The RPS Selection Box: James’ bonus games of the year 2024

I’m actually quite happy with how many of my voted games made it into this year’s Advent Calendar, not least because it proves I am acutely in-touch, and definitely didn’t dedicate at least fifty percent of my 2024 playing time to a late-onset Elden Ring obsession. Point being, I can present to you my almost-made-it picks without malice nor bitterness, unlike my loser colleagues who didn’t get as many in the main list. Nyeh nyeh.

Echo Point Nova

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Greylock Studio

All us correct people understand, the best FPSeses are the ones that let you go fast, and in 2024 the unrelentingly speedy Echo Point Nova was right there to fill a movement-shooter hole in my heart – one that the failure of Tribes 3: Rivals had only just punched clean out.

While its friction-defying hoverboard and freely throwable grappling hook are your main tools for navigating Echo Point Nova’s sprawling archipelago of sky-islands, they’re built for combat too, with often thrilling effect. Battles arenas are filled with ramps to leap off and structures to swing around, making even the simplest man vs. mook gunfights feel wonderfully acrobatic; the challenge not so much about being quicker on the draw as it as about landing your shots while catapulting yourself through the air at 70mph.

This agility is enforced, to an extent. The baddies have a major numbers advantage and you can only endure a few hits yourself, so to slow down is to invite death. Still, there’s never an impression of being pushed around by the heavy hand of a game designer. Sliding rings around enemies is far too much of a hoot for that.

Little Kitty, Big City

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Double Dagger Studio

Little Kitty, Big City is a true cat simulator. Maybe not in the sense of having you sleep sixteen hours a day and produce photorealistic dingleberries for your owner to pluck off later, sure. But its compact open world does well to set up, and let you execute, all the antics that make cats such characterful pets: the knocking things over, the clambering into places you shouldn’t be, the attempted jumps across gaps that anyone except a cat can see is too wide. You might say these are things we do when playing third-person adventure games anyway, so it’s especially fitting to play one as an animal that has such behaviours hardwired into its walnut-sized brain.

On that note, this game has clearly been made by people who actually know cats, as opposed to those whose primary interaction with them is Reddit memes. This is important, as while Little Kitty, Big City does occasionally flirt with "my human" internet silliness, it’s ultimately a much more sincere celebration of these strange creatures and the happiness can bring into our homes. Even when they’re being baffling little shits in the process. Mine, for instance, spent this morning tracking shower water all over the living room floor, then took a nap on top of a discarded sheet not even a foot away from the padded, purpose-built cat bed we bought for her just yesterday. And either of those could, quite easily, form the basis of a Little Kitty, Big City sidequest.

Disclosure: Little Kitty, Big City was written by former RPS staffer Philippa Warr.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Focus Entertainment

If Darktide is the best modern game at conveying 40k’s bleakness, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is the best at conveying its scale. As keen as it is to make you feel like a big transhuman superkiller clad head-to-toe in blueberry power armour, Space Marine 2’s towering, ornately detailed environments and elaborate battle scenes are just as quick to remind you of the forever war’s impossible vastness.

Still, even if you’re just a Space Marine-sized cog in a galaxy-sized meat grinding machine, you can always get into some cracking bug scraps. The sequel’s switch to more horde-y enemy forces does take away a bit of the satisfaction behind single-target sharpshooting, but replaces it with an up-close intensity where you’re only ever a few seconds away from disappearing under a swarm of fangs. A surprisingly sophisticated melee system also helps stave off button-mashing boredom, and in the occasional moments when you strap on a jump pack, divebombing Tyranids adds yet more kinetic joy.

I would’ve liked Space Marine 2 to complement this 'Nidstomping by having something to say about life in the Imperium beyond "Spess mehreens are cool", but then it has provoked a lot interesting thinking on 40k – positive and critical – that you can read elsewhere. Edwin’s piece on the Space Marines themselves, for one.