Do you remember the old top-down Legend of Zelda games? Do you miss the days of wandering through a dungeon hacking and slashing your way through tons of enemies and fighting a big boss at the end? Well, the creator of The Binding of Isaac must have had that very same itch. The Binding of Isaac is a randomly generated top-down dungeon crawler with a highly unsettling theme coating the whole package. I've easy sunk dozens of hours into the game, it is so fun even when it is destroying you.
Isaac, the games protagonist, is attempting to escape his homicidal mother and flees into a secret basement filled with terrible horrors straight from the bowels of the underworld. Tortured by the experience, Isaac uses his own tears as projectiles to ward off and defeat enemies as you guide him through a series of ever growing and always randomly generated floors. Enemies, floor lay outs, drops from enemies, and unlocks are all procedurally generated every time you play the game, making every single playthrough utterly unique. On one attempt, you may find the right loot to have an small army of followers, sending waves of damage across the room. During a different session, you may find yourself wielding a powerful charging eye laser to blast your enemies away. And as you play the game more, it only gets better...
As you play through the game, you unlock different levels, new enemies, power-ups, and even other characters to play as with often highly different play styles. These unlocks, coupled with the difficulty of the game feels unusually right; playing through the game, both failing and succeeding, you discover little things to help you get an edge against enemies, or finding loot. In addition, as you beat the game over and over (And you will want to), you also unlock different endings which share so much story about Isaac's struggles with so little time. There is so much variation and randomization in the game, it feels as though the game is literally infinitely replayable. This simultaneously charming and dark game is easily one of the best deals for just $5 USD, the price can be found even lower during any of Steam's numerous sales throughout the year.
This is easily one of the most addicting games since Diablo 2. I've only beaten Mom twice and still haven't gotten to the end of the game and I've clocked about 26hours on the game so far.