Greetings, patrons!

Anyone who knows me knows that I play mostly older games and I’m hesitant to jump into the brand-new hotness. Thus, it should come as little surprise that my list of games for 2024 is mostly stuff that was released in or prior to 2023.

 This year, I’ve changed things up a bit; instead of “Video Games of 2024,” I’ve made it “Games of 2024,” giving me a bit more room to talk about other kinds of games.

Games I Played in 2024

Darktide

The barks in this game are AWESOME. I love the characterful and flavorful lines spoken by the different characters as you play through the levels. I ended up going with the Zealot, since I like hitting things with a hammer. My playtime with this one was fairly short, since I’m not really an FPS guy, but I had a lot of fun with this one and I’d play it again with the right group of friends.

My Recommendation: Get it on sale.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

Holy moly, the story in this one is <chef’s kiss>. As a Marvel comics fan, this game gave me everything I wanted in a “Midnight Suns” game, including some great dialogue with characters from the eponymous Midnight Suns team, the Avengers, and the X-Men.

The gameplay is pretty fun as well. I made it 100% through the main game and about 50% through a New Game+ playthrough. There’s some depth lacking, though, and I can tell that this is a game that needed a few more features to really hit big. As it is, it is super-fun with a great story, but once you’ve played through it, going through it again means that the gameplay has to hold up everything else, and it just really can’t.

There’s several quality-of-life mods that made this game a heck of a lot more fun for me, leave a comment if you’d like to know which ones. There’s hints that this game was intended as a “live service” grind-fest, but the developer swerved at the last minute to a pure single-player experience.

My Recommendation: Get it on sale, especially if you love Marvel comics.

Star Trek Online

Ugh, yes, I hate explaining that I love this MMO. It’s got a lot of pay-to-win stuff in it, some silly stuff, some underwhelming stuff, but the ships and ship combat mechanics are super fun. I love levelling up my ships, trying out new builds, and playing what the gamers of this MMO call “space barbie.”

I’ve spent far too much money and time on this game, but it keeps pulling me back in every time I think I’m out.

My Recommendation: ONLY get into this if you absolutely adore Star Trek.

Sniper Elite 5

I played this game off and on throughout the year, but mainly I just watched Youtube videos of Invasion Mode — this is the coolest thing that this game has to offer, aside from all the super-fun stealth shooter gameplay.

I’m very excited about the upcoming Sniper Elite Resistance as well. If you want to know more about this game, check out my 2023 list.

Fallout 4

Played some more of this game this year, aided by a truckload of mods. Fallout 4 is not a good game, but there’s the bones of a good game tucked in there. The mods really help bring out its potential, but it always reminds me of how much more I enjoy New Vegas in comparison. If you want to know how I feel about New Vegas, check out my 2023 list.

My Recommendation: Get this on deep discount if you like Fallout. Then mod the hell out of it.

XCOM 2

You guys, I have 2223+ hours in this game. Holy shit. I love XCOM 2, it’s just a goddamn masterpiece. However, what keeps this game going is the mod scene. There’s just so many good mods. Right now I’m running over 500 mods (!!) that bring in more enemies, more classes, more abilities, more weapons, more maps, and so on and so forth.

It’s basically a whole new game at this time.

My Recommendation: Hell yeah, get this game, but make sure you mod it up.

Savage Rifts (TTRPG)

I started GMing this game this year, once for a group of friends in Steamboat and now for my regular sunday group. Savage Rifts is challenging because the game pushes Savage Worlds to its absolute limits, but the world is just as engaging and awesome as ever. My group is enjoying exploring the world as veterans of the Tolkeen war, and I got to show off some of my material from Terror on the Dark Frontier in Steamboat. Really vibing with this game and my campaign’s anti-Coalition theme.

My Recommendation: Yes, buy it!

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition (TTRPG)

We played in a campaign of this in 2024 with my good friend Ryan Powell as the GM. We had a lot of fun, but in the end, we made the decision to change from this ruleset over to D&D 5th edition, and it was the right move.

4th edition WFRP is a good game, it really is. However, there’s just not a lot for a player to do during their turn, and that’s intentional, given the zero-to-maybe-competent character growth. In the end, the lack of options for a given turn and the glacial pace of advancement drove us away, but this game still has a lot to offer and is probably amazing for shorter campaigns.

My Recommendation: Yes, buy it, IF you like WFRP.

Prowlers & Paragons (TTRPG)

Another game I’ve played this year, P&P scratches the itch for superhero RPG action. The ruleset has never let me down, and I’ve really enjoyed the depth of character creation without the complexity of something like Champions or Heroes Unlimited.

The campaign I’m in has lost a lot of momentum thanks to the holidays, but I’m very hopeful we can get things moving again in the new year!

My Recommendation: Yes, buy it, especially if you love Superhero RPGs.

Honorable Mentions

• Helldivers 2

• Battletech

• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

What Did You Play?

Let me know what you guys were up to this year — any standouts from tabletop or video games?