As much as I enjoy everything thing I do here, I enjoy this one above all the other hundred-plus features I put together on Retro Arcadia every year! It’s something I start to think about in January, when we look at game of the year predictions (which will next be coming on January 2nd for 2025), then I spend the rest of the year tweaking it, worrying I won’t be able to fill it, and generally pondering what belongs where. And I love it all! Before we get stuck in, I want to quickly mention a few games I was excited about in that Game of the Year 2024 Predictions feature that didn’t make the cut for one reason or another, although I’m not even going there with Hollow Knight: Silksong! Again!!! Another contender for the top spot, Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action, was still in Steam Early Access the last time I checked, and I’m so hyped about it that I’m waiting for the finished article, and ideally on a console. Which reminds me, another contender would have been Silent Hill 2 Remake but I’m on the wrong console unfortunately! I do have the right one for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 but after initial problems getting online with it, I still haven’t really got around to properly going back. I never did get Tekken 8 either – it started out as just having other stuff to play first but the longer I left it, the more it seemed to become as much storefront as it did game, so I just left it. Similar for Star Wars Outlaws, which didn’t even seem finished the last I heard. Last one I want to mention is Contra: Operarion Galuda, where the demo did the exact opposite of its intended purpose… However, I did get my Contra fix elsewhere but I’ll save that and other honourable mentions for the end, so with that, let’s jump into the top ten! 

10. Metal Slug Tactics (Xbox Series X)

For a nerdy turn-based strategy game, this feels remarkably like the timeless, most bombastic of side-scrolling run and gunners that is Metal Slug, and bizarrely in pretty much every respect too… Which is probably why I stuck with it long enough to find a deep, varied, fast-paced and very clever take on the genre in its own right because a mass of endless tiny-text tutorials all at once wasn’t the warmest welcome to the more casual player! Anyway, you’re leading a squad of elite soldiers, assembled from a choice of nine unique series veterans, trying to take down the returning General Morden, his Rebel Army and some returning bosses across over a hundred maps and twenty mission types. It’s plays tactical and rogue-lite and RPG-lite but here’s the twist – unlike most stuff like this, you’re rewarded for going in all guns blazing with your choice from loads of loadouts and combos, and the more aggressive you move in each turn, the more adrenaline to power specials and the better defence against attacks you get, and then when you land an attack, a synch-mechanic means the rest of your squad can attack too, and once you get your head around working that, you can take out an entire map in one go! Both the modern pixel-art visuals and the soundtrack are nothing short of stunning and couldn’t be more authentic, and the level of detail (particularly in the series’ trademark animation) is outstanding. So much fan service too, so if you are a fan, you just need to stick with it for a bit!

9. Haunted Castle Revisited (Nintendo Switch)

If this year’s Castlevania Dominus Collection was a nice surprise then that goes double for its inclusion of this, a brand new M2 reimagining of the Haunted Castle arcade game by Konami in 1987, also included on there in its Japanese form, which is one of the more forgiving variants, by which I mean marginally less brutally unfair than some! What we have, then, is a complete overhaul of what’s otherwise also a conceptually scaled-back, toned-down and relatively primitive game of Castlevania, which, it turns out, could have been a really fun one too! The difference in control in this version is like Castlevania II’s night and day, and your sprite is no longer an oversized bat-magnet, while said bats and other meanies and bosses have been completely rebalanced too, to the point of total removal where necessary, and similar for the various hazards in your path. Some of the arcade set-pieces have also been refocussed, while the visuals have been redesigned and redrawn but stay authentic to the original – like how you might remember it looking versus reality if you’d played it at the time – and all of that makes for a far more atmospheric (and Castlevania-like) experience too… Which reminds me, I’m not sure what they’ve done to the music but Bloody Tears has never sounded better either! 

8. Cash Cow DX (PC)

As a big fan of Donut Dodo, I was all over the demo for its new stablemate, Cash Cow DX, when it arrived during this year’s Steam Next Fest, then I won a copy of the full game almost immediately after! Id have been all over it regardless though, as once again, we have an eighties-inspired arcade-platformer, where this time you play Cash Cow, who’s had all her money nicked by Pig Pockets and needs to make it through five multi-screen levels (plus bonus stages and a few secrets) to grab it all back. Imagine playing Sonic the Hedgehog inside Bubble Bobble and you’re not too far off, with non-stop, pixel-perfect leaps demanding fast-paced precision, and when you’re dead you’re dead with no continues allowed, but you don’t need them because even if you never got off the first screen you’d just go back and try again and again and love every second! The pixel-art style is joyful modern-retro, full of character and colour, and the refined chiptune soundtrack couldn’t be better suited. Fantastic time, whether 2024 or 1984!

