Inscryption

Doom Eternal, Team Fortress 2

Probably Omori, although I haven’t gotten to two of four endings just yet. Its vibes naturally resonated with me over time, even at its darkest moments.

I’d say Hitman III (now called World of Assassins) or No Man’s Sky. Both are really great values for their price.

I think I’m mostly done with the Hitman franchise for now, but I’ll probably come back to NMS next time Starfield has some big update and I need to scratch that exploration itch.

I just started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and man alive is it good. I’ve never been a fan of the soulslike genre but apparently all I need to fall in love are the samurai aesthetic and a mother frickin PARRY ability!

• God of War II
• Tekken 1 through Tekken 5 (so far)

I used to play Tekken 1 and Tekken 3 on PS1, so huge nostalgic trip. And I’ve wanted to play God of War for forever, but never had a PS2, but Steam Deck (and Emudeck) made emulation so easy that I’m catching up.

Final Fantasy XIII-2, modded with HD upscaled textures, community fixes, and Reshade. 2K Resolution w/ Improved AA + Color Correction + Motion Blur + Ray Tracing made this game look modern af 😎

And for the best game this year part, the developers really said “so FFXIII was linear? Well how about time is not linear!” Jumping back to old locations surprised me in that I actually wanted to go back to them and do optional content. And beneath the extra ass music (lol), is some of the most down right horrific/sad stuff shown in a FF game. Like the straight up Zombie apocalypse-like C’eith outbreak in the future that Serah even being near causes people to turn, she apologizes to them in battle as the turned enemies try to use remedy on theirselves to no avail. Being the last human alive and having to deal with seeing the last people alive dying off till it’s just you on the planet. The cruel fate of some characters and the risks taken storywise and gamewise really surprised me.

I’ll have to say Cloud Punk.

A small indie game about a girl starting her courier job in a cyberpunk future.

• The game-play is okayish
• The graphics try to emulate a voxel look and are functional at best.
• The Sound design, music and the full synchronisation make this game exceptional!

The story captured me and together with the audio and visual style kept me playing way into the small hours.

I’ll share three based on how much I want to play them again soon

• The Last of Us Part 2
• Kena Bridge of Spirits
• Days Gone

ADACA and Signalis just came out last year so not far behind but they were fun. ADACA is billed as Half-Life meets Halo meets STALKER by reviewers and it’s a fun, light FPS. (although I couldn’t get into the more open Zone Patrol mode)

Signalis though, that oozes atmosphere, an excellent soundtrack, and offered feels in a neat fleshed out world. I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit, a callback to top-down survival horror from an era I never really played. I really appreciate a lack of jump scares except one enemy’s presence when you enter a room making your screen/radio go haywire but hardly FNAF material which I will only watch.

I don’t know if it’s the best, but the oldest games I’ve played this year are:

• Montezuma’s Revenge
• Commander Keen
• Zelda (NES)

I’m also looking for an old game I had on a 5" floppy back then… a fast-paced vertical scrolling shootemup/bullet hell, possibly with “Goose” in its name…

That and a Space Invaders-like that sounds like Galaxian, but is not Galaxian…
Similar concept, but possibly from the 90s, and your ship had a retractable claw to catch power-ups, and some sort of vertical sidebar in its UI with your score, wave progress, etc.

Probably ‘Talos Principle’. I still haven’t finished it though. A tier puzzle game for me. Maybe S tier by the time I finish!

Celeste.

To a lesser extent, I liked Hitman 3, Factorio and Plate Up! (fun to play on the TV locally with friends)

For me, it’s No Mans Sky. I’ve put a lot of hours into it this year.

Grounded, The Forest.

Good on a steam deck.