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Thanksgiving weekend has been the perfect time to catch up on video games or shop for new ones during the Black Friday sales. While the goal for most shoppers is to use the massive deals and markdowns to get a head start on those holiday shopping lists you have for family and friends, it can also be an irresistible excuse to use those discounts to purchase big money items you have been wanting for yourself. As I slowly recover from my turkey coma, I’ve had a mildly games related long weekend.

I’ve been continuing my indefinite break from the video game challenges with no sign of stopping just yet. The lack of structure or a focused goal has been completely freeing, which is strange for someone like me who thrives in organized and goal-oriented environments. My backlog is as backed up as ever, but maybe not so terrible when I haven’t bought too many games for much of the year. Being back in exploratory mode, I’ve dabbled in games I either own or played while being at a friend’s house.

Most of my game time at home has been playing co-op with my friend on either Far Cry 5 or Overwatch. I haven’t had much time to pick up other games that aren’t co-op most weekends or weeknights because I’m typically wiped by the end of a workday or I’m spending most of my time trying to catch up with the TV shows I’m currently watching. But in between doing my online game nights with my friend, I finally got around to playing and beating Episode 2 of The Walking Dead: The Final Season. The second episode has been really superb from start to finish with some surprises thrown in. If it wasn’t for the unfortunate end of Telltale Games, I truly believe the studio had a really stellar entry in their Walking Dead series to conclude Clementine’s story. Fortunately, Skybound has picked up The Final Season and are currently working on the last two episodes with hopefully most of the staff from Telltale Games assigned to the project. After experiencing Episode 2, I’m eager to see where the remaining story goes.

While I haven’t played too much from my backlog, getting together with friends to play games is an opportunity to discover ones you wouldn’t normally get to play. Recently, I was over a good friend’s house to play Super Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch. The last time I played Mario Party was Mario Party 8 on the Wii. Playing this new installment for the Switch reminded me how much I really enjoyed the Mario Party series and how easy it is to turn on your fellow friends in mini-games and dice rolls. The amount of trouble and hilarity you get into makes this the ultimate game you want to own when you have a large group of people over to hang out.

As for the future of gaming, I did in fact partake in some of the video game deals being offered on Black Friday. The biggest one is finally making the jump to own my very own Nintendo Switch. Nintendo didn’t have a lot of sales, like Playstation or Xbox had, but they sold the console bundled with a full download of Mario Kart for $299.99. It was an offer I couldn’t pass up, and at least I’ll have my first starter game to play when my shiny new console arrives. I’ve got a number of new games I want to add to my Switch library, however, deciding which other ones to get next will be a tough decision. I’m probably not doing my backlog any favors by adding more to it, but what can I say? That gaming itch needs to be scratched and I’m scratching it hard. The other game lined up in my near future is Nier: Automata. Ever since the game became available as a digital download to play on the Xbox One, I wanted this game from Day 1. Except the price for the download wasn’t cheap enough to pounce on it right away. Enter the pre-Black Friday sale at the Xbox Store, which had the game discounted enough for me to finally warrant getting it. The game looks gorgeous, and with so many positive reviews about it, I really can’t wait to see what everyone else has been talking about. It’s going to be a good season for gaming.

What have you been playing? Have you taken advantage of any of the video games sales online?