I usually conduct the traditional New Year’s summing up in three parts, but about music usually comes out six months later, if it comes out at all, and about books, since we’re on Stop-Game-Ru, it will probably be off-topic, which means it remains about games.
So, below you will find what my friend Varg was playing in 2024 with some comments about each title.
1. The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes 👍👍
playing time 7.8 hours.
The gaming year began with a horror movie from Supermassives. You sit with folded arms with a gamepad clutched in them on a belly stuffed with salads, and the protagonists on the screen run, jump and try to escape from unknown creatures in the catacombs – beauty! Again, there are plenty of cutscenes during which you can also snack on some tasty treats. The movie is pleasant, moderately tense, it’s not offended by the twists, I guessed something based on little things, but the ending was successfully hidden under a veil of secrecy until its time. The setting is colorful, not tired, American soldiers in Iraq. During these holidays, it will be necessary to re-pass for the voice of reason achievement (while I was playing, by the way, I thought that it would be interesting if this choice was influenced not by the player – okay, not only by the player – but also by the characteristics of the characters, otherwise why would they be needed otherwise) or so that everyone survives (I have Eric, I think that’s what my husband’s name was – because sometimes women necessary throw).
This year I was waiting – an unprecedented thing for me, I usually don’t expect anything (and don’t believe anything) – a remake on PC, but with it you know how it turned out. Sony – three-two-times office.
2. Tell Some Story: Foz 👍👍👍
playing time 16.2 hours. ✅
Indie shooter from a solo Samara developer. At first, the game seems like a creepy postmodern parody, but it quickly knocks such thoughts out of you. Moreover, neither postmodernism nor parody disappears anywhere, they are simply brushed aside by a plot in the spirit of Max Payne and gameplay that throws up new situations with Kolda’s generosity. Very cool toy. Like every Kolda there is a Captain Price here too.
For those who want to learn more, there is a review on the blog.
3. Stasis: Bone Totem 👍👍👍
playing time 22.5 hours. ✅
An isometric horror quest that develops the Stasis universe in depth – literally, because the events of the game take place at the bottom of the sea, where the sinister Kane corporation dug up something. What exactly remains to be found out by the trio of main characters: a married couple of sea flea dealers and their intelligent toy bear Moses (if you at least remember what his namesake did, an inversion is in store for you).
I also have a good review of the game, I should drag it here if I don’t forget. In short, a very dark and very atmospheric quest in an interesting (and also dark) setting, combining biopunk and corporations as a source of divine will. There was also a place for a simple Soviet… submarine.
4. Velvet Assassin 👍
playing time 13.9 hours.
Category B stealth about slaughtering Nazis in the back, which in the last chapter famously turns into a Ge category action game with shooting in the face (but those who suffered from the inability to carry out a massacre in the spirit of a school playthrough of Hitman to every living thing on the level should like it). In fact, it’s not a bad game, if you keep in mind that not all games give the player wide opportunities, some, on the contrary, limit them, testing the ability to play with weak cards. Velvet Killer from the latest. However, the game has one trump card (or rather, a trump queen) in store – the appearance of the main character. In 2k24 they don’t make such beauties anymore, and if they do, they don’t make levels where they cut up enemies under morphine in one nightie. Words cannot express how sorry I am for the industry we lost.
Even in the videos, the developers periodically cut down Tarkovsky.
5. Suicide of Rachel Foster 👍
playing time 5.6 hours. 🌻
Walking simulator, also known as a chatter game. A snowstorm traps the main character for several days in an old hotel that once belonged to her family. However, there are few bright memories wandering through the rooms and corridors, because the family broke up long ago after the father started an affair with the young Rachel Foster, and how that affair ended, you can find out in the title of the game.
The game is short, atmospheric – even include Aguzarova – and one-sided. Now I don’t remember my complaints about the plot, but the final twist seemed very far-fetched to me, although it didn’t really dampen my impressions of the game. I was inspired by the old hotel more than by the history that unfolded in its scenery.
6. Jagged Alliance: Rage! 👍👍
playing time https://we88casino.co.uk/ 41.8 hours.
A crossbow is a must have in the game, but you can only pick it up in one mission at the very beginning, you missed it – suffer with knives.
One of the numerous brood of offspring of the once glorious franchise, which, like the rest of its brothers, denigrated its good name more than glorified it, once again failed and did not live up to it, etc. This is according to fans. I first touched the series only in Rage! and I didn’t experience any negative emotions, quite the opposite – I liked the game. Yes, this is a simple turn-based tactics, where almost all the fuss with the characters is excluded, and there are no commodity-money relations in principle, just like money in general. But in battles you have to tinker – the local guerrilla is fought against enemies outnumbered (in the first third of the game, when there are only two fighters under the player’s control, sometimes by an order of magnitude), so you have to forget about heroic head-on clashes, quiet attacks from the bushes are the choice of local partisans. The choice of tactical tasks is small, it is almost always a cleanup, but somehow formalized: the release of prisoners, the capture of a radio tower, etc.At the end of the second act I caught a bug that prevented the fourth fighter from joining, and I had to replay 2/3 of the game, but I’ll still say that it’s good, the main thing is not to compare it with the first two parts of JA. But the three, favored by the players, which I bought after completing Rage! , I still haven’t played the game – the amount of fuss with the management is intimidating.
