Super Mario 64

In my adult life, I don't have the time I used to for gaming. There's work to do, bills to pay, errands to run, and chest high walls I just can't seem to get around.  However, I always seem to find time to replay Super Mario 64. My first experience with the game was at a friend's sleepover in the fifth grade. While my fellow company of developing boys were more interested in watching late night Cinemax (I recall some movie about a possessed semi-truck and some rather tasteful pornography involving body paint), I just wanted to keep playing Mario 64 (to be fair, we had just reached Big Boo's Haunt, which was both exhilarating and terrifying in the dead of night). Much in the Nintendo way, this game was a proof-of-concept for its new console, with finely refined controls, excellent level design, and a brilliant level of polish.

Even the box is exciting!

Super Mario 64's controls are perfect. Let me say that again: The controls are perfect. They are natural, intuitive, and they flow like the greatest poetry, offering incredible control over Mario and the camera. These controls are the pinnacle of gaming, the gold standard we developers should hope to replicate. Once more with feeling, Super Mario 64's controls are perfect.

Gaze upon perfection!

The difficulty curve has never been better. Each level unfolds like intricate origami, slowly introducing you to the tricks Mario is capable of in this brave new dimension. Each mechanic is like a new toy, with which the levels show you what fun you can have with it, in both expected and unexpected ways. Basic movement becomes its own game in the races and time trials and slides, with every jump and shortcut becoming a new toy in your arsenal. As your toybox fills, Nintendo presents new obstacle courses for you to play in, each of which stretches your skills into new territory.

Oh the places you'll go.

Everything is fun in this game. Every action, no matter how small, is full of polish, juice, whatever-you-want-to-call-it. You move, and Mario jumps to life; particles fly, and some joyful sound effect fills the air. Simple effects and graphics sorcery are tied to the sounds and controller. Everything produces audio and visual excellence. Every button does something, and even not pressing buttons results in Mario animating (specifically, he curls up for a quick nap).

Particles everywhere!

The game is just a beautiful ballad of perfect controls, brilliant level design, and phenomenal polish. The incredible attention to detail makes this game a work of pure love and joy. It is purely the best of its kind. You can feel the devotion Nintendo poured into the leap to 3D. Every time I play it, I'm a kid again, starstruck by the purity that is Super Mario 64. This game is fun, and that really sums it up. The game IS fun. It does not have fun. Fun is not a property of the game. Super Mario 64 IS fun, and even though I can't always make time for gaming, I can always find time for fun.

<3 Bryce Walton, Game Development Engineer

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

This often overlooked PS2 game is arguably one of the best RPGs ever made. It's game play is Paradise Lost meets Pokemon and it's story includes a non-binary morality system that challenges the player to question what they value in life most.

The game kicks off by destroying the world in the first 5 minutes. Without the world to save, what's an RPG protagonist to do? The cryptic words of the previous Earth's God indicate that someone with conviction and a vision must rise above the chaos to shape the new world. However, you're dumped into a world filled with demons and horrors and really your only thoughts in the beginning of this very challenging game is to survive.

Nocturne is an equal opportunity game.

As you progress through the story you are reunited with your friends who survived with you. You watch them change and grow with the new experiences of the destroyed world. They develop their vision and you see how they came to their conclusions. All three ask you to help them realize their vision of a perfect world.

The three visions are:

Shijima: Is a very Buddhist inspired vision about creating harmony by sacrificing individuality for a oneness with the universe. Everything is orderly and peaceful, but without passion or individual thought is the peace worth it?

Musubi: This vision achieves peace by isolating everyone. Each person would be the god of their own personal dream. But without the joy and pain of interacting with others would this selfish world truly be fulfilling?

Uh... ya, you're beautiful. Don't hurt me please?

Yosuga: This vision is all about might makes right. Those who can rise to the top and obtain the most power are the ones worthy of happiness. The weak will be culled.

You can choose to follow one of the three visions present to you or you can reject them all and either recreate the world as it was, siding with a distinctly Christian-like God figure or you can reject him as well and choose the path of ultimate freedom, independence, chaos, and destruction; the path of Lucifer.

Everyone loves Lucifer!

No path is "good" or better than the other paths in the view of the game. All are presented showing the positive and negative aspects of each vision.

I initially decided to follow the path of Yosuga, because I liked the character who held that vision. I followed the correct choices to join that path until the very last option. A revolutionary leader of an enslaved race was lying there begging me to not kill him and to help him free his people and I knew I had to kill him in order to follow that vision, but... I just couldn't. I failed to follow that vision.

In the end I completed all the steps for the secret special ending and I joined Lucifer to fight to end this horrible game heaven was playing with humanity.

