Prime Gaming – December 2024

The sigh of relief that is the final month of the year, we’ve got the final Prime Gaming of 2024. As has been the case throughout the year, there is nothing to talk about on the in-game section because it seems Jeffrey has realized no one was really picking that stuff up, and thus he binned it off. All of that is aside from Lost (t)Ark (still an awful logo) and some Wordle knock-offs, nothing we genuinely care about.

Starting the month with what I thought was a repeat, because there have been at least 10 of them before this, we’ve got Star Wars: Bounty Hunter via GOG. Released in 2002 ahead of some game no one has ever liked called Knights of the Old Republic and following the release of Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Bounty Hunter is supposed to be another prequel. In fact, it is a prequel to the actual prequels. To put it simply, if you say Disney ruined Star Wars, you need to have a good hard look at yourself and all these prequels, sequels, and side-ways jetpack jumps.

Also available now and through GOG (there are a few here), I was right nanananan-na! Yes, I did stick my tongue out like a child. Tomb Raider: Underworld, the last of the gritty late 2000s Tomb Raider trilogy and the last Tomb Raider to be released by Eidos Interactive before Square Enix came in and led to that attempted rape scene in Tomb Raider (2013). I’ll never not bring up how stupid that was. Generally speaking, if you played Legend or Anniversary and enjoyed them, chances are you’ll enjoy Underworld, though combat and the camera did feel a bit crap if memory serves me right.

Overcooked! 2. Oh fun (definitely not the F-word I originally wrote), time to swear at the in-laws over Christmas (or whatever family verbal abuse special you celebrate). Available through GOG, you can also pick up the evolution of the Gordan Ramsey simulator just in time to call granny a “dumb bint” for burning the soup. If you don’t know what Overcooked! 2 is by now then I don’t know what to tell you, you run a kitchen, play in multiplayer with people close enough to punch, and eventually you’ll kick a toddler for not chopping onions quickly enough.

Up next is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger once again available through GOG. Booo, I wanted to talk about the stupid and horrible 2011 title, not the really good, fun, and generally likable 2013 one. Set in 1910, you are reliving the tales told by protagonist Silas Greaves who was part of the Regulators led by Billy the Kid during the 1880 Lincoln County War of New Mexico. Eventually, you’ll face off with several characters and notable names of the era, with mentions of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hell, you might even meet a president at some point.

The last of what is currently available, and oh my it is to put it into a quote, “bloody fantastic.” DREDGE is available via a GOG code and if you don’t pick it up I will haunt your nightmares. One of the best psychological horror games of the last several years, you play as a person mad enough to be a fisherman in The Marrows, a small coastal town in an archipelago where everyone is scared of what is in the waters. With a busted little boat and enough insanity to ignore everyone’s warnings, you head out into the shallow waters humming away, playing the little fishing mini-game, and suddenly it is midnight.

On your way home through the darkness weird stuff starts cropping up out of nowhere, a ghost ship starts following you, and a rather large fish starts attacking the boat. I genuinely love DREDGE and I can’t talk highly enough about it.

Available from the 5th of December we have Quake II for GOG. Told you, lots for GOG. Released in 1997, like most things from that year, it has aged about as well as Granny as you push her down a hill in her wheelchair for messing up that order in Overcooked! 2. While the two Johns split off, the one that went on to work for Facebook made Quake II out of the last semblance of his two ideas: Guns and moving quickly. Acclaimed for its time, there is about as much difference between Quake I and II as there are between the hairs on my… best not.

Oh brilliant, another Disney movie tie-in game for a film that doesn’t need it, Disney-Pixar WALL-E is available through the Amazon Games App. A game so short you could cough and miss its three-hour-long runtime, you play as the yellow-fella (what your uncle racistly called your partner at Thanksgiving) collecting tat, playing Simon Says, and following around a white robot so you can rub USB ports. Do I really need to say more about a 2008 movie tie-in game Disney didn’t care about?

From “Hey, idiots! Climate change is real and your overconsumption is ruining the planet” to vague, artsy-fartsy, pretty 2D indie platforming with a hint of “AI = bad.” Once again available through GOG from the 12th of December, Planet of Lana is another one of those pretty Inside-like keep moving, solving puzzles, and platforming 2D side scrollers that do little more than be stunning. It doesn’t detract from it, though if you go in wanting practically all the gameplay you’ll be disappointed.

