“WHAT’S another year?” crooned tight-trousered troubadour Johnny Logan, and in 2024 the gaming world saw Microsoft release the Xbox’s biggest hitters on PlayStation, Sony give their market-leading console a tune-up with the PS5 Pro and Nintendo continue to defy the odds by eking a seventh year out of their geriatric Switch.
With no new machines to get us hot and bothered, it was up to the games to do the talking - and this year saw some hum-dingers. Here’s my top five to feed your console over Christmas...
With no new machines to get us hot and bothered, it was up to the games to do the talking - and this year saw some hum-dingers.
5: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Multi)
After nine mainline games, the Yakuza series’ first foray outside of Japan shifted the action to Hawaii, with an island’s worth of Polynesian goons ready to say “aloha” to your fists.
Stuffed with familiar series treats, players explore an open world brimming with battles, quests and more of the series’ wacky shenanigans than you can shake a ukulele at.
The series is staying on the island paradise with spin-off Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which lands in February.
4: Still Wakes the Deep (Multi)
The Chinese Room’s latest atmosphere-soaked yarn plays out like John Carpenter meets Ken Loach as electrician Caz McLeary attempts to escape a damaged oil platform off the Scottish coast.
With a tentacled parasite run amok, there’s much pootling through corridors, vents and ledges in a gritty, foul-mouthed return to the mid-2010s heyday of horror-themed walking sims.
Much like the Scottish diet, it’s guaranteed to have you soiling yer breeks.
3: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)
NINTENDO’S iconic damsel in distress finally stepped out of the shadows this year, using her smarts in a retro top-down adventure that leans heavily on puzzle mechanics, where our elfin princess employs her magical rod to create copies of items and enemies found in its vast world.
A brilliant - if long overdue - twist on the classic Zelda formula.
2: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Xbox)
Sticking a big, fat middle finger up to Hollywood’s post-Last Crusade output, Great Circle is the fourth Indiana Jones film we deserved - just in videogame form.
Kicking off with a pixel-perfect recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark’s blistering opening sequence, players embark on a 40-hour globetrotting adventure in an open world stuffed with side quests, puzzles and set-pieces galore.
Keeping up with the Jones has never been this much fun.
1: Astro Bot (PS5)
The chrome-domed star of many a Sony tech demo finally landed his own fully-fledged adventure this year, cruising a galaxy of platforming genius in his DualSense-shaped spaceship over 50 levels that wallow in PlayStation’s 30-year history.
Sparking with the kind of precision-engineered joy that should have Nintendo losing sleep, Astro Bot is the gamiest game for years – and, for my money, this year’s finest.