7. Half-Life 👍👍
playing time 22 h. 🎁
Legendary game. I didn’t get there in the trailer at one time, then, when Halva had already received recognition and its cult status, I didn’t get there again (or rather, I got there, but got lost in the corridors), but I got there only now – and had an unrealistic high, as if all these long years had never happened, even though here and there the game more than once baffled me, either because of its own complexity, or because of my stupidity.
8. Black Mesa 👍👍
playing time 33.4 hours.
No less legendary fan remake – unfinished construction. It’s no joke, they’ve been doing it for over eight years! I remember it primarily because it removed the stuffy cart rides through the tunnels from the first half of the original (and a few more poorly aged moments like the minefield), but instead shoved the stuffy running around Xen into the second half, which is beautiful, of course, but not that. So, on average, the amount of stuffiness remained, and its balance did not have the best effect on Black Mesa – in the finale I openly complained about the developers.
9. Quern. Eternal thoughts 👎
game time 16 hours. 🌻
Of course, when Eternity is in stock, you will not put together a ladder and knock down the door. It’s better to carve 48 lenses out of rock crystal and arrange them so that on the seventh full moon of a leap year, the moonbeam caught by them would write on the rock opposite: “Open Sesame,” which would cause the rat living in the tower to go nuts, run down and with its tail swipe away the lever that lowered the tower at your feet. What do you mean there’s no rat there??
A mystical quest about a guy who suddenly finds himself in a place where time does not pass, and in order to return he is forced to solve puzzles made by his predecessor. A classic example of ludonarrative dissonance, since the two idiots above had Eternity, one to make things worse, the other to clean up the things, since they have nothing else to do, and the player doesn’t have such luxury. Honestly, I went through the game using the guides, but I wasn’t looking at the solution to the puzzles, but where to look for these puzzles! And then you pull some pimplet, found during the day with fire, and you run all over the island, digging the earth with your nose, what kind of squiggle jumps out in response (and it jumped out not on the island, but on the rocks in the sea, and you’re like: AAAAAAAAA! frustration.jpg)
10. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl 👍👍👍
playing time 39.3 hours.
Another legendary game that I missed at one time, this time due to system requirements. My old computer could not cope with the new product, already drawing Sidorovich in the closet, the owner without arms and head – I still wonder why – but as soon as I left it, such a slide show started… crawled… like a turtle… harnessed to an asphalt paver.Paradox 1: Stalker has aged worse than Halva – which is logical, since Halva has crossed the threshold separating outdated graphics from noble retro. Paradox 2: I wanted to return to it more than to Halva, even if running errands across half a map with an overload infuriated more stupid people, where should Freeman go?. The answer to this paradox is spoken every time when talking about Stalkach – the atmosphere!
11. Gremlins, Inc. 👍👍👍
In the summer I hung out mainly on this board, at first I played the tournament, and then I got involved, so much so that, according to Steam statistics, I spent 16% of my total gaming time chasing gremlins.If anyone hasn’t heard about the game, it’s a board game with double (I think it’s called American) random – t. e. there are dice dice and cards from the deck – from the creator and in the universe of Eador. Funny, parody, in a gremlin steampunk setting. I adore her even though I usually don’t win anything. Now the Christmas tournament is going on, I’m afraid to go, otherwise I’ll be lost again for all the vacations.
12. Penumbra: Overture 👍
playing time 6.6 hours.
A hundred years ago I read the text passage of Penumbra in LKI and was very impressed, and then, to my misfortune, I remembered and bought the trilogy at a summer sale. Well, what can I say, other than the banal “some things are better left in the past without returning”? However, more on that below. The first part of Penumbra is good enough to captivate you with its plot and atmosphere, and short enough to not get tired of the gameplay. Although climbing on boxes from dogs and waving something back at them – well, that’s it.
13. Fortnite Season of Shatter (C5S3)👍👍👍
Three years ago I gave up multiplayer games after the Siege turned into a circus, but I couldn’t come to terms with the lack of shooters, and where did it lead me? Back to the circus, you say. And I will say that this circus understands that it is a circus, and does not pretend that its clowns are actually special forces officers (this is Disco Special Forces, everyone should dance in their places!)
A big surprise for me was that in Fortnite they redesigned the shooting, removing the crazy horse spread in favor of accuracy, moreover, they added, albeit limited, but customization of weapons to the needs of the player. Unfortunately only this season. Played almost non-stop in my free time.
14. Fortnite Season Overlord Doom (C5S4) 👍👍👍
I decided to divide my impressions of returning to Fortochka by season, firstly, the list will be more impressive, and secondly, the impressions were different no matter what. The previous post-apocalypse-themed season suited me more, this superhero season less so, but I still played binge-watching and with undying pleasure, the whole season from start to finish.
