, a fun game that as is evident, still makes me think about those cockney Orks on a regular basis. Then, a couple years ago, I played Necromunda: Hired Gun. Rather than focusing on the Space Marines' forever Crusade against the forces of Chaos and all that isn't human, Hired Gun centered on a freelance mercenary, taking odd jobs (with their dog!) in a Hive City. Fun game, ambitious, but kind of too ambitious given it was pretty janky, and had its fair share of issues. But it had wall-running!

That was it, until just recently, when I played through Space Marine II with some friends. And it is worth emphasizing, this is a game best played in co-op with friends. The campaign is probably still fun enough solo, I'd guess more so for people who are into the lore and universe in a way I'm not (and likely never will be), but this is a co-op game. A game where a lot of the enjoyment comes from goofing around with your buddies about all the ridiculous things happening. The moment of realizing that so many of the designs are as big and chunky as they are is because they're all based on miniatures was a lot more fun with friends than it would have been on my lonesome.

A lot has been said about how Space Marine II feels like a 360 game, and I think that is and isn't true. The main campaign does structurally, with how linear it is. That part of the game really does feel like a sequel to the original, like they made the same sort of game, just with some more modern mechanics layered on top. Heavy emphasis on parrying, getting health back for doing damage (like Bloodborne), and restoring shields for doing finishers all feel more modern to me. Yes, I say that knowing Metal Gear Rising, a game on the PS3/360, was far ahead of its time with its parrying, and Zandatsu (perfect parry into a finisher to fully restore health and energy).

That, and the sheer scale of this game at times, is way beyond anything the consoles of that era could reasonably do. The quantity of enemies in this game is utterly absurd. Now, yes, the actual number of enemies that get into the play area directly beside the players isn't unfathomably huge, but the number off in the distance? Thousands of Tyranids, and you can shoot them, and see them react. It's not really until they get close, and start piling up onto each other to reach the Space Marines that they matter. Even then, it's cool, and fun to throw a grenade into and see the corpses fly.

There are a few jetpack sequences in the campaign.

Aside from that, the campaign does feel like a fun throwback to that bygone era, but the Operations mode feels a bit more modern with its progression systems. Just...not always in a great way. It's got different classes, with skills to unlock after leveling up, and different weapons to get with a different leveling thing, and resources to spend. All that feels very modern, and worse, slow. The idea is you're supposed to play the missions again and again, eventually on higher difficulties to unlock the better tiers of weapons. And to the game's credit, the increases in difficulty are meaningful, and there's enough procedurality in enemy spawns that one run of a mission can feel different from another. Enemies will try to call in reinforcements, but give enough time to allow the players to kill them first, and stave off the extra enemies. And sometimes the game just decides to spawn in tougher enemies at various points in the missions, between the big encounters.

It's great, the game is a ton of fun, but that progression really is too slow given the low number of missions. If the entire game was this mode, instead of having the fully bespoke campaign, maybe it'd be fine, or if that campaign also unlocked stuff for Operations. Unfortunately as is, it takes too much to really feel like it's worth the time to keep replaying the same six or seven missions to unlock more stuff to...keep replaying the same six or seven missions.

I do like the variety in the different classes, even though I did just pick a favorite and stick with it (the progression is especially too slow to attempt leveling more than one). I went with Vanguard, because the grapnel launcher into “diving kick” to zoom around is fantastic. I also like that it has access to the big Melta fire orb gun, that pairs really well with getting into the fray, and helping clear out enemies faster. But, I also really like using the melee (chain sword, while kinda basic, is still my go to). With the “fencer” variants, that helps make up for my lack of skill, um, I mean the latency with timing the parries. Definitely the online latency that's the issue, not my skill!

Space Marine II did have a lot of connection issues early on, but they seem to have been mostly ironed out over time. Outside of that, I had a great time with it, but the slow progression in Operations did hold it back for me. Still, it's a top ten game for sure.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II also wins:

Xbox 360 Game of the Year.
Chonkiest game of the year.
Chain sword of the year.
War hammer of the year.
Swarmingest game of the year.
"Rats! We're rats, we're the rats!" Award for most rats.
Special pistol zoom in shots of the year.
Bloodiest/goriest game of the year.
Finisher animations of the year.
Diving Kick of the year.
Grapnel of the year.
Tanks of the year.
Most ridiculous armor of the year.
Aliens from Alien of the year.

