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Honorable Mentions: Shadow of the Erdtree. I'm not skipping it because it's DLC. Like, the amount of content in it puts a lot of "full" games to shame. If it hadn't been for Elden Ring itself being absolutely huge, FROM could've released Shadow as a full price standalone game and no one would've complained lol. But it was "just" more Elden Ring. Which, don't get me wrong, it was great and I loved it. But it didn't exactly blow my mind or anything. It was just really, really good. Same goes for Metaphor: ReFantazio. I'm honestly a little surprised by all the GOTY love this one got. Not because I don't think it deserves it but rather because Atlus games typically don't seem to get any. I guess Persona 5 might have? Much like Shadow of the Erdtree, Metaphor was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it but at the end of the day it was "just" another ATLUS JRPG. It really didn't break the mold as much as I expected it to. Which is fine. It's just not my game of the year. Speaking of which... Game(s) of the Year 2024: That's right, I'm calling it a tie! They were definitely my two favorite games this year. Hard to say which one gets the edge, honestly. The answer could change depending on which day you asked me. Silent Hill 2 wasn't just a fantastic remake, it was possibly the best horror game I've ever played. And Indy came out of nowhere with a surprise immersive sim based on one of my favorite movie franchises. I was actually nervous about how both of these. Both games had me thinking "Please don't suck!" ahead of launch, so it was a very pleasant surprise that they both turned out so freaking good.

PSN sale: Steam and GOG: CDkeys is an amazing site and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Game of the Year Yeah it might be DLC but this expansion is bigger than most full priced games so sorry not sorry, I easily spent more time this year playing Elden Ring again than anything else. With this much content, including the new weapon classes, it's more than worth the $40 asking price. Runner-up Admittedly, this game went through a rough patch and a few controversies, but it eventually landed in a pretty good state. This is one of the most fun multiplayer games I've played with friends in years, to the point where sometimes even dying can be fun when everything is so over the top and covered in explosions. This is one of those multiplayer games where you make your own stories by taking part in some truly insane battles full of setpiece moments that you yourself orchestrate. Throw in the fact that the monetization is usually pretty reasonable and it's hard to go wrong with Helldivers 2.

I currently wield some cheap bone conduction headphones (not $10 cheap, but not the £100+ that Shokz go for) also for experimenting. they're quite good for work and for popping out into town. Nice to have something on in the background like a podcast while not being totally oblivious (we have a lot of ND students with full over-ear headphones and while I get it, I do think we're gonna need a compromise at some point). They can be quite leaky though on sound. While back had a ping on Teams from a colleague of "we can all hear your music btw". You do have to ramp them up past the "this will fuck your ears" warning when out and about, I think mainly down to the fit. And tbh I'm not sure that will be alleviated with Shokz stuff as it all seems quite immovable. On audio front, I have, with Christmas pennies, bought myself a pair of these I've actually got them for replacing a pair of HyperX headphones I've had for many years, and I do really love them. The only major hiccup was they were wired. Which wasn't an issue with gaming as PS5 has port on the controller, but was an issue with a cat... (and no one sells like headphone cable that's terminated at one end, or 3.5mm ports that weren't sold in bulk so I could jerry rig a replaceable cable). From a tech standpoint really like these. They're my first ever noise cancelling headphone. I've not had a chance to fully test that aspect but will be trying it at work next week. Also good for workness is the "Ambeint Aware" mode which just funnels through external sound. I've actually had a play with that and it's kinda uncanny to have the PS5 playing, and then also sound from youtube as if I've plugged the headphones straight into my laptop. On the "plugging straight in" it has a cable to plug straight into stuff (you can see the hole on the image) if it's supported. Only hiccup is it's 2.5mm on the headphone end so that'll be a pain to replace. But it's nifty it works without any power being on the headphones just acts like a pair of old fashioned wired headphones. The multi-point thing I'm still working on. I originally hooked these up to my phone and my Google TV was also like "oh you have these headphones, want to use them?" so that was neat. Downside being as it was tied to both my TV and my phone, if my phone had a sound-enabled app (which is 95% of them) then that would pause my TV to take control of my headphones even if no sound was actually playing. I've since removed from my phone and just hooked straight into my TV as a whole. I remember years ago having a cheap Bluetooth keyboard that had a physical switch for different devices and I feel that's still the way to go for "multi-point". Non-tech wise - One thing I loved with my HyperX was the fit. They're the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn, and that's great for longer playing sessions (or late night TV/movies). I did have a junk of time looking around for similar and these are over-ear but I do have to make a bit of an effort to make sure my ears are tucked inside. I do understand part of that is for the noise cancelling to work, get a nice seal on my head, but my ears are a bit sore when I do take them off after a long session. Also I was annoyed with having to shuffle games around on my Steamdeck (and especially with not being able to grab Baldurs Gate without having to clear a ton of stuff first) so I also got myself a 1tb SSD for the deck. The iFixit partnership was great in having a guide to follow along (though it gets light on the software side and the official Valve instructions for re-installing SteamOS are a bit "draw the rest of the owl"). Also more space meant I could properly flex Heroic Launcher too - got a ton of freebies from Epic and Amazon to play about with and they're not as easy to move over to the MicroSD.