7. Star Trucker (Xbox Series X)

Literally Elite meets American Truck Simulator, as you haul cargo, scavenge for salvage and interact with a strange cast of traders and galaxy-hopping fellow truckers, all from the comfort of your retro-futuristic, rocket-powered big rig! Just the place to enjoy an intergalactic drive, or you can get up and wander around, sort out your stuff, get your space suit on and head outside to patch something up, or do some maintenance to your critical systems inside, which you need to keep an eye on as much as your precious cargoes! They’re the main draw though – finding a job, planning your route then taking to the space highways, before reaping the rewards at the end of the journey for upgrades and essential supplies to keep your rig in shape for the next load. It’s a brilliantly realised universe, with lively and varied floating space cities, asteroid fields and nebulae keeping things more than interesting, while an Americana-infused, impressively original soundtrack plays over the radio, and it all just screams indie passion project, with an eye for meticulous detail everywhere holding it all together, as much as it just feeling great to pilot does. I’d been looking forward to this for ages, and it’s everything I hoped it would be! 

6. MLB The Show 24 (Xbox Series X)

At some point I expect I’ll get tired of minimal updates and new modes I’ll never play, and stop including these things here, but as I’m not even two years into my new-found passion (or borderline obsession!) for baseball, then I reckon it deserves its place. And what the hell, I’ve had a great time with it, and I played it every day until I decided that meant it needed deleting, and it launched straight onto Xbox Game Pass to boot! Same as last year, it’s like playing a game you’re watching on telly, as long as you don’t look too close because there’s still minor details like grass and player faces that seem a bit last-gen, shall we say, although the players have never moved better. The ball hasn’t either, with a more authentic flow to the game, and what is now exquisitely refined pitching, fielding and batting. And with tons of regular and narrative-based modes, even more gameplay and presentation options, live rosters and stats, and dynamic difficulty, it’s as deep as you want it to be, which isn’t very for me but I love it all the same!

5. Skald: Against the Black Priory (PC)

This is like a new take on Ultima with a Lovecraftian narrative, introduced right in the thick of mutinous, monstrous action leading to your shipwreck on an island full of unimaginable mysteries, unnameable horrors and, if you’re lucky, some clues on the whereabouts of the missing childhood friend that brought you there. It moves at pace in a pretty linear fashion, although there’s decisions to make, branching paths to take, things to do on the side and a huge variety of characters you can create, with the usual high-fantasy classes and sub-classes, all of which have all sorts of specialities that can be levelled-up, as well as more folk you can add to your party as you go. Tentacled, oozing horrors aside, it’s all familiar swords and sorcery stuff, with the turn-based combat and other interactions subject to on-screen dice rolls, and lots of inventory, attributes and skills to manage to your nerdy heart’s content on easy-to-use menu screens. The overall presentation is great, with relatively simple but detailed and carefully-lit modern pixel-art, supplemented by the mass of gorgeously illustrated static scenes that are so full of character and atmosphere and really add immersion, as do the crunchy sound effects and the surprisingly rich soundtrack. Overall it’s a joy to play – especially if you have nostalgia for such things!

4. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II (Xbox Series X)

I enjoyed the first game well enough but this is something else, taking you on the most stunning, most cinematic journey through brutal Viking landscapes and oppressive folklore, that’s emotionally-charged and almost physically draining from the outset. In fact, it’s so cinematic that there are times you won’t notice you’re not even in control anymore, and this is particularly effective during combat – which remains responsive although on the simple side – bringing a realism to its ebb and flow, on top of seeming even more violent, as you hack into real people rather than hellish representations of them, although it’s not always quite so grounded! That goes for the returning environmental puzzles and eerily clever hallucination sequences too, and while you’re occasionally encouraged off the wonderfully weather-beaten track, its mostly a methodically scripted seven or so hours as Senua and her relentless psychosis (best experienced with headphones!) refuse to break a promise despite immediate, unexpected and absolutely hopeless adversity. And it’s so good-looking (highlighted by the prominent photo-mode), with incredible lighting and weather effects, and those crashing waves on such realistic coastlines… It’s all intrinsic to the wider storytelling too, together with as-good-as-it-gets facial animation and general characterisation. No HUD or anything else to distract you anywhere either, not unlike something like Ico or Journey, which also goes for the overall package, and while it’s not on that level, nothing really is, and it’s a great bit of Game Pass action while it lasts all the same.

