This was tough.
2016 had so, so many stellar games that almost any list would essentially leave out a few favorites. However, we combed through our personal gaming archives, had several heated discussions over email and in person, swapped a lot of skeptical hippo memes and finally managed to narrow it down to a select few candidates.
Aside from my first console and first computer, falling a console generation behind in the mid-nineties was the best thing that ever happened to me as a gamer. In the early nineties, I missed the fourth generation of consoles (SNES, Sega Genesis, etc.) completely while getting into PC gaming (I played on my friends’ systems but never owned one).
Video games are primarily a visual medium—it’s right there in the word itself. But of course they’re more than that, too. There’s the interactivity, of course, and the sound design can really improve or drag down a game…and then there’s reading.
I’m not the kind of player who longs for “the good old days” when games seemed to hate you and want you to die. My attempt to replay Paperboy and recapture the glory of my NES days was short-lived as I realized how needlessly, unrewardingly cruel that game is—I just didn’t know any better as a kid.
I recently finished a fifty-five-hour playthrough of Grand Theft Auto V. It is a brilliant achievement. It’s a ridiculously fun game. It’s also a very disappointing game.
A new King’s Quest? Remastered Day of the Tentacle joining Grim Fandango as LucasArts games I can finally play again? And…an UNupdated Final Fantasy VII on PS4? One of these things is not like the other.
The Old School Game Vault is pleased to announce that it now buys both games and video game consoles manufactured and distributed under the Nintendo Wii U banner via its online storefront. Customers all over the country can sell Wii U games and sell Wii U consoles through The Old School Game Vault site effective immediately.
