The Best Video Games I Played In 2024

Over the last few years I’ve written the below posts to accumulate all of the knowledge I gained playing some awesome video games. Hilariously, I often look back at them to remember those tips when it’s been a while since I last picked up one of those games.

• The Best Video Games I Played In 2023
• The Best Video Games I Played In 2022

2023 was supposed to be “The Year Of Video Games” where I played more than I ever had before and explored new types of games that were previously outside of my comfort zone. Well 2023 accidentally became “The Year Of Reading” instead when I fell into bookshelf blackholes and ended up reading 250 books that year – a number my brain can barely fathom in that context.

• How I Read 250 Books For $8 In 2023

So video games took more of a backseat in 2023 than I intended, but I ramped it up in 2024 and became obsessed with some new-to-me games! So let’s dive into the best games I played in 2024.

So I was hooked and decided I wanted to try playing the game myself, but not for the $40 price tag. Luckily, a few weeks later it went on 50% sale on Steam. So I snatched it up and I’ve been having a great time ever since!

However, Sea Of Thieves has a few negatives, such as its semi-frequent bugs and the requirement of internet to play even on your own server (aka Safer Seas). Another negative is that they are seriously lacking in their tutorial department. One exists showing you the ABSOLUTE basics, but for most of the game, I had to learn by trial and error and searching the Sea Of Thieves Wiki.

Tips

So let’s make your life easier if you choose to play this game. Here are some tips I wish I had known my first go-round:

• The Music Cues in this game are SUPER important! I didn’t realize this for a while, but they tell you when danger is approaching and what kind (e.g. there’s different music for an emerging skeleton ship compared to a megalodon for example). This is very helpful in this 1st person POV game, especially when your back is turned or your head is down as you’re digging up treasure, which is when those bastard skellies like to get you!
• Your ship’s Wheel is straight when the gold handle is straight up and it also makes a thunk sound when the wheel becomes straight
• You can see your Map from the ship’s upper deck by walking all the way towards the stern behind the wheel. I have also used a telescope from that location to see smaller islands on the map. This blew my mind. Previously I was running downstairs constantly to check my map and it was very inefficient
• I find it more helpful to pay attention to the Compass Direction (N/S/E/W) than the map moment-to-moment so I can just check that I’m going in the right direction on the compass next to the wheel or from the one in my inventory instead of checking the map constantly when I’m sailing alone like I always do
• You should always have some Food in your inventory in case a shark bites your butt while you’re swimming (I’m not joking)
• You can use a Harpoon to reel your ship closer to an island in addition to picking up treasure with it. You can also now walk down the harpoon Tightrobe onto and off of islands even while holding treasure. Super efficient!
• You can shoot yourself in a Cannon to get to farther locations quickly!
• You can often visually identify where Buried Treasure is because the sand looks disturbed and I can sometimes hear when I walk over it because it sounds differently than regular walking and has more of a hollow sound
• A large flock of birds above the ocean means there’s a Sunken Ship under there, which has sunken treasure and resources
• You can just throw Water out of the windows of sloops instead of going to the top deck and throwing it overboard. Also, Rats running up the ship stairs is an indicator that there is water on the lower decks

Controls

• There are a few changes in the Settings that more experienced gamers suggested that have really helped me, specifically: Settings>Graphics>Field of View>Increase to max (90) and  Visibility>Disable Blur “On” and Disable Screen Shake “On”
• I play on a Steamdeck and I press down on my left joystick to Sprint or Swim Faster. I originally thought you had a hold it down the hold time, but that’s not the case! Unfortunately I only learned this after my Partner pointed it out and I seem to have weakened the left button by frantically running around all the time. My bad – I guess I’ll be buying him a new Steamdeck soon
• You can Lunge by holding down the attack button before releasing it to kill multiple skeletons at once and hurt enemies more
• You can Zoom in on Treasure Maps by clicking the right joystick on Steamdeck

