It’s March in 2026, the proper time for you to do your X of the year post, because people who do it in December are missing an entire month, the bell-ends. I mean the Oscars aren’t until the middle of March, so if anything I’m posting this early. Anyway, without further ado:

Retro Game Of The Year (Runner Up): Pro Wrestling (TRY, 1986)

“I won’t lie–often when I’m playing these older games, I’m sort of just… working through them like a job. But Pro Wrestling? I just played it!”

I thought I’d start off with something simple to ease everyone in, but turns out this is a really hard one–the best game not from 2025 that I played that year–because it’s a year I played things including the original Metroid and The Legend Of Zelda. There are some games I really enjoyed writing about, like Zombi, but I think I have to go for Pro Wrestling here because I was so impressed at how it recreated the ebb and flow of a real wrestling match on the NES as early as 1986, and that it’s still so playable today.

Retro Game Of the Year: Leather Goddesses Of Phobos (Infocom, 1986)

“An extremely solid classic rooms and items, bread and butter text adventure. The best I’ve played since Meretsky’s own Planetfall, and arguably the best I’ve played full stop.”

Text adventures are an acquired taste and Infocom games are a pretty specific era, but I really have grown to love them. Unique amongst video games it really is like curling up with a lovely big book; I always imagine myself in a nice worn leather chair in a dark wood office, in front of an old IBM PC when I play them (I know I’m mixing my metaphors here.) Leather Goddesses Of Phobos is a superb Stephen Meretzky adventure, and while it’s no A Mind Forever Voyaging (a likely winner from a previous year) I just had such a great time with it and it has one of my favourite puzzles ever. An unchallenging pick, then, but what is my playing of all these retro games but looking for solace in an uncertain world, eh? Oh god… I might have unlocked something there.

The “Live Service? More Like Death Sentence” Award: Rematch (Sloclap)

2025 was an extension of 2024’s not just “maybe live service is not the answer” rumblings but also my own recognition that maybe live service just isn’t for me. This year I tried and put down Marvel Rivals in less than 20 minutes; I picked up and managed a few games of Helldivers 2 (even with friends) but then immediately forgot about it and the fact that it’s always updating doesn’t even remind me. But Rematch wins this award not just because it’s the one that was released this year because I thought it was genuinely great. It feels great to play–the amount of buttons is a little complex for someone like me who thinks Sensible Soccer is still the pinnacle, but it’s not ridiculous while compared to a modern FIFA (sorry, “EA Sports FC”). I thought it was going to lead to something like the period I had with Rocket League where I play it loads, almost to the exclusion of everything else, but I… didn’t. I stopped playing it after a couple of days simply because it was slow and annoying to get it booted up, through the menus and into a game, and the usual things–levelling up for cosmetics, and that–just wasn’t compelling to me at all. However, I’m beside myself imagining the universe where this is a single-player footy RPG. Oh well!

The “It’s OK To Call Things Overrated” Award: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive)

“Clair Obscur’s narrative is a fucking bin fire.”

As this is picking up awards all over the shop, what harm another? I wrote at brutal length about Clair Obscur with the ultimate conclusion that it was fun, but flawed [“could have saved us a lot of time and just said only that”–Ed.] before I even knew it was just a rip off of La Horde du Contrevent. But I have to give my most major recommendation to watching French video essayist Ache’s lengthy deconstruction of the white European biases of the game. Is it too far to say there’s something sort of colonialist about a JRPG getting all these plaudits simply because it’s from the west?

The “My Favourite Essay” Award: Horses (Santa Ragione)

“The difficulty of a work like Horses–if we accept my hypothesis that it exists in the spectrum of indigestible art–is that it is not a work about the horses, what happens to them, or Anselmo’s journey. It’s existence is, like Salò, a political act, to stand in opposition to the inauthentic, easily digestible product that floods our culture.”

I wrote thousands of words on the idea that Horses–by being banned by Steam and Epic–fit into the same spectrum of “indigestible art” as Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. I am unbelievably proud of this essay and I’m not entirely sure where all the awards are for it (I’m sure they’re in the post) but I’ll give myself one for it now. I can do that.

Game Of The Year (Runner Up): Evil Egg (Ivy Sly)

Yes, I admit: I haven’t written this one up. But only because I haven’t beaten the “proper” boss. I have beaten the alternative boss, and in most cases I’d just count that, but here’s the thing: I love Evil Egg so much that I don’t want to put it down and call it “finished.” I just want to keep playing it. Evil Egg is Robotron 2084 as a light Roguelike-like with a near-Jeff Minter level of visual noise and it absolutely rips. I really struggled with if this was my game of the year, but I’m becoming more conflicted over my feelings of games that feed my addictions, that take me to the “machine zone.” However, this game is fucking free. The only thing it costs you is your time, I’m still just trying to work out how comfortable I am with that. A few more goes, though, that should help me understand.

Game Of The Year: Many Nights A Whisper (Deconstructeam/Selkie Harbour)

“It’s a rare video game that I say this could only exist as a video game’ but Many Nights A Whisper is one.”

I played this in August, and I knew it was simply not going to be matched. A game that respects your time (done in the length of a film) that is thoughtful, paced well, features an enjoyable central interaction, and builds towards an unforgettable moment that you could only do in a video game. You can read what I had to say about it, but just buy it.

Bonus: As I’ve actually never done a post like this before, here’s my previous “Games Of The Year” for the last two years, years in which I’ve been making a concerted effort to play more contemporary games than I have previously.

Game Of The Year 2024: Thank Goodness You’re Here (Coal Supper)

“If someone was to ask me ‘What’s the UK like?’ from now on, I’ll probably just say ‘Play Thank Goodness You’re Here!”

Game Of The Year 2023: Hi Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks)

“What makes Hi Fi Rush genius, I think, is that it takes a type of game I am incapable of not button-mashing through and adds a rhythm action component that doesn’t expect but rather, uh… politely asks you to hit your combos on rhythm. And it works!”