December 1st came and went without a Monthly Newsletter! Normally, this would not be good, but I’m going to try and spin this around to being something that’s beneficial. Now that I’ve waited until halfway through the month of December, I can officially discuss the finale of this Fantasy Critic League season.
Upon his many successful game releases this year, I along with the rest of the Deer Critics League, are happy to announce and congratulate – Micah Hendrick and Dougsvest Digital on being the Champion of the DCL’24!
Here are the final standings for the 2024 Season:
With this win, Micah now joins the rank of multi-year champions. Here’s the list:
- Eddie Taylor (2019)
- Micah Handrick (2020 & 2024)
- Alex Castellanos (2021 & 2022)
- Adam Southerland (2023)
And this is the final look at Dougsvest Digital’s 2024 roster of games:
Just to recap how this season came to a close, why don’t we take a look at the final games that were released in November and December. There were 12 games through the two months, some really overachieving while others greatly under-performed their expectations:
- Metal Slug Tactics – Lambda Strain Games (7.1 pts)
- Metro Awakening (VR) – SadDadBod Dev (6.9 pts)
- Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Jersey-Rican Productions (7.3 pts)
- Slitterhead – Wolfpack Games (-4.5 pts)
- The Rise of the Golden Idol – Lambda Strain Games (14.8 pts)
- LEGO Horizon Adventures – Dougsvest Digital (1.9 pts)
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Jersey-Rican Productions (5.4 pts)
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl – Wolfpack Games (4.6 pts)
- ANTONBLAST – Dougsvest Digital (16.8 pts)
- Infinity Nikki – Wolfpack Games (7.8 pts) **
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – Bearded Champions (17.1 pts)
- Monument Valley 3 – Bearded Champions (– pts.) *
* – Game is not linked to OpenCritic.com and this has not received a score.
** – Game became “Free to Play” and thus became ineligible for our league. (I honestly wouldn’t mind awarding the points since the game was eligible to be chosen at the time it was picked up.)
With LEGO Horizon Adventures (1.9 pts) not really propelling itself into the upper echelons of highly rated games, Micah had to think fast – so he made a bid for ANTONBLAST (16.8 pts). This was for extra insurance against the anticipated great performance of Bearded Champions’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (17.1 pts) as well as extra points to try and break the Deer Critics point record (which previously stood at 128.73 [Jersey-Rican Studios circa 2021]). He was able to do just that and give Dougsvest Digital the championship as well as secure the new season-high point total of 131.29 (to be made official on December 31st).
Some major disappointments this month go to Jersey-Rican Productions and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (5.4 pts) which had a disastrous launch and continues to have issues with its reliance on Azure cloud-technology. This kept Alex from even sniffing the competition down the stretch.
Also, Jeff and Wolfpack Games had a poor stretch with his last 3 game releases. Slitterhead (-4.5 pts), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (4.6 pts), and Infinity Nikki (7.8 pts) ** resulted in a net gain of only 0.1pts in keeping with the current league rules.
Even with the great reviews of Indiana Jones for Bearded Champions (and the lack of points going towards Monument Valley 3 (– pts.) * ),it wasn’t enough to get him the points he needed to really battle for 1st place.
Well, that’s it! That’s a wrap on the 2024 season of the Deer Critics League. Merry Christmas and I’ll be in touch soon to finalize any changes for next season including… DRAFT ORDER!
Take care & God Bless,
Alex C.
Deer Critics League 