Our individual Game of the Year articles allow our lovely team of writers and editors to share their own personal PS5 picks for 2024. Today, it's the turn of assistant editor Stephen Tailby.
5: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
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I must admit, I didn't manage to finish this gargantuan game this year, but man, it's good. Improving on the turn-based battle system established in the previous game, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is an excellent RPG that packs in an almost impossible amount of stuff.
The main characters are of course wonderful, and Hawaii is a super refreshing setting after years spent traipsing through Kamurocho. A highlight for me, as it will be for many, is all the side quests and activities that fill the game with so much personality and variety. It's definitely something I want to return to, as it's so clearly a fantastic title that deserves to be seen to its end.
4: Thank Goodness You're Here!
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Rare is the game that succeeds in being funny on purpose, and 2024 gifted us with one of the few examples that get it right. Thank Goodness You're Here! is short, simple, and somewhat an acquired taste, but it worked for me so well that I've played it through a good few times now.
The unhinged British comedy is genuinely funny throughout, helped massively by fantastic vocal performances and brilliant art and animation that accentuates its absurdity. It's quite remarkable how the Yorkshire town of Barnsworth feels like a lived-in place that's simultaneously an over-the-top farce and a pinpoint accurate portrayal of provincial England.
Absolutely cracking.
3: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
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Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown got lost amid the extremely busy first few months of 2024, and as a result, it's severely under-played. However, it deserves recognition; it's an absolutely fantastic Metroidvania action game.
Taking the series back to its sidescrolling roots but featuring time-bending abilities akin to the more modern titles, this is a slickly presented adventure that I loved from start to finish. The platforming and combat are responsive and challenging, the map is enormous and packed with secrets, and an ingenious feature makes tracking down areas you want to return to a doddle.
If this had come out at a less crowded time later in the year, I think this would've rightly been a bigger part of the conversation — it's well worth playing.
2: Balatro
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I've always enjoyed roguelikes and have dabbled in card-based variants such as Slay the Spire and Monster Train, but for me, Balatro not only trumps other titles in its narrow niche, it's one of the year's best games overall. In many ways it's a very stripped back experience, with no story to fuss over or overly complex systems. It's just about playing the best poker hands you can to score as highly as you can.
The genius comes with all the ways you can manipulate and upgrade your deck, allowing for countless win conditions as you find synergies and tactics that deliver deliciously satisfying high scores. It's endlessly playable, incredibly tightly designed, and fully deserving of all its praise.
1: Astro Bot
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It's probably a predictable number one, but I don't care. Astro Bot is sensational.
In my opinion, it's the best 3D platformer Sony's ever released; every stage is fun and unique, the controls are intuitive and responsive, and everything about it is laser focused and constructed with such care.
There's a level of polish, imagination, and attention to detail here that's strongly reminiscent of Nintendo's in-house work, and it rules. Everything works together so brilliantly — the level design, the controls and haptics, the animation, the music, all of it is superb.
The character cameos, delightful as they all are, are just the icing on the cake. It just rose above everything else for me because it's of such high quality, and extremely refreshing relative to the rest of the modern gaming landscape. What a game.
What do you think of Stephen's personal Game of the Year picks? Feel free to agree wholeheartedly, or disagree politely, in the comments section below.
Comments 30
Push Square Astro SWEEP INCOMING!!! YAAAAY!!
Also, it really does suck that Ubi messed up the marketing so bad because having just beated The Lost Crown 2 days back it is my second favorite game this year! Best Ubi game since Watch Dogs 2 for me.
Totally agree about Lost Crown, if you like metroidvanias don’t snooze on it
Can't argue with Astro as number one as it was my number 1.
It was pure fun, no filler, loads of bits going above and beyond in my opinion. They could have made the console repair scenes as non interactive cut scenes but instead made them brilliant mini games.
My whole family love it and my wife is even trying to make it her first platinum (she mainly plays on switch)
It's probably the most polished game I've ever played as well
Lost Crown, Balatro, and Astro are also in my personal top 5. This is a list of incredible taste, sir!
Good list. I feel PoP is underappreciated this year.
Astro deserves the top spot. Went back to it yesterday and played the holiday level, pure fun!
Good list, and it's reminded me to play The Lost Crown. So cheers
@somnambulance Same here! And I hope that the Ubi of 2025 will be more like Lost Crown.
metaphor has to be on everyone list.
Really tragic how ignored The Lost Crown was. A really strong metroidvania by one of my favorite 2D platformer development teams, and one of the few non-disappointing ubisoft titles this year.
Lost Crown on sale now for $20 during PSN Holiday Sale, sounds like I should get it!
