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Gamespy.com's "Top 50 Games of All Time"
Alex Bischoff writes "In this article, Gamespy.com rates the "Top 50 Games of All Time" (both console and computer games), including commentary from developers at 3DRealms, id Software, Monolith Productions and others. Needless to say, Daikatana is not on the list ;)."
Jason.
Rescue Rangers kicked ass! I remember fantasizing about a head to head version of that and how unrealistic it would be. Sheesh. Everyone had a secret sequence of vehicles and troops to deploy. The chopper versus chopper fighting was pretty cool, especially after you run out of ammo and need to use the balloons or your rocket launchers. But the worst thing is watching your troops getting bombed and you are just refeuling...
Any game with such gripping dialogue as:
"What you say?", "Someone set up us the bomb!!!", "You have no chance to survive make your time," and the unforgettable "All your base are belong to us" surely deserves to rank at the top of this list.
Why, I haven't seen dialogue delivery that compelling since my high school's rendition of Hamlet.
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
I was admittedly rather disappointed myself in the lack of seeing Wasteland anyplace on that list, even though it was in at least a couple of the developer favorites. But, it's all good, I saw it in a PC Gamer top 50 a year or two back. Back before developers were too young to understand what pushing the envelope actually meant.
what do you think zork is mang.
What? Maniac Mansion didn't make it onto the list! That game was great. Pick your characters and depending which characters you pick, you solve the game differently (they all have special talents). I think the only combination that didn't work was picking the two people that could repair the phones, because the phone repairing required another talent. Alot of the game was thinking, but some of it was how fast you could react (such as going into the kitchen and running from Edna to not get caught and then just walk through the kitchen).
If only they'd come out with Maniac Mansion 3.
Well, as I'd have to think for quite a while before agreeing to put it at anything other than number 1 this is quite clearly a matter of opinion. Don't forget that this was voted for by a whole bunch of people rather than an arbitrary list, so someone must agree with me that its really good. SMB3 was great, but to this day people try to release third-person 3d platform games, and to this day there hasn't been an equal to its perfect control and camera. Just go grab a Tomb Raider or Sonic Adventure game and laugh at how hard the rest of the world finds making something so intuitive.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
No, it sucks. It also requires a special controller, something called a CowboyNeal. Instead of having a trigger or buttons, it has something called a slashdot effect.
I got past the final level by mashing the refresh button repeatedly. Damn, I hate simple button mashers.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Well Pathways into Darkness wasn't even on the list and it was one of the first FPS for the mac.
I wouldn't say teenagers, but instead game developers who are now obsessed with style rather than popularity.
A lot of the games that made the list made it because it was the style the developers liked (DOOM's #1 for one reason -- it was the anchor for game developing all the way into the 3D market today). But I would rate the greatest games as those that were the most popular, not the ones with the most fantastic storyline or the most fantastic graphics.
Deus Ex? Theif? Why are those there? Only because of the games style, not popularity. That's what I don't like about this list. The top 50 (at least the top 10) should have been about the games' popularity among players.
DOOM should have been in the top 10, but not necessairly #1. I'm glad they put Civilization at #3, because that game deserves it. But there were two games that I thought belonged there, because of their popularity rather than style:
1) Super Mario 3. It was the rave at the school, on the block, and even in the movie The Wizzard. Why the hell didn't it make it into the top 50? It should have been in at least the top 10.
2) Pac Man. Someone was smoking something sweet to keep this absolute classic from the list. The fact of the matter is that you can still find this arcade game in some arcades standing next to these dollar-crunching graphic-munching games, and people still play it.
Other notes: I'm glad to see they at least included Tetris, because it's right up there with PacMan in terms of still-played-classics. I was also disappointed not to find a single sports game up there on the list...they're just as big and popular a genre as RPG, Action, or Adventure.
It is not on the list? *SNIFF*
And where are all the great C64 and Amiga games? This has to be a joke.
what about legends of the Red Dragon, thats got to be the grandfather of all online games.
And SUPERMARIO BROS isnt even ON THERE? CMON.
________________________________________________
I guess the list of coders they asked must have been predominately European. It's the only reason I can think of for no Sinclair Spectrum or BBC Micro games to be mentioned. Manic Miner. Revs. Jet Set Willy. Chuckie Egg. Atic Attack.
