Hi, I'm Scott McCrae. You may remember me from shows like Game Mess Mornings and my appearance in the background of GB@Nite this year. I'm a freelance writer who travels all over the realms writing about how much I love PS2 games that haven't been relevant in over 20 years (have you played God Hand!?). You can find me on sites like Eurogamer, PC Gamer, VG247 and TechRadar, and apparently here.
After how monumental the year 2023 was for gaming, I felt a little underwhelmed by the 2024 releases. At least I thought so, but creating a top 10 was an absolute pain in the ass that made me question my undying loyalty to writing lists. stupid So I'm going to do the absolute cop out and leave you some honorable mentions, and NO ONE CAN STOP ME.
severed head
This game absolutely rules; has plenty of style, brilliantly grotesque creature design, and a fantastic central concept, and it's let down by too long and an uncompromising amount of trash.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
He would probably be a candidate for this list if he had had the opportunity to play more. MachineGames is one of the best studios in the business, and I'm very happy to see the team continue their fascist attack game, enough to get me interested in a series I have no attachment to.
Dragon Ball: Sparks! Zero
Dragon Ball is one of the three great anime series along with Jojo and Space Dandy, so I was playing Sparking! Zero regardless. But I was actually surprised by how good this game was that I had written off as probably just another anime arena fighter. Plus, it's a perfect love letter to Toriyama, which we desperately needed this year.
Without further ado, here are my ten best games of 2024.
Antonblast absolutely destroys. Summitsphere has the advantage over other games by seeming to be into the exact same things I was growing up on, with the game taking aspects of Ed, Edd, n Eddy and other '90s Cartoon Network shows, Game Boy Advance, Crash Bandicoot and, most importantly. Land of Wario.
While it has the main aspects of Wario Land (like the Hurry Up! timer and hard-hitting platforming), what that series means to me is level design. Each level of Antonblast introduces something new to the game never to be used again. And despite all these tricks of disparate levels, Antonblast pulls them off with ease. It was released earlier this month, but it won't do you any favors if you miss Antonblast from your 2024 lists.
From the moment Metal Slug Tactics was released I knew I would like it. That's such a fantastic concept right there. But what I didn't expect was for the best tactics game since Into the Breach to appear in front of me. Leikir Studio took the roguelike tactics of Into the Breach and crossed them with Metal Slug's core ideals of aggressive, fast-paced gameplay with phenomenal pixel art.
This game even had some tough issues on PS5 while I was reviewing it, and despite that, I'm still very excited. Now that those are fixed, I recommend picking it up if you like some good tactics.
Silent Hill 2 was the best game I played in 2024. Silent Hill 2, on the other hand, was still pretty good, but not on par with the game I was remaking. I was in the camp of not trusting Bloober Team with Silent Hill 2, and I'm more than happy to eat my hat and say that the studio did a great job remaking it. But playing the original for the first time a week earlier probably kept me from liking this remake as much as I could have.
Despite my issues with it (some of the added cutscenes and making the boss fights more AAA epic don't work for me), Silent Hill 2 is still fantastic. The game's atmosphere and sound design are truly a tour de force and should sweep this awards season. And as much as I love the original cast and how strange and stilted the voice acting is in the original, Luke Roberts' performance as James Sunderland is unforgettable.
But if I have to push another container across a room in a game, I'm going to scream.
Tekken 8 is a good Tekken. If I wrote my GOTY list in January, it would definitely be much higher. Unfortunately, the game has had so many strange additions since then that its star has fallen a bit. That said, what's here is great.
The aggressive gameplay approach is exactly what the series needed after Tekken 7, and while the new Heat system isn't perfect, taking on your opponent directly and kicking their ass is incredibly satisfying in Tekken 8. Plus, I'm a Absolute fan of The Story of Tekken. These silly, bombastic events are my favorite in the genre and take the Netherrealm gimmick and do it much better than NRS.
I played Thank God You're Here! the day before I started writing this list. Thank God I did it. The gameplay may be a little simple and only lasts about two hours, but what an impact this game had. I can't think of any game where I've laughed so hard while playing it; All the little character interactions and cues hit like a truck. Walking into Price Shaggers only to discover that the rat infestation was taking up residence in a smaller store called Mice Shaggers sent me to an alternate plane of existence for a minute or two.
I also love physical comedy; The fact that your little one can hit everything in sight as his only action besides jumping was an instant win for me. Every time he fell from somewhere and just fell to the ground, I would get a blast. Plus, it's nice to see a game based so much on one part of a culture to such an uncompromising extent as the north of England. He joins Wallace and Gromit as the reasons they sometimes like England (Scotland World Order for LIFE).
The fact that 2024 was so packed with great RPGs meant that by the time Metaphor: ReFantazio came out, I was so burned out on the genre that I didn't pay it much attention. Even when I played at Summer Game Fest and Gamescom, I just wasn't crazy about the new game from one of my favorite teams.
But I took my time, and even though it took me a while to get started, when Metaphor: ReFantazio arrives, it absolutely arrives. While I'm a lifelong Persona 4 guy, there's no denying that Metaphor's main cast is the absolute best Atlus has ever created. There are absolutely no glitches in the entire game, which helps a lot when you spend 70 hours with them. Basilio may only be rivaled by Kanji for my favorite Atlus character, which is a high bar.
What can you say about Astro Bot right now? It is full of absolute fantasy; the collection of cameos is equal parts amazing and a little sad (I miss you Japan Studio), and the soundtrack is full of absolute bops. It's easy to get caught up in all the PlayStation nostalgia, but even beyond that, Astro has its back.
While it's not quite on Nintendo's level, Astro is one of the best platform games we've had in a long time. Although Astro itself is quite limited in terms of movement, the level tricks and power-ups are so clever that it's hard to get caught up in them. I hope PlayStation Studios realizes the overwhelming response to Astro and stops being so cute with their own stuff and brings back some of that spark from the PS1/PS2 era that was full of inventive ideas.
I loved Balatro on PC, but Balatro on mobile ruined my life.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is an absolute feat. How the heck RGG concluded 20 years of storytelling with Kiryu while furthering Ichiban's story is nothing short of incredible. Ichiban Kasuga remains the greatest protagonist in video game history; their enthusiasm and hope for life are genuinely affecting in a way that most stories don't.
Even outside of that, improvements to the battle system have turned what was kind of a clunky RPG in Yakuza 7 into one of my favorite turn-based battle systems. This game was so good that it made Persona look basic in comparison. Like a Dragon's endless wealth of side content would have a big impact this time too, sure, why not have a full Animal Crossing in there?
I wasn't reviewing games when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring came out. Playing Dragon's Dogma 2 made me feel the same way many described reviewing those games. Something as uncompromising and systems-dense as Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't come around often, especially from a triple-A studio. It's so fucking cool.
Open world games are very unpredictable for me. I can't enjoy the design of the towers and map markers in Assassin's Creed/Horizon, but when something sends you out into the world to do your thing, I'm depressed. What makes an open world for me is when I think, 'Can I do this stupid idea I have?' and the answer is yes. What do you mean I can get on the back of a gryphon and use it to fast travel around the map? Even as players discovered how devastating Dragonsplague could be (wiping out entire cities and ruining your quests because the donors were dead), I couldn't help but revel in how incredibly cool it was when it happened to me.
Capcom has been on a hall of fame-worthy run since Resident Evil 7 (five of my last 10 GOTYs have been from Capcom). Being Hideaki Itsuno's swan song at Capcom is a very fitting end to 30 years of unmitigated success, and will be the new bar by which I judge all open-world RPGs from now on.