My Top 8 Games of “2024”
By Brian • 25 March 2025
Welp. It finally happened. I failed to play enough games to assemble a complete Top 10, so we all have to settle for a Top 8 of 2024. You’ve been effectively robbed of commentary on two whole video games! What a disservice I have done you. The blog police are on their way, and I will turn myself over to them willingly for this outrage.
Before we get into the list, please permit me to yodel about this lack of games for a bit. I have my reasons, including some changes I need to make as a person in the coming year and beyond.
So, why only eight games? The reasons are threefold. The first is that games are not currently a priority in my life. It’s kind of a bummer, but it’s also okay! I’m pretty sure I’ve complained about this in previous entries. But, if I deprioritize games to help provide a good life for my family, that’s a change I’m going to make 100 percent of the time. A true Bad Enough Dude takes care of family first, and saves the digital universe from space monsters and Draculas later. No regrets. I have to grow up. Of course I’d like to play more games, but if it means dipping into resentment towards my family, that’s a path I can’t follow. I spent much of the last year of my life being kind of whiny. Discontent. Looking for sympathy in areas where I didn’t really need it. I like being a calm, steady presence in people’s lives, and I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t that person anymore.
Anyway, back to games. Secondly, I played a lot of comfort games this year. Stardew Valley. Ultima Online. Castlevania 2, among others. These are all games I either beat long ago, have already covered in a previous Top 10, or, in the case of Ultima Online, is this weird entity that fully captures my attention for a few weeks, and then completely vacates the premises for months or years at a time before the cycle repeats. I used to worry about backlogs and making sure I was getting my money’s worth out of my games. Now, I play what feels right in my heart. The fun is what matters.
Lastly, I do this thing with games that I don’t really do with anything else. Not books, not TV, not movies or travel or anything else that interests me. Well, maybe drawing. That’s a beast of a different breed, though. Here’s the thing: I put off games that I really want to play. It’s easy to push them away, to wait for the right time, and settle for something else in the meantime, something that I feel a bizarre obligation to play, like maybe a game I bought on sale. Again, that whole getting-my-money’s-worth thing.
As I age (whether gracefully or not is a matter of opinion), I realize more and more that there is no right time. Life is fleeting and precious. Now is the right time. Just like with the comfort games, I’m learning it’s best to always play what feels right in my heart.
All right! Now that all that prattle is out of the way, let’s talk about these alleged Top 8 games of 2024! Here are this year’s fast and loose criteria:
- I beat the game for the first time in 2024 (or at the very beginning of 2025, if I played most of it in 2024). “Beat” simply means I saw the end of the game—it does not necessarily mean I’ve seen or done everything the game has to offer.
- I didn’t repeat games that have made my Top 10 lists before.
Honorable Mention: Xeno Crisis (PC, 2019)
Take James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), combine it with arcade classic Smash TV, and you have Xeno Crisis. It’s a simple explanation that doesn’t really do the game justice, but it’s the most accurate way I know how to describe it. It’s a solid arena shooter, and Craig and I spent quite a bit of time with it in 2024. We didn’t do well (just like the Colonial Marines in the movie!), but it’s the fun that matters, right?
We took the mantle of space marines dropped onto a planet to deal with a Xenomorph-esque infestation. The marines have a number of moves available that make them competent fighters, and success, or any decent progress at all, boils down to using the best move at any given time. The marines can shoot (of course, assuming they have ammo available), roll to avoid danger, throw grenades, and stab enemies at close quarters. The stab is a one-hit kill, so it’s a great move for conserving ammo against enemies that soak up a lot of damage, as well as racking up extra points for taking the added risk. But, we learned it was pretty tough to land the attack without taking a hit ourselves, even with a lot of practice. The difficulty level is way up there, but the game pays appropriate homage to all the addictive and enjoyable qualities of Smash TV, re-skinned with a fun alien motif. Levels include compounds, labs, and forests, all packed with hordes of uglies ready to claw, spit, shoot, poison, and smash our heroes into nothingness. (No bug hunts here—this is definitely a stand-up fight.) There are also giant alien bosses. You probably figured that on your own, but just in case!
