TheGamer's Game of the Year lists are coming soon. If you don't know, we can each make our own special little list ranking our favorites from the last 12 months and writing precious little blurbs about how much the Alone in the Dark remake healed our inner child and why the TMNT clone Hades is a love letter to Turtle fans.
If you can't tell from my tone, it's basically my favorite thing to do and I look forward to it all year. If we could stop rating games and just write at the bottom of the review where it would rank in our annual top ten, I'd be really happy.
Related
What do you think about the DLC that can win game of the year?
It seems like a concession made specifically for Shadow of the Erdtree. I don't think it will end up really influencing the results in most years – you could probably count on one hand the number of DLC expansions ever released that even deserve a nomination, let alone win. Ultimately, I think this just says that Erdtree is being taken seriously and that they need to change the rules to make it happen. It's not a great precedent, but I don't think it will matter in the long term.
The rules for our GOTY lists are rather vague. It doesn't matter if it's a full-price, DLC, or Early Access game (or has ended Early Access, as is the case with our overall 2023 GOTY, Baldur's Gate 3). My lists tend to be pretty eclectic, with a mix of free-to-play games, indies, expansion packs, and triple-A games. I'll put anything on my list. Last year I included the unofficial (now defunct) digital client for Disney Lorcana. I put Satisfactory on my GOTY list in 2021 even though it started Early Access in 2019 and left Early Access this year (guess what will appear on my list again this year).
The point is, I draw a pretty thin line, but there is still a line. So here's my game of the year list for all the things that can't be games of the year. No reasonable person would consider these games releasing in 2024, but they still had such a huge impact on me that I feel obligated to acknowledge them in some way.
5. Slice and dice
Slice & Dice arrived on Steam on March 20, so you may have been fooled into thinking it's a new game. It's actually been on mobile and Itch.io since 2021. It's kind of like an Among Us situation, if Among Us was still a niche game that only weirdos knew about.
Slice & Dice was to me what Balatro was to pretty much everyone else this year. This bite-sized roguelike, meant to be played in short bursts, managed to take every free second I had during the first half of the year. I've taken several 12-hour plane trips just spamming Slice & Dice rides, and the time has flown by. It's a great little dungeon crawler that does for Yahtzee what Balatro did for Poker, and I can't recommend it enough, even if it's not a 2024 game.
4. The Monster Hunter Wilds demo at PAX West
Damn, I can't wait for Monster Hunter Wilds to come out. I was one of those people who put another 200 hours into Monster Hunter: World this January after Wilds was revealed in December. I analyzed every frame of every trailer as if it were the Zapruder film. I'm trying to say that I want this game badly.
The open beta from a few weeks ago was an expanded version of the PAX West demo. At PAX you only had about 20 minutes to play and you could only hunt one Doshaguma. The recent beta allowed us to see more Wilds, but you can't beat the hype of playing it for the first time at PAX. 120,000 people attended PAX West this year, and the line for the Wilds demo was limited to the entire day as soon as the room opened every single day. The booth was huge and the energy around it was intoxicating. PAX is great every year, but this was one of the best times ever.
3. The Stern Pinball Insider connected app
I've become a pinball guy this year, thanks to the excellent Stern Pinball IC app. It's great to discover a new hobby because it makes you see the world around you in a new way. I've lived in the same city for five years and discovered this summer that there is a thriving pinball scene. Stern's new game this year was John Wick, and I used the pinball tracker in the app to find out where I could go to play it in South Orange County. It turned out that pinball was everywhere around me and I just didn't know it.
The app lets you track all the games you've played, your high scores, and trophies, so every time I play pinball I feel like I'm making progress. I have this list of games to play and I've been able to visit several places in my area that I've never been to and meet a lot of people. Maybe this is just a preview of my impending midlife crisis, but I've enjoyed getting into the pinball scene this year, thanks to the Stern app.
2. Bazaar Closed Beta
The Bazaar is a spin-off of sorts from Hearthstone Battlegrounds developed by esports legend Reynad's indie studio Tempo, and it's going to be a phenomenon when it launches next year. I have a lot of hobby-style games that I dedicate some time to every day just to keep up with, and The Bazaar has quickly jumped to the top of that list. It's a brilliant strategy game and secretly the best co-op mode of the year.
If all goes to plan, The Bazaar should be out in January, so I expect there will be a lot more talk about it next year. For now, you can access the closed beta by purchasing a Founder's Pack, and I sincerely recommend you do so if you want any chance of beating these sweaty guys who have been crunching numbers and grinding through matches to find the most broken builds of all. month (me).
1. The Doom: Dark Ages trailer
This entire list was just a ploy to give the new Doom trailer a GOTY award. Woo-Wee. Wowza. Goodness me. Have you seen this thing? The chainsaw shield? The mini-gun that shoots crushed demon skulls? Watching that trailer was the best two minutes of gameplay I've had all year. I know the entire world will be pulled into the orbit of Grand Theft Auto 6 next year, but Medieval Doom is right up my alley. Plus, it would make a pretty sick pinball table. I'm just saying.
