You’ve seen the Game awards nominations. You’ve seen the Bafta longlist. Our own Guardian games of the year list is still a wee while away, but while you’re waiting – with bated breath, I’m sure – here’s an appetiser: Pushing Buttons’ alternative awards. Without further ado …
Best use of beds as a gameplay device
Need to recover your hearts while adventuring through a bunch of eerie rifts that are tearing Hyrule apart? Simply conjure a bed out of thin air, make sure you’re out of enemy reach and have a wee nap. Need to make your way across a bridgeable gap? This time, conjure several beds. Need a staircase? A barricade? Something decorative? Bed, bed, bed. In The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the bed is the true hero.
Best game to get you through a long-haul flight
On my way to Summer Game Fest in LA this year, I boarded the plane with a Steam Deck and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree pre-downloaded, ready for the first uninterrupted 10-hour gaming session of my 30s. But when I loaded it up, it wanted to authenticate my purchase. And the wifi on the plane wasn’t working. So after having a massive sulk, I turned to Balatro (pictured above), and five hours of my flight disappeared in what felt like an instant. Thank you, Balatro, for not only stealing most of my free time in February, but getting me through that horrible flight.
Sheer brazenness award
It has invited a whole raft of plagiarism accusations and, eventually, a lawsuit from Nintendo, but nonetheless, you have to hand it to the developers of Palworld (pictured top) for being bare-faced enough to simply imitate Pokémon and give them guns. (Palworld’s lead developer insists the game doesn’t infringe copyright.)
Problematic fave award
The glorification of the military in first-person shooter games has made me feel queasy for many years, since they got more realistic looking. The connections between these games and real-world arms manufacturers are also icky. They are frequently used as military recruitment tools. And simultaneously, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s single-player campaign is the most over-the-top, explosive and entertaining it’s been in years, a 90s special-ops thriller up there with the most testosterone-soaked action movies of that decade.
Best first date award
One of the very first scenes in Life is Strange: Double Exposure (above) sees a twentysomething Max Caulfield in a student dive, attempting to flirt with the cute girl behind the bar. A few hours later, still in the same bar, they go on their first date, to an imaginary gig. Max and Amanda riff on each other, creating the most funny and adorable first date experience. I have rarely been on dates that went this well in real life, let alone in a video game. A moment of heartwarming brilliance in an otherwise inconsistent game.
Most seen on TikTok award
I have never played Content Warning, but I feel as if I have, because I’ve seen about 5,000 videos of it on various social media platforms this year. A comedy-horror satire of influencer culture (ironically), it has teams of four descending to the depths of the Earth to film the scary things they find there, run away, and upload the results for posterity (and likes and money). I have seen people huffing with desperate laughter after being chased by multi-armed skeletons, unexpectedly hoisted by ropes, and accidentally killed with ladders. Cannily given away for free during April, it has been a breakout hit with streamers.
Best Scottish accents award
In the dark days before the turn of the millennium, I sat transfixed before my gigantic CRT computer monitor, appalled by the “Scottish” narration of Age of Empires II’s William Wallace campaign. In 2024, I played through the entirety of Still Wakes the Deep – a cosmic horror game set on an oil rig in the North Sea – without finding a single thing to complain about from its Scottish cast. I hugely enjoyed this game for plenty of reasons, particularly the way that the social-realist depiction of the rig and its workers collided with the incomprehensible horrors that infected them. But primarily, I enjoyed protagonist Caz McLeary’s realistically constant Glaswegian swearing, and his spectacularly dreadful boss ranting that he was “sick to boakin’ of wee gobshites like him”. Truly the representation I have been searching for.
Best games released too late for everyone’s lists
It is an unwritten rule of the video games industry that nothing good comes out in December, because it screws up everyone’s game of the year lists (and several different awards shortlists). So shout-out to Bethesda for releasing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on 9 December, Grinding Gear Games for releasing Diablo-like Path of Exile on 6 December, and Freehold Games for finally releasing Caves of Qud on 5 December after 15 years of development. My friends and colleagues are raving about all of them. I’d tell you which is best, but I haven’t played them all yet, because it is December.
What to play
I’ve just played the opening hours of the aforementioned Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and, wow. It’s great. It’s got much less punching and much more sneaking, thinking and observing than I dared to dream it would have. It’s more like Dishonoured than Tomb Raider or Uncharted, and instead of shooting at fascists I was clobbering them over the head with a guitar I found in a guardhouse, which I’m sure we can all agree is drastically more entertaining. My only criticism so far is that it is still a very unrealistic depiction of the archaeology profession.
Available on: Xbox, PC
Estimated playtime: 10-12 hours
What to read
Eurogamer has marked the PlayStation’s 30th anniversary with a huge interview with former Sony executive Shawn Layden, who tells some great stories about the console’s history.
Palestinian game developer Rasheed Abueideh could not find funding through conventional routes for his game Dreams on a Pillow, about the 1948 Nakba. So he turned to crowdfunding. You can read more about the game, and the story behind it, on its funding page.
Indie game shop itch.io was briefly taken down on Monday due to whatfounder Leaf Corcoran called “some trash AI-powered brand protection software” used by Funko Pop. Funko denies responsibility, claiming it only filed a takedown notice for one page on the site.
What to click
Grand Theft Hamlet documentary – in-game Shakespeare performance is brilliantly exciting | ★★★★★
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – whip-smart fascist fighting | ★★★★☆
Marvel Rivals – discomfitingly slick hero shooter makes you worry about gaming’s future | ★★★☆☆
Question Block
So many of you have emailed in already, but we are still looking for more of your favourite games of 2024, which will feature in the final newsletter of the year. They do not have to prominently feature multipurpose beds.
Send yours in, by replying to this email or emailing me at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
