microsoft flight simulator 2024

2024: my gaming year in review

by
This entry is part 12 of 12 in the series Gaming year in review / Game of the Year Awards

Better late than never!

Every year I publish a recap of that year in gaming. 2024 was a good year in terms of new releases, spread across several different genres.

Overall, including titles from previous years (mostly old favourites that I replayed) skewed my gaming heavily towards strategy.

What new releases did I play in 2024?

Indy enjoys a quiet moment.

The new releases I played were a mix of genres — these included:

Which new releases were my favourites?

My picks for Game of the Year are WARNO and Metaphor: Refantazio, both of which I wrote about.

  • WARNO successfully iterated on Eugen’s real-time tactics formula, and gave me many hours of fun during an often-challenging period.
  • I picked up Metaphor: Refantazio late in the year, and it wowed me with its style, dungeon-crawling, and character interactions.

The runners-up

I would place Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just a notch below. This is not so much the game’s fault as a matter of personal taste — later areas moved away from the verticality, focus on freeform exploration, and gorgeous architecture that enchanted me so much in the first area, the Vatican.

Unicorn Overlord is mechanically excellent and in terms of sheer hours, was one of the games I played most in 2024. Had the writing been better, it would be higher up my list.

What titles from previous years did I discover or revisit?

After 13 years!

There were a lot of beefy, evergreen strategy games:

  • I revisited Old World and Crusader Kings III in response to the release of new DLCs. Old World, in particular, is a perennial on my end-of-year lists.
  • Anno 1800 is another perennial. I even put together a to-do list on pen and paper, as I continued working through the tremendous amount of content in the game. 
  • Inspired by the excellent new Shogun TV series, I revisited Total War: Shogun 2 — and finally won as the Oda clan, the first clan I ever tried!
  • I revisited Terra Invicta and found it coming along well, two years after it launched into Early Access.
  • I revisited Emperor of the Fading Suns (link to my original write-up from back in 2011), a classic 1990s 4X game that has been updated and re-released on GOG.
  • I kept playing Rule the Waves 3, a 2023 release.
  • I also tried Fantasy General 2, Field of Glory 2: Medieval, and 40K: Gladius for the first time (and dusted off FOG2‘s predecessor, Sengoku Jidai). While its production values are limited, Fantasy General 2 made a good impression on me.
Fighting a field boss in Elden Ring.

Non-strategy games included:

  • Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was my favourite game of 2023, and I finished in 2024.
  • I revisited Elden Ring and made it most of the way through the base game — up to the Fire Giant — as well as starting on the DLC.
  • A Legionary’s Life was the standout “short-form” game I discovered in 2024.
  • Revisiting Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord took much of the shine off (my original write-up from 2020), as this time the core gameplay loop felt much more repetitive. But what it does (spectacular battles), it does well.
  • I discovered and enjoyed Suzerain’s base game, leading me to pick up the “Kingdom of Rizia” DLC.
  • Potionomics is charming, although its central loop (brew potions, sell potions, buy ingredients to make more potions, repeat) hasn’t kept me engaged as long as some of the other games on this list.
  • I continued my snail’s-pace progress through Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
  • We Love Katamari Reroll was as charming as ever.
  • No list of ongoing perennials would be complete without Mario Kart 8: Deluxe.

Site news

2024 was a productive year for the site!

I resurrected Musical Monday, with a mix of game, anime, movie, and even classical music.

Besides games, I also wrote about books (Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series), and movies (Dune: Part 2).

On a technical note, I switched to a new theme, GeneratePress.

Upcoming releases

There’s only one game release on my radar, the imminent Civilization VII.

In terms of hardware, I am very interested in the upcoming Switch 2. If Nintendo releases it at a reasonable price and with a decent launch library (a new Mario Kart is already visible in the trailer video), then I’ll look to buy it as soon as I can after launch.

I look forward to seeing you around for the rest of the year.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 — first impressions

by
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Microsoft Flight Simulator series

Flight Simulator 2024 did not have a good launch. On day one, the game suffered from well-documented server problems, leaving me — and many others — unable to play at first.

Once in, though, I’ve had a great time.

What do I like?

In general, 2024’s new modes add more “game” or structure, compared to the pure sandpit free flight experience in the 2020 version.

As someone who loved sightseeing in the 2020 version of Flight Simulator, 2024’s new “world photographer” mode is tailor-made for me. This includes 319 (by my count) separate photography challenges, some of which have multiple objectives. Typically, these require the player to photograph a famous site, landmark, or in some cases, animal or aircraft from a specific angle. For example:

  • The Paris City Tour includes an objective to photograph the Invalides with the Grand Palais in the background.
  • “Iconic Sights of Asia” includes a challenge to photograph Itsukushima shrine in Japan with three separate objectives.

Below is the photo that I snapped of another objective, the Hagia Sofia at sunset:

I love touring landmarks in World Photographer mode.

I’m still in the early stages of the new career mode, which features missions and a progression system, beginning from raw trainee. After earning my Private Pilot Licence (PPL) yesterday, this unlocked the first mission type — taking local enthusiasts up on sightseeing flights:

Sightseeing over southern Norway in FS 2024’s career mode.

The next steps will be working towards a Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) and certifications for flying more sophisticated aircraft and under different conditions. Eventually, the game unlocks mission types such as aerial firefighting, medevac, aerial agriculture, and flying charter, passenger, and cargo flights:

From first flights (left – like the one above), there’s a long way to go before the more advanced missions (right) unlock.

There is also a new weekly challenge league, complete with a leaderboard. So far I’m still in the top 10 for my group!

One of the first week’s challenges was to land on the helipad of this oil rig. It took me several tries to pull it off — I should probably have done the helicopter tutorials first…

Of course, the free flight option is still there. Here is a very pleasant short flight I took over Milford Sound, New Zealand in an Icon A5, before I landed on the water:

Milford Sound is beautiful in FS 2024. This image is lower-resolution as it’s cropped from a screenshot I took on Xbox. I do wish there were an easier way of syncing the in-game photographs across console and PC.

And here is Sydney:

Approaching Sydney Harbour. The city’s landmarks are very recognisable.

What problems have I encountered?

  • Crashes and freezes — particularly annoying at the end of a flight. 2024 crashed three times while I was writing this piece — it’s not usually this bad!
  • Buildings looking “melted” or “damaged” up close.         
  • NPCs, such as the instructor in career mode, being replaced by a red placeholder figure holding an ERROR sign — now seems to be resolved.
  • The game failing to load ground textures (beyond a green smear) when previewing airports — now seems to be resolved.
The Opera House looks fine, but these building close-ups are jarring.

Conclusions

As I have slightly over 2 hours of flight time in 2024, these are very much first impressions — but I think there is a lot of potential here:

  • Building on 2020’s foundations, 2024 captures the beauty and wonder of flight. There is something magical about being able to fly over, and recognise, everything from the world’s landmarks to locations I know very well in real life — right down to my old office.
  • The new modes and features in 2024 should appeal to those wanting a “game” on top of the “sim”.