VG247’s Alternate Game Awards 2024

We’ve heard some other awards show is also trying to steal our thunder and muscle in on our territory today, but who wants to travel to Los Angeles for a star-studded event anyway? The real action, and the real correct opinions, are right here.

2024 has been a pretty good year for games, hasn’t it? There’s been some absolute bangers - though as with the last couple of times we’ve written this article, that has to be noted with an acknowledgement that it’s also been a disastrous year for job losses and with it enormous losses of talent from all angles of the industry: game development, publishing and marketing, and even our colleagues in the media. That bit continues to suck.

But there’s much to acknowledge this year. Here, we take a look back at the things that stood out to us. Once you’re done, why not take a little trip down memory lane with our illustrious 2023 winners?

The Nostradamus Prize: Switch 2 Clout Chasers

“Nintendo could finally give fans a look at the Switch 2 during an imminent Direct conference,” one mainstream newspaper website breathlessly reported back in September. The article mined tweets from various influencers and media podcasts. One analyst went so far as to peg a date range on the announcement; those dates dutifully passed unmarked. When the fabled direct didn’t materialize, another outlet called it “the beginning of the end”.

The first round of Switch 2 release leaking came in just the second week of January, saying the machine would be revealed soon and out in September. By September, we were still reading leaks. Months after that, a YouTuber speculatively declares, “Nintendo will mention the Switch 2 this week”, a bold prediction indeed when financial updates are due and even them saying ‘We have no updates on the successor to the Nintendo Switch’ counts as a ‘mention’ that can be desperately mined for YouTube views. It’s a pattern that has repeated pretty much all year.

Commenters arrive at a savage conclusion: “Don’t you get tired of lying for clout?” one asks. “These so-called leakers throw 50 darts at a dartboard, 1 hits a bullseye and all of a sudden they are ‘reputable’,” snarls another.

This is the rare instance where the angry commenters are right, you know. The Switch is showing its age though, and people are absolutely desperate for news about a successor. But that’s also led to this year being an absolute banner year for the carnival of stupid that is people making educated guesses dressed up as ‘leaks’ that turn out to not be that educated, straight-up lying, and just generally showing their arse online in search of a bit of clout.

As we’ve opined before, admittedly in slightly different circumstances, the whole leaker culture is stupid. And being falsely edged for an entire year that Switch 2 info is imminent isn’t going to get it in your hands any sooner or make the nut any sweeter when you can finally buy one - so can we all just listen to all this stuff less in 2025, please?

Best Genre: Remasters

Are remasters a genre? Listen, shut up, who cares. For the purposes of this award we’re saying they are, and we make the rules. The point is 2024's gaming line-up was carried in large part by some great rereleases of excellent bygone games, and because no-one "serious" is going to give them any awards, we're here to be unserious but honest about some games we've loved playing in 2024. We're brave enough to tell the truth, you see.

It's difficult to highlight the best remaster of 2024, because there were as many must-play rereleases this year as there were must-play releases in the olden days where games weren't available digitally on-demand and also the industry wasn't on fire. We're not talking about your Silent Hill 2s or your Final Fantasy 7s here – nothing so fancy as a complete reimagining – just games that got a fresh coat of paint and maybe a shiny new photo mode or something before they found their way onto the latest consoles. Hey, at least taking another pass at a video game for new hardware 20 years down the line makes sense from a preservation perspective, unlike some other media we could mention. (Picture our collective hard stare at every early 2000s sitcom that announced a reboot this year.)

Unlike at certain other awards ceremonies that shall remain nameless, nobody here's going to pointedly start playing music over the affectionate shout-outs, but we're aware that this has already gone on for a bit, so (deep breath in) what a year it was to play high-quality rereleases of Ace Attorney Tomb Raider Broken Sword MySims Little Big Adventure Until Dawn Dead Rising Lollipop Chainsaw Luigi's Mansion 2 Clock Tower Paper Mario Marvel Vs Capcom Fate/stay night Persona 3 Braid Brothers The Thing I love you mum and dad goodnight!