Got this with Amazon points. It shows a Switch here but it also works with PCs with the flip of...um, a switch. I've been getting back into fighting games recently, particularly Guilty Gear, but playing them with an Xbox style controller is just too cumbersome. I have an old SNES style controller too but it's just not quite doing it for me so this is where it's at as far as I'm concerned. I like that it has both wireless and wired options, and if I feel like swapping out the stick or face buttons at any point I can mod it fairly easily. Haven't used it too much yet but I've been doing fairly well with Elphelt and Slayer so far which is enough for me to give this stick a thumbs up. I've bought so much 8bitdo stuff that I probably sound like a shill at this point but their controllers have been even better and more reliable for me than the official ones in some cases. In fact, one of them had the sticks wear down after using it for years so you know what I did? Bought replacement sticks for $10 and fixed it myself. WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT.

It's that time of the year again! Game of the Year (But not really because it's DLC): MORE Elden Ring, that's all I wanted, all I needed, all I could ever ask for, and it delivered. Found some of my favourite weapons and armour in this DLC, the bosses were pretty cool for the most part, the soundtrack was amazing. A most excellent addition to an already awesome game. Game of the Year (this time's for real): The Emperor is pleased. First one was fun, but with some issues, this sequel improves on pretty much every aspect while still keeping what made the original so fun to play. Tons of enemies, lots of cool weapons to fight said enemies with, customization, co-op, everything is here! The story is pretty decent, and all I could ask for in a game like this "here's a cool/badass reason for you to go somewhere and kick ass".

I stopped tracking my games on a spreadsheet a while back, so I just went back through this thread and made a list lol. Some stuff may be missing, I guess, but probably nothing major. 1. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 2. Horizon: Zero Dawn – Complete Edition 3. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – Master Collection Version 4. Persona 3 Reload 5. Persona 5 Strikers 6. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix 7. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers 8. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree 9. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – Master Collection Version 10. God of War: Ragnarok 11. Silent Hill 2 Remake 12. Metaphor: ReFantazio 13. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake 14. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle 15. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine I was gonna try and do Space Marine 1 -> Boltgun -> Space Marine 2 before the end of the year but I got distracted from Boltgun after finishing the first chapter. Everything was played on PC. Honorable mention to P5 Strikers for being so forgettable I had actually forgotten I'd played it. I'm surprised that I managed to get through two of Atlus' long JRPGs without getting burned out. In fact, I feel like in both cases I went through them much faster than usual. I wonder if that would've changed had I tried to fit SMTV Vengeance in there.

Game of the Year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth What can I say? It's the next epic installment in the FF7R series. It's got a little bit of open world busy-work, but overall it's a lot of fun, the characters are great, the adaptation is fantastic, it's everything I could have wanted. Runner-Up: Astro Bot Asobi did it again, with a full-sized 3D platformer good enough to challenge Mario. This game is such a delight, I'm sure I had a stupid grin on my face like 90% of the time I was playing it. Everything about it, from the way movement feels, to the visual style, to the love of Playstation's history, it's just such a delight. Honorable Mention: Helldivers II Like Sea of Stars last year, this game was totally not on my radar, and I don't generally go into multiplayer games, but this one is fun enough that it actually pulled me away from Persona 3 Reload, and I spent basically the entire month of February playing it. The only thing that broke its spell was the release of Rebirth.