Most Unfairly Maligned Game of the Year: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

When I give this game the “Most Unfairly Maligned” “award,” that's not me saying some of that maligning wasn't deserved. By any measure, Suicide Squad is way too repetitive for its own good. However, I still maintain that repetitiveness is the game's only real issue, everything else about it was pretty good.

The core combat is a lot of fun, all four of the main characters feel distinct, and fun in their own specific ways. I spent most of my time with Harley, but I had plenty of fun with the others as well. The story, writing, and characters were all way better than I expected too, with plenty of good laughs along the way (including a lot of really subtle jokes that I never would have guessed would be in a Suicide Squad game). Rocksteady's version of Metropolis was a cool mix of aesthetics, and the “retro-futuristic” parts really stood out to me in particular.

But, once people found out it was a “loot” game, a “live service game,” they made up their minds, and what happened, happened. I can't really comment on the “live service” updates across the year because after finishing the story, I didn't spend much time with it. They've certainly updated it, with new characters to unlock, and at least some snippets of additional story, but... When the base game was already too repetitive, playing more of those same generic missions didn't sound super appealing.

So, like I say, the game has issues. But it also has a really solid core that I wish they had built something more...interesting off of. And it has heart too! Anyone out there who enjoys other Suicide Squad stories, I think they'd enjoy this too, if they gave it a chance. Maybe bring a friend along for the ride if you can, to chat over the missions when you realize just how repetitive it gets.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also wins:

Grappling Hook of the Year.
Speedforce Gauntlet of the Year.
Jetpack of the Year.
Shark of the Year.
Coolest City/Art Deco of the Year.
Most surprisingly subtle sense of humor of the year.
Best animated faces of the year.
Biggest glowing numbers and other things popping out of enemies of the year.

8. Fastest Game of the Year: Sonic X Shadow Generations.

Every big rig needs death saws.

A couple months ago, at my birthday, I hit the point where I can't really say I'm in my “early” thirties now, and am instead in my “mid” thirties. Which, is honestly a meaningless distinction, at least in most cases. But, I'm sure like most people when they hit certain points in their lives, the older and older I get, the more time I spend thinking about older times, how things used to be. And more relevant to this, all the games I played as a kid, and all the particular places, and sensations associated with them.

I think about going over to my friend's place, and playing bits and pieces of old Genesis games with him. I think about being eleven or twelve, and getting a Dreamcast for seventy bucks after Sega announced it was being discontinued. Playing the four Dreamcast games I owned on the weekends at my dad's place. I think about how silly and dumb of a kid I was, to rebuy a couple of those games on GameCube for whatever paltry extra content they claimed to have, but still replaying and enjoying the heck out of them.

I think about being in college, now an “adult,” or as much of an adult as anyone is in college. I still don't really feel like I've fully become an “adult” now, but that's as much to do with my life stalling out a decade ago, and never getting back on track. But, back to college, I think about watching a Quick Look for the latest Sonic game, Sonic Generations, and thinking it looked neat, but never actually playing it. It was a neat idea, modern Sonic and classic Sonic teaming up, for a joint romp across their most prolific games, but as a twenty-one year old, I wasn't interested in nostalgia-bait. It looked fun in its own right, but I was too busy being over-stressed by school to care enough to go buy a Sonic game. I missed out on more than a few great games in college, because I left all my consoles at home, and only played the big stuff I really cared about during breaks.

Fast forward to now, 2024, and I spend all this time looking backward, thinking about the best times in my life, forgetting about all the crap I had to put up with along the way. There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to be twelve years old again, playing Sonic Adventure 2 on my Dreamcast at that little house of my dad's again. Conveniently forgetting part of the reason why I liked playing games so much was on the weekends I got away from my mom. Away from the stresses of school, from all the things that made me depressed, even if I'm sure twelve year old me didn't understand a thing about any of that.

But that's the power of rose tinted glasses. All the garbage, the crap, the traumas, and the bad memories fade away, so all you see are the good times.

Just like I remember...

All of that is to say that the blatant nostalgia-bait of Sonic Generations hit me a lot harder now, at thirty-four years old, than it would have at twenty-one. College me would not have been humming along to “Escape from the City” while Sonic snowboarded down the streets of faux San Francisco. College me would still have had fun, but probably come away thinking, “they just remade that level!” Which, it's not a one to one remake, but it's certainly a remake of it in spirit.

