Gaming

I had a really solid year, all things considered:

• ⭐ Hi-Fi Rush -- Love it, hands down. This game's like if Jet Set Radio, Scott Pilgrim, and DMC got into a fist fight and then that fist fight had a baby with Jack Black
• ⭐ Pentiment -- I'm still playing through this one but I can already tell it's a new favorite. Major Return of the Obra Dinn vibes
• ⭕ Against the Storm -- This game innovates on the citybuilder genre so hard and I can't get enough of it. If you love a challenge and hate the late-game, this is THE ONE
• ⭕ Psychonauts 2 -- Fun and bursting with creativity... but I had to set it down after a certain point because I stopped enjoying the gameplay loop. Can't put my finger on why...
• ⭕ Peglin -- Yes, Peglin. The Peggle Roguelite. I like it and you would too if you gave it a chance. It's not a forever roguelite, but I guarantee you'll have a blast with it for 5-10 hours
• ❌ Deep Rock Galactic -- I bounced off of this one. The game has so much charm... but I just couldn't click with it. I think co-op games just may not be for me

Honorable Mention: TF2 -- Definitely not a "new" game to me, I own TF2, I bought it with money! Even so... this year marked my return after a looong hiatus. Coming back was a total revelation -- I thought I'd grown to hate FPS games -- as it turns out, what I'd actually grown to hate was the modern antisocial MMR grindset. Game developers: I beseech thee... abandon matchmaking and return to 2007. Return the slab or suffer my curse

I played a few games that were just really mediocre.

• Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor was a super boring ARPG and I couldn't put in more than a few hours. The levels were super short and just corridors.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker started out ok, but was just far too long, terribly paced, and the last third was a complete slog. This was probably the one I'd call a "stinker" the most.
• Crisis Core Remake (FF7 spin off) had a boring story and lame characters. The bulk of the "content" were 300 side missions that were usually less than five minutes long in one of like six stages. I picked it up after I enjoyed the FF7 Remake far more than I thought, but this game adds nothing to the overall story. To be fair to the game though, I did complete all 300 side stories, because from time to time I like a mindless grind.
• I'm continuing my four-year-old save of Octopath Traveler, where I got a third or so in. I dunno if it's the Steam Deck, but there's just tons of aliasing, shifting sprites and flickering, it just looks bad, and the detailed enemy sprites were the only thing I really liked about the game in the first place. Combat is also a slog at times, so I don't know if I have it in me to finish the game.