The Community Spotlight 2025.01.04
Hello Giant Bomb Community and welcome to the year 2025! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we usher in a new year hopefully with unbridled enthusiasm and hope! Obviously, Game of the Year continues to be the recurring theme on the site with the staff and guests still sending lists that grace the front page. While the awards have wrapped up, @marino is still waiting on a few stragglers that may or may not be hitting the site in the coming future.
If you feel like you missed a guest list or GOTY 2024 roundtable, Marino did an excellent job of maintaining the carousels on the front page to have you covered. The Words section of the site is also a good place to search for guest lists you might have missed. If you want SPOILERS on what won or what the awards were for the 17th annual Giant Bomb Game of the Year, you should check out the Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2024 wiki page, which we will review shortly. Nonetheless, the actual Game of the Year podcasts and streams were:
Likewise, if you are reading this on the weekend it first aired, you still have time to vote for the Community GOTY 2024! Voting will close on January 6th, 2024, shortly after Game Mess Mornings ends. The same thing goes for the community voting for “Hottest Mess 2024!” Get those votes in if you haven’t sent them already!
And with that, I’m going to wrap up the site-related housekeeping because this edition of the Community was a real whopper. Not only did the site have a near-historic number of guest lists, but you all wrote up a storm between the two weeks of GOTY coverage. I think between this Spotlight and the twopreceding it I have everyone covered at least once, but definitely drop a comment if you think I may have missed you.
GOTY 2024
Lists
Blogs
ZombiePie’s End Of The Year 2024 Multimedia Extravaganza! (Part 1) +
ZombiePie’s End Of The Year 2024 Multimedia Extravaganza! (Part 2) (By: @zombiepie)
ZombiePie shared the superlatives for their yearly “Multimedia Extravaganza!” Read to find out what were the gaming, film, streaming, anime, and music highlights of their year with such humorous awards like “Best Example Of Addition By Subtraction” or “Piranha Bytes Memorial Award For Best Eurojank Of 2024!”
PersonZ’s (Not Really) Game Of The Year 2024? (By: @personz)
personz didn’t finish a ton of games this year, so, instead of making a typical GOTY 2024 list, they decided to rank every game they finished from best to worst! Also, if you also enjoyed a decent amount of retro games, feel free to share your favorite old game discoveries from the year.
Game of the Year 2024 (By: @superharman)
Read all about the games Superharman enjoyed and liked the most during 2024! Did they enjoy the big AAA games of the year more or less than the indie darlings of the year?
My Top Ten Games of 2024 (By: @gamer_152)
Moderator Gamer_152 whipped up a GOTY 2024 blog but they decided to rank things differently. They annotated their ten favorite games and gaming experiences from the year regardless of when the game came out.
Uncle Jam’s (Album Club Guy) Top 10 Games Of 2024 (By: @unclejam23)
unclejam23 took some time off hosting Giant Bombs Album of the Week Club and wrote a blog with their ten favorite games from the year! They have a little bit of everything covered and you can read all about it on their blog!
The 2024 Moosies Video Game Awards…Part I. (By: @mooseymcman)
MooseyMcMan has the first part of their yearly Moosies Video Game Awards! Enjoy fun superlatives like “Jack Garland Presents the Award for Best Chaos Fighting of the Year” or “Most Unfairly Maligned Game of the Year.”
2024 Game of the Year (By: @redhorsespirit)
redhorsespirit finally was able to get all of their GOTY-related ideas down into a blog! Definitely give it a read and learn all about the games they loved from the year!
ArbitraryWater’s Favorite And Bestest Video Games of 2024 (Which Came Out In 2024) (By: @arbitrarywater)
ArbitraryWater makes a glorious return to blogging with a look at their GOTY list and gaming superlatives! They went with a highly creative tarot card motif with their main GOTY 2024 game rankings on this blog!
My Games Of 2024 (By: @chamurai)
chamurai fires away at their favorite games and gaming experiences during 2024 on their latest blog! What games did this fan of Final Fantasy XIV fan enjoy beyond Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail? Read to find out!
