The RPS Selection Box: Nic’s bonus games of the year 2024

Games in a box? What is this, 1997?!

If pushed, I’d describe my 2024 gaming habits as eclectic, but that would actually be a lie. All my favourite games for the year are actually very similar: they are all the best. Unfortunately, the realities of sharing website space with several less-correctos means they didn’t all make this year’s advent calender.

"We should do Selection Boxes, too," demanded Graham, with a mince pie in one hand and a cattle prod in the other, occasionally prodding the crust of the pie, which he says lends it an unbeatable crunchy texture. I initially balked at yet another holiday tradition, until I realised this gave me yet another chance to be both incredibly correct and light to medium entertaining.

Alan Wake 2: The Lake House

Image credit: Remedy/Epic

I’m very glad I waited as long as I did to play Alan Wake 2, because Remedy’s surreal multimedia masterwork bakes the two expansions into the base game so well that they feel like an essential part of it. The first DLC, Night Springs, appears as three episodes that you access through television sets you’ll encounter at certain points in the story - their off-kilter, funny vignettes breaking up the gloom nicely.

But it’s The Lake House that really impressed me - a chance to explore the imposing, satirically bureaucratic architecture of Control with Alan Wake 2’s more measured - and I think, more successful - survival horror rhythms. Playing as Agent Kiran Estevez, you’ll follow a warning signal to an FBC facility near Cauldron Lake, which turns out to be full of... Remedy shit. But like, the best and most creative Remedy shit. The Lake House is funny and odd and exciting in all the ways you’d probably expect, but it’s also very powerful in its disdain for the targets it chooses to satirise. I’m being cagey here to avoid spoilers, but I wrote about this more here.

This being one of my picks for the year might be more to do with how much I enjoyed Alan Wake 2 as a whole, but what is a ‘Nic Reuben’ article if not an article in which ‘Nic Reuben’ gets to do whatever the hell he wants? Please play Alan Wake 2. It is indie on a triple A budget and it feels like something that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. If it never ends up making its money back, it’ll be because Remedy made something too interesting to sum up in marketing materials of any length.

Total War: Warhammer III Thrones Of Decay

Image credit: Creative Assembly.

Thrones Of Decay is a brilliant expansion in its own right, but it stands out to me as special because it marks the point where Total War: Warhammer 3 started feeling truly alive - when the conversation surrounding the game finally took on an air of optimism after a long rough period. The Chaos Dwarf expansion was a great one, but this one here just felt so celebratory. In the lead up to release, spirits felt high across both Creative Assembly and the community, and to top it all off, the actual expansion was a banger.

The headline rivalry of the DLC might have been Nurgle warlord Tamurkhan and dragon-riding death mage Elspeth Von Draken, but for me, mad dwarf engineer Malakai stole the show. Taking cues from the Gotrek And Felix novels, you teamed up with the pair, completing quests all over the map and getting lots of very nice bombs as rewards. It’s probably the most overtly story-heavy campaign in the trilogy so far, but that’s balanced out with so much potential for sandbox chaos that neither element feels underbaked.

Elsewhere, Tamurkhan offered crushing momentum and unique heroes, and Elspeth brought an opportunity to return to the Empire - alongside a brief respite from the first lord 76% of people play when they buy a new expansion being Karl Franz again. Oh, and Franz got himself some powerful new abilities too, making the Festus/Khazrak/Vlad/Drycha superbowl significantly more manageable.

I’m obviously so invested in the game at this point that it’ll be a rare year that passes where an expansion for it isn’t one of my favourites. But even with that, Thrones Of Decay was a fantastic release that marked a real high point for the game.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Square Enix

Something magical happened during this year's Game Awards, in among all the skits of Geoff attempting to lampshade valid criticism of his starhumping, saccharine, layoffs-ignoring ad-mageddon through the medium of muppets. Actually, there were several good announcements, but the confirmation of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth finally coming to PC was especially timely, because it means I can write about it here. That’s good! Because it’s phenomenal.

Brilliant new combat system aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake always felt to me more of a celebratory work than one looking forward in any meaningful sense. But if it was a party, it was a reserved one. An end-of-year office social where nobody really knows each other and everyone’s standing awkwardly around the edges nodding their heads to Coldplay. But Rebirth is a complete rager. Cloud is scanning photos of his arse on the photocopier. Barret is arm wrestling Cait Sith and Cid at the same time. Yuffie is honking fat lines of ground-up materia off the beak of a chocobo. It is so expansive and stuffed with joy that it threatens to collapse under the weight of its own maximalism, and yet built on such sturdy combat, exploration, and side quest fundamentals that it stays upright throughout.

I am a mark for Final Fantasy 7 in many ways. I cannot hear even the opening notes of half the songs on the soundtrack without welling up. But Rebirth reminded me that the developers likely feel exactly the same way I do. Again: celebratory. Much like the recent Silent Hill 2 remake, the sense that everyone who worked on Rebirth never took the gravity of their task for granted is palpable and powerful. Unlike Silent Hill 2, the team here weren’t afraid to mess with the classics in ways that lends Rebirth a real sense of having its own identity. As a complete, standalone story, I’m not sure if it necessarily works: it’s very much a middle chapter. But as a complete game, it’s one of the most lavish and charming RPGs I’ve ever played. I haven’t smiled so much in years.