Hidden Folks Cutesy little game I think I've had for an age. Was good "pick up and drop" type game during the weird times that is Christmas and the preceding and proceeding days. I've played similar "Where's Wally" type games before (played Hidden Through Time on my phone recently too). This one is entirely mono-colour* (and you can change the background, which has made it a bit easier on my eyes), but you can interact with things that sometimes spark other elements (towards the end you have to adjust a lot of elements to get like tracks running that will maybe deliver your item or similar). I did have to google solutions for a handful for items (one felt a bit cruel as I'd got 80% of the way to the clue, except unless you were zoomed out you wouldn't see what you were triggering). Given there's hundreds of items/folks to find across many levels most are very manageable on your own, ranging from simple and obvious to devious but make you go "woohoo" on completion. Took about 10hrs to complete (according to steam play time, though some I think is distracted playing). *turns out it's part of a bundle of 2-bit colour games https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/9897/The_Black__White_Indie_Games_Bundle/

Been itching for an ARPG to replace Diablo IV since D4 has only gotten worse with time instead of better. Everyone seems to be really liking this one so far so I'm in. Wasn't actually planning on this one but it's only 13.49 right now so what the hell why not.

Since I don't think I'll be able to finish Sekiro before the end of the year, here's my list for 2024: Onechanbara Z2: Chaos Taboo Trial Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation The Typing of the Dead: Overkill Bullet Girls Phantasia Palworld Borderlands GOTY Enhanced Borderlands 2 Maid of the Dead Borderlands 3 Warhammer 40000: Gladius Warhammer 40000: Mechanicus Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II Elden Ring Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Space Marine 2 The Callisto Protocol The Evil Within The Evil Within 2 Much better than I thought, was sure I'd only finished 14 games or so, also, earlier in the year I thought this would be a fanservice heavy year for me, ended up being more of a WH40K kind of year.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Boy oh boy this one really came out of nowhere and surprised me. I had written it off as an Uncharted clone when I heard the announcement but it really feels more like Dishonored and that's not a bad thing. If there's one thing where nobody could fault this game, it's in capturing that Indiana Jones spirit. It really does feel like a proper story in the series and the writing and characterization and setpieces are on point. The PC port was very well optimized too, despite me running it on a 3060 Ti that is beginning to show its age. My only complaint is that in some segments it's not clear where you're supposed to go and sometimes it got so dark all of a sudden that I had no idea which way to even look, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't intentional because it would even happen underwater of all places. Maybe my hardware had something to do with it, I don't know. Still a great game though. I'm just pissed because I was supposed to get it for free with my 4070 Ti Super but my order was canceled. When I reordered the card a few days later the promotion was over and Nvidia would not even pretend like they were going to cut me a break. Thank god for game pass, at least.

Gothic surf rock has a name, gothabilly, and it is my favorite genre name of all time.

Already did a couple rounds of purchases in the Steam sale. Might or might not get more but going through my wishlist there's actually a fairly low amount of stuff that's tempting me. I'm probably overdue to prune it significantly. Lots of games on there that if I haven't bought them by now, I probably never will. Anyway, here's what I got so far:

Okay forget what I said before. I told a friend of mine about the one I had bought and he directed me to this 27 inch monitor that has the same resolution and HDR and all that other stuff for basically the same sale price. Only trade-off is it's 144hz instead of 165, but I think the tradeoff of getting an extra 3 inches on the screen is more than worth it. This was right down the street at my local Best Buy so I canceled the other one and now I've already got this bad boy bought and hooked up.

Oh hey that's the same keyboard I have, I really like it.

I upgraded pretty much everything else about my PC. Might as well finally do something about that stock wired keyboard. Already got a new mouse a while back that I'm happy with.

Not a wrap up, just a belated "Game I beat in 2024". Machinika Museum I actually got this back in May when they were doing a giveaway, so better late than never. It's basically "The Room" (if you've played that series) but a bit sci-fi rather than cosmic fantasy (admittedly the gif looks like an elder scroll). I think it was originally designed for phones so it works really well with the touch screen on the steamdeck (which is kind of rare for games to work with the touchscreen as a "touch screen" and not just for like typing on a keyboard or picking objects in some menus). Only major hiccup was no obvious method for "back/zoom out" so did have to cludgily use the B. Was about the right length. I spent about 4hrs playing it, and the sequel could be cool but not currently £12 worth of cool. (£12 got me Midnight Suns). Puzzles were pretty logicial, no moon logic (just aside from "why are military researchers putting puzzles on their crates locks"). You get stumped but not frustratingly so.