But that was just my experience. To others, Shijima might seem like the ideal world, or Musubi. The game makes no judgments.

What is right and what is wrong is not a simple thing. It's not "Do I save the orphans or do I kick this puppy?"

The game makes you think about your life and the world. What is a "perfect" world? Is that even possible?

Your "spam attack" strategy won't fly here.

Beyond the amazingly deep morality system, there is a difficult, highly strategic combat system with hundreds of demon allies you can recruit and combine together to create new allies. No matter how powerful you are, one wrong move and enemies half your level can still kill you. You have to always be on your toes and boss battles can be multiple hour long events which will require several tries to hone in your strategy and win.

Uzume: The Japanese Shinto goddess of joy and happiness.

The game draws from cultures from all over the world, all their Gods, Demons, Spirits, Fairies. It fearlessly mixes Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian ideas. I learned a ton about other cultures through the different demons and Gods I obtained as companions.

The music is absolutely top notch.  Seriously go look it up. That's Shadow of the Colossus level stuff right there.

This game is both beauty and brains and I love it 100%

<3 Jami Lukins, UI Artist, Zombie Studios

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

I love this game.

There isn't enough room on this internet to describe how much I love this game, but I'll try.

Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE (always caps), developed by Platinum Games, accomplished an impossible task: Make Raiden from the Metal Gear Solid series cool.

If you told me 10 years ago I would end up liking this guy, I'd punch you.

REVENGEANCE is a character-action game where players follow Raiden on his whacky adventure to cut everything with his sword. I think character-action games are misunderstood. They're not about throwing everything at the player in an intense twitch-fest. The most important thing that defines a good character-action game is rhythm.

A great action game has a rhythm of punching/blocking/dodging/slashing that a player naturally eases into until it becomes a beautiful dance of death. REVENGEANCE has rhythm in spades: every weapon is like an instrument that has its own tempo. Each enemy is designed to play with that rhythm, interfere with it, but never destroy it. What you end up with is a game that is infinitely fun at its base, but also rewarding for digging deeper and exploring it.

I love how absolutely stupid the story is and how straight face they try to play it.

This whole article could have been just pictures of quotes from this game that no amount of context will fix. Its over the top, stupid, and I love it.

I love all the little touches, like a "detective mode" but changed so it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the game. I love how they still have stealth segments that actually work, but are completely fine if you just go guns blazing (like all the metal gear solid games). I love how amazingly designed each boss fight is, accompanied with music so-bad-its-good.

Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE is an example on how to do a character-action game right; have a simple rhythm that is fun, but can grow in depth and complexity if you want it to.

I love this game so freaking much. 100%

<3 Ben Petrisor, Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is an incredible adventure game developed by CHUNSOFT for the Nintendo DS. This maddening mystery thriller is comprised of nine persons trapped in a deadly game with only nine hours to escape using nine numbered doors. Behind each door is a set of devilish logic puzzles, demanding careful attention to every detail to solve. Its a phenomenal and unique experience - there's nothing quite like it, except maybe its successor, Virtue's Last Reward. Obviously, I love it.  I love the amount of detail and depth in each character. I love the puzzles, masterfully crafted to balance perfectly between frustratingly difficult and solvable. I love the multiple endings, all the twists and turns, the mind bending, maddening story that I wouldn't dare tell you about for risk of spoilers - and don't you dare ruin it for yourself. Just buy it - and a 3DS if you don't already own a DS to play it on.

The limited roster creates a highly focused and fully fleshed out cast of characters. Their path through the nine doors requires dividing into smaller groups, offering unique interactions along each path, which reveal the history and relationships behind each character. Their discussions provide fragments of mysteries and experiments integral to the game's story, as well as the occasional banter to lighten the mood. It all leads to a deep understanding of and connection to each other captive. These are people you come to love and hate, to suspect and be surprised by. They leave little to be desired, from the various visual designs and personalities to the secrets you discover about each one.

The puzzles behind each of the numbered doors are intricate, deceptive, and logical.  The clues provide just enough information to put the solution into the "adjacent possible" space: The answer can be found, but you must stretch to reach it. Continuing to search the area will allow other characters to comment on the puzzle at hand, providing extra hints, but never giving you all the pieces lined up nicely. The DS's touch screen is used to complete most puzzles, offering only a single "Nintendo gimmick" throughout the game - a gimmick used to such great effect that my heart skipped a beat before my pulse raced to catch up. Many of these puzzles have the same intensity, framed by the story to make finding the solution dire.