Skelly Ship Attacks

• I unfortunately learned this by running into many a boulder, but it helped to Raise Sails a bit when skelly ships are attacking me so I won’t run into things since I’m a one-woman ship and can’t always check where I’m going while fighting a skeleton army
• I also learned that I should always Follow a skelly ship when it sinks because there’s loot, which is marked with small birds over the patch of ocean where the ship sank
• It also helps to just Keep Shooting cannons because skelly ships don’t have buckets to bail water so they will sink eventually

So those are my tips based on playing about 100 hours in Safer Seas. I generally have no interest in how toxic playing games online with strangers can be, and even Dead Meat from the livestreams above (who has played over a thousand hours of this game) said that he encounters 50% nice people and 50% “toxic assholes” and I’m not willing to flip that coin on the regular 🙂 .

However, I did decide to try the alternative one time. It’s called High Seas and I immediately was attacked by a Kraken and then people burned me alive and stole my shit.

So I’m staying in my baby sandbox for the foreseeable future 🙂 – especially since a December update now means that loot in Safer Seas makes you 100% of what it would in High Seas, compared to the 30% I was dealing with for most of my game hours.

Also another way I have been learning the game has been watching livestreams like the above to help me see how more experienced players navigate Sea Of Thieves. Here’s a playlist that includes Sea Of Thieves livestreams I watched to help me learn in case it helps.

Overall, I’m very excited that I gave this game a try. It’s not like anything else I’ve ever played and has an absolutely GORGEOUS world – the auroras, birds, fish, and water are all beautiful and the water mechanics are out of this world.

I also really enjoy the art style – it’s an interesting mix of cutsey and terrifying based on where you are and the accompanying music. You can go from cheery, calm turquoise seas to roiling black oceans filled with danger, and I love the broad scope of that. I’m excited to keep playing this year.

Dave The Diver

Last year a friend of mine recommended I try a  game called Dave The Diver. So I put it on my wishlist only to discover that my Partner already owns it and had tried playing it for an hour and then stopped.

I decided to try it out and since I had recently failed to play more than a few hours of Sable and Outer Wilds, I expected to not be pulled into this new game, but I was WRONG!

Dave the Diver owned my life for a solid week. It was all I did and I couldn’t stop. Near the end of the main plot, I started slowing down doing the main plot to-dos because I didn’t want it to end.

Tips

Here are some tips I wish I had known from the beginning:

• Dave The Diver is a lot better at introducing a new person to how the world works when compared to Sea Of Thieves, but I found myself looking up guides even more with this game because there is so much to learn and I found this guide of All Fish in this game very helpful
• I also found this guide of All Staff in this game super helpful. Avoid my mistakes by knowing that you need to have money left over to hire people (I had blown all my money on an internet ad). Luckily applicants don’t leave after the night over, so I was able to save up and then hire, but that took a little time
• Near the beginning of the game, the chef says that fish is discarded if it’s in the menu and not served, which I took to mean that ALL fish is gone at the end of the night. But, NOPE! If it’s not on the menu, it stays in the bottomless fridge…forever. So if you have enough fish stocked up, you don’t have to fish for the restaurant every day and can focus on other challenges. However, one way to not waste fish and make sure your restaurant keeps restocking is by turning on Auto-Supply, which I learned about from the below video. It’s pretty weird that the game isn’t explicit about this since it’s a game changer

Parties

• I used to Enhance party ingredients as much as possible, but learned that that wasn’t a good idea because it takes ingredients, and people get mad if I run out of a special ingredient on a party night. So don’t max enhance dishes on a party night and make my mistake
• Also note that you have to give your sushi branch party Ingredients because they don’t get them themselves, and if they’re not available, people are once again pissed 🙂

Now that those tips are out of the way let’s talk about a few negatives of this game. Obviously everyone’s preferences are different, but here are mine. As context, I love this game because it both reminds me of my Diner Dash addiction from college and also gives me the vibes of Stardew Valley and the less terrifying parts of Subnautica. That’s the stuff I love.