BINDING OF ISAAC HAS ONLINE NOW BINDING OF ISAAC HAS ONLINE NOW

Assassin's Creed Origins So, I actually beat the main game years ago but I was underleveled for the DLC (and stubbornly refused to use the level boost), so I just got frustrated with it and stopped. But now a combination of factors made me return to it. Ubisoft finally added Steam achievements support to AC Valhalla, so I finally bought it and Odyssey. Then there's AC Shadows that's looking really good and making me want to catch up with the series. And finally, that one area in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reminded me of how much I love Egypt as a video game setting, so it made me want to fire up AC Origins again. Anyway, so I picked up right where I had left off: working on completing the base game's map until I was high level enough to tackle the DLC. I had been working on it on and off since October, and now, after having almost doubled my initial playtime, I'm finally done. Goddamn, this game is so needlessly massive. I wasn't kidding about my playtime. The main game took me about 50 hours to beat. My current playtime according to Steam is 94 hours. And over half of that extra 44 hours was spent just running around the base game's map and clearing out all those question marks. Both DLCs probably took me less than 20 hours combined. I could've probably done it a little faster because early on I was also doing all the minor side-quests on the map but at some point I found out they weren't actually required for anything, so I stopped. They were by far the most time-consuming thing and kinda sucked anyway. The DLCs were alright. The first one, The Hidden Ones, is basically more of the same. Kill some dudes to draw out your real target, etc. The second one, Curse of the Pharaohs, leaned more heavily into fantasy and was surprisingly meaty. I really enjoyed that one. By the time I reached it, I was ready for the game to be over but it never really overstayed its welcome despite the amount of content there is to get through. I still cleared all the question marks in every single area even though they weren't required for achievement purposes. So yeah, feels good to have finally completed this one. Now one of my gaming goals for 2025 is to do the same for Odyssey and Valhalla.

End of the year wrap-up time! I beat 31 games this year, down from 54 last year. As always I only count games I beat for the first time this year. PC was far and away my most-played platform last year, with a whopping 87% of my games and 78% of my playtime. For the first time at least since the Switch released, I had no Nintendo games whatsoever. Xbox barely got in, because I was replaying the old Splinter Cell games and discovered I'd never played the Kola Cell DLC. Playstation won for longest average game because of the 3 games I played on the platform, one was FF7 Rebirth. All in all I'd say 2024 was a pretty decent year for games for me. Bring on 2025!