Ultimately, 999's story is the main attraction, a grand mystery that only gives you fragments based on your decisions. Your first play through is guaranteed to leave you staring in disbelief, dying to replay the game and choose another path. This cycle repeats, never offering you full closure until you reach the "true ending". The entire experience is absolutely maddening. The lack of closure is maddening. What becomes of each character is maddening. What your character does is maddening. Everything is maddening, much in the way H.P. Lovecraft envisioned things unseen, unknowable, yet just on the edge of reality and consciousness. You will know things - know them to be undeniably true, but without proof to back up your suspicions. Perhaps another path, another puzzle, another door holds the answers. It's maddening, and I love it.

Everything about this game drives the central mystery, the powerful story I can tell you nothing about. I love the puzzles, the character depth, the entire game. I love the sights - the brilliant shots of graphic violence just off screen - horrible, unknowable things just outside of your view. I love the sounds, the driving soundtrack that pokes and prods the brain, quickening your pulse and promising that the mystery shall go unsolved. I love the text that tells of things so awful my stomach churned, yet the script still finds time for lighthearted humor between beats. I love that every puzzle is drenched in life-or-death intensity. I love the simple controls, the fast-forward feature that skips text you've seen until some new dialogue appears. I love that I lost sleep over this game - a lot of sleep - because I wanted and needed and just had to know more, because some central piece was missing. I love that it drove me mad. I love that there's something so unique to this game that I just can't tell you about. I love it all, and I'm sure you will too.  Won't you join in the madness?

<3 Bryce Walton, Game Development Engineer, Zhurosoft

Contrast

I'm a sucker.  I'm a sucker for puzzles.  I'm a sucker for the noir theme.  I'm a sucker for sultry vocals over lazy jazz piano. I'm a sucker for Contrast.

The feel. It's just there.

I didn't really know what I was getting into with Contrast.  I saw screenshots and heard some of the soundtrack and decided "I might want this game." I bought it early on Steam, and got the soundtrack for free. Soundtrack alone has been worth the price of admission for me.

This is the only loading screen you see, and only 3 times.

This game artistically plays all the right notes.  It's one of the most thematically cohesive games I've ever played.  Dawn, the protagonist, is perfectly crafted for this game.  The silent hero that has a fantastic mystique.  Her confidence exudes and makes her the ultimate complement to her supporting cast of uncertain and broken humans.

Her face says it all. No, really, that's all she'll say.

But hey, isn't this a video game?  Of course it is! Contrast is a puzzle game through and through. The game consists of platforming to collect items and collectibles. The game sets itself apart by playing in both 2D and 3D within the same world. Your character has the ability to become one with the shadows in order to traverse impossible paths.

Dawn can jump into this well lit wall.

The shadow world has its own unique ambiance.

The puzzles are challenging and rewarding, without any of the answers being inconceivable (you keep using that word...). The achievement-hungry (such as myself) can use this as a nice snack of collection to get another 100% on their platform of choice. The story moves along at a great pace, and even cutscenes stay true to the spirit of the game, told exclusively on walls by silhouettes of the characters.

I didn't want to put this game down. It seamlessly runs from start to finish, creating intrigue and entertainment the whole time. I always wanted to see the next environment.  I couldn't wait for the next morsel of story to pull me along for another puzzle. It all just worked so well together.

I'm a sucker. A black-and-white, 2D, 1920's sucker. And this game is sweet.

100%

<3 Brad Gaffney, UI Programmer, Gearbox Software

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a side-scrolling platformer available for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS consoles.

And I think it's fantastic.

He's back again, and about time, too!

I love its tight, precise physics and controls that allow for quick platforming.

In this game, jumping the shark is a measure of success!

I love the levels that live and breathe with detail.  Creatures scurry in the background, and the environments react to your actions.  Pounding the ground might cause the trees in the background to wobble, or make ripples in a puddle, fruit to fall.

It's all so alive, you could just sit there in the level and soak it all in even if you weren't trying to find all the little hidden goodies packed into all of the game's well-designed levels.

I love finding hidden bonus stages and acquiring jiggies to complete puzzles.

I love discovering what I can interact with, finding that I can break through that floor or blow on that pinwheel or that there's a hidden barrel just off screen that will fling me over to some hidden part of the stage filled with bananas and bonus coins.

How do the snakes hold on?

I like the buddy system, how it lets me play as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong without having to choose between them, each bringing their own strengths to the table and teaming up to bypass their weaknesses.

I love the intro, how it gets the story across in a few minutes with no dialog and gets me pumped to go beat up the bad guys right away.

I also love the absurdity of it all.

Evil Tiki Masks!
That are also musical instruments!
That are hypnotizing the local wildlife to steal DK's bananas!
I love it! XD

I think he stole some vertebrae from the other dinosaur skeletons...