15. Penumbra: Black Plague 👎
playing time 8.6 hours.
The atmosphere of the dark corridors of the research base, the plot worthy of Lovecraft, and the mysteries remained, but the combat in the second part was left out in the cold, instead offering to occasionally play hide and seek with an invulnerable enemy – on the one hand, the solution was good, on the other hand, it was still stuffy. The game became a little longer, the corridors became even more monotonous, and this had a bad effect on my gaming endurance. In addition, the protagonist again does not manage to be alone (that’s why I make surprised eyes every time when they talk about some special atmosphere of loneliness here – completeness, but there is nowhere to hide from chatterboxes!), but if Red was a tragic figure, then Kevin is just a sarcastic moron who comments on almost every action (t. e. there’s no difference with me, and two idiots can’t get along in one hero). And at one not very wonderful moment, Kevin, monotonous corridors and an unkillable enemy meet… The developers must have wanted the player to be truly imbued with fear, but I was just running around like a mad hare looking for the door.
The second part of Penumbra took away my desire to play for a long time, hanging like a dead weight in the middle of the passage, I finished it off only a couple of months later on moral and volitional. It was easier to quit smoking than to get to the end credits here.
16. Penumbra: Requiem 👍
playing time 6.6 hours.
Let me quote my review from the next section:
Having filtered out the rickety little scares, Requiem could become the best part of Penumbra, preserving the horror of claustrophobic dark corridors and the eerie atmosphere of loneliness (now real), but freed from annoying hide and seek. Unfortunately, there were few scraps of the old plot, like batteries for Philip’s flashlight in the premises of the Manuik base (and what good is that flashlight), and the new one was only enough to attract the scattered puzzles to each other, turning a promising horror into an “escape from the room” – however, the puzzles are good, the room is very scary, and the flashlight now does not require batteries at all.
17. Fortnite Remix 👎
The return of the second chapter did not make me happy, it was in it that I abandoned Fortnite then, and now I also didn’t play much, just to close the pass. But the final event concert was pleasing.
18. The Blind Prophet 👍👍
playing time 7.3 hours.
Salad “under a fur coat” and you on New Year’s Eve 🎄 I picked it up at the store today, there’s so much mayonnaise, you could drown half a city.
A stylishly drawn point-n-click quest about the Geralt-like apostle Barmaley, whom Heaven sent once again to restore order on the sinful earth. Restoring order comes down to exterminating the demons of vice, which Barsanuphius does automatically (except for the final battle), the player must only look for evidence to find out under whose guise the demon is hiding, because chopping people for a living, even if possessed, is not comme il faut for the heavenly messenger. A good game that manages to combine bloody trash talk and naivety that not all people are bastards, doused with bastardism with a bastard filling.
19. Half-Life 2 👍👍👍
playing time 29.7 hours.
The legendary sequel to the legendary game. If the first part has aged well, then the second has not aged at all. Well, maybe the levels with transport. However, not least thanks to them, I unexpectedly received in Halva what I missed in Penumbra – I mean loneliness. Due to its unmodern game design, the second Half-Life does not shy away from leaving the player alone, and this feeling did not leave me not only on the streets of Ravenholm or in the corridors of the futuristic Citadel, but also in the middle of a fierce firefight in the company of (alas, quickly dwindling) rebels. I kept wanting to sit and analyze this moment, but I never got around to it, maybe it will work out during the holidays (read: no).
20. The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters 👍👍
playing time 12 hours.
I didn’t play the first part, there was some dull guy in the main role, or is it just a pretty girl in a short skirt, it’s a pleasure to run around with any supernatural horror. And there is plenty of supernatural horror here, because for the first time in 60 years the Red Moon is visible in the night sky, and this is even worse than red crows… The Korean youth slasher, unlike Lovecraftian and Swedish horror, was much more favorable to me, although the essence is the same – again corridors, again running errands and hide and seek, again a terrible beech on the tail. Here she also runs faster than the heroine, albeit in heels. Due to the 2D perspective, horror seemed crossed with metroidvania, and I love metroidvania, with the timid, platonic love of a topographical cretin. The Coma screenwriters wrote a good story, a pinch of Korean exotica spiced it up – I wonder why it is quite common for Asian horror films to use a school theme? – so even the penultimate location, a huge and empty hospital, could not spoil the impression (I have a weak breath for horror films, I run out of steam in them quickly, losing interest). Okay, to be honest, the hospital is still stuffy, that’s where the ending was decided.
I’ll name my personal game of the year.. Fortnite Season of Shattered 👑 This may sound like blasphemy when the list of nominees includes both parts of Half-Life and the first Stalker, but it was the Window that drew me seriously and for a long time, so I choose it with a light heart (and my brain turned off), shaking my head to Metallica.
This is how my gaming year turned out. At the beginning, I naively thought that I would be able to reach 24 points, but it didn’t work out. It’s okay, there is room for improvement in 2025. I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Write in the comments what you played yourself, what games became GOTY for you. Happy New Year, Far Easterners – Happy New Year! May next year be better than last. All the best!