12 must-play games you slept on in 2019

Afterparty – October

October 2019 has some pretty great launches. Luigi’s Mansion 3, Outer Worlds and a lot more kept people’s gaze so I get it. But during that time Afterparty also released and this is a perfect dead zone in gaming to get into it.

You play as two long time buddies that, for reasons they aren’t clear on, die and are sent to hell. They don’t know how they died, they don’t know why they’re in hell, but the first thing they picked up on during their time is that Hell has a very active bar scene.

It’s a game about talking to incredibly interesting characters and mild puzzle solving. But it also has a cool drinking element where you can keep a drink in hand and as you get more drunk on it it can alter your personality somewhere. One can make you more flirty, one can ruin your mood, one can liven it. Depending on what your drinking you get extra dialogue options.

It’s a very unique game with interesting mechanics with surprisingly lovable characters so this winter, why not warm up with a trip straight to Hell?

Need for Speed Heat – November

This stunned me that I just wrote that. It felt really weird. I’m not a big street racing guy and I’ve only seen the first Fast and the Furious so this is not my world but hey, this game is really good.

After years of sub par Need for Speed games, Ghost Games and EA took the good elements of all the recent Need for Speed titles and whittled away all the stinky from them.

In are a variety of different races from legal day time races to illegal street races. From off-road sand rallies to high-speed mountain road police chases. It’s all in.

Gone are things like it being ONLY about police chases or one particular genre. Gone are the really weird, Sega CD like FMV cut scenes.

This is honestly a game with a story that weirdly has a lot of heart and a very good learning curve that genuinely helps you master every driving style with a ton of great quality of life options mixed in.