The only reason Xeno Crisis didn’t make it to the actual list is because I haven’t beaten it, but there’s a spoiler attached to why. It’s still a fairly new game, so I’d rather not reveal it here. Without giving away too much, let’s just say that Xeno Crisis is already controller-smashingly hard, but on top of that, it pulls a nasty trick at the end. We’ll leave it at that. Good luck.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade, 1991)
I don’t know how I never beat this until this year. While Craig and I specifically played the arcade version on the Cowabunga Collection, I’ve also never beaten the SNES version. I have beaten the remake that was on PSN and/or Xbox Live Arcade years ago, but it was just okay, and has since been lost to licensing limbo, I believe.
Not only had I not beaten Turtles in Time, I’m also grossly unfamiliar with it as opposed to the original arcade game, which Craig and I both played to death, particularly in the Xbox 360 era, where we were wiped out by Krang or Shredder probably dozens of times over the years. The world’s most fearsome fighting team, indeed! I also suffered my fair share of losses at machines found at Chuck E. Cheese (RIP) in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the Jackson Lanes (also RIP) in Jackson, Missouri, and elsewhere.
But hey, let me get back on topic. We’re here to talk about Turtles in Time! I first played this in a mall in Salt Lake City, Utah, while on a family vacation in 1992. It was so long ago that I can’t remember anything about the experience other than losing to Baxter Stockman at the end of the first level. But, good news! Craig and I did not lose to Baxter Stockman when we played, so we got to see the rest of the game! We also had unlimited credits, so we were going to see the rest of the game regardless, but we tried to do our best, despite the temptation to throw ourselves at foot soldiers with aggressive abandon.
Turtles in Time starts off like the standard Ninja Turtles brawler, with the Turtles battling their way through a construction site, a city street, and a sewer on their way to stopping Krang and Shredder from stealing the Statue of Liberty or some other ridiculous scheme only 80s cartoon villains would hatch. After that, Shredder uses Dimension X technology to send the Turtles to the era of dinosaurs, where they begin to battle their way forward through time, visiting a pirate ship, a train in the Old West, and into the future. I had a lot of fun with the time travel and the exotic locations throughout. I thought it added variety to the formula and kept us on our toes. “My toes! My toes!” Overall, the level design and enemy variety are improvements on the original arcade game, and being almost completely unfamiliar with this one, the challenge was there, as well.
I do have distinct memories of seeing Bebop, Rocksteady, and Super Shredder associated with this game, but we didn’t encounter any of them. They must be in the Super Nintendo version, so we have incentive to check that out sometime, as well!
7. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Gateway to the Savage Frontier (PC, 1991)
It hasn’t come up too often in these blogs, but I love Strategic Simulations’ Pool of Radiance tetralogy, part of the “Gold Box” series of Dungeons and Dragons games from the late 80s and early 90s. I started playing these games at seven years old and sunk hundreds of hours into them over the years. The games sold so well that spinoffs naturally followed, Gateway to the Savage Frontier among them. It’s my first Gold Box game outside of the Pool of Radiance tetralogy (not counting Hillsfar or Eye of the Beholder, which are not of the same engine), and it was about time I expanded my frontiers, eh?! Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
Gateway to the Savage Frontier, like all Gold Box games, looks primitive, but is fun where it counts. Exploration takes place via first-person dungeon crawl in a tiny window in the upper-left corner of the screen (and sometimes a world map) as my party of adventurers traverse the Savage Frontier in a race against the Zhentarim (ugh, these guys are a constant thorn in my D&D side) to find four magic statues that their general, Vaalgamon, intends to use to conquer the region. Events are accompanied by nice artwork and flowery descriptions of what’s happening. Meanwhile, turn-based combat occurs on sprawling overhead maps, with movement and actions appearing as they would in a tabletop D&D campaign with miniatures. This strong tactical combat system is where Gateway and all Gold Box games stand out. Maneuvering my dudes around for advantageous attacks (backstabs, anyone?) and launching fireballs into the heart of a pack of enemies never gets old. Plus, there’s an underwater fight with some giant squid that you don’t want to miss! Although, I will point out that many of the towns in this game, which are usually safe havens, feature attacks from lesser enemies like bandits and stirges. The fights are of minimal consequence and get old really fast, which occasionally makes the combat too repetitive and inconsequential.
