Fuck 2024.
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…
…
Oh, you expect me to say more? World’s going to Hell, magnitudes worse than it did 12 months ago. We can fully expect America to crumble under the weight of its own bullshit, pulling down several other countries (including possibly mine, because I’m right fucking next door!) along with it. Hate has won and is on the rise. And I would be here happily munching on my popcorn watching the leopards of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party having the feast of the fucking millennium, if so many of my friends across the United States weren’t getting caught in the crossfire!
Will things get better? I’m doubting it more and more. I am genuinely terrified of what’s to come. Across the next months, across this year that has just begun, across the next four years and beyond. These are not flashbacks to 2017; no, it’s so much worse. I am not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And from my position, the best I can do is reskeet posts about current issues and show my support any way I can. If shit comes knocking at my door, I’ll take my signs and march in the streets. My scope of action is limited, so I’ll do what’s possible. It’s kind of odd just how militant I became against the rising bullshit when it struck. My first order of action was to leave the site formerly known as Twitter, and become a recurring poster on Bluesky instead. Join me over there, it’s got its issues we must fight against, but otherwise it’s going much better.
You know that joke from Airplane!, “I picked a bad week to quit drinking”? 2025 looks like a good year to start.
Okay, you know what? Life’s gonna suck, but if I keep crying about it, nothing will get done. Besides, you are not here to hear me mope, and moping won’t solve anything anyway. If you’re here today, you’re here to be distracted from the *gestures wildly at everything* and have some escapism. So… I’ll provide. It would do me some good, too, to think about something else for a moment.
...Okay.
Despite everything, it’s still me.
Content-wise, my year was… odd. An empty January, a busy February with movie reviews, some games, then the Quick Reviews with two longer reviews in the middle, then a few more games, then the end. I ran into issues with my new PC, which made playing some games… tricky, let’s say. These issues are behind me now, but they’ve put a damper on my plans. Thankfully, I managed to get a lot of things done regardless, so it wasn’t too much of a loss. I probably could have done even more. I knocked two big games, and even pulled one from my backlog after it was delisted.
My secret goal this year was to play every non-Steam game in my Year Plans. Well, I almost did it; the only one I missed out on is the game that keeps slipping out of my grasp, Phantasy Star II. Someday, someday… Otherwise, yeah – I overshot with the Year Plans again, with a whopping 17 games that I was hoping to finish this year but couldn’t. Oh well, it happens. I’ll course-correct for 2025, as you’ll see later.
My blog finally hit the million views – hey, it only took 10+ years! – and it now sits at over 1.12M, so maybe the second million will be quicker to reach, who knows. But for now, my usual look back at the year – favorite reviews, best games reviewed, some milestones, and so on. For what it’s worth, content-wise I think I had a great year. I covered 35 games, which doesn’t seem like a ton, but is still a decent number in my opinion. (The games from last week’s Missed Year Plans article don’t count.)
Favorite reviews/articles this year
10. Hyrule Warriors Legends. It was fun to explore the game’s finer details and research everything past the “main” game as well as all the adventure modes.
9. Trauma Center: Second Opinion. While the game itself is interesting, there was a lot of comedic mileage to be had out of comparing the game’s plot to generic (if not stereotypical) anime out there.
8. KilaFlow (Demo). I know this one’s creator, so I was happy to help with this upcoming game’s promotion in my own way by discussing it on the blog. It helps that the game is a ton of fun, too!
7. The WereCleaner. Quick Reviews rarely make it to these lists, but this one stands out as I greatly enjoyed the game – and so, I could mention the USC’s published games, since that felt important to include.
6. Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves. Loved covering this game set in Quebec, featuring a story openly inspired by our history and tales. My only regret was not splitting it in two parts, because it was long enough that I could have done so.
5. Pokémon Detective Pikachu. Odd that my favorite reviews this year are mostly the non-gaming ones, but oh well, it happens. My favorite reviews tend to be the ones where I do proper research and bring up good points, and the latter is right for the Detective Pikachu review. Great movie!
4. Pokémon 3: Spell of the Unown. Same as with the other Pokémon movie review: I made many good points (perhaps even more than for Detective Pikachu), and overall love everything about that review of mine. It helps that I already loved what I was reviewing.
3. Valheim. I thought it was clever of me to make this review part-guide as well to help anyone who decides to jump into this survival game. Structure-wise, at least, that was very interesting to do.
