The 2024 Player 2 Game Awards - Best Aussie Title
It’s that time of year folks, time for the P2 crew to put together the definitive GOTY list. As always we can never agree on anything so it is just easier to let everyone have their own choice.
Third Award: Best Aussie Title
Jason Hawkins - Conscript
It’s been a great year for survival horror, and a damn good year for Aussie games, if you don’t look at the sheer amount of layoffs. It takes a bold team to tackle a large war, but Catchweight Studio has done it with aplomb. Playing as a lone soldier running through the trenches of The Great War, all the while trying to get as many supplies as possible and solving puzzles, this game left me with a sense of melancholy of a war-torn landscape that’s hard to describe, but worth experiencing through this game.
Matt Hewson - Bears In Space
There were a host of innovative and amazing games that came out of the land down under this year, yet I went with a silly shoot-em-up in the vein of Serious Sam. Why? Well, it was so goddamn fun. Part Spaceballs, part Muppets, part Doom should have been the tagline because that’s exactly what we got. I had an absolute blast smashing through this basic, yet perfectly balanced shooter and I think you would too. Don’t let the odd concept trick you. Bears in Space is quality all the way.
Paul James - Conscript
I’d played Conscript a couple of times in the years leading up to 2024’s launch year, and was supremely confident in its potential. The final release delivered in spades, with all the Resident Evil X WWII vibes that had been promised coming to fruition. Conscript is tense, terrifying and terrific all at the same time. This year hasn’t been the blockbuster year for Aussie-developed titles, but Conscript would go head-to-head with the best of the best in any other year, without doubt.
Jess Zammit - Capes
I might not generally be a turn-based strategy girl, but I am a fan of anything that presents me with a diverse cast of underdog superheroes – so Capes had me hooked on the premise alone. It’s at times a little cheesy, but that’s one of the best bits about the genre – it can succeed just as well by leaning into the tropes as it can by subverting them. Capes is one of those rare games that does a great job of truly tying its’ narrative into its’ gameplay loop, with its roster of characters learning to combine their abilities on missions as they also get to know each other as a team. The game is accessible for those not super well-versed in the genre (see: me) as well as providing a solid challenge for those who are, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone keen to experience its fun character dynamics and snappy dialogue for themselves.
Rob Caporetto - Wild Bastards
I’m ashamed to admit that among the amazing Australian-developed games which shipped during the year, not many tended to be type of stuff I want to play.
Wild Bastards happened to be the lone exception – even if I found some of its systems didn’t gel 100% (as mentioned in my review elsewhere on the site). The mix of genres – from turn-based tactical movement and planning, to card-based customisation and first person skirmishes still feels incredibly unique even after reflecting on things all these months later.
All of this is combined with some wonderful character design and writing – giving your posse a serious edge, and really adds some character to this sci-fi/western adventure which is where I got the most out of it – and hopefully you do too.
Shaun Nicholls - Ascending Inferno
If you listen to the Pixelcast you would have heard me lamenting my lack of skill at this wonderfully rage-inducing precision-platformer. I have still not been able to make any further progress, much to my shame. Developed by a team of four Canberra-based developers, the team has created a game that hooked me into the moment-to-moment gameplay and held the appeal to bring me back after every rage quit. Taking the premise of a precision platformer and making you juggle what is essentially a soccer ball through the nine layers of hell is a kind of torture all by itself, but one I keep throwing myself back into in the hopes of completing the journey.