I love the enemy design that serves both form and function.

You can tell exactly how to interact with a given foe just by looking at them.

I love their quirky little personalities that bleed out through their animations, from downtrodden parrots to insane voodoo drums, pissed off crabs, nonchalant chickens on stilts that freak out when you knock them over, very surprised dinosaur skeletons, and everything in between.

Actually, come to think of it, there are lots of chicken enemies...

I love the difficulty.  It's challenging without being punishing, and isn't shy about throwing lives at you should you need them.  It's got a nice ramp-up, so that any given level in the game feels just about the right amount of challenge for how much of the world you've progressed through.

DK begins to suspect that this may not, in fact, be a carnival ride.

I love the crazy music, from the haunting mushroom caves to the zany brass band that plays when your rocket barrel fires up its engines.  From the rhythmic drums of the jungle to the serene echoes of the water mix.  The music in this game is amazing.

Yes, that's a giant bat spewing sound-lasers while I ride away on a rocket.

This game is my childhood redone with modern design sensibilities and finesse.

And I love every freaking second of it.

100%

<3 James Manley-Buser, Progammer, Fugazo Games

Tomb Raider Definitive Edition

Tomb Raider is an adventure game available on PC, 360, and PS3, and had a re-release (Definitive Edition) with graphical improvements on the PS4 and XB1.

Everything you need to know about the game is in this cover art.

Tomb Raider does an excellent job leveraging the technical capabilities of the hardware it is running on. On every platform I have seen, it is a generally gorgeous experience.  The environments appear to be exceptionally coherent and there are multiple distinct areas that keep things visually refreshing.

Even your hair can look constantly windblown with TressFX!

From the beginning, I found the game extremely enjoyable, and, in ways, suspenseful. Most of the game has had me throwing playful expletives at it, when I was not reeling from the latest blow dealt to Lara and her party. Even with the set-back over set-back, I found myself wanting to see how the narrative was going to continue to develop. I kept wondering what was happening, and how our heroine was going to develop from the unskilled newbie to the intrepid adventurer we knew she would become. I was sucked in by the narrative experience, and kept in by the gameplay.

What this doesn't show you is how merciful boulders can be.

The controls are smooth, and responsive. I never feel like the game is doing something other than what I told it to do.  Every mistake I make is a learning experience.  And every learning experience I accept makes me just that much better at getting an arrow in some dude's skull.

He doesn't even know what is about to happen to him.

And Arrow-skulling (trademark pending) dudes is what that game is all about.  That and bullet-skulling, buckshot-skulling, and pry axe-skulling any stranger you come across.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get as many foreign objects into any stranger's skull you can find. This mission is fun, and rewarding. Every weapon is fun to use, and the progression system for them is addicting. As you "level-up" Lara you even get new and interesting ways to object-skull people making it so that every new murder feels fresh, and enjoyable, for the sociopathic, female, Bear Grylls you are shaping Lara to become.

At this point Lara isn't in the blood pool.  Lara is the blood pool.

This game, is a well executed, nearly cinematographic experience, and I give it two thumbs up.

100%

<3 Andrew Starkey, Engineer, Zombie Studios

The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac is a PC game available on Steam.

And it is fantastic.

It is a delicious rogue-like that is incredibly hard to put down.  I've only put 16 hours in to this game, and yet I've seen such a large variety of items, and with every play-through I see more.

Now when I say play-through, I mean I start the game, I play the game, and I die horrendously.

At the hands of a monstrous grub, your own mother, or the devil himself.

I've never beaten this game. This game lovingly beats me.  Every. Damn. Time.

And I love every minute of it.

I love the art.  Every damn piece of it.  And there is so much to love. Every item I pick up transforms me, making the end result of a few floors a horrendous hodgepodge of hormone-injected, curse-ridden, high-heel wearing goodness.

What even am I anymore?

Now let's get a little bit design sexy.  I love this game.  This game.  The intro, the character selection, the drop in the basement...

Simple, direct way of telling me how to play!

The enemy designs! The controls!  The power progression! The randomness of the layouts and what enemies I see, but the predictability of what types of rooms are always there! I love the little fights, love the big fights, I love the mini-bosses I run in to!

I love the enemies I hate...

Effing spiders!  I'll show you!

...and the enemies I love...

Haha!  Headless zombie dudes!

I love how powerful I feel when I get a new item. I love that some items give you descriptions and some don't...

Eternal Life?  I'm like 90% sure that is a lie.

The vertical slice of this game, if you can even sum up this game in a slice, is a delicious slice of cheesecake smothered in smokin' hot game design.

And I love it.  100%.


<3 Amy Price, Gameplay Programmer @ Gearbox Software