Available this time through GOG, we’ve previously covered Hero’s Hour back in 2022, months after its release. Released on Steam that March, Hero’s Hour is a lot of things, describing itself as a “fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat.” However, it is also partially an auto-battler and grand strategy by ways of Heroes of Might and Magic. With balance reportedly as even as my criticism of all the games available this month, you might have a fun time or you might not depending on your race option, of which there are quite a few.

Oh sweet mother in Christ, “You are Youngho, a Korean high school student trapped and relentlessly pursued by a psychotic killer in the hellish corridors of Sehwa High.” The Coma: Recut is a 2D, anime-inspired art style with teenage women wearing skirts shorter than the attention span for this type of horror. I like Korean horror, but the 2D dark sidescrolling adventure with teenagers trope is getting on my nerves. Available through GOG, I’m surprised it has taken this long to get the original to a game we got back in October of 2023.

Speaking of things we’ve already got, let’s do a repeat of something we got in May for the Epic Games Store. Electrician Simulator, I might as well recycle my gags the same way Jeffrey recycles the games available through Prime Gaming. I’ll once again complain about the EU and US plugs and especially how homes are wired in the US, because Jésus Christ I’m surprised anyone is alive at this point, you’re all living in death traps waiting to happen. Look up the UK plug and socket design as well as all the other safety features then give your local electrician a beer because they desperately need it.

Wow, I wonder if the terribly named and awfully clumsy-sounding game available through the Amazon Games App on the 12th is a Big Fish Games game? ReDrawn: The Painted Tower Collector’s Edition is a Big Fish Games game that doesn’t even care at this point. Released on Steam in 2021, the Steam description simply reads: “When art becomes reality…“ Well done lads, you’ve put about as much effort into selling your game as a politician does hiding their shady nonsense now.

From the 19th we’re getting another repeat of something we saw in May, in fact, it was the thing just before Electrician Simulator last time out. Nine Witches: Family Disruption. Available through the Amazon Games app you help the von Trapp family escape Austria while they sing some uplifting tunes. Nope sorry, I got my notes for things that are actually interesting mixed up with my notes of another pixel-art Nazi occult game with supernatural elements, don’t you just hate it when that happens? Do I need to repeat myself 6-7 months after the fact?

I promise I won’t mention the Catholic church. Available through the Epic Games Store, Predator: Hunting Grounds is another one of those asymmetrical multiplayer shooters with about as much originality and intrigue as the loud end of a shotgun. Either you play as Harry from Harry and the Hendersons/Optimus Prime or you play as one of the nameless ones that no one cares about because you have Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his premier roles.

Released in 2018, Aces of the Luftwaffe – Squadron Extended Edition is a top-down scroller shoot ’em up available through the Amazon Games App with seemingly everyone’s favorite political movement to model modern politics on, Nazis. It is basically a bullet hell, I wish I could say something nice about a game that proposed dogfighting above the coast of the US, but honestly, I get bored by top-down bullet hells. A fantasy of the continental United States actually being in danger during the war, I wish I could get more interested in the alt-history aspect.

For the life of me, I can’t remember where I’ve seen Simulakros before but I’m glad I wasn’t excited about the October 10th release as it is available through the Amazon Games App two months later. Developed by Sirio Games, the “fast-paced third-person shooter with rogue-lite elements” is considered underwhelming by those who have bothered to be the few guinea pigs for a game with poor, bland visual design. I want to say more, but if we’re honest there isn’t much more to be said. If Simulakros wasn’t terribly named and had half the budget of Suicide Squad, it might be competing for the most obvious disappointment of 2024.

The only Christmas-themed game of the whole month, you can pick up Christmas Fables: The Magic Snowflake Collector’s Edition via Legacy Games. Don’t worry, I can make this shambles of an offer even funnier, beyond the uncanny valley kids in that screenshot below. Released last December, it was released on the perfect day (at least on Steam), that being the 27th of December. That’s almost as funny as releasing Hocus Pocus 2 in May.

Through what I think is even more ill conceive is the lone offering for the 26th of December. The Town of Light (via GOG) is a psychological walking simulator thriller about a young woman in a sanitorium. A refreshing and adept stab at mental health, showing it as what it can often be – horrific – it is just an odd choice of offering the day after a large bloke in a red suit takes all the credit for you buying stuff made in China. Again, it is not a bad game, but is it the right tone for the time of year?

Hopefully, there will be a “surprise” selection of extra stuff, just after I’ve decided to quit and run off to live in the woods. Please.