Jingle Jam GA's + Tell me what games you enjoyed this year

Subnautica Below Zero
Awesome survival adventure, intriguing story. It's just a beautiful game, without any further words.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Great stealth game, absolutely beautiful and super rewarding. I suggest anyone who likes strategy games to play it.

1. Forza Horizon 4:
   • 500+ hrs
   • The graphic and optimization are the best in the whole racing game history.
   • Dozens of game modes and hundreds of races and 750+ cars, this is the dream world of anyone who loves speed and cars.
   • The bad: Poor internet connection from time to time and crash to the desktop issue.
2. Doom Eternal:
   • 300+ hrs,
   • The ultimate evolution and revolution of the DOOM 2016
   • Meat hook
   • The bad: Slightly step-back graphic of its predecessor and the cartoon-ish UI design.

Chroma Squad: Quite funny and full of wonderful homage; works 300% better with nostalgia glasses, but it's fine without them, too. The concept of a management/strategy RPG for a group of stunt actors forming their own studio and stuff is somehow much better than it has any right to be.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!: Again a game with a weirdly interesting concept, but making food before I piss my customers off and without fucking up is actually quite fun. The RPG elements (not really, but let's call them that for lack of a better explanation) are a fun addition and the curve keeps the game from being repetitive. On the minus side, I myself found it rather hard, especially because the button smashing involved is physically painful for me (possibly because of how invested I get when I play it), but maybe you'll be luckier.

Bonus: PAC-MAN 256: It's Pac-Man. What else do you need me to say? :D

Bonus #2: Mini Metro, not a 2021 play originally, but rather a game I keep going back to for another half or one hour every now and then: Very relaxing, except when the stations are all overcrowded, yet mentally stimulating. Conceptually simple and visually lean, but extremely challenging to be good at.

Borderlands 3; contrary to what many of the games detractors say, BL3 is a great entry in the franchise. The game play is solid and held up remarkablely well. The graphics are much better, and most importantly the game engine runs smoothly. And Typhon DeLeon alone makes the story brilliant. I can't recommend it enough.

Dying Light; easily the best combination of zombie killing and parkour. The story isn't all that great, but the open world is large, with plenty of missions so there's plenty of content. There's lots of different weapons and customization and honestly who doesn't enjoy bashing in a zombies head.

I recommend:
1) Maneater, because being a shark and evolving is so cool!
2) One Step From Eden, brings back my memories of Mega Man Battle Network.

I'm not aiming for the whitelist (cant enter the ga anyway), but i assume i can share mine as well:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422420/Dodgeball_Academia/
I have been waiting for games that are similar to mario tennis/golf back then and finally found it. It might be a bit repetitive at some point though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1273750/Button_City
It has this charm that makes me always remember my time playing this game. Cute cutscene and cinematic, light gameplay - everything just feels right to me.

I wanted to include escape simulator as well but people probably have know it (and we only get to mention 2) so... it'll just get mention for now :)

Although I have a hard time getting away from my time sinks of No Man's Sky (for its procedural generation) and Satisfactory which is hard for me because its in 3D (I don't have depth perception) and requires creative planning and they continue to make up a majority of my time. I have enjoyed playing Dyson Sphere (also for trying to do logistics) this year and also played observation by no code, but didn't like it as much as soma. I bought the jingle jam also so don't need any keys. Thanks for the GA though!

Not played any AAA games this year.
All short indies.
1st - Hue - Very nice puzzle platformer, designed around colour manipulation with superb music.

2nd - The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game - Quite funny and short point and click game. Simplistic graphics with good setting. Doesn't take itself seriously at all.

Cyberpunk 2077 - Most of the bugs are fixed, there's still few small ones but meh, the game is lots of fun and overall a beauty.
Ghostrunner - Man, i still need a new pair of hands, but it was worth it!

