games

My ranking of games I've played this year is as follows. This was a great year for time well wasted and I will be shocked if next year is somehow better.

1. (Honorary) Disco Elysium. I technically played this for a few hours this year, so I can still put this in my #1 slot.

2. Elden Ring (which I got in late December 2023). I loved every minute of my 100+ hours in it. The world building is amazing, even if I don't understand it, the combat is some of the most fun I've had in a game ever, and it looks stellar. I haven't beat it yet, and I honestly don't want to because of how great this is.

3. Dwarf Fortress. All games on this list are fun, but only this one is !FUN!. My dwarfy highlights of this year include: losing a fortress to aggressive unicorns, sealing off a 4-year-old vampire who killed 6 in the mayor's office for the rest of time, losing a fort to a titan who slipped in through a tiny hole in the ceiling (I hate trees), creating my first 200 pop fort (with way, way, way too many goblin citizens), and creating bearmurded-the Hexbear fort.

4. Stardew Valley (first played this year). This game was an incredible way to get rid of stress and I loved letting hours pass by as I calmly tended to my hundreds of melons and industrial blobfish caviar production facility.

5. Silent Hill 2 (2024 remake) (first played this year). This was my introduction to the world of Silent Hill, and what a world it is. I have never seen a game produce that level of unease in me and produce true horror without using jumpscares or other cheap methods.

6. Assetto Corsa (first played this year). Vroom.

7. Battlefield 1 (first played this year). I installed windows on a usb hdd with terrible read speed just to play this game. It took 2 hours to install and 20 minutes to load each time. I regret nothing.

8. Factorio. The factory didn't grow as much as it should have, but I enjoyed what I was able to do in my limited time with it this year.

9. Sekiro (first played this year). I would rate this much higher if I was good enough to beat the first boss.

(Dis)honorable mentions:

1. CS2. I regret playing this game. This sucks ass, everyone who plays it is a terrible person, and I'm bad at this.

2. Trackmaina (2024). To experience Ubisoft's Trackmania, do the following. First, shove pennies up your asshole. Secondly, put the hose of a shopvac up your rear end and turn it on. It's worse than the game from 2008 and serves only to extract money.

3. EVE Online. See above.