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Games of a Lifetime: Alexander's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Hunt the Wumpus One of my earliest game experiences was playing Hunt the Wumpus on the TI-99/4A. I can't recall if we had this early home computer because my mother had gone back to school for a degree in computer science, or because my aunt worked at Texas Instruments. Anyway, I played a lot of Hunt the Wumpus, which was like Minesweeper meets Evolve. You're tasked with moving a hunter through various interconnected circles, where red dots indicated the Wumpus was two spots away, but there were also bats that could move you to another location and insta-death pits that were telegraphed like the Wumpus, only with green dots. It was one of the earliest games I can remember playing consistently, teaching me before I was in kindergarten on how thoughtful game design can convey a wealth of information.
Games of a Lifetime: Richard's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. This is killing me. It's absolutely killing me. I haven't been able to write a thing since rumors of Joystiq's closure began circulating. I had plans. Grand plans of writing something eloquent and final. As usual, Ludwig has already done a better job of that than I could ever dream, so I'll leave the goodbyes to him (you'll read it soon enough). Suffice it to say that Joystiq has been my home since July of 2006. I was married two months later, a fact I point out to emphasize the following: I've been with Joystiq for my entire adult life. A year out of college, at the young age of 23, I began a career that seemed impossible. I would write about video games, and in return I would be paid by a company located hundreds of miles from my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was too good to be real, and it still is. But the job isn't what I'm going to miss the most. Honestly, I could do without another 2:00AM review embargo for the rest of my life. What I will miss are the people I work with every day. I've met some amazing human beings over the last eight and a half years, but it is the Joystiq crew as it was in 2014 that has earned my undying love. I've always striven to do the best work I can, but work isn't what defines me. These wonderful people define me, and that's what tears me apart. A job I can lose, but how do you say goodbye to a piece of yourself? With that in mind, maybe you'll understand why I've chosen the games I have. I've certainly spent plenty of alone time with some incredible games, but the ones that stand out in my memory are the ones that I've shared with others. I wish I could say that Joystiq isn't really closing down, that we've all just stepped into some ethereal version of Ludwig's San Francisco apartment for a TowerFall break. Like the schmaltzy ending to your favorite sitcom, we revel in victory and agonize in defeat. We clink glasses, punch thighs, pump fists. Before long, the credits roll and the sounds of our revelry grow quieter until everything finally fades to black. The show is over, there will never be another episode, but in your mind's eye we've never stopped. We'll carry on playing TowerFall forever (or Mario Kart, or Smash Bros, or...). I'd like to imagine that's what really happened, and so I will.
Games of a Lifetime: Xav's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Chrono Trigger In my recent Joystiq Presents episode I talked about the profound impact the strategy guide of Chrono Trigger had on my love of games. Being able to finally play the game, just thinking of the first time I had that chance, still gets me a little choked up. It still stands as my favorite game of all time. I've played it a countless amount of times on so many platforms. It has wonderful characters, a story about fighting fate and shaping the world. I don't know if was supposed to be so "heady," but I think of it that way. It was meaningful, it showed the consequences of action, it had a talking Frog and a badass Robot. To me, Chrono Trigger is perfect.
Games of a Lifetime: Sam's Picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Some days, it seems like cynicism and derision earn more applause than kindness and optimism, and the things we love most can feel like they're the most neglected. So it can go with games, as we see hatred and vitriol spread online, watch quality of games dip and companies utilize decidedly unfriendly business practices on consumers. But there's a reason I got into this hobby, and there's a reason I got into this job: I love games. I want to see games continue to evolve, change and grow. I want my enthusiasm for them to never die, for my joy and sense of camaraderie in my fellow gamers to always persist. And so, at a time when it would be very easy to be jaded, we've decided to instead continue talking about why we love games. These are my picks for games of a lifetime.
Games of a Lifetime: Thomas' picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Super Mario World I'm not a marathon video game player – for me, binging on or tirelessly replaying masterpieces downplays the great moments within, tainting them with an undeserved state of blandness. And yet, there is something about Super Mario World's construct that is immune to my fickle play style. Though I've been hurling Luigi down pits since I was old enough to earn player 2 privileges, Super Mario World is a ceaseless joy to return to, even if an encore ensues moments after besting Bowser with a few well-aimed Mechakoopas. I'm inclined to most romps through the Mushroom Kingdom, but Super Mario World's memorable level design, subtle secrecy and introduction of the greatest power-up of all time elevate it above every other Mario Bros outing. Above all else, it's the king of fun within my gaming career – there is not a moment coded into that rackety cartridge that isn't bliss to play, even when a pack of Rip Van Fish inspire a spike of stress with their chase. Super Mario World was, is and probably always will be my hometown in the world of video games, and I look forward to reveling in nostalgia as I shove a pack of kids into their lava-filled demise during future homecomings.
Games of a Lifetime: Jessica's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Tetris Grandma can beat you at Tetris. This was a foundation of my childhood and an irrefutable truth as I was growing up. Grandma would sit in her office, in front of a bulky 90s-era television, NES plugged in, and she would dominate level after level of rapidly falling tetrominos. My cousins and I would try to do the same and always end up supremely behind her high scores, but always ready to try just one more round. To this day, I'm still ready. Here's to you, Grandma, my own Original Gamer, and here's to Tetris, my Original Game.
Games of a Lifetime: Sinan's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Repton Can you imagine the "Teens React to BBC Micro" video? With its properly floppy disks and its DOS-like start screen, that big beige box of the '80s was how my gaming life began. I could pick so many games I played on that machine, most of which no-one's heard of, but they'd all be inferior to Repton. The pseudo top-down, pseudo side-scrolling puzzler had its own space-time rules, According to Repton, a reptile in a yellow t-shirt can walk through the same square of dust that can support a whopping great boulder, or dozens of whopping great boulders at that. It didn't really make sense, but the cleverness of its puzzling design was undoubted. The very best levels required a chess-like effort of planning ahead, shifting specific boulders, clearing dust and freeing spirit sprites in the right order so you could grab every last one of the golden diamond jewels. I absolutely loved Repton and its inventive sequels; Repton 2 was an interconnected world of sub-levels, while other games even explored the future and Wild West. Without the BBC Micro and Repton in particular, I just wouldn't be where I am today.
