John Carson’s Top 10 Games of 2024

Hi! My name is John Carson and I’m a former Associate Editor at Game Informer. I’m now something of a word gun for hire (that’s a fancy way to say freelancer) who has most recently worked with The Indie Informer, Kotaku, and IGN. The Giant Bomb audience may know me from my award-winning turn as the Giant Bomb 2024 Extra Life stream’s Mr. Mime.

2024 was a hell of a year for me. I went to my first PAX East! I made it to Summer Game Fest and was on my first GB@Nite couch! And despite talking to them multiple times a week, it was the first time I met a majority of the Nasty Boyz in person. Oh, I also took a leaf blower to the face (twice) and danced around like a sweaty fool dressed as a blue-haired mime/cheese monger in Dan’s basement. Really, I don’t know how I can top this year.

On the other hand, everything in the industry is falling down around us. The institutions on the dev and media sides of gaming are being shaved away or are being stripped entirely from existence (RIP Game Informer <3). However, the wonderful people I was able to meet and spend time with this year give me hope we can somehow find a way through to a better future for gaming.

This is one of those places I have hope for. I’m honored to have been asked to share my top ten games of 2024 that aren’t Magic: The Gathering on my favorite gaming site, VideoGames.com.

10. Minishoot’ Adventures

Dan Ryckert recommended Minishoot’ Adventures to me about 8 months ago, and, like a good procrastinator, I waited until just days before writing this list to play it. I’m so glad I did. Smashing together a twin-stick shooter within the frame of a 2D Zelda with a dash of Metroidvania is a potent concoction and it’s tied together beautifully with surprisingly tight controls and tough but fair my-first-bullet-hell encounters that kept me on my toes until credits rolled.

9. UFO 50

I’ve probably thought about UFO 50 more than I’ve played it, but that’s because the idea and execution of it are breathtaking. Building games for a fictional retro console is far from unheard of, but crafting a timeline of titles and making sequels within the collection complete with natural design throughlines? That’s brilliant. I’ve been slowly making my way through the catalog chronologically since release, and I can’t wait to discover more games that might have been childhood favorites in an alternate life.

8. Marvel Rivals

As someone who is vocal about how much I dislike Palworld’s wholesale adoption of Pokémon’s designs, I don’t understand why I’m on the other end of the spectrum for Marvel Rivals. Yes, it boils down to a remixed Overwatch with Marvel characters, but Rivals feels like those Wild West days OW has left far behind. Just about every character is fun to play, even the support roles, and the lack of role queues means my friends and I can dream up the most annoying team possible and cheese the hell out of anyone in our way. It’s pure chaos and I can’t get enough.

7. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail


Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit III continues its years-long streak of dropping banger after banger after banger after…you know. Dawntrail introduces new beloved characters, makes exploring their cultures interesting, and somehow introduces the first zone with American accents five expansions in. Targeting me specifically, the main story plays out like a Shonen anime before evolving into an incredibly poignant text on loss and grief. I’ve said in the past that XIV is probably my favorite Final Fantasy (outside of VIII) and Dawntrail does plenty to solidify that feeling.

6. Tekken 8

I knew I liked Tekken when I was running sets into the late-night hours when the game was released in January. I knew it would make it on my top ten when an impromptu fight club erupted at an SGF party, pulling the surrounding crowd into its vortex. Tekken 8 is faster, and more aggressive, but easier to play than its predecessors and it’s better for it, and new characters like Azucena and Reina are slam-dunk additions to an already massive and stacked roster. There’s usually a tough climb for games that come out so early in the year, but there was never a time that Tekken 8 wasn’t a contender.

5. Animal Well

For a couple of weeks, my guest room looked like Dave Meltzer’s office. Papers with nonsensical scrawlings littered my desk, floor, and bed as I attempted to solve Animal Well’s endgame – the bigger secrets hidden in the already hard-to-find secrets. Its platforming is okay, but the exploration and puzzles are best in class. It forced me to spend hours working on movement tech, deciphering little things I thought were codes, and printing out and folding actual origami to solve every secret I could. After days of scouring every nook and cranny, I was relieved to roll a second set of credits, finally allowing me to put it aside and leave the deepest of the deep riddles to the community to find.

4. World of Warcraft: The War Within

For twenty years, I’ve planted my ass in front of my PC and have given way too much time to World of Warcraft. Through its highs and lows, I’ve always been weak to WoW’s siren call. Luckily, Warcraft is good and cool again thanks to Blizzard turning things around with 2022’s Dragonflight and this year’s new expansion. The War Within makes delving into the crust of Azeroth feel exciting, with the highlight being one of the best zones ever created in the gorgeous Hallowfall, and exploring new factions like the long-lost Arathi and the Earthen’s society of stone dwarves. All of it sets the stage wonderfully for the remaining two expansions in The Worldsoul Saga. So many new and old plot threads are now in play that I can’t wait to be pulled and unraveled in the coming years. I was never fully out of WoW, but now I’m definitely all in for the journey ahead.

3. Astro Bot

Nothing this year made me smile more than Astro Bot. It’s pure mascot platformer joy that we rarely see outside of Nintendo’s flagship series. Team Asobi not only makes every level feel unique with special mechanics that are only used once, but it does so while celebrating the entirety of PlayStation’s history. Like, all of it. If you own a PlayStation 5, and, importantly, if you like to have fun, there’s no game you need in your collection more than Astro Bot.

2. Balatro

My grandma was a video poker fiend. She had dozens of handheld LCD poker games around her house whenever I visited her down in Arizona. The ones I found hidden away would flash with a royal flush on the screen. She would retire the devices she was lucky enough to land the holy grail of poker hands. In Balatro, the first time I got a royal flush, I discarded it to unlock a new Joker. The game is messed up like that, and I love it.

I could go on and on about how playful Balatro is with its poker core, or how it maximizes the “one more run” aspect of roguelikes. The idea could not be simpler, and the execution could not have been easier to muck up, but LocalThunk threaded the needle to warp the best card games of all time into one of the best video games of the decade. If you haven’t played it yet, it’s available on everything. Try it. Join us. Jimbo welcomes you.

1. Metaphor: ReFantazio

I’ve always liked the idea of the Persona games, but I could never get over my decision paralysis whenever I was let loose to do whatever I wanted until the impending deadline to finish the next dungeon. I finally got over that hump