Game releases come at us fast and furious as the new year begins, culminating in a slew of high profile games around the holiday season. Blink and you’ll miss another interesting, inventive or remastered game.
There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a “casual” gamer or someone who wants to pour hundreds of hours into something to “git gud.” We asked the Culture Combine crew what their favorite games of 2024 were, and put together this list of the games that we enjoyed the most this past year. See what you think of our picks, and don’t forget to comment with any picks from last year you think should’ve made the list.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I love high adventure. Once I discovered things like Star Wars, and Indiana Jones (and Harrison Ford, of course) I was obsessed.. This is just as true with games as it is in films, with one of my most beloved game series of all time being Tomb Raider. Who wouldn’t want to jetset, explore amazing archaeological sites, jetski, and be terrified to death by giant statues of Shiva coming to life? Not this girl.
Unfortunately, the latest installments in the Indiana Jones film series just haven’t held that same feeling for me. Sure, they’re Indiana Jones movies, and sure, I enjoyed at least parts of them on some level out of pure nostalgia, but they never had that epic, campy shine. Luckily for us, Team 17 got it right with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Just like the original films, it pushes the limits. It’s graphically gorgeous, with a cinematic eye turned to every small detail. Golden light filters down through dusty dig sites, and NPCs wander through elaborate recreations of historic cities.
The story’s well fleshed out too, and Indiana Jones is exactly who you remember him as - an adventurer, but at heart an archaeologist who thinks everything belongs in a museum. Snarky, grumpy and quippy, but also impulsive (seriously, are we really gonna try replacing a statue with something similarly weighted again?) Gameplay looks and feels great, and the cinematic nature of the game doesn’t take you out of the action for the sake of a cutscene. In fact, finishing up The Great Circle felt exactly like coming out of Raiders of the Lost Ark - smiling, full of popcorn, and feeling like you’ve taken a fun ride through another world. That’s why it makes my list.
Mouthwashing
“I Hope It Hurts” That’s the opening phrase to Mouthwashing, and after playing through its roughly two hour story, I can confirm that it did in fact hurt. Here we are playing as the crew from the Tulpar, a freighter spaceship stranded after someone sabotaged the ship to crash into a meteorite. Considering there are only 5 members of the ship, things really spiral downhill into an endless sea of despair, paranoia, and delusions of grandeur.
Adding to the confusing nature of the story is that it is told out of order, so we see a lot of major events but not the instigating events until later. That allows for a build up to a psychedelic and mind altering crescendo of heartbreak, and reveals that will make you question what exactly you witnessed. Mouthwashing is one that I still think about from time to time, both in a disturbing but thought provoking way. Especially when it comes to the nature of taking responsibility for your actions and whether you are a sum of your worst decisions. To discuss the game in detail is to ruin the experience, you really just gotta play it.
Another Crab’s Treasure
I’m a sucker for a good souls like, and that genre has exploded over the last couple years. Now we get a new entry from developers Aggro Crab and it couldn’t come at a better time. Like most other souls likes, Another Crab’s Treasure has tough but fair combat, and upon death you lose all your upgrade currency with a chance to recover it. Outside of that, Aggro Crab switches up the formula by adding a shell system.
Like any real crab, you can find shells in the environment, each with their own stats and speciality abilities. This is a clever way to incorporate the theme within the gameplay. There’s also a skill tree for further customization. Where it shines most is its charm. Specifically focusing on the harm pollution has had on the sealife, in this instance, bosses are massive monstrous sea creatures with different trash as weaponry. The same goes with the crabs shells you can collect, different pieces of trash that can be used to help defensively. All of this beautiful and charming gameplay is put together in a brightly colored cartoonish atmosphere. While From Software may have defined the genre, I love when an outlier comes in and steals a little of that spotlight. This is one of those.
Indika
I played a lot of games in 2024, and there were none that stuck with me quite like Indika. It tells its bleak story in a way that can only be conveyed accurately as a video game. In so doing, it makes commentary both on organized religion and video games. While it doesn’t break any ground gameplay-wise, it does a phenomenal job of using video game logic as a vehicle for its extremely well made point of the futility of faith, especially those in institutions that are so obviously failing to provide anything but the most absurd and grisly of ends to its faithful.
Most of the gameplay in Indika sees you walking around while accruing fake, worthless XP and other points while Indika goes about her compulsory religious actions. There are a few stand out puzzles, but Indika’s strength is its storytelling. Both in the story it tells through the world, and its exploration of faith. It takes place in an alternate Russia that helps sell its over-the-top absurdity and drive home its often poignant human message.
Metal Slug Tactics
The art style of Metal Slug is iconic.I remember being blown away by the detailed pixel art and animations when I was a little kid–and its still some of the best pixel art that exists today. Metal Slug might not be the monolith it was at one point, long ago, but it has a great visual style that translates perfectly into Tactics' isometric perspective. But more than that: The original Metal Slug series is known for its “run and gun” style gameplay, and developer Dotemu has pulled off a Herculean feat by translating that aspect into a turn based strategy game.
While some tactics games may punish movement, resulting in matches that feel more defensive than dynamic–Metal Slug Tactics encourages movement by adding a defensive component to moving. In other words: the more you move, the less damage you can potentially take.. That means battles are based on movement, and are therefore very fun–and that, to me, is lots better than setting up defensive positions in hopes that enemies fling themselves at them.
There are also lots of different characters, each with a set of their own load-outs that drastically change the way they play. It was one of those games I kept coming back to through the year, making it easily one of my favorites of 2024.
Children of the Sun
You were raised in a cult, they killed your family, and now it’s time to get your revenge. That’s the premise of Children of the Sun, a tactical sniper game where you are the bullet. You only have one shot per level, but that’s okay, because each time you hit a target you can redirect the shot to a new target. Eventually, you gain even greater control over the bullet as you seek revenge against THE CULT as you eventually seek to eliminate THE LEADER.
It’s stylish, fun, and was the first game of last year to go on my “best of the year” list. Children of the Sun isn’t exactly a shooting game, but more of a puzzle game where timing and positioning matter if you want to get the highest combo for a personal best or to try to top the leaderboard.
Combined with its great art style, Children of the Sun delivers a video game package unlike anything I’ve played in a really long time.
Deadlock
This is probably not the first time I’m going to put this game on a “best of the year” list. I was originally going to have it as an honorable mention–but with how much of my life it has sucked up, I think it deserves a spot on this list. While only officially announced after its popularity exploded on Steam at the end of the summer last year, Deadlock’s success was underscored by the very public downfall of $400000 dollar Concord–the epic hero shooter that was DOA. I can’t say that Deadlock killed Concord, but their history is inextricably linked.
Now Deadlock has been overshadowed vastly by Marvel Rivals, but Deadlock managed to make me finally play a MOBA (even if its a hybrid) and it's absolutely oozing with potential. Development will probably be on Valve time, but if something is already this fun to play it’s hard to complain.
Since Deadlock is still invite only, and only just barely announced by Valve, there is still plenty of room for it to expand and improve. But it also has an extremely compelling world that is dripping with environmental clues, full of unique characters that buck a lot of the current established trends. It’s trying something different, not afraid to be unique, and because of that it will most likely end up being something special.
So, what'd you think? Let us know what your favorites from last year were in the comments!
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