My Favorite Toys Of 2024: The Top Three

OK, we’re at the end! These three are special for various reasons. I like all my toys to one degree or another, or I wouldn’t have them, but these are the ones that had the most significance in 2024.

#3: Replica Star Wars Arcade Machine, by “GalacticBasic” on Etsy

I’m not gonna lie. Even typing this, looking at this picture, I’m very tempted to make it #1. There’s absolutely a case to be made for it. I have a small collection of retro arcade machines from this guy, and while a lot of what he’s done are pre-molded blanks with very nice decals on them (and I like those just fine), he’s started moving into custom cabinet types and a few very specific machines. Including my favorite arcade machine of all time, the sit-down Star Wars Arcade cabinet, re-created perfectly in 3-D print, stickers, and some method of coloring things like the coin slots. 

And there’s nothing that brings me more joy when I see it on the shelf than the combo of this machine, and my Selfie Series “me-as-X-Wing-Pilot” figure sitting in it. 

#2: Masters of the WWE Universe Man-E-Faces / The New Day

But then I think about this figure, which I’d wanted for three and a half years, and missed out on because I wasn’t really shopping online or collecting that hard when it came out deep in the first year of COVID, where toy-shopping in person was a wildly unnecessary risk. And I foundone on eBay for a reasonable price, and opened it up, and it’s glorious.

The Masters of the WWE Universe line is hilarous to me because with the exception of this and one other exception (John Cena as Faker), every single one of the figures is complete dogshit. Awful ideas, awful execution. But this? This is genius. This is perfect. This is what a mashup crossover line should be about. And it’s mine.

#1: Storm Collectibles Mortal Kombat XI Goro

This is the single nicest figure I own. It’s the single fanciest figure I own. It remains the only example in my entire collection of a high-end figure I didn’t get on clearance or as a gift. I do not dip into those deep waters lightly, because that way lies madness and ruin. But aside from a Mortal Kombat Scorpion from the first game, there’s no MK toy I wanted more than a Goro. Any Goro.

It’s huge. It’s elaborate. It’s full of arms. It has a ton of bonus hands. And, for a guy that size, he moves and poses like a dream. So he takes the top spot, even though he doesn’t live as prominently in my heart as the Star Wars Arcade. Rankings are arbitrary bullshit anyway. Sorry to mention that at the end.