Sonic Generations is not a perfect game, but it is still a really good one. Not all the levels are great (the Sonic Colors ones in particular feel way too long, and the gimmick abilities were clunky), the boss fights are mostly bad, and I ran into some technical issues along the way (one level in particular where one route seemed to always not load in the platforms??). But I had some good fun with it, even without the nostalgia.

Now...Shadow Generations?

Radical...

This is gaming.

I thought people were being hyperbolic with the praise heaped upon this game. It can't possibly be that good, it's just a bonus thing included with a remaster. Right? But, honestly and truly, I think it is actually the best Sonic (style) game, or at least the best one I've ever played. Every level is great. Almost all of the optional challenges are fun. Even the boss fights are really good! It's not just that the levels are all really well designed and fun, the production values are way higher than anything I would have expected from something of this scope. Like, all the times the levels start warping and twisting, tearing apart and forming back together, like something out of the Ninja Theory DmC, or the Ashtray Maze in Control.

I'm honestly flabbergasted at how it's all kind of incredible, especially when I try to think about how Shadow Generations came to be. When it was announced, my assumption was it was a smaller thing, that they were doing just to get some Brand Synergy to tie-in to the movie. They wanted something with both Sonic and Shadow on the key art, and in the title to be out in time for the new movie, so any kids who see it would have a new game to buy alongside it. But, I assumed, they didn't have the time or budget to make a whole new game, so instead they went the Bowser's Fury route, and made something smaller, attached it to a remaster of an older game, and called it a day.

The Bowser's Fury comparison is definitely still apt, but nothing about Shadow Generations feels cheap, or like it's just a tie-in to the movie (despite there being Keanu themed DLC (which I've not played)). Yes, it is a lower quantity of levels than Sonic Generations, but the overall quality is much higher. Never mind the challenges and boss fights being much better overall, and the hub area feeling like a proper, and fun level unto itself.

They really went all out for Shadow.

Bowser's Fury saw Mario put into a very large, open ended level, with tons of platforming challenges and collectibles strewn about it. Shadow Generations does something similar, though its hub is a lot smaller than Bowser's Fury. But Bowser's Fury didn't feature bespoke levels to load into, while Shadow Generations does, and honestly I think I prefer Shadow here. It's just big enough to have some space to explore, but small enough that you can get from one end to the other pretty quick. Plus, having the specific levels to load into lets it have so much more visual and aesthetic variety, which wasn't a huge issue with Bowser's Fury, but definitely something I hope they'd improve upon if that was the route they went with the next full Mario game.

There's also some NPCs to talk to, which doesn't add that much to the lore or anything, but I'm always happy any time Big the Cat shows up. Plus, given Shadow Generations is still as timey-wimey as Sonic Generations, a certain pair from Shadow's past show up. After these twenty-plus years since Sonic Adventure 2...it was touching to see them together again.

Also like Sonic Generations, all these levels are based on ones from previous Sonic games...though curiously, none of them are from Shadow's standalone game? The story revolves around the Black Doom (a name I find much more questionable now than when I was fifteen, haha) aliens returning, so it's not like they're trying to pretend that game doesn't exist. It's important to Shadow's backstory, but I guess the devs didn't want to redo any of those levels?

Unlike Sonic Generations, since there's another decade of Sonic games to draw on, Shadow includes levels from Sonic Forces and Frontiers as well, the latter of which I find especially odd. I know Shadow had his own DLC for Forces, but was he even in Frontiers? It just feels particularly odd. There must have been at least one level from Shadow the Hedgehog they could have drawn inspiration from, right? Anyway, I do appreciate that since the story still involves time and space being warped, they drew stuff from the “future” (since this game takes place concurrently with Sonic Generations) too.

Maria...

And finally, the last thing I have to say about Shadow Generations, is on top of everything else, they finally did a great job differentiating how Shadow plays from Sonic. The basics are still the same, the homing attack, boost, etc. But finally, after decades since his initial appearance in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow can actually use Chaos Control to stop time. It's one of his core abilities! There's a meter that fills by either defeating enemies, or via pick-ups, and once full he can just stop time. Enemies, moving platforms, and even the level timer all freeze for “five seconds” (it feels a little longer, haha). Any enemies defeated during Chaos Control don't immediately refill the meter, because they're frozen in time and need to unfreeze before they blow up, but then they refill it. Meaning in areas with a lot of enemies, you can freeze time again pretty quick.

