Hello again! Alex Van Aken here. I hope you’ve been well since last year’s GOTY festivities.
The first few months of 2024 marked a career-high. I got to talk to renowned developers like Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase for Game Informer’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth cover story and traveled to places like Sweden, Vancouver, and Montreal to meet and interview video game creatives. Unfortunately, my flight was grounded when Game Informer abruptly shut down, and I lost my job.
I subsequently announced my new video game documentary project, Viewport: Inside Looks at Game Development, which will make a lot more noise in 2025 as I begin to publish the documentaries I’ve been filming and editing. I also consulted on several AAA games (you might’ve played one) and have been freelancing behind the scenes to pay the bills.
Before the new year starts, I want to take a few minutes to reflect on my favorite games I played in 2024.
10. Metal Gear Solid
After years of failed intentions, I played Metal Gear Solid for the first time last January. I was blown away by its immediate sense of identity and inventive blend of stealth mechanics. I was delighted to meet characters like Revolver Ocelot, Sniper Wolf, Otacon, and Mei Ling after having limited familiarity with the cast for so long. From the brilliant elevator ambush scene or emotional Sniper Wolf encounter to Grey Fox’s pulpy goodbye, I understand why many consider Metal Gear Solid the quintessential PlayStation title.
“A caged fox is more dangerous than a jackal” is such a good line. I love it.
9. Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Thank Goodness You're Here is a brilliant comedy adventure set in a fake town in Northern England. Playing as a miniature salesman, you loosen the threads holding the townsfolk together as you complete absurd requests for hilarious characters. While Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows) headlines the voice cast, each actor brings their characters to life with hilarity. This is a must-play for any fan of British humor, especially one with limited time. I finished Thank Goodness You’re Here in two sittings —my first session ended with me cry-laughing with a friend in Discord at 2:00 AM — but you can probably do it in a single one.
8. Astro Bot
I visited my high school best friend’s place over the holidays and asked what his son was listening to on his new MP3 player. It was the Astro Bot soundtrack, and apparently, he’s been obsessed since seeing the lovable mascot on the family’s new PlayStation 5. The little guy doesn’t care about the PlayStation characters that Astro Bot rescues throughout the journey — he just knows an excellent 3D platformer when he sees it. Now that’s an eight-year-old I can respect.
7. Helldivers II
Helldivers 2 is my favorite Star Wars game of 2024.
6. Metaphor ReFantazio
My friends all rolled their eyes when I told them I was going to beat Metaphor ReFantazio. I have a bad kind of brain that loves the hot dog skins in Fortnite, and they know, better than anyone, that I do not finish long role-playing games.
“Hulkenberg and Strohl are two of my favorite characters this year,” I said. “The soundtrack is wild. The combat animations are entertaining and the dramatic performances are genuine.”
“And the giant monsters are humans — like a metaphor,” I argued, earning himbo status immediately.
But alas, my friends know me well, and I haven’t played Metaphor ReFantazio in a month. It’s great, though!
5. Fortnite
I mentioned the hot dog skins, right?
4. World of Warcraft: The War Within
Okay, this is awkward timing, but I did pour hundreds of hours into a really long role-playing game in 2024. You see, the only thing my brain loves more than vapid cosmetics and competitive multiplayer games is World of Warcraft. The 20-year-old MMO is still my favorite game of all time, and I had a banner year in Azeroth. Season of Discovery reimagined decades-old classes and introduced new abilities through discoverable runes, and I also created a dwarf paladin on a permadeath-enabled Hardcore server, but unfortunately died in a cave of Kobolds in Elwynn Forest at level 9.
Notably, Blizzard released a new expansion, The War Within, which marks the start of a new story arc that brings back forgotten characters to face a brand new villain: Xal'atath, Harbinger of the Void. While I’ve spent the majority of my time catching up on the previous expansion, Dragonflight (and loving it), I’m excited to dive deeper into The War Within to witness the new zones in their full glory — Hallowfall is “one of the best zones ever created,” according to fellow Nasty Boy John Carson.
Finally, learning that player housing is finally coming in the next expansion has me more excited than ever about World of Warcraft’s future.
3. The Finals
In December 2023, developer Embark Studios stealth-released The Finals, a class-based team shooter set in fully destructible game show arenas that draw inspiration from real-world locations in Las Vegas, Kyoto, and Monaco (among others). I’ve invested 80 hours and continue to find novelty in the interactions between the robust physics system and unique equipment suite that includes melee and ranged weapons that include a Scorpion-esque chain, futuristic forcefields, and something very similar to Prey’s GLOO Cannon.
In my Game Informer review, which you can no longer access (awesome, right?), I praised The Finals for being “unpredictable in the best way: gameshow events like meteor showers or orbital lasers remap previously-memorized paths, map variants like moving platforms or suspended structures can obfuscate objectives, and your team’s best-laid defensive plans are often interrupted as explosives obliterate the buildings around you.”
The Finals offers a breath of fresh air in a market saturated with battle royales and hero shooters, and I’m curious to see how the Embark team flexes its creativity with its new extraction shooter, Arc Raiders, in 2025.
2. Animal Well
In a world of social media and marketing hype cycles, few games manage to preserve their mystery as well as Animal Well. Solo developer Billy Basso masterfully captures the spirit of early video game adventures by hiding secrets within secrets and trusting Animal Well’s players to find their way. Glitchy textures and sine waves define the audio-visual experience, providing transport to another time.
To fully experience Animal Well is to know as little as possible about what awaits. Enjoy it.
1. Balatro
What’s left to say about Balatro that others haven’t stated previously? The debut roguelike deck-builder has nearly propelled its cryptic developer, Localthunk, into folklore territory. And for good reason: Balatro is an incredible feat, adeptly blending poker mechanics with absurd joker card abilities to yield impossibly high scores. It’s the perfect iPad / Steam Deck / Switch game and I’ve sunken hundreds of hours into it.