I also enjoy the lore in this game, which I found really interesting and I enjoyed how they revealed the story. I also enjoyed that almost everything is an option, so if you don’t love the Diner Dash aspects for example (like my Partner), you can just fully hire staff to take care of everything. Or if you’re not interested in random side quests, you don’t have to do them.

My problems arise with what you DO have to do. For example, the boss fights. There are a lot of boss fights and I have never enjoyed that aspect of games. There are also a fair bit of puzzles, which I complained about extensively while writing about my experience playing Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

I also don’t enjoy that in the main plot, if you have to redo something (which I do A LOT cause I suck at this kind of gameplay), you have to watch all of the cut scenes and click through all of the dialogue again. It’s super annoying.

And I assume this stuff is supposed to be challenging near the end of the game, so I’m not the only one losing the first time and having to see all of this again. But having to repeat myself so much makes me not want to do it at all since it’s so repetitive and takes forever. This main gameplay also can’t be broken up – so if you fuck it up, you have to do it ALL again.

I played this game on my MacBook Air and curiously in the middle of one of these long main plot challenges near the end of the game it required me to use a button that Macs don’t have and I couldn’t get to settings in the game, so had to force quit and start over again. I was so frustrated at the main plot at that point that I gave up and that’s where I ended the game 🙂 .

Now let’s come back to the positives after that wall of negativity. Despite those frustrations, I really enjoyed Dave The Diver. It’s one of my favorite games I’ve played in retirement. It got me addicted to the game in a way few games ever have and I had a fantastic time. I’m excited to go back and play more as soon as I work up the energy to redo that main plot challenge 😉 .

The Sims 4

Shockingly, even after playing The Sims 4 for 11 years (and Sims games for 25 years), I’m still learning new things about it. And not just because they keep coming out with new content packs.

Tips

Here are some things I discovered about this age old game this year:

• If I ever want to buy stuff for my Sims game, there are sales almost monthly, so if I wanted to purchase a new pack, I should just wait for a sale. They’re never far away and the packs that EA has been putting out are often not worth full price. I track pack prices with Steam DB
• This year I realized you can quickly rotate between Aspirations if you need more points, because I’ve often filled out a lot of intro levels without trying, all of which give you points
• I also learned this year that there are storage options in the Sims! So I don’t have to carry everything in my inventory or my fridge. They’re usually listed under “Storage Chests“
• Apparently you can prevent monsters under children’s beds (which is SUCH an annoying feature) with the Coolala Defender Wall Light. I’ve been playing for so many years and never knew there was a solution for this nightly madness. Wow
• One rare situation happened this year where I learned that if I buy a house and can’t pick the furnished option, that means someone has died there and that’s their furniture. Yikes! However, I can go into build mode and replace one item in the house and then the “furnished” option appears

Nerd Brain Aspiration

• I’ve become obsessed with this aspiration this year because of its Instant Upgrade abilities when you complete the aspiration. It’s not a wildly challenging aspiration to complete and when it’s done, you can Instant Repair and Instant Upgrade items without buying parts for it. However, I learned that even with it you can’t instant upgrade beds unfortunately
• I also learned after my toilet literally exploded and caught the house on fire multiple times, that I should NEVER use this Instant Upgrade on my toilets with Eco Lifestyle installed because it gives it a compost, which catches fire if you don’t empty it. I didn’t even know my toilet had a compost component so obviously I didn’t empty it and then KABOOM! (This is also another reason I dislike the Eco Lifestyle pack, which I’ll go into detail about below)

My New Packs

This year I bought these Sims 4 packs: Tiny Living, Get Famous, Growing Together, Eco Lifestyle, Parenthood, Book Nook, Discover University, Snowy Escape  and Nifty Knitting. I bought all of these (except for Book Nook) for 30-50% off and below are tips I learned from them and some quick reviews of the packs.