I think I was most impressed by Gateway’s difficulty. Being unfamiliar with the game certainly contributed to the challenge, but also the fact that money and magic items proved scarce, especially in the early going. I had minimal good gear to help turn the tide, and I often couldn’t afford to train my party members up to the next level when they were ready. By the endgame, things turned more in my favor, but I still endured tough encounters with enemies like shambling mounds, which are going to be a lot of trouble even if the party possesses a Wand of Defoliation or two. I also found the final sequence of battles to be really frustrating. Maybe others found it clever or refreshing, but I was too impatient and dumb to appreciate it. Overall, though, the difficulty hit just right.
I’ll admit that it took me way too long to finish this, and that mellowed me on the game at least a little bit. According to my notes, I started playing in 2021 and didn’t finish until early 2024. That’s too long! It wasn’t for lack of interest, just a matter of being pulled in a lot of directions and the friction of sitting down at the PC and facing the need to take notes and sometimes draw some maps. Thankfully, those notes made it much easier to remember what I was doing after each 6-month lapse in play.
P.S. if you want to read me ramble incessantly about a Gold Box game, check out my Pools of Darkness blogs on That No Good Blog!
6. Star Wars: Dark Forces (PC, 1995)
A white whale vanquished! I’ve had Dark Forces since 1996 and finally beat it in 2024. I first saw this game in action at my cousin’s house when I was 11, and my system overloaded nearly instantaneously. For one, I honestly didn’t think video game graphics could get any better. Second, it was Doom, but Star Wars! It was one thing to fight hellspawn or whatever, but the prospect of zapping stormtroopers in a corridor far far away en route to solving the mystery of the Dark Trooper was an opportunity for some real wish fulfillment—a battery-powered toy laser gun with real-light-and-sound-action™ in the backyard could only accomplish so much, you know?
Alas, our family computer was old and slow. I would have to wait for both an upgrade to the PC and until I accumulated sufficient funds to buy the game myself. Those things happened eventually, I bought Dark Forces, and before I knew it, hit a brick wall in the form of the game’s many puzzles and platforming challenges. Oh, I thought I was just going to be blasting bucketheads on my way to a fight with Boba Fett or whatever, but I appear to have died at the bottom of a gaping chasm. Whoops! This is why Luke Skywalker had movies made about him, and I, dead Kyle Katarn, have not.
Anyway, there’s this prison level I gave up on as a kid, with doors with combination locks on them, but I didn’t know the combinations and couldn’t figure out where to find said combinations. Upon finally revisiting the game many years later, I learned I had to *checks notes* check my inventory and look at datacards I picked up with the door combinations on them. Okay, that makes sense. I feel like I should have been able to figure that out even as a kid, but apparently not. Then, later, to bypass a certain unlockable door, I had to blow a hole in a wall and drop down an elevator shaft or something crazy like that. Even as an adult, I had to go to GameFAQs to figure that out. Dark Forces doesn’t mess around with its puzzles.
Despite some of the frustrations, I found great fulfillment in finishing Dark Forces at last. It’s very much a product of its time, but still fun today. I did not play the remaster, but I did use the Force Engine to bring some much-appreciated quality-of-life improvements to the classic experience.
5. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (Game Boy Advance, 2003, original released in 1990)
The third game in the Mario franchise is the fourth game in the Super Mario Advance franchise, which is the fifth game on this list. It’s funny how things work out sometimes!
