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2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Graphics, Artistic

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/18/2024

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Artistic visuals don’t always have to be technically impressive. Some times a beautiful 16-bit sweeping landscape can be full as much detail as the most realistic shooter. The best artistic graphics give a game a unique style and look that can’t be compared to any other game. This year was chalk full of artistic flair and brilliant talent from many studios.

Neva

Neva may seem like a walking simulator platformer on the surface, but what lies inside is a fantastic tale of a woman and her beast fighting evil across the land they love. The visuals are breathtaking from sweeping vistas, gorgeous palettes that portray each season, and a game that must be played on an OLED screen.

Runner-Ups

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Astro Bot

Silent Hill 2 (2024)

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best RPG

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/18/2024

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When you think of RPGs you usually think of 16-bit classics or those that helped from franchises in the 32-bit era. Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales of, and so on. JRPGs tend to dominate this genre, but western RPGs with their open-worlds and more action-oriented combat tend to make their way to the top as well. This year saw a huge splash of long awaited AAA titles that mostly dominated this genre.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

JRPGs tend to have a tight grip on this genre, but they aren’t quite as popular as they once were. With the hours long dialogue and cut-scenes, archaic gameplay mechanics, and sometimes stale worlds and trope-infested stories JRPGs are held to a pretty high standard and don’t usually become popular outside of their niche fanbase. Once in a while, these tend to blow up and get everyone to join in. Metaphor did just that thanks to the masterminds behind Atlus. While the story isn’t fantastic the characters, settings, world, visuals, and music are memorable.

Runner-Ups

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Dragon’s Dogma II

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Beyond Galaxyland

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best New Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/15/2024

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New games are some of the most exciting and worrying things that appear on a gaming calendar. Games can look amazing, but end up being terrible and vice versa. This year we saw new games from both AAA studios and indie alike. These are some of the bravest developers showing and giving us their passion project in hopes that it becomes the next successful franchise.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Despite being in the Shin Megami Tensei universe this new game from Atlus does not bear its or its brethren series Persona name at all. Metaphor is a stylish RPG with remnants and gameplay and visual DNA from Atlus that fans have grown to love. While the story isn’t anything to write home about, its characters, gameplay, settings, and battle system are engaging to the very end.

Runner-Ups

Balatro

Stellar Blade

Unicorn Overlord

Neva

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Platformer

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/15/2024

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With no Mario title this year the platform genre has room for a new title to shine through. The platformer genre has been a bit dry lately with most platforming sticking to the Metroidvania sub-genre. However, platformers are a timeless classic whether in 2D or 3D.

Astro Bot

Astro Bot is one of the biggest surprises in gaming history. No one thought this once cute little tech demo was going to explode and become one of the best platformers of all time surpassing even Super Mario Galaxy. Astro Bots are cute, full of expression, and the love for the PlayStation brand seeps through every pixel on screen. The physics, momentum, level design, and visuals are just to enough to make this nearly perfect game shine bright.

Runner-Ups

Animal Well

Nine Sols

Anomaly Agent

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Single-Player

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/14/2024

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While not only being my favorite type of game, single-player games are finally making a comeback. AAA titles in this genre have slowly clawed their way back over the last 6 years and are now some of the best selling titles of their release year. We need single-player games both large and small budget to keep gaming what it has always been. Multiplayer games are nice and all, but I will always prefer sitting alone and zoning out on a good story or engaging gameplay.

Silent HIll 2 (2024)

Silent Hill 2 was already a great single-player game so it’s a no-brainer that the remake would be. What even sets the bar higher is that this remake is better than the original and one of the best remakes ever made. The story isn’t too long or too short, there is a fun New Game+ mode, and the Trophies are a blast to get. The game has a fantastic soundtrack and oozes atmosphere and terror. There’s nothing else out there quite like it.

Runner-Ups

Astro Bot

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Action-Adventure

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/11/2024

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The action genre is usually one of the largest in terms of AAA titles. These tend to be multi-year six-figure games with 100+ developers working on them. These also tend to be big milestones and events in the calendar. Action games often grow and evolve with time and tend to have some of the most revolutionary changes that can re-map the landscape of the gaming industry.