And, of course, one of the most innovative games ever, the one that blazed the trail that Wing Commander followed, the first truly open-ended game I remember, the one that did free-360-degree-motion in 48k - Elite
I second that! It was the first game I ever played... *fnnf*.
Now, I'll agree that they are probably the biggest selling genre, but what about the games that predated them:
- Nethack / Moira / Etc - Where would the fps/rpg game be without these?
- Infocom games - Same as the last
- Just about any early Sierra game - There haven't been many games that have done as
much groundbreaking as say, the King's Quest
games
Other types of games:
- Microsoft flight simulator
- Lemmings
- Incrdible Machine
- Pong
I think there list should have been alot different
Just wanted to agree that it was a completely barren list without the presence of NetHack - truly the greatest game of all time. Diablo was number 6? It has .5% of the complexity of NetHack. Graphics, Shmaphics.
But Carmageddon gets my vote for #1. I just wish that a Linux version existed so I could still play it.
3d Monster Maze on the ZX81... predates DOOM (an Wolfenstein - why isn't that on there too?) by several years
I may have the name wrong, but the FIRST monster(s) in the maze game I'm aware of was something like "hunt the whumpus"... Terrrifying Text menu action.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
>Dungeon Master. Very cool, very addictive, very Amiga. I think they eventually made a PC version
You seem to be forgetting that Dungeon Master was first made to Atari ST and run on 512k; amiga version came a lot later and needed 1Mbyte (=memory extension since A500 contained only 512k).
I totally agree about Day of the Tentacle. Still the best puzzle based point-n-clicker I've played - inventive time-travel puzzles, excellent humour, and the first game I remember that had sound clips for everything that was spoken. The concept of flushing objects down the toilet to send them to the future should have guaranteed a top-50 spot. Shrinking a sweater in a drier so you could warm up the hamster you had frozen in an ice machine for 200 hundred years in order that his hamster wheel could provide power - that genius should have made it top-ten.
Agreed. The first few first-person shooters were impressive but since "Quake" there have been only a few that actually progressed the genre. I refuse to believe that there were that many genuinly good FPS games in the past few years.
One glaring omission (unless I missed it somewhere) was the lack of a single Sierra *Quest game. Sure King's Quest got pretty silly when it became all point-and-click but King's Quest I was a great game for it's time, King's Quest III was really well done, and the Space Quest series was really clever. At least one of these deserves to be on the top 50 games of all time. It's good to see they remembered Star Control II though. ;)
- j
I think a really good way to measure the importance of a game is to count the number of clones created. I think there are not only dozens but HUNDREDS of clones of titles like Artillery Duel, Asteroids, and BoulderDash.
Of course it's hard to decide what has still to be considered a clone.
For those of you who don't visit videogame sites with any regularity, you should probably know that these sites do an "Top $num Games" feature damn near every other week. So don't take this one to be the ultimate judgement of anything, if you think something is missing, it's probably because the few people who came up with it (surprise, surprise) have different tastes than you do.
I was surprised that RPGs were as well represented as they were, until I realized I was including things like Zelda, Diablo, EverQuest and Final Fantasy in the same category. The nine "pure" RPGs on the list are Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Bard's Tale, Planescape: Torment, Ultima 3, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima Underworld, and Wizardry I. In contrast, the ten pure shooters on the list (in my uninformed opinion) are Counter-Strike, Deus Ex, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Goldeneye, Half-Life, Marathon, Quake, Quake 2, and Thief; not only are these games rated higher (including the #1 and #2 spots), but the genre has been around for a much shorter time.
Pirates Gold for the Genesis was my all time favorite!!!!
I'm sorry, but there are games on that list that should not be there, such as Age of Empires 2. It just wasn't that revolutionary or remarkable. SimCity should have been higher on that list, and some games I expected to see (but didn't) were Super Mario Brothers (everyone, I am sure, knows the path to beat World 8 level 4), Mortal Kombat, and PacMan.
They did list Zork, but in my opinion they were missing Colossal Cave Adventure & Nethack.
That list seems to be made by teenagers who never saw 80's games. There's no doubt that a person who has played games from the beginning of the 80's till today would've made entirelly different list.