Yes, this is Super Mario Bros. 3, a game with which I am quite familiar, and, if you’re reading this, I assume you probably are, as well. But, this is the Game Boy Advance version, and I haven’t played it, so it’s technically a new game, right?! Yes. Just say yes.
It plays about the same. Screen real estate is more restrictive than on a Nintendo or Super Nintendo, but it didn’t impact my experience. A couple of minor changes have been made to the game world, such as being able to access the mushroom house with the hammer bros. suit in it in World 6 without having to beat the deviously designed World 6-5, but I’m a big nerd, so I got the free hammer bros. suit and then went and beat 6-5 anyway. And, the Advance version has some extra game modes, as well as the sought-after e-Reader levels, but I just played the base game and haven’t looked at those, yet. I played this on Nintendo Switch Online, which mercifully includes the e-Reader levels, so I’ll check them out eventually.
Bottom line, it’s Super Mario Bros. 3, which is the best Mario, so even though I’ve played it a million times before, it makes the list on a technicality.
4. Secret Agent HD (PC, 2021, original released in 1992)
Some years back, I expressed my unabashed love for Apogee’s Crystal Caves HD when I enshrined it in one of these lists. Now, watch out! Here comes Secret Agent HD, the remake of the action-espionage game built on the same engine as Crystal Caves. I was so taken by the Crystal Caves remake that I knew Secret Agent HD would grab me in the same way. I was not mistaken—before I knew it, I’d double-oh-sixed my way through four episodes’ worth of diabolical villain compounds en route to recovering the Red Rock Rover blueprints from the bad guys. I cleared the whole game in like two weeks, unheard of in my current state of being.
The gameplay is simple enough. Taking on the mantle of 006 (I guess 007 was busy), the objective is to destroy the communications array in each level and find the dynamite to blow the exit hatch, while avoiding traps, henchmen, and robots along the way. Sometimes locked doors require keys, or laser arrays must be deactivated by inserting a found floppy disk into the appropriate computer tucked away somewhere in the level. It can be a lot to keep up with, but 006 (and me, by extension) is a competent secret agent, more than capable of overcoming the odds.
I think my favorite part of Secret Agent, Crystal Caves, Commander Keen, or any sidescroller made by Apogee or id Software in the early 90s is the veritable bounty of collectibles. Each level is ripe with magnifying glasses, tubes of toothpaste, teddy bears, money bags, and other nonsensical bonus items, just hanging in the air to be plucked by 006 for bonus points. I will happily risk it all to grab one 100-point lollipop hanging over a deadly pit of slime. The points really don’t even matter that much, but I’ve gotta have those goodies! There’s something savage, something primal, about the satisfaction I get collecting these items. It’s just like how I can’t resist collecting a million zillion coins in a Mario game, even when I already have 99 lives and don’t need them at all.
I didn’t really get enough of Secret Agent HD, but I heard it has a hard mode. Hmmm...feels like an Extra Life challenge, if you ask me!
3. SteamWorld Dig 2 (PC, 2017)
What makes digging games so satisfying? Is it the instant gratification of performing such a painstaking task so quickly and easily? Condensing perhaps the hardest thing you'll ever do in real life into one or two taps of a button? There's nothing quite like hollowing out my own mine shaft using nothing more than the Y button.
Meanwhile, what makes Metroidvanias so satisfying? Is it the sensation of being stymied by an item or a doorway just out of reach early in the game, but knowing the future acquisition of an item or ability will clear the way? The joy of losing oneself in a labyrinth and exploring every corner and crevice for every goodie and secret contained within? Maybe even having to take notes and draw maps along the way?! There's nothing quite like dropping into a vertical corridor, with a door on the left AND the right, and the opportunity to explore in both directions.