My Game of the Year 2024 (By: @bondfish)
For bondfish, 2024 was a year when they made a massive dent on their gaming backlog. As such they rapid fire away at the games, all twenty-nine of them, they loved and hated on their latest blog!
My First GOTY Write-up (By: @ares42)
As the title suggests, 2024 will be the first year in gaming in which Ares42 publishes a GOTY blog on Giant bomb and they went with brief by fun descriptions for the five games they most enjoyed playing in 2024.
Game Of The Year 2024 (By: @tosshi)
It’s been a long year for Tosshi and rather than make the traditional GOTY blog, they decided to summarize every month one at a time and reviewed all of the gaming highlights and lowlights for each month.
AtheistPreacher’s Favorite Games of 2024 (By: @atheistpreacher)
Instead of making a traditional GOTY list or blog, AtheistPreacher decided to write an extended blog about all of the games they enjoyed in 2024 disregarding when they came out.
Tweets
Here are the Top 100 video games of the first quarter of this century (2000-2024). I put this together during a seven-hour stream last night and it’s perfect and nothing needs to change. pic.twitter.com/QeD3Ge0L20
— Dan Ryckert (@DanRyckert) December 28, 2024
Art
Where’s Oyoq? (By: Pickle_Giraffe)
During the last Blight Club of 2024, Mike commented “It’s like a Where’s Waldo boss fight!” So, Pickle_Giraffe decided to take all of the art they have made for their Blight Club Animated feature, plus a few new works, and plot them on a two-page spread like a Where’s Waldo page.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Danchines (By: Pickle_Giraffe)
Like the rest of us, Pickle_Giraffe can’t wait for Dan to play his gauntlet of gaming torture brought to you by Alex Navarro. Also, in true Dan form, Dan is maintaining that he has until mid-January to complete both Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines AND Drake of the 99 Dragons before he incurs a plenty from Alex.
Activities
The GB Album Club 073 – Germfree Adolescents by X-Ray Spex (By: @unclejam23)
The Giant Bomb Album of the week club is BACK BAYBEE! Germfree Adolescents by X-Ray Spex is the topic this time and you can fire away on how you feel about this legendary English punk rock band and one of their most beloved albums.
Dungeons Of Hinterberg Is The First Game Of UUGPGC Year 4! Finish By February 1! Mark All Spoilers! (By: @bigsocrates)
Don’t forget that the most current edition of the Giant Bomb Game Pass Game Club is playing Dungeons of Hinterberg! Have any of you played this colorful action-adventure game?
Blogs
Sometimes It Pays To Report Bugs, I Guess! (By: @atheistpreacher)
On a whim and not expecting much, AtheistPreacher filed a bug report to IO Interactive. To their surprise, people at the studio took their small niggling nitpick very seriously and patched the game. Read all about what that experience taught them!
Go! Go! GOTY! 2024: Dungeons of Hinterberg +
Go! Go! GOTY! 2024: Nine Sols +
Indie Game of the Week 401: Tchia (By: @mento)
As moderator Mento rounds the corner on their GOTY 2024 blogging, they discussed Dungeons of Hinterberg, Nine Sols, and assess if either game has a place on their GOTY 2024 list. And old habits die hard with Mento also bringing a new edition of their “Indie Game of the Week” to the site with this one looking at the tropical and charming title Tchia!
2024 Wrap Up And Resolutions! (By: @sexnoise)
Do you have any 2025 resolutions? Is it to play a certain game to its end or about your growing back catalogue of unplayed games? Is it related to life? SexNoise reviews their recent struggles with cancer and how 2025 will mark the start of their effort to better themselves.
Discussion Threads
Most Underrated Games From 2020 To 2024? (By: @gtxforza)
It’s weird to think, but we are now five years into the 2020s. With that in mind, what do you think are the most underrated or overlooked games the past half decade? What are the buried gaming treasures in the last five years?
What Games Are You Looking Forward To In 2025? (By: @atheistpreacher)
With yesterday settled, what are your most anticipated game releases for the year? Is it a AAA title like Monster Hunter, Doom: The Dark Ages, or GTA 6? A smaller indie game? Are you holding out for an unannounced dark horse?