Best Stupid Name that Actually Makes Sense: Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster

When Capcom announced Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster with a valiant but inevitably doomed attempt to get #DRDR trending, it seemed only right and natural to react to the game’s name with a roll of the eyes. We get a lot of this sort of word soup in games; at a certain point it just washes over you.

It’s true, to be fair, that the ‘Deluxe’ bit was only added to this name because a cheap-and-cheerful ‘here’s the original at a higher resolution and stable fps’ version of the original game already released back in 2016 and is still available on store fronts. But you know what? ‘Deluxe Remaster’ is actually a great moniker for what Capcom’s second Dead Rising re-release is.

Trapped between a rock and a hard place, where ‘remaster’ speaks to that cheaper release and ‘remake’ conjures up images of the lush Resident Evil reimaginings, Capcom invented a new category. Dead Rising is the best-looking remaster of the year, and a more cynical publisher would have just called it a remake. But I could actually see this one having some legs. Okami Deluxe Remaster, anyone? Street Fighter 4?

Technological pioneer award: Ubisoft

What a year for Ubisoft. But, look past the current news surrounding a potential buyout and you’ll see this year has been an ambitious year of technical innovation for the company. It showed off an early build of an AI NPC-powered game experience where you can tell a colourful cast of characters about your background as an Olympic pole vaulter and your ability to break into a two-story building by soaring through the sky. This, of course, results in a digital blank stare and monotone amazement at your athletic capabilities.

Or what about its NFT game - Champion Tactics! A game so scorching hot on the NFT trend that it was released without much fanfare, being dominated by a sole player. Initially thought to have been a cheater, it turned out that an in-game bug funneled players his way crowning the guy as some pseudo Sephiroph figure. An unbeatable rival blessed by the crypto gods to never lose.

Also worth mentioning as a side note is that Ubisoft was also the first ever publisher to release a quadruple A game this year! Skull and Bones shocked the world with its long-awaited release and certainly won hearts and minds with its boundary-pushing design and visual fidelity. Never before has scavenging from a derelict ship been so engaging.

Ubisoft is not the only publisher to chase such trends of course, companies like Square Enix have exclaimed loudly their intention to embrace the controversial tech, but few companies have shown as clearly the merits of doing so as the French giant. To this, we must offer applause, unless of course one of these projects somehow manages to make a billion dollars, in which case we’ll sit here a little perplexed by the whole ordeal. Best of luck!

Best Game for People with Back Problems: Fantasian

Video games have been around for a while now, and that means some of us are incredibly elderly. Final Fantasy is pushing ever closer to forty years old, and even if you hopped on board bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the series’ PS1 heyday, you’re now likely pushing 40 yourself.

Fantasian is a fabulous love letter to old-school RPGs. The reviews were a little all over the place, and it’s easy to see why: if you come to these Japanese-style RPGs for story and vibes, Fantasian probably is pretty average - but if you’re an old, nerdy git who likes real crunchy RPG systems, it’ll blow your damn mind, which is why our specialist nerd friends over at RPG Site named it their 2021 GOTY when it was an Apple Arcade exclusive, thereby only aimed at the limited venn diagram centre of ‘uber saddos’ and ‘iOS user. Now, it’s on everything, for everyone.

Just as crunchy as the RPG combat for these folks is the brittle bones of their spine. But as the sciatica radiates and cripples, you can at least do so while enjoying some of the best turn-based combat around in a sedentary position. The best of both worlds!

Life imitates art award: Bethesda dropping a nuke on Fallout London

Fallout is a series about the hubris of mankind, doomed to destruction by its ceaseless pursuit of profit and progress - but also its unbreakable will to survive in the face of overwhelming adversity. The irony of this lesson in light of Fallout: London’s tumultuous 2024 shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

Did we really think that Bethesda and Xbox would let a huge budget, major streaming service adaptation of one of its best known and best properties pass without a fresh update to its last good Fallout game? Console War never changes.

