I was there at Game Awards 2024on the ground in Los Angeles. I don't know how it all felt and played out online, how the onslaught of ads, Muppet Interludes, and occasional online rush prize categories worked – but in the room, my first time experiencing that way, it's completely just working. Seeing it that way left me with only one main thought: god, 2024 was a great year for video games.
One game that wasn't really represented in the nominations was Geoff Keighley's industry-leading awards event. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The game had its moment in the night thanks to an onstage appearance by Indy founder Harrison Ford, video game designer Troy Baker, and Bethesda mastermind Todd Howard – but the game itself was released a couple of weeks ago too late to cut them off.
For some reason the Game Awards are in December every year, the calendar year runs around the end of November or early December through the same time next year. I never got this – the Oscars are in March and the Golden Globes are in January for exactly this reason: so the awards cover a calendar year. For whatever reason – I'm guessing the need for publicity and exposure to power the show – The Game Awards falls oddly before Christmas.
That means there are one or two games every year that release too late to be considered for the awards the year they were released. This year, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one such game, which means there is no GOTY candidate, no best performance. Nominee, No Direction or Best Design Nominee – everything the game deserves. I'm kicking myself as I write this, because in doing so I've noticed that we haven't even given him a small nod in our Alternate prizes. I hope all my fellow judges and panelists will keep him in mind for the 2025 awards, when he is eligible.
Anyway, all of this is to say that Indiana Jones is truly one of my Games of the Year for 2024. Is my true game of the year? Probably not, no, because this is the year in which Balatro issued – I've logged into that on Steam 170 times, and god knows how many more on my phone. But someone else on Team VG247 had already decided to write about it Balatroand maybe The Great Circle is mine second favorite game – no small feat in this steely year.
I mean, really. I'm the nerd who brought Final Fantasy hyper fandom to founding the FF website as a tween, which then became one of the biggest. A nerd fan's RPG destination on the internet. This is a year in which Final fantasy 7 revival is released – the best Final Fantasy game in at least fifteen years, a guaranteed banger – and it No my game of the year. It's not even second! This is also the year in which Game dragons 2 newgame I literally a dream about it, it came out.
But there is something magical about a game like Indiana Jones. This is a title that I didn't even bother with in the end. I especially like the first and third movies, but the whole series was a little bit turned off by rogue cycles – and with the mess that is Star Wars today, I wasn't quite sure I could trust Disney. Besides, Harrison is too old – how can you replace him?
Basically, I wasn't sure if I really was wants this. In fact, I was pretty sure it wasn't. And yet what MachineGames has managed to do is deliver something I didn't know I wanted – a little bit of Riddick, a little bit of Immersive Sim, something that's really like the I dream and hope that the next James Bond game will be at IO Interactive.
I could spend more time repeating my brilliant five star reviewbut I really don't have to. The point is, no matter how well people manage to remember when they file their Game Awards ballots after whatever 2025 holds, this game should be considered one of the best in an absolutely deadly year. It's awesome. Play it. Cheers.