Tiny Living

The Tiny Living Stuff Pack was one I was really excited about and luckily, it lived up to the hype. This pack provides lots of items that help living in a small space be more realistic and provide perks for living tiny.

If your home is a “Tiny” home (64 tiles or less), and indicates as such in your Lot Traits, you get several perks, my favorite being that your skills grow 2x as fast. And if you live in a “Micro” home of 32 tiles or less, you get all the other perks and your relationships grow 2x as fast, which I actually think makes the game a little too easy, but is very helpful in certain situations.

And if those are too tiny for your taste, a “Small” home of 100 tiles or less does get a few small perks as well. Even if I’m not playing in a tiny home, I still love to use a lot of the objects in this pack so I’m writing this off as money well spent.

Discover University

I was surprised with how much I enjoy Discover University. It turns out that there are ways to make it a lot less miserable than it appears, and it’s the only way I’ve found to make a lot of money fairly quickly besides taking someone else’s 😉 .

This aspect of quickly increasing income after you graduate was not clear to me from the marketing. So here are my tips for making the most of this pack:

• First, don’t live on campus – live in your House. If you’re living in dorms you can’t have a kitchen and it makes it way harder to meet your needs while studying your ass off. Stay at home and commute (via teleportation) to school 😉
• Do not start University on a Monday – a college semester is 5 days so if you do this, you won’t have the weekend to work and you’ll need that if you have a full class schedule 🙂
• I didn’t realize this, but you can pull up the top of the career section to Expand and see more, which is needed to see all of your classwork at once
• You need to edit/refine your Term Papers and Presentations until they’re Excellent Quality
• Also you don’t need to get feedback on or practice a presentation. You just need to refine it
• You also don’t need to study intentionally for final exams – doing your homework and your projects is all you need
• After graduation, when looking at the job selection, the Name Of The Career Level is the name in the job list, not the regular career name (e.g. “Space Ranger”, not Astronaut)
• There is a new lot trait called “Study Spot” that’s pretty helpful when going to college

Get Famous

This Get Famous pack was cool for one play through and that was about it 🙂 .  It was interesting to see how being a celebrity works in this world, but similar to real life, I’m not that interested in fame soooo maybe I wouldn’t have been surprised given the pack’s name 😉 .

Eco Lifestyle

In general, Eco Lifestyle is a horrible pack and the only one to date that I completely regret buying. I do really enjoy the ability to be off grid with solar panels and water collectors. I also do like some of the design elements (but I never build in the game so that’s not a big deal for me).

However, the negatives far outweigh the positives. In addition to the exploding toilet situation, this pack is just annoying. The trash added to the game doesn’t go away even if you improve the neighborhood, and the general pollution aspect seems to be outside of your control, despite their claims, and it’s quite annoying. I’m still debating just uninstalling this pack, but currently the solar panels are holding me back. *sigh*

Growing Together & Parenthood

These two packs (the Growing Together Expansion Pack and the Parenthood Game Pack) have similar features and seem combined in my mind, so I’m going to talk about them together.

In general, I heard that these expansions together, completely change family gameplay. I usually don’t really do family gameplay because I find the kids in the game boring and annoying, but these packs changed all that!

In fact, it changed family gameplay so much that I think these features should be part of the Base Game (just like Seasons, but don’t even get me started on that 🙂 ). These packs give Infants and Toddlers multiple unique traits that provide a surprisingly enjoyable challenge with each new kid, and makes them different with their own little personalities, which is great.

It also gives Infants milestones to hit to unlock more interactions, like being able to sit up before they can use the high chair. The milestones can be seen even before they’re unlocked in the Simology Panel, so you know what to shoot for.

Another awesome feature is that Parenting is now a skill, and if you get it high enough, you can “Learn What’s Wrong?” with Babies and Infants and even do “Super Efficient Infant Care” to care for all their needs at once, which is a game changer. Overall, these two packs add a surprising amount to gameplay and makes having a family a lot more interesting instead of just annoying 🙂 .

