In terms of my output this year, I have to admit it’s been probably my quietest ever. Sometimes work and life get in the way a little too much and while I’m still gaming away it’s not always been as easy to find time to write about it. But a lot has been going on and I do want to share at least some thoughts about the year in general for me.

Hi-Fi RUSH – Surprise of the year!

I definitely was not expecting Tango Gameworks to stealth release a game as good as Hi-Fi RUSH but I think I feel pretty good in saying it was my game of the year. While my timing when playing this style of action game has never been good, the game was forgiving and wouldn’t penalize button mashing too much. Regardless of how well you scored it still felt awesome completing each and every stage.

The presentation is just glorious with its cel shaded animation so perfectly realised the transitions between game and cutscene are perfect and coupled with a banging soundtrack that the game just lives to be in harmony with (the world moves to the beat!). Having Nine Inch Nails on the soundtrack (for me) already makes it a winner in my books

For all the new games I’ve played this year, I have no doubts that this one is going to get a sequel… and people will line up for the custom console too. I bet they probably sell a lot of 808 plushies…

The “AAA” classification is garbage

Over the years games journalists, commentators, etc have liked using the classifications AAA, AA, indie, etc to single out games based on their size, assumed budget, and more to make some titles stand above others because the developers had more money to spend or were backed by bigger publishers, or the opposite. This is pointless and really has to stop. More often than not now it seems to be used by fanboys as an excuse to not recognize people’s work because they didn’t fit within someone’s definition of a “good game”.

With recent leaks revealing the cost of some of PlayStation’s games it’s pretty clear there is a massive divide between what some companies are willing to spend versus what others can afford. And in a world where turning a profit is becoming more difficult in the face of rising costs it certainly doesn’t seem to be what people should be celebrating. If the recent leaks are true, the so called AAA games are a dying breed because, for the most part, they sure as hell aren’t making AAA profits.

A game is a game… deal with it.

The thing about Redfall…

That was not a great start out of the gate for Redfall, was it? The concept even now still seems pretty cool with a town overrun by vampires and you go in to clean up the mess. My first experience playing it got me as far as killing my second vampire before the game crashed and was left thinking “am I going to have to do all that again?”.

The game has gone through a number of changes since that time with the promised 60 FPS mode and improvements to enemies so it is in a better state that at launch but it’s going to be hard to see how much of a turnaround it can make. But kudos to the team for sticking to it and working through the issues.

Starfield is a Bethesda game, what do you expect?

While it may not have been my absolute favourite game of the year, I played a LOT of Starfield and I intend to play a lot more in the future too. Some of the more recent negativity aimed at it seems to come from those who want to put the game down because it wasn’t some world changing moment for them.

Truth is though… it was never really pushed that way. Anyone who had seen the videos of the game leading up to its launch, especially the excellent “Starfield Direct” could see everything the game had on offer. It was a new world for the team that they were excited for and they were pushing their engine VERY hard to deliver on that and for me it was impressive to see how much they were able to put into it (ship building!) and improve (shooting) while sticking to the open world and freedom of choice that Elder Scrolls and Fallout are know for. The “New Game+” mode is something that I’m sure game designers will discuss many years into the future too.

For me this was EXACTLY the game I was wanting to see from the team… take their style or world building with quests big enough to be games themselves and slap it into a sci-fi setting more hopeful (Star Trek) and less hopeless (Fallout). They achieved that and I love it.

The Game Awards

For an event that celebrates games and the developers that make them, they sure weren’t given a lot of time on stage compared to the numerous game announcements scattered through event’s runtime. The Xbox team had really taken advantage of the situation with enough trailers and advertisements to take up a large amount of the time and mindshare.

Throw in a 10 minute interview with Hideo Kojima talking about his exclusive Xbox game and the awards themselves become an afterthought. Considering it was the year of Baldur’s Gate III, more should have been done to celebrate an “indie” developer who produced one of the biggest games of the year.

It’s easy to hate on The Game Awards but instead of simply watching and complaining, maybe more people need to better support the other organisations that give out awards in a more respectful manner such as DICE or the BAFTAs. That the BAFTAs awarded Vampire Survivors in a field of games including God of War Ragnarok, Cult of the Lamb and Stray shows how different other organisations work in terms of recognising games and maybe it will be a better fit for you in terms on your own beliefs in relation to games that deserve awards.

Still playing Call of Duty!

Despite the controversy about the nature of the content on Call of Duty Modern Warfare III (ie. to be, or not to DLC) the game still kicked goals and the Zombies mode might have just delivered what the previous game’s DMZ promised with open world co-op but couldn’t ultimately achieve due to PVP griefing. It’s become the go-to mode for myself and my friends and actually brought people back to the franchise who had previously given up on CoD – seems like a big winner to me.

So, what’s to come in 2024?

I’m going to be curious to see what happens in the new year but one aspect that might change for me is my gaming habits if (big if) we start seeing Activision/Blizzard/King rolling into Game Pass. With the exception of Call of Duty I haven’t invested in a lot of games this year but having more titles accessible in the service may have me not needing to spend as much on single games and let me focus more on other titles that appear on Xbox and that could be a welcome change.

As always… we’ll see how it plays out. 🙂