First things first: I really like “Balatro”. It is a very fun Poker-based card game, with lots of additional rules and modifiers that keep the game fresh. I and my sweetie have found ourselves playing it for hours on end, where I’m at the controls, and she making suggestions on what hand to play, and so on.
Like I said, it’s fun. But it isn’t “Game of the Year” material.
I know that everyone has different tastes in video games, and sometimes unique games like “Balatro” stand out from the crowd, and get high praise in doing so. There’s nothing wrong with that. But having played “Balatro” many, many times, and enjoying it thoroughly, I just don’t see how it got so many GotY awards in 2024!
One award? Sure, fine. Like I said, it’s a fun game. But it seems like a lot of reviewers and media outlets all decided that this game stood out so far above the others released in 2024, that it was nearly the unanimous choice for Game of the Year, and I just don’t see it.
Yes, yes… I haven’t forgotten about “Astrobot”, which also got a lot of GotY awards. Rightly so, I have heard. I don’t have a Playstation 5, so I have yet to play that game, but it looks like a lot of fun.
But what about “Black Myth: Wukong”? Why was this game snubbed so hard in the video game press, when award time came? I don’t recall seeing a single major media outlet giving it GotY, despite it clearly deserving some sort of award.
Now I get it when it comes to the three other major contenders for GotY. “Metaphor: ReFantazio” might be a great game, but I’ve heard nothing about it. I just don’t see a GotY nominee winning, if I haven’t at least heard some good press about it. Then there is “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth”, a remake of the classic FFVII, and “Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree”, which was just an expansion for “Elden Ring”, and not a full game on its own. Neither of those two deserve GotY awards, in my opinion.
Now I know this is a few months out of date, but normally I don’t really care too much about what games get “Game of the Year”. But after playing “Balatro” recently, and seeing that it – along with “Astrobot” – pretty much dominated the GotY awards in 2024, I just had to respond. “Balatro” is a fine game, but under normal circumstances I don’t see it winning such an award. 2024 must have been an overall weak year for video game releases, and I was too busy enjoying “Starfield” (the real GotY for 2023) to notice…