Stellar Blade

Having large open maps, a lot of extra quests, fun costumes, fantastic acrobatic combat, and some great music is a great recipe for an action title. What Stellar Blade lacks in a good story it makes up for in character, attitude, and overall gameplay. The combat can be easy to learn, but difficult to master with Dark Souls like extra bosses and some incredibly precise timing needed to take down the toughest foes.

Runner-Ups

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II

Granblue Fantasy: Relink

Rise of the Ronin

Black Myth: Wukong

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Multiplayer

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/10/2024

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Multiplayer games will always dominate, but thanks to live service and battle royale games these have become the most lucrative for businesses. This is both good and bad. This is probably the most saturated genre right now and there are way too many of them for most to stand out. This year saw a lot of multiplayer only games being cancelled and nerfed into oblivion and fan bases leaving.

Helldivers II

What once was a simple top-down co-op shooter has become one of the biggest live-service multiplayer games of all time. Somehow, someway, Helldivers II struck gold and it just so happens to be one of Sony’s new babies. The co-op shooter provides oppurtunity for a lot of comraderie with a community that stands by each other and builds themselves up. Don’t get this twisted. Helldivers II still has a small outlying crop of toxic players, but you might not have more fun than with this game and a friend this year.

Runner-Ups

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II

Timemelters

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Destiny 2: The Final Shape

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Adventure

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/09/2024

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I’m so happy to see that adventure titles tend to trend up year over year and has been something to look forward to. Adventure titles have stayed in the indie space and tend to not go above a AA budget which is nice for once. These titles are great if you want good characters and a story and a nice setting to get lost in.

Neva

Neva is about dark vs evil and somehow tells a fantastic story and can wrench tears from you without a single line of voice work. The visuals are absolutely breath-taking and the story is interesting enough to allow player interpretation, but also feel like a full story. The bond between Alba and Neva is portrayed well and you can feel the emotions between the two of them at all times. The combat is simple, but hard to master and there’s always something new being introduced to the player.

Runner-Ups

Indika

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

Riven (2024)

Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Fighter

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/07/2024

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This year had a lack of heavy hitters. The Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat year came and went and what we will have for the next few years are the rest of the Japanese fighters and indie titles. Fighting games have really taken a backseat outside of the usual contenders. No longer is the market flooded with a bunch of experimental fighting games that do well. Hopefully, one day, the world will grow to like fighters a bit more outside of the only AAA franchises that have ever existed for the last 2-3 decades.

Tekken 8

Tekken 8 may seem like an easy win or a no-brainer, but the series is always solid and rarely falters. Usually only when competing against another AAA fighting game does Tekken ever face any real challenge, but being the only big budget fighting game this year gave the game room to breathe. It is easily the best game in the series with a huge visual upgrade and a more visceral feeling fighting engine. The extra content, new characters, and large roster are something that any fighting game fan would want.

Runner-Ups

Blazing Strike

Marvel vs. Capcom: Fighting Collection – Arcade Classics

WWE 2K24

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

2024 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Strategy

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/07/2024

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This wasn’t a very strong year for strategy games. As Souls-Like and Rogue-Like games have mostly taken over, strategy, fighting, and racing games have sort of taken a backseat lately thus the missing categories this year (for racing). Strategy games tend to come in waves and are no longer restricted to just the PC, but tend to be the same preferred platform due to the mouse and keyboard controls. However, with the power of consoles it’s hard to resist spending some time tinkering with a controller as a developer to get people sitting on their couches for long stretches and working their brains.

Unicorn Overlord

Unicorn Overlord is not only a gorgeous title to look at, but shows us Vanillaware’s best work yet. Strategy elements are teeming with deeps battles, but nothing so crazy that you need hour long tutorials for. The story is engaging and the characters likable. There’s not too much to dislike with Unicorn Overlord. While it’s not a traditional RTS game that usually wins this category, it’s says something about Vanillaware and their ability to deliver fantastic gameplay on a 2D plane.