by daavpuke
The Game Awards 2024 have descended upon us, like a nice commercial for Lenovo laptops. I'm no longer going to speak on the quality of the show, because I've already done so at length and we're now in a repeated stride of going through the motions of the event. Until the show stops handing out half a dozen of the actual awards in a single breath, I can't care more about it than I do. Ultimately, the livestream was fine. Some ups, some downs, but fewer awkward dead moments and even an acknowledgement to the current state of affairs. That's the best we can hope for with ol’ Money Bags Geoff.
The real stars of the show this year were the video games. I mean, that's always the case, but I feel like this year in particular really managed to pack a punch. Usually, I'm keenly aware of the seven Fortnite ads I have to get through, but now I had almost a dozen showstoppers accounted for, by the end of the stream. They showed some real winners and I thought that this would be an opportunity to catalog them all for you, in case you spaced on some names. Trailers included over 50 games in total, so I don't expect anyone to remember all of them.
There is, however, a small addendum to what I'll show in the list. Games that already released or just showed that they were out now don't need a highlight. Additionally, things like downloadable content for Dave the Diver or a PC port of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth don't seem like they change enough to matter. It's still just that game. That means that the total goes back down to 45 somewhat arbitrary choices.
As always, because of how this site works, this is an inverted list, with 1 being the least interesting title and 45 being the top dog. Here are your Game Awards 2024 games, ranked:
Showing 1-10 of 45 items
Geoff has made it clear that any money is good money. The man has accepted Nazi bullions on several occasions. This artificial intelligence slop is just the next greedy step. Don't buy AI-generated games. The cats don't even look good; they're downright horrifying.
“Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.” - Joyce Messier
This nebulous gachapon trap is coming to PC, to no one's delight. I'm even a fan of gacha, but I don't think anyone is waiting on these bare effort, anime skinner boxes. It looks flashy, if all you need to be entertained is jingling keys. I can't say that this approach is going to hit a stride in a very competitive market.
If you know me, you'll know that I despise any kind of social deduction game. If you make your own fun, then I don't need the game for that. Therefore, even adding more competitive action into the format is doing nothing for me. You will play this with your friends for one week and then get the usual buyer's remorse.
The only reason that this Netflix mobile game trumps the others is because of the name attached to it. This trailer that showed nothing, except for a cartoon style, has Yu Suzuki at the helm. At least you know this thing, whatever this is, has the potential to be weird. That's about it.
Another cartoon-style game with unclear intentions, which is being made by the Overcooked people. That's a hard pass for me, but at least they put some polish on what appears to be another chaotic venture. Maybe it's a haunted house or something? Luigi’s Mansion is pretty popular right now, so better strike the top while it's hot.
I went back to count and FromSoftware has made over 20 iterations of Dark Souls in its lifetime. I'm good; I don't need more than 20 of these. They're making another? The crowd stays firmly in their seats. And yet, I'm sure that this generic iteration will sell millions. The FIFA of git gud games. Many people like FIFA.
One of many maligned live service games of the night. This flash in the pan that mixes Halo with Portal has no shot. They should've kept rolling with what they had, even if it's bittersweet that they couldn't do it. The sequel somehow looks worse by looking cleaner. They're just in a terrible spot.
I guess that you don't fix what's not broken, but this is literally just more Killing Floor? The sickos who are into that sort of thing are likely going to latch on, but when Left 4 Dead 3 already fails, I don't see how its understudy is going to do any better by trying nothing new at all. Those ghouls sure splatter.
I said that Genshin Impact would be massively influential when it was released. As always, I was right. I didn't, however, expect for people to just produce carbon copies of the anime open world. You couldn't at least tweak the style a little? It's not that this version looks bad, but if I wanted to play Genshin, then that exact game already exists.