Top 8 Games I Would Have Liked to Review in 2024

Welcome all to another edition of The 8 Ball! This week I’m here to talk about games, specifically the ones I didn’t get to review this year. The way it generally works here is two-fold: about 20 percent of the time I am asked/assigned a game to review and I do it. The other 80% is me asking Adam to e-mail the (usually) publisher or (occasionally) developer for a code/key and they either send it, or don’t. This is a list of the games that didn’t send a code, despite my interest in reviewing them. This isn’t an automatic 1 to 1 process, like “They give a code, I give a 10/10” sort of thing, but more games that interested me, for one way or another, and the publisher didn’t care about trying to get their game more press. Let’s begin:

#8: Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival

This is a pipe dream for a few different reasons. The first is that the PS5 version is a port of the earlier 2022 versions. The second, more important, reason is because to correctly review this game, you need the HORI Taiko No Tatsujin drum controller. While you technically can play Tatsujin with a controller, it’s akin to playing Guitar Hero with just a gamepad. Believe me, there’s no way Bandai Namco, Sony, or HORI are mailing these things out for reviewers to use. That might explain why the game actually has only one official North American review, from a Canadian gaming website. That’s a great way to drum up (pun intended) interest in your game Bandai Namco, by barely letting anyone actually know about it!

#7: Pacific Drive

This is the only game on this list that I actually played before it came out. I booted up the Steam demo, when they released it, and thought this was a cool setup for a game. Maybe not the actual plot going-ons, but the idea of you taking this station wagon into a hostile environment, having to keep it fueled and functional, while also trying to scavenge the resources to do so. It just was fun to play, even if the UI was a bit messy in spots. Once it gets really cheap, I’ll probably pick this up, but it just needs to hit a cheaper price first.

#6: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I was/am still curious about this game from an academic standpoint. My own history with Dragon Age is pretty abnormal, I really disliked the first DA game. I thought combat was slow and boring, and so was a lot of the other game parts, so it never really grabbed me. I skipped DA2, thankfully, but I did play Inquisiton and really enjoyed it. I think I’m the only one, actually, that did enjoy it. But the combat was fun, since you could break parts of it, some of the characters were interesting, and I liked the basic setup of you starting this separate thing, disconnected from all the other political entities in the universe. I was curious about Veilguard to see how well they could pull off the story, what they did with Solas, if any of the characters I liked from Inquisition returned, and how action-oriented the combat was going to be.

#5: Homeworld 3

Homeworld is always a bit funny to me. I’ve not had a lot of experience with it overall, except for Deserts of Kharak a long time ago. I really dug that game, and while not many sites reviewed it, I did and I think I gave it an 8 out of 10? If not that, at least a 7, because I did enjoy it. Since then, nothing. The remaster of original Homeworld 1 and 2 came out in 2015, which we didn’t get, and Homeworld 3 came out this year, which, as you might surmise, we also didn’t get. The world of Homeworld is interesting to me but it’s something that has passed me by, especially since I don’t get to play the games too much.

#4: Red Dead Redemption

Redemption is another good example of many sites just not getting a copy. The usual very PC-centric sites like PC Gamer got a copy, provided by Rockstar, but not little old us. To be, somewhat, fair, Rockstar has always been an arduous company to deal with, so this isn’t entirely unsurprising. Still, having to pay fifty bucks to review a 14 year old game is a bit on the “No” side from me. When it eventually drops to $20, I’ll grab it, even if it’ll likely take a few years. My one sentence review though? Redemption 1 is a better game than Redemption 2. You’re welcome.

#3: Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game

The annoying part about Expeditions is that I now actually have it, and really enjoy it! I would have given the game a positive review, not a 10/10 score, but probably a 7 or 8 out of 10. The missions are clearer, there’s more ways to get out of a jam and it is more based on exploration than hauling cargo. That’s why it’s a real bummer I didn’t actually get the game for review. I still find the overall gameplay formula relaxing, even if it’s a fight to get even 10 meters in some areas, but it’s all a part of the trip.

#2: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Considering how big the server issues were with this game, it’s probably understandable why Microsoft didn’t provide a lot of copies to the press. Still, it’s a game I would have enjoyed trying out. I honestly haven’t played too many flight simulators in the past, I think I reviewed the last Ace Combat game 4 or 5 years ago, but that’s more arcade/combat focused. I would have liked to have taken to the skies, in a more leisurely game and just explore the various locations they have built up. This one was also supposed to have more actual missions and such, which seemed interesting.

#1: Concord

Derp. Moving on.

#1: World of Warcraft: The War Within

This is the one game that legitimately makes me angry on the list. I’ve been reviewing World of Warcraft expansions since 2016 with Legion but I may have even reviewed Warlords of Draenor in 2014, but I’m not entirely sure. Still, from Legion (2016) to BFA (2018) to Shadowlands (2020) to Dragonflight (2022), that’s four games, in a general 2 year cycle. It worked well for me and it worked well for Blizzard, since I generally enjoyed the content from each expansion and explained the good and bad parts. Well, The War Within is where the agreement was broken and it was Blizzard/Microsoft who didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. I’m not sure if the request fell through the cracks, or if due to the (now) Microsoft ownership of Blizzard/Activision, they don’t care (which is likely), but it leaves me with no expansion to review. I’ll likely not be reviewing the upcoming expansions, Midnight and The Last Titan, which makes me even more annoyed by the whole situation.

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For comments, list which games you wanted to play this year but didn’t get to.

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Top 8 Games of 2024