Snowy Escape

I bought the Snowy Escape Expansion Pack because I was going to Hokkaido, Japan, which was the inspiration for this pack. Specifically, I was going in the winter and that season is obviously a big part of this pack with a name like “Snowy” Escape.

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I found that the aesthetic of the build mode items weren’t my cup of tea, but I greatly enjoyed playing in this world while watching snow fall in the snowy landscape that inspired it. That was pretty wild 🙂 . However, without that fun time, I don’t think I would have bought this pack normally. It’s pretty mid to me.

Book Nook

I was so hesitant to buy the Book Nook Kit, but I’d been thinking about it for a while and decided to go for it. Previously I had never paid money just for digital stuff before so I was hesitant, but I hate to say it, but it was totally worth the $5 🙂 . I’ve been loving decking out all my houses with my Book Nook items and cozy libraries.

Nifty Knitting

This is a me problem 🙂 . I’ve become obsessed with knitting since I learned how in January and I had the urge to get my Sim into the hobby as well, which of course in this day and age requires an additional stuff pack *sigh* oh EA. But, they got me!

I bought Nifty Knitting when it went on sale for 30% off, so I paid $7 USD to get my Sims to knit with me and be able to sell their wares on an Etsy equivalent, which I think was “fun” money well spent 😉 .

Free Stuff

There’s a section called “Free” in the main page of The Sims game and from there, I got the Blooming Rooms Kit and the Backyard Stuff Pack and I love them, Blooming Rooms specifically. I love filling my houses with plants especially since it was free 😉 . I always check out that “Free” section of the homepage for that reason.

Events

In the past year, The Sims has been holding events where if you perform certain actions, you get special items that can’t be obtained otherwise. The first event was called Reaper Rewards and I thought it was way too difficult so I tried to ignore it, but annoyingly it always popped up on the top left of the screen no matter what I did. I also didn’t care about any of the items on offer.

The second event was called Cozy Celebrations and I actually completed and enjoyed this one. It happened over the holidays and I was interested in some of the limited time items it offered, such as a hot cocoa drink tray, Christmas light bushes, a TV that looks like a painting, and an ugly Christmas sweater.

It was also easier than the Reaper Rewards, which might be why I finished it. I also realized that the interactions it required of me did help me explore holiday actions that I’d never done before, which I assume was the point. 

Currently there’s another event going on around Time Travel. It seems fairly easy and I’ve completed a few of the tasks out of curiosity, but I’m not interested in any of the items on offer so I’m not sure I’ll finish this one.

Overall, I was suspicious of these events because I assume they’re trying to get us to play more often during certain times of the year, since the events expire. I also hated that they would pop up in the top left of the screen during gameplay no matter what I did. However, the Cozy Celebrations in particular did brighten my holidays so I’m going to reserve my final judgement as long as they get rid of the popup 🙂 .

Cities Skylines

I’m back on Cities Skylines again. I have phases where I play for hours several days in a row and then take month long breaks.

When I was back on it, I was prompted by a civil engineer on YouTube that enjoys this game and said that T-junctions are more efficient than grid pattern streets, which is what I’ve been using since a city planner on YouTube who plays suggested it.

So obviously I had to put this to the test 🙂 . T-junctions worked well for me until my city grew in size and then it was a bit of a mess. It was also way harder to make than a grid pattern so I’m going to stick to my tried and true method and keep grid-ing it up going forward!

A follow up to this game, Cities Skylines II, was released in 2023, but only on PC and I own a MacBook Air so I was pretty sad about that. The game was originally riddled with bugs according to the Cities Skylines YouTubers I follow, but it sounds like they’ve ironed out most of that and that this new game is a lot more intricate than the original, so I’m excited to play it. Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and buy it on PC and play on a gaming PC and accept that my Mac won’t be getting love from the game anytime soon. We shall see.

Conclusion

And those are the best games I played last year! I’m hoping to branch out even more in 2025 and try some new games. If there are any other games you recommend, feel free to let me know!