And so, with the Prime series sextupling The Commonwealth’s population almost overnight, the long-awaited next-gen 4K and performance upgrade patch for Fallout 4 dropped, and promptly broke pretty much every mod going, just two days before the scheduled release of Fallout: London after 5 years of development.

When it finally emerged from the wreckage two months later, mutated with extra arms and glowing like the Canary Wharf skyline it so painstakingly recreates, Fallout: London surprised us all.

Despite everything, it was still one of the best games of the year - and just keeps getting better with patches of its own. Yes, it was buggier than an entomologist’s backpack and boasted an install process so bewildering that you received a BTEC in computer science once you hit the title screen. But when you’re finally playing, it has an immersive, authentic energy that almost wholly captures the classic Bethesda RPG feel that Fallout 76 rejected and Starfield lost sight of.

So, if you want a proper Fallout experience, just with more Wombles, baked beans and football hooligans, take a trip to buggy London town - if ya think yer ‘ard enough.

Best Supporting Actor(s): Barret & Yuffie, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

In a positive move for the industry, we’re talking about and acknowledging the actors behind video game characters more and more now, celebrating voiceover and motion capture performances - but sometimes, it’s good to also talk about the holistic whole

Barret & Yuffie are, in a way, the hidden stars of FF7 Rebirth, though the story beats and narrative nature of the pair in the game means that those behind the characters are unlikely to be nominated for any ‘major’ awards. But through a combination of smart motion capture, great care in hand-animated details, and lovely voice performances in both English and Japanese, they quietly steal a bunch of the scenes they’re in.

Barret is the grumpy dad of the group; Yuffie the plucky kid. Opposites attract, but they’re also the same: two people bonded by a visceral hatred, forged in loss, of certain players in FF7’s story. Often, as other characters do the important stuff in FF7 Rebirth’s lavish cutscenes, this pair are playing around at the edges. If you take your eye off the foreground, you’ll often subtly see their relationship developing almost but not quite off-camera.

They’re almost always up to something, forging this twisted revenge-driven father-daughter relationship. Much of this, I imagine, has been accomplished by cutscene animators by hand - and it’s an attention to detail few games have. I watch background performances like this often in film and TV - but seldom in games. In Rebirth, this unlikely duo catch my eye - because they’re pitched brilliantly.

Most Improved: Summer Games Fest

Credit where credit is due: Summer Games Fest began to feel a bit more like a truly worthwhile event this year. The majority of VG247’s staff are in the UK - and that means it’s quite a lot of travel to get out to the big games showcase in LA. We attended either way, obviously - but in 2023 it didn’t really feel worth it. In 2024, though, it… kinda slapped? Publishers showed up, Keighley’s people had organizationally taken on feedback… it was significantly better both for fans online and for those of us on the ground.

Maybe time is a flat circle. There was a time when E3 became unwieldy, unfriendly, and too expensive for business, development, and media organizations alike. But now, it does feel a little like we’re coming back around to a ‘lite’ version of E3 again, with larger shows, separate showcases, and not just a handful of stands but several mini ‘campuses’ dotted around the Greater Los Angeles area. Xbox in particular really channeled the ‘classic’ E3 energy with their huge offering, while a range of publishers truly brought their A-game to the main SGF Campus.

Sure, it’s still in an area of town where if you wander a block or two in the wrong direction you might get stuck with a dirty hypodermic. But that’s LA, baby! Get straight in a cab and tell them to drive fast. But the video games – the video games element felt way better this year. We’ve missed the summer showcases, and if this is a glimpse at the future trajectory, it might just be that they’re back for real.

CEO of the Year: Intel’s Pat Gelsinger

Intel has had an incredible year. And by incredible, we mean they have been an unmitigated disaster. The company has had a range of cock-ups, although the best by far is its 14 series CPUs, which have routinely been burning out and failing. Intel blamed motherboard suppliers for clocking too high, those suppliers blamed Intel, and gamers who’d spent hundreds on high-end CPUs watched them overheat and die, gradually delivering more and more soul-crushing blue screens until they became worthless.