Thankfully, the levels are designed with this in mind, so while it's rarely needed to progress (and when it is, they give you a pick-up), it can be used to find shortcuts, or alternate paths through the levels. One of my favorites is a spot where a giant robot is throwing handfuls of boulders onto the stage, and using Chaos Control Shadow can homing attack up the boulders to an alternate path. It's cool!

I wish they would go even further with that stuff, honestly. After this, I'm so curious what's next for the Sonic series, but I know what it is I want. Another full Shadow game, one that goes all in on his time manipulation abilities. Maybe these games are too fast paced to make rewinding time a new ability of his, but I'd be interested to see them try it!

I've probably effused about this game enough, but I cannot stress how good it feels to finally, and fully enjoy Sonic and Shadow again after all these years. Yes, I played Sonic Mania a handful of years ago, but only after it was on PS+. And despite having fun, it also frustrated me in all the ways the Genesis Sonics did. I guess deep down in my heart, I'm more of a 3D Sonic fan than a 2D Sonic fan (though the side scrolling levels in both halves of Generations are generally very good to great). Of course I played The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog last year too, but that was a visual novel goof they did for April Fools. It was good, but not a proper rolling around at the speed of sound game.

Bigh...

Before this, the last time I actually bought a Sonic game was 2005. It was either Shadow the Hedgehog, or Sonic Rush, whichever released later that year (according to Wikipedia they released on the same day???). Nineteen years it took for me to want back in enough to spend money. Well, actually I would have bought Frontiers eventually, but by the time it got cheap enough for me to bite, Sonic X Shadow Generations was out, and I wanted that more. Then Frontiers came to PS+ Extra, so my patience (cheapness) was rewarded, I guess!

Shadow has been my favorite of the two, ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. Anyway, as much as nostalgia has made it hard for me to objectively think about when I played Sonic Adventure 2 as a twelve year old, it was still healing, in a way, to play both halves of Sonic X Shadow. Hopefully it doesn't take another nineteen years for one to catch my eye. Or we don't have to wait for another remaster, for Sonic X Shadow & Knuckles Generations, something like that.

For now, I'm just happy to have played a great game, and part of me wanted to put it even higher on this list. It can be tough to find the right order for these things, especially when the games are so different from each other!

Sonic X Shadow Generations also wins:

High speed platformer of the year.
Hedgehog/Ultimate Life-form of the year: Shadow.
Bonus Journal of the year.
Reversible cover of the year.
Pinball of the year.
Snowboarding/skateboarding of the year.
Death truck of the year.
San Francisco of the year.
Chao of the year.
Whales of the year.
Robotnik of the year: Maria.
Time control of the year.
Warping levels of the year.
Spear of the year.
Chaos of the year.
Wings of the year.
Space colony of the year.
Hub area of the year.
Hawg of the year (I forgot to mention Shadow reminisces about previous games by sitting on his motorcycle).
Rail grinding of the year.
Doom surf of the year.
BIG THE CAT.
Eagle hopping of the year.
Crush 40 of the year.
Morph Ball of the year.
Splatoon of the year.
Most Radical Highway of the year.
Metal Gear Rising award for best song with lyrics that kicks in during the final form of a boss fight.

Most Mysterious Game of the Year: Animal Well.

Sometimes it's good to play games that feel just a little weird. Games where you know what's going on, the core skeleton is something you know, and have played countless times before, but the way it's fleshed out is just a little different, and more than a little mysterious. Animal Well is your classic Castletroid, search action game. You explore the world, find items that open up new paths, new areas, and keep exploring until you reach some sort of conclusion. But most of these games, especially Castlevania and Metroid, are built around combat. Animal Well is about exploration, discovery, and puzzle solving, without any way to really fight against enemies. Only ways to occasionally distract them.

And the game never really explains well, anything. You're left to your own devices, to find your own path, and figure it out on your own. Which is refreshing, and neat! I totally get why people obsessed over this game when it was new. I had some good fun with it too, and got to an ending, at least. I dunno how deep its secrets go, because I got to the point where I figured out pretty much everything I was going to on my own, then looked up a couple other things, and decided to leave it as it was.