2. Top 12 MORE Worst Video Game Marketing Campaigns. It has everything I love to have in my articles: Lots of research, relevant discussion, and it ties into talking about something I enjoy. Not as good as my first list on the subject, but still good on its own right.
1. My Needlejuice Mystery Box 2022, Ranked. Much like my marketing campaigns list, this one also required a lot of research, I made sure all my information was accurate – and it was also kind of multiple reviews in one. It’s also my most popular article of the year! Yeah, I’m working on another one, since I got another box in early 2024.
Favorite title cards this year
Top 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2024
10. As usual, the “worst” games low on this list aren’t so much “bad” as just not as good or memorable as the rest. Mario Party Superstars is not a bad game, but I lost interest in it quickly since there was very little in the way of player progress to be felt.
9. For Honor. I commend Ubisoft’s attention to detail, so there is something here, and the combat system is intricate and interesting. Just unfortunate that the single-player side of things got the short end of the stick after its release, and is very outdated as a tutorial for the wider PvP game.
8. Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Also not that bad, just infuriating at times, especially with some puzzles that aren’t explained well and some operations that can really go wrong if you don’t act fast or do them right. (Also, the plot is the most stereotypically shonen anime thing ever.)
7. Fred3ric has all the hallmarks of the previous “keyboard hero” style games in its series, as well as its trademark humor… but it’s lacking in content, can be finished way too quickly (even compared to the other two!), and has nothing else to offer, making it feel like a rushed downgrade.
6. Asterix and Obelix: Slap Them All! The Asterix franchise lends itself inordinately well to the beat’em up genre. And it’s great to see its two protagonists’ wide array of moves being used here, faithful to the comic books. Really, if only it had more variety and wasn't so repetitive...
5. Splinter Cell is one of those games whose legacy I wish to acknowledge, as it’s one of the most famous stealth games of all time. But my time playing it was an utter annoyance, having to start mission segments over and over due to how easy it was to fail. That’s before getting to the technical issues I encountered with it. In short, I’m glad I did experience it, but I can’t say I had a great time.
4. Golf Gang starts with an interesting idea – being able to shoot your ball again before it has stopped moving – but this does require awkwardly maneuvering the camera, so it can be difficult to do it right and land the ball at the end of each course without any issue. Especially in courses with sequences in midair that you don’t want to fail.
3. Urban Trial Freestyle did give me some of my biggest laughs from a game this year, but there wasn’t much in it to keep my interest outside of that. It's lacking an incentive to get to the end, unless you really love getting better scores and times on every course…
2. Gladiator Trainer is made somewhat decently for an RPG Maker game, including some form of management sim which is new, but the tournaments start feeling repetitive after a while; also, small thing but I never quite got accustomed to the generic 3D assets.
1. Phoenix Force feels like little more than a cheap shmup pulled from a mobile app store and shoved onto Steam. It offers challenge, if you feel like going far into it, but it merely reuses bosses over and over in various combinations, and that’s about it for its difficulty scaling. Not worth it.
Top 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2024
10. This year, choosing which games to put on this list was difficult. Almost everything I played was good! So I went for some of the games that left the best impression. I knew of Papers, Please by its reputation, and I am glad I finally got to play it this year, as it lived up to expectations. Very clever game, very tough as well. (Very stressful, too!)
9. Little Kitty, Big City has been long-awaited, and it delivered exactly the cute, adorable, great little open world we were all expecting, with many additional tasks and actions to look for. Its only crime is to be too short!
8. Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is notable not just for featuring my culture, but also for being an incredibly clever new take on tower defense, with plenty of strategic challenge to be found. It’s great, I love it.
7. Mirror’s Edge is another of those famous games I had been looking forward to trying, and it didn’t disappoint – though it is anything but easy, what with its use of first-person parkour, but I managed well. Seeing the action that way does give a sort of energy I hardly felt in other games.
6. Costume Quest is an excellent display of Double Fine’s comedy and quirky game design, with the mix of exploration-based overworld and silly turn-based RPG battles with costumes used as battlers. It’s a zany idea, and yet everything gels perfectly into a fun package. I even went through the bonus quest!
5. Valheim was my biggest review this year, and it is a massive game to discuss. As a survival game,a new player has a lot of mechanics and elements to learn, the world is huge and dangerous, and there are plenty of options to customize the experience. I still love it, and I do think I might come back to it for a surprise Part 6 if I ever find the time to do the Ashlands.
4. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an incredible Kirby game, and the first proper in 3D – and I love the Kirby series, and this game (which I haven’t done at 100%, but I did finish the toughest challenge), but it speaks volumes of the quality of the games I covered this year that it’s still only #4 on the list.