Wildermyth -- because the story flows wonderfully, it is very well written, and adapts nicely to your choices.
Heaven's Vault -- because it has a wonderful sense of exploration (including the exploration of an alien language), and it is superbly written.

Hades: Supergiant Games took parts from their previous games and made this really satisfying roguelite. It's fun to play, it has story between runs, what's there not to love?
Return to Shironagasu Island: This is more of a visual novel with small amount of point and click adventure gameplay than a game, but it really surprised me how good of a story it was while also being cheap. In my opinion the only thing that detracts from it's serious story was some fanservice.

I finally 100% beat Monster Hunter World: Icebourne this year. All times favorite series and expecting MHR next month (pre-ordered)
Besides I also 100%ed Hoa, Gray Dawn and Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion. They are with different taste and I recommend them all.

This is year I played and loved:

• Bioshock. It is a great game. The story, design and gameplay are so good that I was angry at myself that why I didn’t play it earlier.
• Framed Collection. This is an amazing puzzle game. I’m not a big fan of puzzle games but this is quite an interesting game. Just give it a try and you’ll understand.

Yakuza 0 and RE Village (which is surprising because i don't like horror at all lol). Honorable spot go to Just Cause 3 and Tool Ups

• Prey. Overall, great game, very engaging story, awesome graphics. As a fun of story rich games, I couldn't help falling for it.

• A Plague Tale: Innocence. Another great example of the story rich genre. Everything I said about Prey can be applied in this case as well.

Control - amazing action game (the most enjoyable object throwing simulator ever xD )
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - a really unique, atmospheric, psychological experience

Honorable mentions: Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition, Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition

Sleeping Dogs: "Old" game I had my sight set upon for some time, I took the chance early this year to play it. Fun open world GTA clone but with martial arts, the franchise probably deserved not to end as it did. I wouldn't have minded playing a sequel.

Hitman (2016): It's pretty surprising how much depth the game can have with just a few simple interchangeable elements. Change your initial location, loadout, target and death requirements and you can play the same maps over and over. In fact, it can almost become a problem because it can turn into a time sink, so I had to force myself to move on to other games and stop collecting challenges, kinda like what happens with Disgaea and the Item World.

I had a pleasure to play 2 of the best games in their genres.

RDR2 – the world is so alive it's underwhelming. So much to do. The amount of thought put in this game is absolutely insane.

Baba Is You – such an unique idea executed in fantastic way. The puzzles are creative and sometimes make my brain hurt. When the solution finally comes up to me it was so rewarding.

Witcher 3 which i am still playing now. Even though it is quite old, the gameplay and quality shines through and i get why so many people raved about this one.

PGA Tour 2K21. Being a big fan of Tiger Woods golf games, this is the first one in a while which captured the spirit of those games for me and made me want to play golf games again.

The best game I player this year is the evil within 2 because it has everything that I want. good graphics, nice story,stealth option to kill creatures and happy ending even I lost so someone(can't give info bc of spoilers)
second one should be strange brigade because it has different atmosphere.Instead of zombies I killed mummies and creatures from Egypt myhts. Also the narrator was really good in the game.

Currently Playing:
Earth Defense Force 5
It's campy and silly, but it's a fun time. More importantly, after dropping LoL earlier this year I realized I no longer had any multiplayer games in my rotation. So I got us all copies and now we play together every few days as we clear the story.

Earlier this year:
Snake Pass
Unique 'puzzle' game with a very interesting core mechanic. I wanted to stream more on twitch and this was right up my alley, so I ended up playing it live. ...Then kinda went radio silent for a while after that 😓

Skul: The Hero Slayer
Roguelike 2D act game, good battles and images, and there are always updates.

Mighty Goose
Arcade style shooting game, not hard but fun, it reminds me of many classics.

Ghost of a Tale - Extremely charming sneaking game of a mouse captured by rats.
Phoenix Point - Each addition really added some interesting part to the base game which I already loved. To be able to directly view what your soldiers are shooting at is something I hope will be part of more XCom-like games.