Gamers, start your graphics cards: Steam's Next Fest has arrived once again! For the uninitiated, Next Fest is a digital showcase of hundreds of indie PC games coming to the platform in the next year. You've got just seven days to try out most of them -- it's literally impossible for one gamer to get through them all. But in the spirit of exploration, we've combed through the absolutely massive list of demos and picked out a few that you might want to try. Here are 15 can't-miss Steam Next Fest demos, in no particular order: Vampire Survivors is tearing up the charts right now as a unique take on the top-down shooter. Cyclo Chambers is pretty clearly cribbing off that style, with auto-shooting, a roguelite run setup, and dynamic combinations of weapons and items.

For a big-budget blockbuster game, Horizon Forbidden West is extremely weird. It is a detailed science-fiction story about a red-haired outcast warrior, the tribes that inhabit a post-apocalyptic Earth a thousand years in the future, and a bunch of robot dinosaurs. It's a tangle of different ideas and complicated systems that only reluctantly interact with each other. It's also a damn good time, and especially on PlayStation 5, a stunning example of just how good video games can look in 2022. You kind of get used to its beauty while you're playing, but I found that whenever I returned to the game after making a cup of tea I was newly struck by whatever awesome scene was frozen on the pause screen: Aloy mid-roll away from a murderous mechanical hippo, or standing in the foreground in her war paint with an extraordinary view of mountains and snow behind.

Cosplayer dressed as Aloy (left) and Spanish actress Dafne Fernandez present the "Horizon: Zero Dawn" video game on Feb. 15 in Madrid, Spain. Cosplayer dressed as Aloy (left) and Spanish actress Dafne Fernandez present the "Horizon: Zero Dawn" video game on Feb. 15 in Madrid, Spain. There is a certain kind of look I get when I tell people how much I love video games. It lies somewhere between "You're not serious" and "Oh my God, you are serious." And by "people" giving me these looks, I mean adults of a certain age and outlook.

Things are finally starting to warm up for me in Sony's new PS4 open-world action game Horizon: Zero Dawn. After a long, tedious introduction to the game's post-apocalyptic world, which saw protagonist Aloy grow from a girl to a young woman through an extended assortment of tutorials, I'm finally free to go questing. Note: This is a first impressions post, not a full review. I reserve the right to change my opinion as I play further into the game. The game's early hours spend a great deal of time building up this brave new world of superstitious tribes, a distant empire, massive robot dinosaurs, and a mysterious high-tech past.