3. The Sexy Brutale, a brilliantly written take on the Groundhog Day trope, with several story twists and a large mansion that’s a treat to explore. It’s truly an experience I recommend to everyone, it’s just that good.
2. Panzer Paladin scratched a retro itch I didn’t even know I had, with its clever gameplay ideas (switching between mecha and pilot, as an example) and using weapons picked up from felled enemies to fight and to upgrade said mech.
1. Do Not Feed The Monkeys was one of the most unique experiences I’ve had, so even though I wanted to play it just once for the review, I just had to play it again and again afterwards. It’s great! Time management meets spying on people and making their lives better or worse. I should do a villain run of that one someday.
10 goals I had for this year, and whether they were accomplished
10. A redesign of the blog. Nope, still not. Maybe in 2025.
9. A rework of the other pages of the blog. I never got around to it, but I should make a note of it for this year.
8. Make a video for YouTube – a real one, this time. Nah, didn’t happen.
7. Cover games from all the platforms I own games on. Still didn’t do anything for my games on itch.io, but I’ve managed to cover games I own on the 3DS, Wii, Switch, Ubisoft Connect and GOG, so this one I consider a success! (Even if I did fail to review the one Virtual Console game I had on my list.)
6. Covering a few more movies. Well, that was easy – I covered two Pokémon movies back in February.
5. Slow down on buying games. I… can’t quite say I really succeeded in that one, as I still bought quite a few games this year. Mostly for my still new Switch.
4. Paying for some important repairs to my new computer. That’s done!
3. Try a couple of new franchises. I guess I did do that, what with Splinter Cell in there, maybe Destiny Warriors (if we include Hyrule Warriors Legends in there?), guess I can toss in The Darkness and Trauma Center in there too?
2. A significant anniversary review this year. I think my Valheim review filled that spot well!
1. Try to take it easy this year. Hard to judge that, but I do think I went about with things without stressing too much. Nah, my stress generally came from something else than the blog…
10 new goals for 2025
10. Rework the other pages of the blog. (Redesign, too? Yeah, that’d be fun, no idea if it’ll ever happen though.)
9. Stream a bit more often. Yeah… I don’t do that a lot, maybe I just need the motivation for it.
8. Slow down on buying games – for real, this time!
7. I don’t know which game to cover for my 12th blog anniversary in 2025, but I have plenty of options in my Year Plans, decided down here, and I've still got time to figure it out. I have a hunch, is all.
6. A new month of movie reviews – I polled on Bluesky and around communities to see which games people want me to cover, and the result landed on Sonic 1 and 2. Planning to start those before January ends. This one isn’t too high, because I know it will happen.
5. Another article on Needlejuice, since I liked doing the previous one so much.
4. This year, I am hoping to start covering stuff from itch.io. Not a ton, maybe just the very short stuff I can easily get through. I’ve also been thinking of starting to cover games from the Nintendo Switch Online retro library, if I can squeeze some time for that in there.
3. A month of horror reviews for October? I haven’t done that in a while. My random selection for 2025’s Year Plans did take me to two horror games, so… that could be doable.
2. A full month of reviews of Yu-Gi-Oh! games. This will knock a lot of time out of my backlog, so it would help tremendously.
1. Still take it easy this year. 2024 was rough on mental health, so for 2025 I intend to keep treating this blog exactly as it’s supposed to be: A hobby, not a job.
The games I’m removing from my Steam collection this year
Chime Sharp
Ellipsis
Mushroom 11
Phoenix Force
Sun Blast
Tiny Bridge: Ratventure
The new list of favorites, with 1/6th of the Steam games reviewed so far
Gaming plans for 2025
(Quick Reviews on the left, everything else on Steam on the right, games from other platforms below)
Nintendo 3DS: Pokémon Sun, Pokémon Ultra Sun
Wii: Resident Evil 4, Spectrobes: Origins
Switch: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition, Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Ubisoft Connect: Starlink: Battle for Atlas
WiiWare: La-Mulana
GOG Galaxy: Asterix and Obelix XXL: Romastered
…. To be honest, I 100% expect to be overshooting again. But this time, I hope to at least knock some of the bigger games out so I can sail smoothly afterwards.
Alright… 2025 won’t be easy. Remember, there is no shame in seeking some escapism from time to time, so long as you never lose yourself to it. Here’s to hoping your 2025 doesn’t go too badly. That’s the best I can do. On this, see you next week for something new.
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