The Games of the Year...and Last-Minute Gift Ideas
If Larry David was a gamer, he'd say 2024 was pretty, pretty, pretty good.
As I sat down to cast my votes for the January's New York Game Awards (get your tickets here!), I looked back at what had seemed like a modest gaming year, but was actually packed with excellence.
I've always split my time between mainstream tech news and reviews and gaming hardware and software, currently as the Editor-in-Chief for Micro Center News and previously at Gizmodo and CNET. Which is to say, games take up a certain percentage of my brain, but not all of it. As an "elder gamer," I still jump in and check out the latest and greatest but rarely play more than a few hours unless something grips me.
Reviewing high-end PC and console gaming hardware helps and gives me an excuse to dive into performance quirks, mods, and other niche topics. But ultimately, as a consumer of interactive media, I want to be entertained. I want to be challenged. I want to be surprised.
What I don't want is to play the same cycle of actions over and over again. A game with good pacing leads the player through moments of calm, action, exposition, stealth, conversation, exploration, et al.. Novels and films have mastered this, and (some) games seem to be getting closer to presenting themselves as an organic whole vs. a "gameplay loop" to be reskinned and repeated.
With all that said, a lot of what I played this year was new takes on classic concepts -- not exactly groundbreaking, but a (near) perfection of form. But hey, sometimes you just want big action, big explosions, and big cutscenes where characters drop exposition for 10 minutes straight and then never speak again.
Here's what I liked the most in 2024 gaming:
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I didn't think I would like it -- but it's great. The first-person stealth+punching concept didn't connect in the abstract until I figured out this was basically Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a 2004 game with another famous face mostly hidden by a first-person POV, but briefly jumping to third-person for climbing and cutscenes. If you liked that game (and many people did), you'll like this one.
Balatro
Card games are hot, from Midnight Suns to Slay the Spire. Balatro does away with all the narrative trappings and just makes it a poker-themed game that quickly goes off the rails into unimaginable combos. This was the game people who claim to be "non-gamers" played in 2024. Great example of how something simple and addicting can work across PC, Steam Deck, Xbox, mobile, etc. Why isn't there a VR version yet?
Star Wars: Outlaws
The pile-on with this game was totally unwarranted. It's fun, it looks great, and there's enough variety that it doesn't get old. Not especially deep or intellectually challenging, but perfect to pick up and play for an hour or two at a time. Just when you think it's shown you all the tricks -- you're suddenly spelunking down into a Sarlacc's mouth.
Space Marine 2
Looks amazing. Plays well. You don't need to know a ton of 40K lore (which I don't) to get into it. Further, a bit like Starship Troopers, there's a deeper level that is actually parodying the supposed protagonists, who are all part of a future theocratic/fascist state. If you don't get the context, this is just another big, dumb action game. But understanding that, you see how this ties into a deep UK cultural history of subversive futurism, from 2000 AD to V for Vendetta.
Plus an honorable mention to:
Helldivers 2
Dragon's Dogma II
STALKER 2
Mouthwashing
I asked my gaming spouse (former game site EiC, game awards judge, and TV talking head Libe Ackerman) about her favorite game of the year, and she went all-in on replaying 2015's Fallout 4, with its latest 2024 high-res "next-gen" update. Frankly, having played some of that and Fallout: London mod, Fallout 4 (and Skyrim) remain high-water marks for adaptable game design, and like Tetris, they can reinvent themselves year after year.
Last-Minute Gift Picks and Predictions
It's been a few years since there was a singular "hot" holiday gift item. Next year, it might be the Nintendo Switch 2 (whatever it ends up being called), but the closest we have this year is the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.
There's a fuller account of my hands-on experiences here. At $300-$400, plus lenses (if you need a prescription), it makes a very nice but not unobtainable gift. The level of public acceptance of these things, compared to the Google Glass panic of 2013, tells me we're ready for the mass adoption of wearables in a way no one has seen since the Apple Watch.
Meanwhile, over at Micro Center News, I hand-picked a bunch of last-minute gift ideas, all under $100 and available in person at one of MC's 28 stores. If you're having last-minute shipping stress, my advice is to just go to the store and get something in person. I've been doing that more and more, and it's much more satisfying than online shopping.
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Below is a quick version of my gift guide, and you can read a more in-depth version of it here: https://www.microcenter.com/site/mc-news/article/2024-last-minute-gifts.aspx
Magigoo 3D Printing Adhesive Pen $20
I've been 3D-printing for many years, but this simple tube of Magigoo liquid adhesive has literally changed my life. It’s especially handy in less-than-ideal setups. My Bambu A1 printer sits near a drafty window, and this has almost entirely reduced my print failures.
RiiTek X8 Mini Wireless Keyboard with Touchpad Combo, $20
I use one of these mini-keyboard/touchpad combo devices to navigate Steam menus and Windows 11 on the gaming laptop hooked up to my 77-inch LG OLED TV -- because high-end PC performance is always going to beat dedicated living room consoles.
Crucial X9 Pro 1TB External SSD, $62
I’m currently using a Crucial X9 1TB drive with my new 256GB M4 Mac Mini to offload large game installation files and big video projects. Very good price for a name-brand drive.
Apple HomePod Mini, $99
For $99, these are great modular smart speakers. Place two near each other to form a stereo pair, or put them in different rooms for whole-house music.
See even more here from the Micro Center News Team:
Lastly, two Dan-centric gift ideas, created, endorsed, pitched, etc., by yours truly.
The Tetris Effect
My non-fiction book about the true-life Cold War history of Tetris. Reads like a spy thriller, plus plenty of great game industry dirt from the '80s and '90s. Get it in hardcover or ebook here! (Plus, there are localized versions for the UK, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan...)
Techlandia
This is my tabletop board game, originally a Covid-era Kickstarter. For 1-4 players, it fits on a human-sized table, plays in under one hour (usually), and is brimming with insider tech industry jokes. Basically, the world's biggest tech company is secretly a Lovecraftian cult and is using the launch of a new cursed smartphone to bring about the end of the world. A few copies left for $19!