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Too many of these games fall into that witless trap of thinking something "serious" and "important" must also be humorless and dark, unrelentingly grim and fatalistic. Psychonauts 2 reveals that for the nonsense that it is, showing that you can more powerfully and realistically depict emotion when you use warmth, humor, humanity-the whole scope of emotions that make us who we are. Psychonauts 2 asks "how does it feel to feel?", and then shows the answer to us-and the games industry at large-in brilliant colors.
Shouldice and crew looked back to the past and pulled from the present to craft an endlessly engaging puzzle-box that's chock full of secrets, many of which I still haven't found. I can already hear the siren call of discovery pulling me back, and it sounds a lot like ambient techno. Are you curious enough to heed it?
When I think back on my time with Armored Core VI, I can’t help but think about my fondness for the voices over the radio. The way Rusty was so cool when he showed up to help bail my ass out. Or the progression of Carla calling me a tourist. Then all the arguments and shared triumphs with real world friends over which bosses were too hard and which weapons were too cheesy. The way we share this game with one another. From Software manages to make connections in small, delicate internal ways, and also big messy explosive ones that I don’t think they can possibly plan for.
Singular and confident, Ultros is a startling piece of work that knows exactly what it wants to be, and hones in on that goal with laser beam focus. It depends on time-tested videogame actions and concepts not just for their comfort and retro appeal, but as a familiar foundation that can be gradually fucked with as part of the game’s greater themes. And although those themes and their presentation are intentionally confusing and obtuse, Ultros never devolves into chaos for the sake of it; there’s always a clear point of view and thought process driving the game’s design. Ultros brings mystery back to gaming in brilliant fashion, delivering us the first genuinely great game of 2024.
Classic game anthologies followed a pretty basic pattern ever since companies first realized they could make some money by bundling their old games together and tossing them back out to the public with minimal care or effort. They’d have some old games, maybe a single text screen of historical information, perhaps a small gallery of behind the scenes photos, and that’s it. Digital Eclipse showed how utterly insufficient that kind of collection is with Atari 50 and The Making of Karateka, and they continue their peerless work with Llamatron: The Jeff Minter Story. It’s a godsend for Minter fans, a crucial piece of history for an often disrespected medium, and mind-expanding, technicolor, llama-loving proof that, yes, games can be art.
The genius of Spelunky 2 is that it somehow adds new possibilities to a game that already had endless possibilities. That's legitimately impressive. And that's why I'm sure I'll be playing this for as long as I've played the original, both games coexisting blissfully together as one of the absolute best parent-child pairs in gaming.
Monolith has come a long way since Xenogears and Squaresoft, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is evidence they're still going to have places to go without needing to find a new developmental process or bosses, too. Whether it's the "best" Xenoblade or not doesn't matter as much as the fact that it fits in wonderfully with what already existed, and ensures that we should be looking forward to whatever those next steps for the series end up being, too.
These human texts open up genuinely insightful questions about authenticity in art and what it will come to mean centuries later, as well as what to do when your history has been lost to you. It is a beautiful portrait of history that doesn't limit itself from commenting on labor inequity, parental loss, or artistic hopelessness, all things the medieval and early modern art it draws from portrays so vividly. In bringing some of those stories to us today, Pentiment accomplishes the remarkable goal of being both clear-eyed about the period's faults, and sincere about its masterpieces.
Project CARS is a racing game that simulates the act of racing lots of different vehicles in locations all over the world. It is very excellent at that, and if you like the idea of a racing sim you should give it a shot. I had a great time racing around the tracks, but it isn't something I am going to turn on very many more times. If a good simulation of driving cars at moderate-to-fast speeds is what really rocks your world, buy this game because I don't think it gets better than this. If you want something a little more exciting, grab the infinitely-excellent Blur or start rocking your Big Wheel again.
Most purposely difficult games that have arrived in the wake of Super Meat Boy, Spelunky and Dark Souls are embodiments of a failure to understand that there's more to those games than just how hard they are, often making the only thing enjoyable about them the fleeting sense of achievement you get when you finally overcome a poorly-designed obstacle through luck or trial and error. Downwell, with its velocity and elegant simplicity, does not make that mistake. It's a difficult game, certainly, but it's also a generous one, likely providing its player with great heaps of joy for a ludicrously small time investment.
What is [Apotheon's] song? One of delight and wonder, I would argue, an expression of unabashed love for myth. That it's possible to turn such love into an engrossing adventure that coalesces in a way so few games do reminds me of my own love for games and of their potential as a medium of beautiful expression. Apotheon, then, is the kind of videogame we need more of.
What matters most is not the story, but the telling—and that much, Grim Fandango has mastered. Thank goodness it's no longer unplayable.
Guilty Gear Xrd – SIGN rules in so many ways. They announced a new Street Fighter, I hear, but I do not care. Guilty Gear is a good time. I love fighting games and I will always hype ones that are good but Guilty Gear is special. Not too many games make me feel like I'm having as much fun as these do. Other games are more popular and other games are easier to learn, but only Guilty Gear is this happy to be here.
Rayman Legends is a videogame without pretense, and that might be the most crucial decision its designers made without even realizing it.
Witcher 2 was a promising but flawed game. The seeds of a truly brilliant experience were there, but too often it turned into a slog. The Wild Hunt fulfills all of that game's promise and more. Some day, I even hope to finish it.
Pillars of Eternity is an epic that either meets or exceeds all of my lofty expectations. Minutes turned to hours, hours turned to evenings and evenings turned to days as I immersed myself in the wonderful world that Obsidian has created. You must gather your party before venturing forth—a dangerous and exciting world awaits you in Pillars of Eternity.
Sunset is a gift, an all too rare kind of game that focuses on people loving and hurting in mundane but almost unbearable ways. I will return to Ortega's penthouse in San Bavón soon, I imagine; if not in person, than in fond remembrance. It is, after all, the home I never knew I had.
While The Shivah also explores the reconciliation of faith and practicality, its corny climax can't match The Talos Principle's matter-of-fact ending, which argues that our chosen perspective will limit what we discover in one way or another. Thank God the puzzles are worth it.
Splatoon is not trying to corral unearned cool points with obscenity. Splatoon does not push us to accept its weirdness. Splatoon merely opens its suction-cupped palms to the sky and says, "Here," and we graciously accept, parched by the years of dusty, war-torn, bone-dry purveyors of damage masquerading as games. Each waterfall was in fact an oasis. Instead, Splatoon showers us with a heavy goop that feels amniotic. We emerge, new and refreshed. We are all squids now.
Rocket League, besides being a game that's pure, unbridled joy to play, has gotten me curious after all these years about soccer again. I keep finding myself thinking maybe I'll watch the next World Cup, maybe I'll rent a FIFA game and give the series another try, maybe maybe maybe. Regardless, for now, there's the rumble of cars blasting across a stadium, their miniature flags wobbling as the crowd cheers, and that's more than enough.