Ben Pack’s Top 10 Games of 2024

Happy holidays everyone. This has been a difficult year for many reasons, both personal and “crazy gestures”. I’m looking at this flu as one of the worst of my life. Like, I had a recurring dream many nights, dreaming that I was living in a world of megacities. It’s heart-wrenching shit. Anyway, that’s why you can’t get mad at me for making a list. XOXO.

Although I’ve only spent about 30 hours playing it, I feel like this will be the first ARPG I’ve stuck with since. Diablo 2. I’m not a fan of playing this game for multiple seasons and still have no idea what half the orbs in my inventory do exactly, but I can recognize that a lot of thought went into this game and I’m excited to see it now My approach and will check back when I’m done.

I spent $60 to replay a game I’d played 10 times – but this time it looked worse. Nintendo continues to win.

In many ways, while this game may be better than Yakuza 7this game felt like a “sophomore slump” Kasuga Ichibanstory. Aside from the introduction of Yamai, the new characters don’t feel memorable, and I feel like we’re missing those great, powerful moments that these games are known for. In the end, it felt like the narrative team was stretched too thin between the dual protagonist stories, creating two unsatisfying character arcs instead of the very satisfying arc of the previous game.

In a game where a kingdom is brought to ruin by the slow spread of toxic actors with too much power, it’s hard not to examine the current political landscape while playing Metaphor. The game is arguably the most ambitious story ever created in modern times atlas‘RPG Team (please don’t yell at me if this is wrong, I don’t play those Demon Summoner game), yet the game’s weak and vague politics lead to a soggy conclusion.

Coupled with the class system, players are mostly shoehorned into one playstyle, which left me feeling very sour when I left, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the first two-thirds or so of the game.

But man, is the battle theme so hard?

I didn’t catch this bug as badly as many others, but there’s no denying that the game had me in a bind throughout March. However, even after a mobile version was released, I didn’t find myself with the desire to go back, only to end up playing twice as much slay the tower.

I was going to keep a hundred, but I didn’t play the game. I’ve heard very positive things about it, but since I’m generally not a fan of “horror” games, I thought I’d watch a few games before deciding if it was for me. Before I knew it I was two thirds of the way through the game and decided to let it rock before buying the game because I believed wrong organ Created something truly unique and worth my money.

Gargling managed to do something that seems outdated these days – create deep, complex characters that leave a lot of room for interpretation. Has it led to some of the stupidest comments I’ve seen online this year? Yeah, but I think that just goes to show that it’s more interesting to tell stories about whether certain characters are morally right or wrong, rather than focusing on telling a human story.

This is the perfect “turn off your brain and shoot some guys” game to play with the boys when we need a break from competitive gaming. It’s beautiful, has great lore and flavor, but most importantly it’s fun.

A true latecomer that has become my current “one more run” obsession. You may know I have a history roguebut never really found the time to delve into cyber hacker Or other torchbearer games. Because of this, I don’t know what great tradition this game invented or continued, but what I do know is that this game is special. Part of the reason this game is so high on my list is that I know I’ll probably put another 100 hours into it next year.

It’s as deep and complex as you could hope for. I haven’t even ventured out to create my own character or choose a different starting area than Joppa, and I’ve already had such a refreshing variety of experiences in my run. Even if I die, most of the time, at least it will still be fun. Which leads me to my next game…

My problem with most games today is that it feels like the developers don’t trust the modern gamer. It’s not that I’m trying to start some sleazy discussion – I just believe that, even aside from factors like overly tutorials or the prevalence of handheld, AAA developers are afraid of making games that will fail players miserably.

Enter Dragon’s Dogma 2. I knew the game had a reputation for being rough and unforgiving, but I had no idea what I was in for. I soft-locked myself and lost several hours of progress. I spend or use extremely important items multiple times, or manage my inventory every 20 minutes. I failed multiple side quests – and even accidentally had my Pawn kill the quest giver (I swear it was self-defense). This game has pissed me off so many times.

But the more time I spent with the game, the more confused I began to feel about this vision. I got an achievement for killing an ogre and having its corpse fall – so that it formed a bridge between two cliffs. I’ve had countless oxcart rides that started with an attack from one monster and then led to larger monsters being drawn in to fight, leading to an all-out war looping around for any traveler within earshot. The builds I created were so broken that I killed dragons in seconds. I’m a god among men and I feel like I’ve definitely earned it for all the crap I’ve had to put up with. The scope of the game isn’t huge, with only about 6 towns total, but it feels like one of the most realistic worlds I’ve ever explored in a video game.

Then, after I was satisfied with my time, in the final act of Dragon’s Dogma 2 came one of the biggest swings I’ve ever seen in a game – and maybe one of the biggest ever. While I don’t think they’re going to jam the landing, I can only give them props for actually doing it because it feels like there are very few big open world style games that can do that right now.

The slogan for UFO 50, the long-awaited release Derek YuThe team is “Play Forever”. Playing forever is my way Cavinga game that I think is the perfect evolution of arcade games. Simple, elegant, and compact gameplay that combines elements of the speedrunning and high-score-breaking metagame. This was one of the first games I played that felt infinitely replayable.

No other game in UFO 50 is as precisely replayable as Spelunky. These 50 games include a dozen arcade-style games, like Seaside Drive, where I will be chasing higher scores now and forever. It has games like Bushido Ball, a game I can take to my fighting game friends and spend an entire afternoon playing, making our own tier lists and strategies to beat them next time. Yes, it offers a lot of linear games, like full-blown JRPGs set in the Wild West, that I beat and probably won’t come back to again, but these games pretty much serve as those that are designed to actually have fun A palate cleanser for the game.

UFO 50 is a collection of 50 excellent video games. Even games I’ve barely touched, like House of Ghosts, are pretty good. Even Babuta is good. I have about 8 “gold cars”, or completed games, and one “cherry” – a reward for going above and beyond. I have no doubt that over the next few years I will slowly work to clear all of these issues. Even Babuta.