2024 in Review: Gaming
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC
Unfortunately if you’ve been within yapping distance of me the past three years, I’ve probably seized the opportunity to yap your head off about Elden Ring. A collaboration of love from George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) and Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls), Elden Ring is a masterclass in world building, game design, and gameplay. This year, we received the Shadow of the Erdtree Downloadable Content (DLC), a continuation of the main story of the game. Previously, I’ve heard whenever you played a new From Software DLC, you couldn’t imagine playing the base game without it. After playing SOTE, I have to wholeheartedly agree. While my original playthroughs of Elden Ring left me at an unholy number of hours; SOTE has added 60 more, at my time of writing this.
Shadow of the Erdtree introduced new characters, gave context to established figures, and elaborated further on the overarching storyline of the game. We learned the history of the battle for the first Elden Lord, lore of the visitors from the stars, and about a war being fought in a different realm forcefully separated from The Lands Between. We received new weapons, armor, and spells to go fight 83 new bosses (11 main bosses). The final boss took me four days to beat, and I was playing for an average of 3 hours per day. I’ve already started my new game +2 run using my new dlc stuff but honestly, it’s turned into a backhand blades run.
Tekken 8
I’ve been playing Tekken since I was in elementary school covered in Cheeto residue at Kendall’s crib. His dad used to play 1 & 2 so he had it on PS1. What drew me to Tekken was Eddy Gordo. My family celebrates Kwanzaa and we’ve got family that does capoeira. So as soon as I saw a black guy with locs spinning on his head I knew I had to lock in. I didn’t really start to learn how to play until I got out of college and now I’m good enough to beat my locals but not good enough (yet) to stay in blue rank online.
All that backstory to say, Tekken 8 is seriously a lot of fun. The Heat system takes the somewhat slower pace of Tekken and accelerates it into a mixup heavy button masher. Perfect for chaotic guys like me. It also gives every character their own special way to apply pressure to your opponent. If you like to run your opponents down in fighting games, Tekken 8 is for you for sure. I think the initial roster is okay, I don’t like that I had to pay for Eddy. I’ve got my fingers crossed for the Lei Wulong DLC soon.
Update (12/12): I made it to blue rank not once but twice a month ago and progressed all the way to Kishin:’). Tekken King soon-ish?
Update (12/13): CLIIIIIVE FROM FINAL FANTASY 16 IN TEKKEN BABY.
Alan Wake II
Alright, I admit this came out in 2023 but I was late to the party and played it at the top of last year. If you were there for my playthrough on twitch you already know this game is a masterpiece, man. Scary, yes, but not unbearably so. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original game’s gameplay loop and some of its glitches but somehow those things were endearing. The story for both is phenomenal, without question. What you get with AWII is a polished 3rd person survival horror game with crisp shooting and daunting scares. There were moments where I literally felt dread about where I had to go and what needed to be done. To be honest, there’s an unfinished article out there about this game that may or may not make an appearance on the site sooner than you think.
Helldivers 2
I had zero interest in playing Helldivers 2 when I saw all of the trailers during the miscellaneous Sony events over the last couple of years. Yes, they were pretty funny but nothing about the gameplay made me think I’d want to partake. Just like you, it was the different “FOR DEMOCRACY” memes that caught my attention. I heard the war stories of brave patriots laying down their lives in Malevelon Creek fending off the Automaton menace and it moved me. Playing this game at the beginning of the year with a crew of four got my year off to the silly start it needed. Not to mention, those different armor sets in the game made sure I was dripped out when I made that ultimate sacrifice. Yes, there was the weird thing Sony tried to do with forcing people to make a PSN account, but ultimately, they listened to the voice of the people. To this day, I still have the game installed, just in case someone wants to spread freedom and liberate some planets.
Update (1/23): Not two days after I wrote this, dlc expansion was announced with ANOTHER alien race to liberate. I got on and was greeted by flying aliens with plasma rifles and laser shields. Democracy truly never rests.
Marvel Rivals
I’d like to preface this by first saying, I’m not an Overwatch guy. I’d tried to get into both 1 & 2 multiple times playing solo and with friends and it truly just didn’t resonate with me. So when I heard a Chinese studio was creating a 6v6 hero shooter with Marvel super heroes I was passively interested. I knew my friends would play and I’d probably just watch them stream it for a bit and then move on. And then I saw the game. I saw bright colorful new renditions of classic characters and new ones that I hadn’t heard of (looking at you Jeff). I saw the destructible environments and Spider-Man weaving in and out of traffic delivering crisp Shoryukens to Venoms and Punishers alike. That’s when they announced a beta. And then I played it. That week of the beta was so doggone fun, I was ready at 8pm sharp to get my code after watching a couple hours of random streamers playing the game. In the beta, I still struggled to find my footing on how to play these types of games and who I wanted to main, but I was having fun. When I heard the game was releasing for free with 30+ characters, I mentally marked December 6th as a day I’d do nothing but immerse myself in Rivals. Here I am, three weeks in and I’m literally only have it and Tekken in rotation. I’ve settled in as a Captain America main, with a pocket Winter Soldier and Cloak & Dagger. Playing this game with five friends turns it into a collaborative experience I hadn’t had in awhile. While I do think there’s way too many duelists to start the game, I don’t mind playing Vanguard because Cap is so much fun. The way everyone’s ultimate attacks are catered to their character is also a drawing factor for me. For example, Cap’s ult is to yell “ASSEMBLE” and get a movement and health bonus. He leaves a trail of red, white, and blue behind him, and any teammate in that trail also receives bonus health and movement. It’s a perfect ability to lead your team onto the objective and fight back; especially if you have a healer in tow. I could ramble on for longer about this game but this is starting to feel like I should maybe consider writing a whole article about this game, lol.
Astro Bot
Real platformers are so back, baby. Team Asabi hit the nail on the head and restored the feeling of the Crash Bandicoot and Sly Cooper of old. You got hit? Too bad, you’re dead. Having trouble timing jumps? Tough, you’re gonna have to figure it out if you want to beat that boss. The level design is reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy. Each level is unique and comes with its own signature mechanic that the game teaches you and expects you to apply. And you can’t forget about all the little skins you can put on your little bot like Parappa the Rapper, Sly Cooper, Jak, Ratchet, and a host of Playstation mascots from our childhood. I was pleasantly surprised it won game of the year, and hope it means that we see a return of challenging platformers as new IPs.
Marvel vs Capcom: Fighting Collection
It’s m!#$&!#&%!# MAHVEL BABY. I could go into a long diatribe about why this collection has been highly needed, if not anticipated, for years and years. I’ll do my best to simplify. When the MCU took off, any superhero that wasn’t available for the movies were phased out of all of the other games. So while Fox owned the rights to X-Men and Fantastic Four movies, they were removed from all of the games. This was catastrophic for the Marvel vs Capcom community, considering the first Marvel game Capcom created was X-Men: Children of the Atom. The entire foundation of the series was built on the backs of our favorite mutants.Marvel went so far as to remove the best Marvel vs. Capcom 2 from the PS3 and Xbox 360 online stores. Physical versions of those versions of the game sold for well over $100 for over a decade. People were so desperate to get Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on modern consoles, that a #FreeMVC2 campaign was started. Eventually after years of trying to exclude the X-Men and MCU-ify everything else, this collection was announced and released as an olive branch for the community. Finally, a collection of some of the most iconic fighting games of all time were released in a collection with rollback netcode and training mode for all of the games. This was not only a win for Marvel and Capcom, but for the greater fighting game community as a whole.