If you're looking for something novel, maybe try Northern Journey? It's like a surreal hiking game with the bones of a old-school shooter. I wouldn't say the combat is that great, but the fantastic atmosphere and creative ideas make up for it to me. Oh, it also has a lot of cool horror moments!

Hellfire Saga is a very good Halloween RomHack
Sonic and the Fallen star is just beautiful to look at and has a great ost
SRB2 has a bit of a learning curve, but is definitely the best 3d platformer to come out of the fan scene.
Ring Racers might be the most in-depth and content rich kart racer ever

Curse Crackers is an adorable platformer with some fantastic movement and an incredible amount of secrets to find. All of Colorgrave's games deserve attention.

I also have to shout out Arkhouse Telegraph's work, such as Cube Gothic. Some of the most visually striking art I've seen in games period.

My two absolute favorites for Half-Life 1 would definitely be Delta Particles and Echoes.
Delta Particles for its moody atmosphere and slower pace. Echoes for its charming and creative use of NPCs.
Both are also really good-looking mods.

Starsector might have some of the best spaceship combat of any game I've ever played, all wrapped in a wonderful Mount & Blade-like RPG. Great modding scene too!

Vintage Story is shockingly detailed in its survival mechanics while being in a world full of beauty, mystery, and even a little horror.

Top 40. Might be jumping the gun with EDF 6 and Elin, since they barely came out this year, but man are they amazing improvements to their predecessors. 2024 was pretty good for weird games!

Pretty hyped for Freedom Wars Remastered! I need more of the Vita-era, MH-likes to be freed from their handheld prison. I would lose my mind for a Soul Sacrifice Delta or a Phantasy Star Nova port.
Also excited for the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 and the new Atelier game. 2025 has an amazing start.

Oh I never even heard of this game! I immediately had to look something up, and I was not disappointed. Omega Force added the infamous child serial killer Gilles de Rais as a playable character and designed him like this. That's fucking hilarious. I need to buy this just to see how he's written.

Fanwork has been amazing this year!
MaGMML 3: One of the largest fangames I've ever seen.
Dr. Robotniks Ring Racers: Huge and chaotic kart racer
Eviternity 2:(released in Dec, close enough) Worthy sequel to one of the best Doom wads
Pkmnn Odyssey: Incredible crossover pkmn game that's nearly done.

Bitmap Books publishes some really cool videogame history stuff! My personal favs are Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-scrolling Beat-em-ups as well as The CRPG Book. Highly recommended if you're into those genres!

I started playing the Fear & Hunger games this month and they are seriously winning me over. Few games keep me feeling stressed out and overwhelmed after 10 hrs of playtime, but these two nail it. Wonderfully done atmosphere with some really deep gameplay.

I feel the need to have a pinned post for some reason. This will do for now. This site seems pretty cool at the time I'm posting this!