Game of the Year is a tough race to call this year, but what I unfortunately do feel confident in is the fact that Balatro will not win. The little ind🎶ie that could will find this mountain just too high to chug its way up, but that fact that it's an outsider actually helps my case that it should be the one at the summit later this month. Balatro is the game we should be recognising in 2024, the only sort of year where we get the chance to.
Last year, Game of the Year was a dull affair. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 had the thing locked down. Ditto the year before with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elden Ring in 2022. The pandemic hit year of 2021 was a bit of a write off, and then in 2020 nothing had a chance against 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2, even if that year's Little Indie packed a considerable punch in Hades. Next year, barring disaster or major shock, the clever money is already on GTA 6 walking away with the crown. In 2024, I'm not sure. That's a signal it should go t🍎o Balatro.
No Other Game Should Snatch GOTY From Balatro
While you can cross your fingers behind your back and argue that technically 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 is an indie, you'd be overlooking its Tencent funding, the fact the IP is firmly established, and its use of one of the most recognisable licenses in the world via 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons. Balatro is a true indie, a 🦂game made by a single person that is on the shortlist entirely through word of mouth and quality, and that deserves recognition.
We don't have a clear standout to celebrate this year, so why not celebrate a different type of game? Regardless of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the sales f🐼igures of Black 🦩Myth: Wukong or the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:review scores of Metaphor: ReFantazio and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Astro Bot, Balatro is clearly the major success story of the ceremony relative to its expectations. It has done the most to even be there, and that should count🐬 for something in an industry so keen to celebrate the biggest budgets.
It may be rough around the edges, but consider its competition. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Astro Bot is a very good platformer, but we've had games like that miss out before and no one has much cared because it feels like there's a ceiling on the substance or importance (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:which should factor into awards) these games have.
Elden Ring has already won, I don't think I need to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:make more of a case than hꦰas already been writtꦐen about. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Black Myth: Wukong has 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the lowest critical scᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚore of🍃 any nominee ever. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a sequel to a game that already lost at TGA, and while it starts off better than its older brother, it overstays its welcome and ends up wo💖rse.
Metaphor is my second favourite, so I struggle to say too much against it, but I will say no other JRPG has ♚won before. So either this iꦍs the best JRPG in 11 years or other, better games have fallen short, and therefore Metaphor should not stand in Balatro's way as a far more unique game, both to play and as a creative entity.
2024 Belongs To Balatro
TheGamer will be publishing arguments for all six games over the course of this week, so maybe it's natural that as the defender of the little guy, I'm a mite defensive about why other games should not get to trample over it. But Balatro does not deserve victory me♏rely because it would be nice for it to happen, or so that indies everywhere can win vicariously through it. Balatro easily makes a case as the best game there as well.
The other games are good, I grant you. Two of them will make my top five for the year, with Astro Bot and Metaphor joining Balatro. But on a purely mechanical level, it's hard to look past Balatro. It is endlessly replayable because everything works so tightly to create a million different variables. No two games are the same as you expand your deck and build new combos. I have argued that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Balatro is not really a card game (168澳洲幸运🍸5开奖网:knowledge ofܫ Poker is not necessary to play), but it is like 🎃a deck of cards in that it isඣ impossible to get bored or run out of things to do with it.
There is a genius in the creat💯ive control it offers you as a player, whether that be finding broken Joker combos, adding power cards to your deck, or just making Pair the most powerful Po🌞ker hand known to mankind by playing it infinitely until the numbers go so high they turn into letters. A fiendish feast of a game, Balatro is a vampire for your free time.
I can also make a case for it as the Game of the Year quite literally. Every other game here was played by most people at launch for anywhere between one and four weeks, was either beaten or abandoned, and life moved on. Not so with Balatro. Launching in February, those who got on board early have been playing it sporadically ever since, while word of mouth has led others to pick it up consistently. Even its nomination had sales spiking. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Helldivers 2 is the only game to rival it🧔 as 'the game of these pas♍t 12 months', and Helldivers 2 isn't in the race.
Balatro is an unlikely winner, but 2024 is an unlikely year. Whoever wins is doomed to be slightly forgotten amongst the pantheon of industry shaking winners the further we get away from 2024, unle⛄ss that winner is Balatro. It deserves to be Game of the Year, and more to the point, I'm not sure any of the others do.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Balatro
- Top Critic Avg: 92/100 Critics Rec: 100%
- Released
- February 20, 2024
- ESRB
- E10🔯+ Fo𝓰r Everyone 10+ // Gambling Themes
- Developer(s)
- 🌄 🍌 LocalThunk
- Publisher(s)
- Playstack
- Engine
- LÖVE
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series X, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series S
Your comment has not been saved