For games like this, when it gets to the point where I need to look up what to do next, I start to lose interest, because what's even the point of playing if I'm just following a step by step guide? Anyway, I had fun with it, I think all the items are clever in a goofy and silly way, but I also appreciate how different they are from any other Castletroid I've played. No, Animal Well didn't squeeze its way into my top ten, but I liked it enough to make sure I still wrote about it, so I still think it's pretty good overall.

Animal Well also wins:

Scanlines of the year.
Bunnies of the year.
Smoke physics of the year.
Bubbles of the year.
Most Eggs.
Weirdest items of the year.
Chinchillas of the year.

7. Dark Middle Chapter of the Year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

At the beginning of an untold story...

I need to be up front here, and say that part of the reason this game is ranked at Number 7 is because putting an FF VII game at seven was too good an opportunity to pass up. But more seriously, as much as ranking games against each other feels as arbitrary as it does every year, I did have a tough time finding the right spot for Rebirth. On the one hand, it's a game that I really enjoyed the vast majority of. On the other, the ending left me really disappointed, and I wasn't sure how much I wanted to “penalize” it for that. Should I really be ranking it higher than games that ended on high notes, but didn't hit me as hard overall as Rebirth did?

Even if it weren't for the coincidence with the number seven, this feels like the right spot on this list. Or at least a right enough spot, I could probably swap it and my number six around and still feel good about it, but that's neither here nor there.

I am, however, thinking about how Remake was number two on my list in 2020, and at that moment, probably would have been my game of that year if I hadn't played Persona 5 Royal. Even out of games from 2020 that I've played since, Spider-Man Miles Morales is the only one that might have taken that spot from Remake. Anyway, point being, going from almost GOTY to “how badly should I penalize this for the ending” is a pretty big drop from one game to the next.

But even if that ending does still disappoint me, that's not how I want to remember Rebirth. What I want to remember is the now told journey I took with a cast of characters I really love. I want to remember reminiscing with Tifa about growing up with Cloud. I want to remember how Barret's confrontation with Dyne left me tearing up. I want to remember how funny and jarring it was to hear Red XIII's “normal” voice for the first time. I want to remember Yuffie's repeated attempts to join the crew before they eventually relented and let her tag along. I want to remember how obsessed I was with Chadley making a girlmode AI version of himself, making him (ideally her) the most accidentally trans character of the year.

Aerith...

And, maybe more than anything else, I want to remember all the quiet, touching moments with Aerith. Never mind all the funny moments. Aerith and Tifa simultaneously swearing at Cloud if he reveals he looked into Tifa's wardrobe is still one of the funniest moments in a year with a lot of funny moments.

A lot of people complain about how much side stuff is in the game, and how taking the time to go do it all ruined it for them. I try not to complain about how other people play games, but I've got some griping to do here. At least in the realm of video games, few things annoy me more than when people complain about how they chose to play a video game. Oh, you ruined the pacing for yourself by spending too much time, doing optional content? You felt yourself getting bored doing side quests but just kept doing them instead of progressing the story? I'm not going to sit here and defend the game, I also think it has too much side stuff. BUT, if you kept doing it despite knowing it was making the game worse for yourself, then that's on you for not being able to control yourself.

Anyway, I wrote plenty more about Rebirth back when I finished it, so I shouldn't linger on it too much more here. Other than to reiterate that for all its faults, I still really enjoyed the majority of the journey. Maybe if it had a better ending it could have gotten higher up the list, but as it is, I got to put a game with seven in the title at number seven, and I'm happy about that too.

Let's just hope they figure out how to give the trilogy a solid ending.