So what about a game that combines BOTH digging AND Metroidvania? That's gotta be something else, right? Well, it’s Steamworld Dig 2, and it’s pretty awesome! I played this at the beginning of the year, particularly when my wife and kids were gone for a few days at a time, and stayed up much too late unearthing gems and secrets galore, relishing the dopamine hit with each new resource collected, never stopping. Just keep digging, you fool! And if you dig too deep, we’ll just dig our way out! The only way forward is down, DOWN!
Not only that, the digging is fun and easy. As it should be in real life! Why all the digging? Well, Dorothy, the protagonist, is a robot out looking for her friend Rusty, who was the star of the original Steamworld Dig. Along with her mouthy Vectron navigator, Fen, Dorothy sets out to unearth the mystery of what happened to Rusty deep beneath the hub town of El Machino and stumbles upon a sinister plot along the way. I’ve only played a few minutes of the first Steamworld Dig, on Bad Enough Dude Jon’s Wii U some years ago. I don’t know everything that happened in that game, which created some extra mystery for me. All the references to the original made me wonder if I should go back and play it or not.
This was my first Steamworld game, and the overall game design struck me as lived-in and cohesive. El Machino and every other locale feel interconnected and influenced by one another, and the character designs are fun and fantastic. The robot residents of El Machino are a little bit Futurama, a little bit steampunk (of course), and oozing with style, personality, and function, which is maybe most important of all, being that they’re all robots.
I already mentioned the digging, but the rest of the gameplay shines, as well, like the precious treasure it is. In addition to a pickaxe, Dorothy also wields bombs, a grappling hook, a pneumatic fist, and other tools that assist with traversal and combat. A flexible upgrade system utilizing cogs discovered in the depths allowed me to enhance these tools to my liking, depending on what served me best at a given time. Combat feels like it comes to Dorothy a bit unnaturally, but I think that works in the game’s favor—she’s better at digging and moving than fighting, so when serious combat arises, especially boss battles, it feels pivotal and like there are real stakes. Getting creative and finding uses for bombs and the grappling hook are much more effective than attempting a straight-up fight in most cases.
Anyway, a real gem in more ways than one, dig into SteamWorld Dig 2 when you get a chance.
2. Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo Switch, 2017)
Well, here’s Mario again, usually sitting somewhere near the top of these lists. This time, he’s here to stop Bowser from forcing Peach into a non-consensual wedding. Bowser fits Peach with a sentient tiara from the Cap Kingdom, so Mario teams up with the tiara’s partner, Cappy, to stop the king of the Koopas in a kingdom-hopping adventure full of more tasks and power-moon collecting than I could ever accomplish in two lifetimes. But, it’s a well-crafted game—3D Mario games have come a long way since my misadventures with Super Mario 64 years ago, and while I think Super Mario Galaxy may always be my favorite, Odyssey gives it a run.
Super Mario Odyssey is a Mario game for travel nerds. Mario treks across various kingdoms on Bowser’s tail, collecting power moons to propel the Odyssey, a hat-shaped airship from the Cap Kingdom, from land to land. Along the way, he and Cappy help residents out of quandaries and set right all of Bowser’s garbage behavior along the way, as he steals stuff from each kingdom for his perfect wedding. Meanwhile, Mario can spend coins on souvenirs and costumes, adorning the Odyssey with tchotchkes and bumper stickers from each destination. Which, let me tell you, if I could get a New Donk City sticker for the back of my airship (okay, car), that would merit serious consideration.
My favorite part of the travel aesthetic, however, is the map. Each kingdom’s map reads like a brochure, with recommended places to visit, hazards to avoid, and so on. The map itself looks like something I’d pick up at a national park. It’s so immersive I might as well actually be there, holding the map in my hands. So, here’s another game combining two of my favorite things—Mario and travel, in this case—in a way I never would have thought possible or thought I could love so much.
I mentioned my issues with Super Mario 64—I’m so glad that 3D control has come so far (and that my acumen for 3D games has come a little ways, anyway) since those days. The platforming feels ultra-precise compared to any of my previous 3D Mario experiences. Another massive quality-of-life improvement from previous 3D Marios is the ability to collect as many power moons as I want without having to exit and re-enter a level over and over again. So convenient!