Here on VG247, one member of staff ended up running through two 14900K CPUs before getting a third that actually appears to now be stable long-term. It’s a total mess, and if you want the full details you’re best off referring to the absolute legends at Gamers Nexus, who break it all down in unflinching detail and have been chasing Intel’s spiral for quite a while now.

The real beneficiary here is rival AMD, which is surely seeing more people flip to ‘Team Red’ for their CPUs. And then there’s the Intel CEO, who has been forced out of the company but no doubt with a parachute made of solid gold. But, hey - at least he’s thinking about his staff.

“I'd invite you to join me in praying and fasting for the 100K Intel employees as they navigate this difficult period,” the recently departed CEO recently posted on X. At the time of printing, it’s not clear if the power of prayer can do anything to help broken CPU clocks - or if the fasting and prayers are also being extended to the 15% of Intel’s workforce that have been cut this year.

Best Jump Scare: Silent Hill 2 Remake actually being great

The remake of Silent Hill 2 was announced back in late 2022 to a mixed reception. Many were overjoyed to see Konami reviving its legacy IP, one that ultimately helped shape the survival-horror genre as we know it, but others had little trust left in the publisher to do the revival justice. After all, the Silent Hill series in recent years has been far from good.

This was exacerbated when Bloober Team were revealed as the developer of the remake. Known for Layers of Fear and The Medium most notably, many didn't have the highest of hopes for the developer. For many - us included - its games didn’t evoke the same sort of heightened fear required to make something like Silent Hill 2 work. Additionally, Silent Hill 2 was a product of the time when it was made. How could anyone attempt to recreate that magic in 2024?

Ultimately, the cards were stacked against Bloober Team. So, when the press finally got their hands on the game - sharing glowing previews and top review scores - in the lead up to release, the biggest jump scare of the year was that Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 was, actually, good. The developer defied all expectations - some of them, admittedly, unfair - and delivered a better remake than most Silent Hill fans could've ever imagined. It's a wholly new reimagining of the original game, but it managed to capture the tone and sheer terror of it's predecessor perfectly, while remaining incredibly faithful - and further enhancing - the story of James Sunderland.

Put it this way, nobody will be doubting the capabilities of Bloober Team again anytime soon.

The Jim Trinca memorial Award for the Podcast with the Weirdest Vibes: Official Xbox Podcast

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At VG247, we know a thing or two about awkward podcasts. We are home to Jim Trinca’s Best Games Ever podcast, after all, and so this award exists in honor of Jim in the wake of his death earlier this year (he now works at Eurogamer, which is as good as dead to us).

No matter how good at making things awkward Jim is - or Tom for that matter, with his bloody endless stories - we couldn’t hope to take home the gong for the weirdest vibes in a video game podcast. At least not this year, when Microsoft plopped out a 22-minute discussion among its executives - most of which are excruciating.

Amidst what certainly appeared to be a comms and messaging tailspin over what Xbox games would come to other platforms, a slick production was laid on, the Xbox executives sitting in a snazzy void, peppered with well-reasoned questions from a journalist-turned Xbox employee. The execs shuffle in their high stools, the stench of corporate panic no doubt wafting around the place.

“Let’s just tackle the exclusivity question,” Spencer kicks off, revealing that four Xbox games would go to other platforms. This was ultimately teasing things like Pentiment coming to Switch, with Spencer then noting that Indiana Jones was not one of the four. Six months and five days later, Indy was confirmed for PS5 anyway.

We at VG247 genuinely like the transparent way the Xbox team operates, and there’s a lot of merit to their given strategy of thinking beyond the console. But this podcast just felt weird. And in retrospect, a lot of it just feels like a lie. Not even a promise of long-term library preservation and next-generation Xbox hardware could really save it. Honestly, if it’s between this and listening to Jim talk about his oaxters… we’ll take the oaxters.