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth also wins:

Orchestral Soundtrack of the year.
Melee combat of the year.
Rectangular sandwich of the year.
Piano minigame of the year.
Most surprising quantity of minigames of the year.
Bigh swords of the year.
Most beautiful eyes: Barret.
CHAD Module of the year.
Synergistic moves of the year.
Accidentally(?) transest thing of the year: AI lady Chadley.
Feathered friends of the year: Chocobos!
Cutest and loneliest baby birds of the year.
Most belt buckles.
Circlingest owls of the year.
Counter attacks of the year.
Best mix of real time and command based combat.
Escort mission of the year: Salmon the dog.
Dolphin riding minigame of the year.
Parade of the year.
Jazz band of the year.
Sailor disguise of the year.
Cruise of the year.
Boss fights of the year.
Broken limits of the year.
Annihilation, 2018 of the year.
Most strenuous minigame of the year: The sit-ups that genuinely made my finger sore.
Minecart sequence of the year.
Amusement park of the year.
Haunted hotel of the year.
Punchout of the year.
Pec flexing (jiggling) of the year.
Mako (the vehicle) of the year.
Orbs of the year.
Chicken clanger of the year.
Mushroom picking minigame of the year (even though it's hard).
Sonic Adventure 2 award for best forest that features both bouncing off mushrooms and grinding on plants.
Theater of the year.
Ferris Wheel date of the year.
Rap over a fight of the year.

**I couldn't think of a good award name and the game wasn't really up there enough to make the top ten, but I wanted to say something about it award: Tales of Kenzera: Zau.**

I'm assuming that Tales of Kenzera: Zau went under most people's radars. Frankly, it probably would have for me too if it wasn't on PS+ at launch. Which is kind of funny, considering I think EA published it, of all companies? Anyway, this is a Castletroid, and if I'm being really honest, even after I played it, I did kind of think of it as, “we have Prince of Persia at home,” considering I kept putting off buying a certain other release from this year, that may appear further on...

Tales of Kenzera is a pretty good game on the whole, but nothing about it really stands out as anything truly exceptional. The combat is fun, it's got a good artistic style, good soundtrack, and a particularly touching story about a young man coming to terms with his father's death. I enjoyed my time with it, I'm glad I played it, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a game of this sort. It's also good to play a game that just has a different sort of setting than most of what's out there, especially at this mid-tier budget range. I don't know how much, if any of it is drawing from actual African mythology or folklore, or if it's all made up for this game, but it's refreshing to play something drawing from different inspirations than the typical fair (either western and very white or from Japan or China).

Also, it has, not quite an Ikaruga polarity switching system, but it's similar, and that's always fun.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau also wins:

Kamehameha of the year.
Fast travel buddies of the year.

6. Tropical Vacation of the Year: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Friend...

Every time I play one of these games, and it's one of the really good ones, I find myself wondering if this is the one. The one so good it manages to finally be my game of the year. Which, probably seems odd for me to mention this when Infinite Wealth couldn't even crack the top five, but I really did think it while I played it! Granted, just about everything else I played in 2024, I played after it, so there's that.

Looking back, Judgment in 2019 is the closest an RGG Studio game has gotten, and I wonder if it may be the closest they ever get. That year I found myself torn three ways, between it, Control, and ultimately the game I went with, Devil May Cry 5. I only bring this up because, especially after re-reading what I wrote about Infinite Wealth earlier this year, the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series really does mean a lot to me. I haven't been playing them from the very beginning, but anyone who started prior to the series' comeback in the PS4 era is a “Yakuza old head” in my book, and it's just one of those things.

Not every game in the series is great, there's some stinkers in there, absolutely. Yet, when you have something that goes on this long, and puts games out at a faster clip than most other studios (I really hope they aren't horribly crunching), it just feels like one of them should have been a game of the year for me, somewhere along the way. Maybe that's just the fate of this series. It's reliable enough to keep me coming back for more, but never quite rising up to the level it needs to for any given game.

On the other hand, now with most of a year to ruminate on it, my feelings on Infinite Wealth are a little more mixed on the whole. Game design wise, I still think it's the strongest, and best game they've ever made. The combat, substories, minigames, and just the world (of Honolulu) are all the best this studio have ever done. Well, maybe 0 still has the best overall substories, but Infinite Wealth has some all time classics too. I'm going to be thinking about Joseph the bird roosting in Ichiban's floofy hair, and Ichiban UFO hunting for years to come, haha. Conversely, the story...as much as it sets up a lot of interesting things, doesn't really do much with them in the end. I still think the late game stuff with Kiryu reconnecting with friends, old and new is emotionally touching, but most of that was optional. By that point, both Ichiban's and Kiryu's stories just kinda run out of steam, and trudge across the finish line, rather than the triumphant sprint it should have been. That's not a perfect analogy, because the end game boss fights are still fun (including a bout with a giant sea creature that again, I will remember for a long time to come), but it's close enough.