I think I’m caught up on my old mainline Mario games. Does this mean I can finally buy Super Mario Bros. Wonder and then not play it for seven years? Mmmm boy.
1. Blaster Master Zero 3 (Nintendo Switch, 2021)
I don’t think Blaster Master Zero 3 would get the top spot on this list alone. Rather, its place as the culmination of the Zero trilogy—a strange, yet emotional ending to a fantastic trio of games—is why it’s here. It’s this blog’s version of The Return of the King cleaning up at the Oscars for the collective excellence of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Subscribe for more dated references!)
I didn’t get into Zero 3 at first. Like Zero 2, it felt samey and very hard at the outset. Not only that, my wife was sick when I first started playing it, so my attention was divided between the game and the kids. The circumstances around blasting again were not ideal. Fortunately, I scraped together enough upgrades and remembered the mechanics and nuances before too much time passed, and I was hooked in the same way the first two games (and their NES predecessor) got me—drive cool tank, explore caves on foot, fight lots of mutants, and revel in anime melodrama surrounding the human, Jason, falling in love with and constantly coming to the aid of the tank’s support android, Eve. Jason, Eve, and Fred (a supernatural frog of sorts) flew to planet Sophia at the end of Zero 2 (yes, in their space travel-capable tank), but were attacked by the Sophia military upon arrival and imprisoned. Jason reunites with Fred and the tank forthwith and spends the rest of the game looking for answers to their imprisonment and trying to track down Eve, whom they can only communicate with intermittently and the connection is always bad because of interdimensional interference or lack of 5G towers or whatever. Even in the future nothing works.
Speaking of interdimensional travel, it plays a big part in Zero 3. Jason must enter superdimensional space at points in the game, usually to get around an impassable obstacle in real space, collect certain items, or to defeat mutant bosses. Superdimensional space is like the Dark World—it mirrors regular space, but is weird and distorted, with all kinds of crazy mutant enemies. Superdimensional space can also be used to bypass some of the game’s really tough areas, like Sophia military installations. I wasn’t a good enough player to face those areas in real space, so I probably melted Jason’s brain sending him through the rift over and over again. Sorry, my friend.
Anyway, the gameplay here is good, but the story is why I’m here and why this game is at the top of the list. Through the trilogy, I got to meet Jason and Eve and see their relationship grow through story bits and cutscenes, through Eve getting infected by a mutant virus and Jason traversing the galaxy tirelessly in Zero 2 to cure her, and through Jason’s frustrating journey to reunite with her in Zero 3. Plus, there’s Jason’s rivalry with this jerk named Leibniz, which develops in Zero 2 and continues in Zero 3. But of course, in true melodramatic fashion, Leibniz becomes a trusted, but cranky ally through the events of Zero 3, and whose trauma stemming from the loss of their own support android I grew to understand. It’s really too much to unpack in one paragraph of a Top 8 list, but with all that going on, I had to experience the conclusion, and the twists therein are compelling, to say the least. The callbacks to the previous games in the trilogy (and the series as a whole) fill the fan-service role, and there’s even a very meta action the player must perform at the end of the game to prevent getting the sad, Lieutenant-JG Picard ending.
By the time I experienced the gut punches, life choices, and ultimate sacrifices of the real ending, I was emotionally spent. Maybe a little confused, but mostly just spent. It was the end of a long and invested journey, not unlike what I felt at the end of Pools of Darkness some years back. Now I’m just wondering if there will ever be more games—the door is open, and this loyal fan would partake, I’m sure. Get me back in that tank one more time, in the name of love and mutant annihilation.
That’s it! That’s the list! What do you think? Do you have any favorite games you played in the long-forgotten year of 2024? I don’t have a comments section, so I guess find me on Bluesky or something if you want to talk about them. Or just shout into the void—that’s what I normally do.
Thanks for reading, and see you next mission!
