Here are DSOGaming’s Games of the Year 2024

2024 is almost behind us. With four days left to it, we’ve decided to share our GOTY 2024 list. And I know. A lot of you are waiting for our Top 10 Optimized PC Games list. This will come out, most likely, on December 31st and before that we will most likely have the Worst 10 Optimized PC Games list. Until then, you can find below the games that pirovashMX, Spencer, Nick, and John enjoyed the most this year.

pirovashMX – Penny’s Big Breakaway

Penny’s Big Breakaway is a joyous celebration of vibrant, kinetic platforming that captured my heart as the definitive game of the year. Its clear inspiration from the peak of Sega’s 90s heyday—think Sonic Adventure and Nights into Dreams—imbues every moment with nostalgia while feeling fresh and inventive. From its gorgeously stylized levels to the way it encourages creative, free-flowing movement, the game feels like a love letter to an era where gameplay and imagination reigned supreme. Penny’s charm and the whip mechanic, which feels as iconic as any classic mascot move, make it a standout experience that resonated deeply with my gaming roots. For anyone who grew up with the magic of Sega, this is a must-play masterpiece.

Spencer – Virtua Fighter 5 REVO

Virtua Fighter 5 REVO! Wow, Sega debuted this not long before The Game Awards where they also announced Virtua Fighter 6. Some may ask why I am picking a 20 year old game as my game of the year for DSOG and one that was only released as an Open Beta. Well, simply put, it remains unsurpassed in the 3D fighting game genre since its introduction in Japanese arcades in July 2006, where I actually came into first contact with it! I then returned state side and played it, sadly, offline on PS3 for a handful of years before finally making the permanent transition to PC gaming only to await a port for many years! This game was part of the Sega PC ports campaign and versions of it have been running on Windows or Linux for years due to its arcade board heritage. I waited a long time for this and I’m an unabashed and unashamed old school Sega fanboy! So that’s why.

And… It’s still phenomenal! Playing Virtua Fighter 5 in a flow state the combat is incredibly fluid, the graphics still compelling and now with rollback for the first time ever ranked online play is very enjoyable. The game is still fundamentally the arcade title from 20ish years ago but the king and OG 3D fighter is back and feels better than ever, I suspect the intervening period from the beta to final release in January will be used to patch a minor Steam Deck audio bug and for some minor balance changes (Eileen’s stagger is rough right now). I managed to get ten hours on the Open Beta and have been in total withdrawals since. This probably should have been an early access release to be honest but I’m glad they gave people access to Virtua Fighter and I hope that beta introduced people to the franchise.

Nick McCaskey – Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

This year had so many great releases, but I only played a handful of them. Of what I played, my personal favorites were Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is not the most accessible game, but I adored exploring the beautiful fantasy world and spent over 120 hours beating the game three times to unlock all achievements. Likewise, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven gripped me so strongly with its classic JRPG charms. See my recent review to understand why I also beat it three times to unlock all achievements.

You may notice a trend: I love quality RPGs that reward multiple playthroughs, letting me soak up every drop of gaming goodness. In that vein, my other mention must be June’s Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, which gave me a chance to revisit and finish the base Elden Ring game several more times to *wait for it* unlock all achievements.

My goal for early 2025 is to play simple, single-playthrough games such as the new Indiana Jones that everyone is raving about. But who knows; maybe I’ll get sucked into yet another massive, multi-playthrough saga. Old habits die hard, after all. Happy holidays and new year to everyone!

John Papadopoulos – Silent Hill 2 Remake

To be honest, I had a lot of trouble picking my GOTY. In 2024, there is one game I played the most and that’s Tekken 8. The core mechanics of T8 are pretty solid (and I really don’t mind its 50/50s). Its biggest problem with it, though, is the same one that a lot of online games have. Cheaters. I don’t mind losing online from better players. As a Tekken King player, I’ve lost to Kishin or Bushin players. And that’s fine. They were better than me. But when you see someone who can do perfect throw breaks all the time and constantly do 1-frame low/mid blocks, you are immediately reminded why you should have never bothered with it. It’s not humanly possible and you’ll never see anything like that in high-tier tournaments. Not even Arslan Ash, Edge or Rangchu can react like this. Moreover, Bandai Namco has done NOTHING to address this issue.

And that’s my biggest gripe with T8 winning my GOTY award. The devs have done NOTHING to improve things. No matter how many times you report someone, they’ll never ban anyone. No matter how many times you send them a replay, they’ll never do anything. It’s a shame really because T8 would greatly benefit from a kernel anti-cheat system (yes, let the anti-cheat scan your memory for cheats. I’ll take this over cheaters at any given time). And hell, I hadn’t even talked about Tekken 8’s major balance issues (Dragunov anyone?).

So, with T8 out of the way, I think I’ll go with Silent Hill 2 Remake. I really enjoyed Space Marine 2, Final Fantasy 16, Black Myth: Wukong, Hellblade 2 and Yakuza: Infinite Wealth. But, as an overall experience, Silent Hill 2 Remake is above them all. This is easily one of the best remakes of all time.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting Bloober Team to deliver such a solid game. SH2R retains the atmosphere of the original. It has similar puzzles and tells a really mature story. The devs haven’t made any changes to the story for modern audience. This is a heavy and dark game. And I love it. I really miss this kind of games that deal with such “dark” themes.

It also looks unbelievably beautiful. Yes, the game suffers from traversal stutters but this is a graphical powerhouse on PC. Moreover, the combat – at least on PC with KB&M – is great. It’s intentionally “rough”, but I didn’t have any trouble at all with it. I could easily shoot, melee hit and dodge my enemies.

Let’s also not forget its incredible ending. These days, most games end by teasing a sequel or DLC. Silent Hill 2 Remake does not fall in that trap. Instead, it gives players a truly satisfying ending. And I really appreciate this.

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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