Steep - I know I always give Ubisoft a hard time (Far Cry 3 still sucks!!!) but dang they did a good job with this open world. The instantaneous fast travel is really impressive, the snowboarding physics and gameplay are rock solid, and the plethora of events is substantial (with some bad exceptions like follow missions). It’s not a perfect game by any means but it does what it needs to and exceeds in places I didn’t expect.
Doom Eternal - I’m sorry but Doom 2016 I was just indifferent to. I finished it and immediately uninstalled. But I’m going to keep playing Eternal after I’m done with the campaign (mostly the horde mode). It improves on a lot of the aspects that were decent in 2016, and takes them to a whole new level. I love the traversal as well (after I rebinded the keys because the default layout is not optimal for combat), and it flows greatly with fighting the wide variety of enemies.
Psychonauts - This was a major breath of fresh air for a 3D platformer. It felt like one of those stop motion kid’s horror movies like Coraline but if it was a game. The levels were extremely unique and they utilized their own mechanics in interesting ways. Yes, the pacing was a bit slow in the mid game when the camp is in lockdown, but that aside, this was a really good game.
Vampire Survivors - What can I say about this game that I haven’t already said? This is legitimately one of my favorite games, and it will continue to be that way forever.
Sometimes I go into gaming slumps and put them off for a while because I play multiple bad games in a row. But sometimes I’ll get into streaks where I play banger after banger back to back, and it’s just a really good feeling. It’s times like this that remind me why I like playing video games in general.