Hope these keep coming today I’ve got a lot of drink to get through 😆🥂
Am i the only one who loved Astro's Playroom and was massively let down by Astro Bot?
@Kira_Moonvalley Yes. It's superior to playroom in every way.
@Jey887 Not for me but to each their own.
Playroom 10/10
Bot 4/10
@Kira_Moonvalley "Am i the only one who loved Astro's Playroom and was massively let down by Astro Bot?"
Pretty much 🤷 although there's one other person here that hates it because it wasn't in VR. Playroom was clearly a short tech demo (a very good one) and Astro Bot was a full game experience.
It's almost like playing the Prologue Demo of Metaphor: ReFantazio then playing the full game and being "I think I liked the demo better". It's not a 1:1 comparison but you get what I'm trying to say, Astro Bot was the final form of Playroom.
@Juanalf @Juanalf i felt Bot was too bloated with filler, boring levels, annoying powerup gimics.. plus i had to pay 75$ for
or it vs Playroom being free*
@Kira_Moonvalley While I wouldn't say massively let down, I do get where you're coming from. Playroom caught me completely by surprise and Bot was always going to struggle to recapture that magic a little. I also thought it was a bit on the easy side, although I'm aware it's aimed at children lol
Having said all that, I've just played the Christmas level today and it is glorious. Looking forward to tackling the speedruns later
Guess I'm gonna be checking out number 4 😁
@Kira_Moonvalley Joined today to complain about Astrobot…. Also complaining about one game you had to pay for whilst the other game (which is a demo) being free. What’s up with these generation of gamers? When I was young I had to save up money to buy games (PS1 era/N64 era). People are really getting entitled imho
Removed - disrespecting others; user is banned
@Kira_Moonvalley Wow, 38 years old! You’re like three years older than me but that must make the difference. Each to their own I guess.
Removed - disrespecting others; user is banned
Well that escalated
Astros playroom has more zen players than Astrobot.
1. Helldivers 2
2. Silent Hill 2
3. Space Marine 2
4. FF7R
I've been playing Astro Bot for a while. Beat it. Now looking to 100% completion. Real fun game. Well done Asobi
Looks like Balatro is gonna be this year's BG3. Incredible creativity and innovation passed over for #1 in favor of a fine, but not remarkable well-polished game published by...wait for it... SONY!
@Kira_Moonvalley This was quite literally me. I know the game is good but something about it felt off where I didn't enjoy myself nearly as much in comparison. In Astro's Playroom I had loads of fun. Part of the fun from Astro's Playroom I think might be part of my enjoyment problem is that game was stocked with bots all doing fun and cool animations. I counted in the beach level of Astro's Playroom at least 50 bots in just the first area that are all cool and fun to look at and see all the animations. In Astro Bot there are a total of about 8 bots per level with less in others with there being a focus on platforming rather than sightseeing and a sense of place like the bots in Playroom(sense of place being like there being a reason for them being there rather than it being a dead place made solely for platforming on). Astro's Playroom's levels felt way more alive in comparison to Astro Bot too. The Christmas level dlc in Astro Bot was one of the few levels that felt alive like Playroom.(Sidenote: The most fun I've had in Astro Bot was the Christmas dlc level, others I liked were the first level, the mouse level, the tree level, and the challenge levels.) I also think since Astro Bot had a big focus on platforming rather than platforming/sightseeing in Playroom. Since Astro Bot is focused on platforming its difficulty was too easy in my eyes where you can beat most enemies by punching or lasering mindlessly as well as platforming being really easy making there little to overcome aside from the challenge levels. The platforming in Platroom wasn't very hard either but the sightseeing portion balanced it out where it was still satisfying and fun. Another thing is Astro Bot's music didn't land alot for me. In Astro Bot I really like the music in the first level, the tree level, the festive level and some others, but many of the songs felt kinda offbrand like someone did a song like this theme already but better.(I felt this way with the casino level music compared to Sonic 2's casino song for example) Also I didn't like the hip hop guy in the back of some songs its just not my taste. (Shoutout to GPU song in Playroom its my favorite song of them all) I don't think the game is bad but my enjoyment in comparison was much much less than I would've liked and understand why many people love it but I felt underwhelmed after playing it. After playing the Christmas level in Astro Bot (which I loved) I wish the game had most levels be like that instead of how it was even if there were less levels because of it. It had nice exploration, lots of powerups providing gameplay variety and a dense open level with lots of paths and things to look at and discover and good amount of playtime for it being a small area because of how full it was.
You got Astro Bot right. PoP was surprisingly boring to me. The others don't speak to me.
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