Last of Us 2 is a Bread Sandwich

Warning: There will be some spoilers below

The Last of Us is one of my favorite games of all time. So when Last of Us 2 was coming, I was excited. 

Unfortunately for it (and me) and landed just 2 months into complete lockdown for the Covid 19 pandemic. 

So I'm depressed, because the global pandemic has me locked in my house like everyone else. And this game about a global pandemic that is also incredibly depressing arrives in the mail... and I don't know if I've ever hit a level of despair holding a PlayStation controller as I did playing through LOU2.

Game of the Year 2024 Top 5

2024 turned out to be a hell of a year for my personal gaming in general. Yes, there were some old safe classics I played and they made the list, but the new games were bangers as you'll see in the top 5 here. 

Game of the Year 2024 Numbers 16-6

Another year, another batch of games I've played. Since I'm not a huge IGN sized blog, I generally only have about 20 games I've played for the year. So I try to give each game at least a sentence. 

This was an interesting year. I found myself reaching for the Switch less and less as the year went on. The PlayStation 5 went through spurts of abandonment. The Series S got relegated to the basement room. It was the year of the Steam Deck. 

So here we are, games 16-6 of 2024. 

May the 4th Be With You - A Star Wars Videogame ranking

I've been a Star Wars fan since I can remember. 

My parents taped Return of the Jedi off of network TV around 1990, and I wore the tape out.

I rented a New Hope from the library. By the time I saw Empire, I was already buying books with schematics of the ships and Timothy Zahn books.

I play almost every Star Wars game that comes out, so over 40 years, I've played a lot of games. 

I feel like I'm missing something from this list, but I can't figure out what it is, so with that caveat here's my definitive list

Top Games of 2023

It's been another incredible year of games. I haven't had time to play everything I've wanted to. There's been a few games that likely have made my top 10 of all time. There's a few I haven't played, that will likely make that list as well. 

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom have changed the sandbox game. No longer can Rockstar or Bethesda phone in their open worlds.  

Balders Gate 3 has moved the line of what a Dungeons and Dragons based RPG should be. 

And Resident Evil 4 Remake is a masterclass in pacing. 

I played many games this year. I'll rank them all. Remember, these are games that I played this year, not necessarily games that came out in 2023. 

Callisto Protocol and the Importance of Why?

I, like a lot of people, were looking forward to Callisto Protocol. Dead Space was one of the best newer horror games of the past few decades. So a new space horror game brought to you by some of the people that worked on the original Dead Space sounded great. 

Dead Space seemed like a thriving franchise, but EA, in their typical EA fashion, ran it into the ground after adding un-necessary coop and microtransactions, and milked what made the original so special right out of the franchise. I've heard the remake of the first one is pretty damn good, but I've yet to try it. 

Callisto Protocol felt like it could exist in the Dead Space universe. It thrived to be that level of game. What I think we got, was a game running up against smaller budgets than needed to accomplish the vision. 

Final Fight

I recently got the Capcom beat-em-up collection for the Switch, which is such an interesting look into where games were heading in the late 80s and early 90s. 

Games like Double Dragon and River City Ransom took the world by storm and it seemed like as long as games were on a 2D plain, beat-em-ups were going to have a place in the world. 

I returned to Final Fight for the first time in probably 20 years at this point, and I got thoughts.