Alien: Rogue Incursion Last game of 2024 for me. I bought it on steam at first but the PC port at launch was pretty rough and Virtual Desktop didn't even work, which is pretty much the objectively best way to do PCVR if you're using a wireless connection, so I refunded it and got the PSVR2 version instead, which ended up being the much better version for once. Technical hiccups aside, this is pretty much the definitive Aliens experience for me. If Isolation was the definitive Alien experience then this one embodies Aliens as in the more action based sequel film. Yes, you have guns that can actually kill the xenos this time, but what I like is that you're still not going to be mindlessly mowing them down like in Colonial Marines. Xenos are still a big threat and can kill you in two hits tops. They will also try to sneak up on you by crawling along walls and ceilings and through vents. More than once I've turned around to find a xeno clinging to a wall and staring at me from three feet away. This game really demands that you use the motion detector but I swear sometimes it feels like the xenos try to deliberately seek out your sweeper's blind spots so they can get the jump on you. I do appreciate that if a xeno is nearby you'll hear the motion detector start pinging even if you aren't holding it so you don't always have to have it in your hand at all times. Of course, you can't effectively use any gun except the magnum while holding on to it, so when shit hits the fan you're either going to have to drop the detector quickly or start blasting and hope you can manage the recoil with one hand. I don't want to spoil the story but it does offer up several moments where you get to experience iconic Alien tropes firsthand. The two main characters are alright. I was rather fond of my android companion, who goes to great lengths to protect you from the hellish situation you find yourself in. However, while the game is a decent length on its own I have to knock it for suddenly revealing at launch that this is just part one of a two part story. Seems rather shady to hide that until the last minute. For most of the game you're just fighting xenos and facehuggers. They didn't make up new subtypes for this that didn't exist around the time of the original Aliens film. That didn't really bother me since it's lore accurate and the standard xeno is a very well designed enemy but the fact remains that you don't have a whole lot of enemy variety if that sort of thing bothers you. You also have only four weapons: a magnum, a shotgun, grenades, and the iconic pulse rifle. Again, the pulse rifle was the whole point for me so I didn't mind but maybe you would feel differently. I will say the rifle feels great to shoot on the PSVR2 with the controller haptics rattling against your hands every time you fire it. While I wouldn't call this a survival horror game, I'd say it's survival adjacent at least. Ammo isn't rare, but there's a limit to how much you can carry and I was forced to fall back on my magnum more than a few times. I have a suspicion that the xenos spawn infinitely if you screw around and waste time. I never felt like it was more than I could handle, but the only places that are completely safe for you to relax and take a breather are the panic rooms, which also count as save stations. Autosaves are rare and you can't save if xenos are neaby much like in Isolation, so if it's been a while since your last save you'll be feeling the pressure of losing progress if you run out of supplies and die before you find another panic room. Looking at your map is also done in real time on a handheld datapad you have to scroll with your finger so you better make sure you're safe before you start looking for directions. Sometimes you also have to use computers or repair electronics to progress and the xenos will absolutely not show you the courtesy of waiting for you to finish so you best listen for your motion detector while doing any puzzles. PC performance and Part 1 issues aside, I have a few small gripes. It is a metroidvania so you'll be doing a lot of backtracking and using tools to unlock new areas, but a fair bit of it amounts to upgrading the security clearance on your key card. There were a few times when xenos would clip through doors, and while they couldn't attack me from the other room it did at least give away their presence. The full body model could also get a bit awkward at times depending on the position you're in. Still, I can't deny this was the kind of Aliens experience I've been wanting to have in VR for a good while. Isolation is a great game sometimes you just gotta shoot a pulse rifle.

I'm not going to be able to play it anytime soon (getting closer, though! just got started on Yakuza 5 yesterday) but a friend gifted it to me as "retaliation" after I sent him a gift copy of Armored Core 6 on Christmas. This is the same friend that gifted me the previous game like 2 3 years ago that I still haven't been able to play either lol.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Want to talk about vibes? This game has vibes. The gothic surf rock, especially with this song, is so fucking good. I never finished this back in the day and I couldn't recall why... until about half way through I hit a familiar spot. You have to grab 10 flowers (two types, five of each) for West Dickens and there's no other missions at the time. The flowers are a pain in the ass to find. Still not worth dropping the pack for, but definitely something that should have been adjusted to one of each. I probably had to wrap the game up early to play Uncharted 3 or something. Outside of that the game is a ton of fun and definitely earned it's reputation for being one of the best expansion packs of all time. It's too bad Rockstar refused to do anything like this for RDR2.

Yoink!

Red Dead Redemption I have a lot of nostalgia for this game and it's still a ton of fun to play in 2024. I haven't touched it since it came out originally and I was surprised that there was less jank than I was expecting. Here's a random collection of thoughts: That said, the game has aged poorly in some respects. Characters are racist, antisemitic, sexist, homophobic, etc and no one gets their comeuppance. I get that they're trying to paint a realistic portrait of what common beliefs/attitudes would have been like in 1911 but this is also a game where John Marston kills like, over 1000 people, in a one month span. So it's already not realistic. They could have just... not done included that? Instead a random shopkeeper will just say like 5 horribly racist things during a single transaction and doesn't get challenged on it, nothing bad happens to them, it just is. I think my biggest gripe has to be with the representation of indigenous people. Off the top of my head I can think of one Native American with speaking lines in this game, and he is unceremoniously killed off after a few missions. Meanwhile Dutch's gang is mostly indigenous men and you kill so many of them. I suspect Red Dead 2 is probably better for all this, which I'll probably be playing next, after Undead Nightmare. Gameplay wise, it was more arcade-y than I remember but it's still a ton of fun. I love the world they crafted even if it does feel kind of small. The soundtrack is great (love all that Fender Bass VI you can hear). I'm glad this game is available to play again, it worked really well on my Steam Deck.

I honestly wasn't planning to upgrade my monitor until next year but this was on a Christmas sale plus there was a 30 dollar coupon so I'm getting a $260 monitor for $189. That's just too good an offer to pass up.

lol, I also bought the same GMG deal.