3. Rise of the Golden Idol (iOS)

I was gutted when I realised The Case of the Golden Idol had been around for a while on PC when it appeared on Game Pass a few months back, so wouldn’t qualify for the upcoming game of the year countdown that you’re currently reading. This sequel makes that all better though, especially when it also launched free, day-one, on iOS via Netflix, which really is the ideal way to play too! That said, it’s super-slick, newly enhanced interface is going to feel great wherever you are, letting you focus on unravelling the twenty increasingly complex but mind-bogglingly logical moment-in-time crime scenes, before using it to rebuild the emerging narrative, word-by-word, into solutions and optional (but irresistible!) side-puzzles. The narrative picks up the thread of the first game, with the titular Golden Idol now up to no good two hundred years later, in the 1970s, which really suits its distinctively deformed, minimally illustrated, almost childlike art style. And as fun as it was before, there’s more to it now than “simply” deducing the interconnected circumstances around another dead body, with more varied scenarios and locations, and the same goes for some very inventive new puzzle mechanics. I know I’m being vague but this game, and the engrossing over-arching storyline you’ll gradually piece together from it, deserves just that. And so do you, Mr Holmes! 

2. Botany Manor (Xbox Series X)

Who’d have thought shoving a seed in a pot and watching it grow could be quite so exhilarating! This laid-back, English country garden walking simulator is just a joy, putting you in the shoes of a retired 19th century botanist, exploring the house and gardens of an idyllic stately home that’s filled with botanical research, which you need to piece together by finding clues and using them to puzzle out how to create the ideal environment to grow various types of forgotten flora, also learning more about your character and her place there as you go. New plants appear by chapter, naturally expanding your immediate surroundings, and once you’ve worked out what to do from what you’ve seen and read in each new, self-contained area, you then plant the seed and set up everything you’ve learnt to get it to germinate and reveal itself. I don’t want to spoil too much but maybe a certain plant thrives in a thunderstorm, so you need to try and recreate one, which then involves putting certain equipment together and finding missing parts to make it work, which might then need to be assembled from specific components you’ll also need to learn how to create. It gets very clever, and a real thrill as you piece things together, and doing so is so intuitive, even as the clues start to mount up! To look at, it veers between painterly realism and vibrant, colour-splashed minimalism, like one of those old rail travel posters from the 1920s, and the chirping bird and walking around an old house sounds, interspersed with occasional, gentle, folky music, couldn’t be more atmospheric. Just a lovely, leisurely few hours, and good old Game Pass again too!

1. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Xbox Series X)

Within two minutes of the ultimate in fan service to show you the ropes, I knew where this was ending up in this list, and four hours of “one more checkpoint” later, I literally had to drag myself back to real life on launch day, which then repeated at every possible opportunity, every night of the week after it arrived on Game Pass in December, but given the chance, I could easily have gone fifteen hours straight instead! It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a game I didn’t want to put down as much as this one, with you globetrotting and swashbuckling, sneaking, exploring and puzzling through the best Indiana Jones story since the original trilogy, which it’s also set right in the midst of, meaning peak Indy rather than some time-travelling old man! Okay, it does get a bit uncanny valley as a result, but the incredible cinematography, and frankly unbelievable attention to environmental detail, together with immersive, moment-to-moment first-person action, soon sucks you right in. Special mention to Troy Baker as Harrison Ford too – you very quickly forget he’s even there! The soundtrack couldn’t be more authentic though, and likewise the absolutely stunning pre-World War II locations. Plays nice as well – nothing especially sophisticated but it’s all just right, however you choose to do it. Turns out there’s still life in this thing after all! 

Well, that’s not necessarily the countdown I was expecting at the start of the year but that’s exactly why I love this hobby, and I really couldn’t have enjoyed everything in it any more regardless! Before we close for another year though, I do have a few honourable mentions to quickly run by you… I’m not sure it would have made the list but I’ve been having a blast dipping in and out of the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 over the past few weeks, but unfortunately I came to it too late and too infrequently, so there’s just a picture from one of its spectacular set-pieces at the top of the page here to celebrate its return to single-player form instead! Iron Meat did make the list then only missed out when Indiana Jones turned up – as alluded to earlier, it might not be the genuine article but it’s still the best Contra game I’ve played in years, playing as heavy metal as its soundtrack, and all those special effects are just insane! Quick mention of the games that dropped out of the top ten since my Game of the Year Halfway Hotlist back in June too, namely logically-spatial puzzler A Little to the Left; witchy 3D cute ‘em up done right at last, Rainbow Cotton Remaster; super-stylised ghostly adventure Hauntii.; inventive twin-stick sequel Turnip Boy Robs a Bank; and a stunning ZX Spectrum developer debut platformer, Mushroom Soup… It’s obviously the one pictured above but do check it out for yourself properly (here) if you haven’t already! And do also check out my Retro Arcadia Game of the Year Predictions when they arrive here at the beginning of January, so we can start this thing all over again! 

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