Part of the disappointment in the story comes from knowing the series can do better, because it has before. 0, Judgment, and especially Yakuza: Like a Dragon are games that end strong. They're not the only ones in the series, honestly even Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name has a stronger ending, and final act than Infinite Wealth.

To Dondoko Island!

Back in 2020 I didn't end up ranking Y:LAD as highly as I wish I had, because I hadn't finished it yet, and I wasn't sure how the ending would make me feel. In retrospect, the ending was so strong I wish I ranked it higher than I did. Everyone knows what they say about hindsight, so there's nothing to be done about it now.

Much like with FF VII Rebirth, even if the ending disappointed, the journey is what really matters. I mean, assuming the ending isn't like, Yakuza 6 or Fallout 4 bad. A bad enough ending can definitely make the whole thing significantly worse, but Infinite Wealth's isn't that bad. Just a mediocre ending to an otherwise great journey.

Much of the story, and interactions with the characters along the way are great. My friends and I genuinely still talk about Eric Tomizawa a lot, because he pretty quickly became one of our favorites in the whole series. Yes, part of it is that he's just a normal man named Eric who got somehow thrust into the midst of an international crime plot, but he's also just a great character to spend time with. And even Chitose, maybe not quite up there with Eric, but she's great in her own right, with a good through line of her own.

Plus, the game's audacity to go and include another, albeit smaller and simpler JRPG inside the JRPG, with the Sujimon. What a ridiculous, and amazing thing to do with the game's already ludicrous enemies. Never mind their delusion at putting an Animal Crossing in with Dondoko Island!

Listen, like I said, the story runs out of steam toward the end, but the journey as a whole was a great one. All the goofy side quests, all the fun times spent with Ichiban and friends, all the ridiculous enemies fought, all the minigames, the time spent fixing up Dondoko Island, and all the Sujimon trained...

It turns out, the real Infinite Wealth...was the friends we made along the way.

The last thing I'll say, is that when I wrote about Infinite Wealth's Animal Crossing-esque Dondoko Island, I said it felt like RGG had lost their minds, and created it in their “collective delirium.” All I will say now, is their next game is entitled, “Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.” A game where Goro Majima suffers from amnesia, takes it upon himself to get an olde timey sailing ship, and become a pirate.

And I couldn't be more excited for it!

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth also wins:

Year of the Dragon Dragon of the Year.
Year of the Segway Segway of the year.
Game that most feels like it was made by people who lost their minds during the pandemic.
Eric of the year.
Cones of the year.
Best real signage of the year.
Opening credits of the year.
Arcades of the year.
Games within a game of the year.
Minigames of the year.
Funniest game of the year.
Knocking dudes around and into each other of the year.
Facepalm moment of the year.
In universe V-Tuber of the year.
In world podcasts of the year.
Goofiest body physics.
Aloha-ing of the year.
Silliest enemies of the year.
Social media app of the year.
Fishing of the year.
Ambient dogs of the year.
Mascots of the year.
Crazy food delivering of the year.
Befriendable dogs, cats, and birds of the year.
Hair nesting friend of the year: Joseph the bird.
Shopping center of the year.
Wacky escapades of the year.
Gacha game of the year.
Most preposterous jobs of the year.
Animal Crossing of the year.
Trash disposal of the year.
Bug catching of the year.
Infrastructure Week of the Year.
Dolphin of the year.
Customizable house of the year.
Sujimon petting of the year.
Lesbian shellfish of the year.
Super Mario Sunshine of the year.
Excavators of the year.
Fight against a pair of excavators powered by electric catfish of the year.
Feud with a blogger of the year.
Suplex of the year.
Best use of sharks as a stage hazard.
Giant Squid of the year.
Funniest shirt of the year.

Overwatch of the Year: Marvel Rivals.

I had literally two screenshots for this game that are not from Trophies, haha.

Most years we don't have notable releases like this in December, right as the year is about to end. Not that it really matters, other than I haven't had a ton of time to play it, at least in terms of how long these sorts of games intend to hold your attention. That said, sometimes you play a game, and can just tell if it's something you like or not, and this is one of those games.