F1 2024 Season Final Discussion (By: @dumbfounded)
Hey F1 fans! What are your final thoughts about the 2024 season and are you excited for the 2025 season? Will Max continue to be dominant? Hamilton in Ferrari? What do you make of the team and driver changes? Do you think Yuki got screwed?
What Part Of Video Games Do You Have Faith In Right Now? (By: @monkeyking1969)
The year is almost over and it has definitely been rough but what is keeping your faith and confidence in the video game medium as we transition into 2025? Share the trends, studios, or games giving you hope as we all look to the future for hope.
What Moment In A Game Or Piece Of Media Made You Put You Controller Down In Awe (Or Stop) (By: @topcyclist)
Here’s a fun open-ended discussion: When was the last time a video game left you in awe? Has it been a while or did any of the bigger games of 2024 impress you visually or emotionally? Do you have any soft spots that always seem to get your attention?
War Thunder Devs Just Made An Impossible Wish To Santa: For Its Community To Stop Leaking Classified Info (By: @zombiepie)
The developer of War Thunder had a simple wish for Santa this year, but was a doozy: for their community to stop leaking classified documents on their forums. How did we get to the point where a developer needs to beg for its community not to break the law? Our thread has you covered.
Lists
Random Wiki Pages I Went And Done Up In 2024 (By: @dochaus)
DocHaus didn’t play enough games from 2024 to justify a traditional GOTY list, so, instead, they decided to make a list that looked at all of their wiki contributions to the Giant Bomb wiki in 2024! Discover what wonderful projects they got into!
10 Games I’m Looking Forward To The Most In 2025(By: @beachthunder)
BeachThunder decided to look at the field of games that are slated to come out in 2025 and annotate the ones they are genuinely excited to play if and should they come out during the year.
List of Shame 2025: Twenty-Mortified +
Indie Game of the Week: The Fourth Hundred (By: @mento)
2024 is over and moderator Mento can’t help but notice how there were plenty of games from the year that ended up entering their pile of shame. So they re-categorized their backlog and wishlist games on this list!
Likewise, let’s give a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Mento! They celebrated the 400th edition of their “Indie Game of the Week” feature. If you have ever enjoyed their write-ups, please send them your regards!
MocBucket62’s WAAAAAAAAAAAAY Belated Favorite Games of 2023 (Again) (By: @mocbucket62)
MocBucket62 was going to publish their GOTY 2024 list but then realized something shocking… they forgot to make a 2023 GOTY list! It might be belated, but here’s their GOTY 2023 list that went up THIS WEEK!
Favorite PlayStation 2 Games (By: @waterkirby__64)
WaterKirby__64 decided to take advantage of GOTY fever on by publishing a list of what they think are the best games on the PlayStation 2! If you are also nostalgic for the retro console, feel free to make your own list!
Reviews
@infantpipoc decided to revisit OG Half-Life as well as Half-Life 2 after finishing all of Danny O’Dwyer’s documentaries about the series, but they played the game entirely on a Steam Deck! Do the games run well on Valve’s premier portable PC device? Read to find out!
@knightleon is starting a new review series where they re-visit the games of their youth that they never finished. This week they decided to tackle Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, a largely forgotten co-operative experiment from inXile Entertainment!
@geimers’ effort to review games considered “the worst” continues with a level-by-level look at Back to the Future Part III on the Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive! Read why its bad even by movie tie-in game standards!
@sbc515’s retro video game reviews continue and this time they decided to check out and re-assess Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour, which, in turn, is nearing its 10th anniversary!
@sbc515’s bad retro game reviews also continued during the final weeks of 2024 with an assessment of Fantastic Four on the PS1! What makes this comic book tie-in game for kids so bad? Read to find out!
Wiki Of The Week
Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2024
If you want a comprehensive text summary of everything that happened during GOTY, this is the page for you. I know some of you miss the articles that would summarize the award winners and nominees, but @marino honestly has you covered here. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING is here from both weeks!