It's a little funny, but also kinda sad to think about Overwatch's trajectory since 2016. Back then, it was the biggest thing. It felt like everyone was playing it, and loving it. At least as far as multiplayer shooters went, it felt ubiquitous. And for good reason, it was new, and dramatically different from any other shooter I had played. It had a big cast of characters, all meaningfully different from each other, and enough of them were fun enough that I always had a good variety to pick from, and could enjoy fitting into just about any sort of role. I mostly gravitated toward tanks, but I also enjoyed playing the other roles too, because they were fun!

They kept updating it, and some of those updates were good. There were definitely positive changes made to some characters (I liked when D.Va got rockets), and some of the new characters were really cool. But over time, the negative changes really started building up. One of the early ones that bugged me was a change to the overtime timer. Like, I get it, too many matches got locked into a never-ending overtime stalemate, but I enjoyed when that happened.

Anyway, I don't need to keep going, because I certainly didn't keep playing Overwatch. When they rebranded the game to Overwatch 2, I did get talked into playing a few matches of it, just to see, and there was...a moment. A brief, shining moment where it clicked, and I remembered the magic of early Overwatch. A moment where I could see myself enjoying this sort of game again.

But it was just a moment, and it passed. Then I uninstalled the game, and haven't thought about playing it since.

Then, Marvel Rivals was announced, a game that is very clearly just setting out to do what Overwatch did, only with a roster of characters from the Marvel multiverse that we all know and love. Plus some more obscure ones for the real sickos out there (I'm very happy for my friend who loves Cloak & Dagger, whoever they are, haha). Yes, it is inarguable that Rivals is just doing what Overwatch did, there are some very clear examples of characters here that are just doing things that Overwatch characters did first. Aside from Black Widow being made into a Widowmaker like sniper (as I don't really think of Black Widow as a sniper), I don't really have any issues with that. Yes, Dr. Strange has Reinhardt's shield, but the rest of his abilities are totally different, and I don't think Overwatch should have a monopoly on concepts like that.

More importantly, out of all the things to duplicate, Rivals has managed to tap into how it felt to play Overwatch back in 2016. No, Rivals doesn't feel new or original in the way Overwatch did at the time, but it's fun. I haven't had the chance to play all thirty-three characters yet, but I've found plenty that I do enjoy, and have varying levels of competency in playing. Am I good at playing Loki? Eh... But do I enjoy using his illusions to both heal allies and damage opponents? Do I enjoy being able to shapeshift into other characters, with a full ultimate meter? Yes!

On the other hand, I'm actually decent with tankier characters like Venom, Cap, or the aforementioned Dr. Strange so I am once again gravitating in that direction. It does not help that the game has more DPS characters than tanks and healers combined that I frequently am the only tank on the team. But you know what, I'm fine with that, because Cap and Magneto are both “Vanguards” (tanks), and they're two of my favorite Marvel characters, so it's not like I'm settling. Though it does annoy me a little that Dr. Strange is the easiest/most effective solo tank, so I may end up playing him the most. Maybe I should give Groot a try, I dunno. He is Groot.

At the time, I did overall enjoy Overwatch's cast, but it's not like any of them were characters. I was going to say “characters I loved,” but let's be real here, there's not much depth behind any of them. The only times they were given anything resembling “depth” was in comics outside the game itself, and usually it was making someone gay now to distract from something Blizzard did.

Rivals has the advantage of drawing from the decades and decades of Marvel for its cast, and I think they did a really great job with it. Most of the visual designs are great, and I like the quippy little conversations the characters have before matches start (yes, like Overwatch, haha), and all the unique lines. Like Cap sounding remorseful if he has to fight an enemy Bucky. I've seen some people complain about the game being too chatty, but honestly it's a modern Marvel thing, people are going to complain about it being too quippy no matter what!

Anyway, speaking of too wordy, I've gone on too much about it as is. I have no idea how long Rivals will hold my attention, but it's fun! And it's free, so it's not like it's cost me anything other than my time so far. The pricing for the cosmetics seems...acceptable, and at least all the characters are free. So I'm good.

It's good to have a game like this to play again. It turns out I missed it, but Overwatch will never get me back now. We have a new Overwatch, and it's good!

End of Part I.

Tune in, hopefully tomorrow for Part II of the 2024 Moosies Video Game Awards! See you next year!