I have to say that I'm more than amused of the choices that made to the list.
It's needless to argue about opinions, but some of those choices were like comparing the LOTR to a comic book.
The only game listed in that article is one I've never heard of. Has anyone played "Not enough storage is available to process this command.", and is it any good?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Hehehe, I can't talk, I helped too. Oh well, maybe heading over to ThinkGeek is in order (or is it just the banner ad up there?).
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu
I can't find Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or Deer Hunter at all on there. Goddamn elitists.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I read the whole thing but I might have overlooked one of the spots. However, where are some of the great puzzle games from Lucas Arts? Sam & Max Hit The Road, Day of the Tentacle, etc. These were wonderful games!
- Here's my take on what's missing:
- Dungeon Master. Very cool, very addictive, very Amiga. I think they eventually made a PC version.
- Myst/Riven. I may have missed them in the list, but I swear they weren't there. HUGE oversight. Even if you hate things without gunfire and splattering guts, Myst was an incredible paradigm break, spawned a few clones, sold a bazillion copies, and, most importantly it introduced a lot of non-gamers to gaming!
- Moria, Hack, NetHack. Or even Larn or Omega. Anything from rec.games.roguelike. I still like pulling up Moria on Linux because the gameplay kicks butt, even with VT100 graphics.
- Spaceward Ho! I still think that Ho! was the first real game that was able to adapt PBM-style gaming into multiplayer, turn-based network games. Heck, we had a Ho!-down for my bachelor party.
That's enough for now. Who could play all those FPS's without going crazy? I mean, yeah, I've played a few and enjoyed it, but the list was CLEARLY biased in that direction.You know, they could've at least included some clasics like PONG or some text based RPG's that came out before graphics that paved the way for the games we have to day.. and as another person mentioned, isn't one or two FPS enough? and in all honesty, Half Life was a cross between Quake and an RPG.. Kenny
Now, technically speaking, obviously, the likes of Halflife appear to blow out the games of a decade ago totally. But really, to achieve Halflife on an MMX Pentium, while a great technical achievement, is maybe not quite on a par with achieving my personal favourite...
Elite on a 6502-based BBC micro. (other versions don't quite make it in my book).
To generate 8 galaxies of 256 planets from a randomizing algorithm taking just 3 bytes of seed data, and create within those galaxies an open-ended game, playable as real-time action, strategy, trading, exploration, and with no fixed ending, was nothing short of genius by Braben and Bell. It's a game I still play today. 17 years after it was released.
A couple of others that this geriatric would have liked to see on the list
- Pole Position - the first Geoff Crammond racing game I played, progenitor of the Grand Prix series now at v3 and still blindingly good. In fact, where were the racers?
- Frak, Chuckie, Manic Miner, the whole Platform Game genre. which was perhaps as pervasive all those years back as the FPS's seem to be now. And of course Attack of the Mutant Camels and all the Llamatron stuff (vast respect ot the eternal YAK)
- The Hobbit, and the whole Adventure genre, only lightly touched upon. And for that matter the original MUD's were, if not widely played by the standards of today's console market, gargantuanly influential.
- Someone mentioned Pong. Today, it would seem stupidly simplistic. But it must be one of the all-time great games, along with Spacewar and Star Trek, simply because of the number of us turned on to the whole Computer thing at the time, and still working in the field two decades later. Yup, it's Pong's fault I'm in on a sunny sunday afternoon, and I don't hold it against it for one moment, because it was a genuinely eye-opening great game and the fascination it triggered is still in me today.
EnoughElite, anyway.
TomV
You've forgotten LORD
Tell me about it. Ok, driving games arn't quite as popular as they once were but Pole Position was the number one game in the world for some time as measured by quarters at the arcade.
If you spend anytime reading gaming mags and sites you'll find that they're nearly always derisive of driving games though. Why? Damed if I know.
I do know this though, when the current crop of kiddies is thinking of Half-Life as, " That old piece of crap" there will be people still playing Papyrus's "Grand Prix Legends" with the dedication of a professional.
KFG
raven software made heretic/hexen.. shiny entertainment made earthworm jim. dunno about the rest PEACE
no more needs to be said.
It seems very biased towards newer games, when other games were much more important. For example:
Elite
Elite II
Adventure (plus other important adventure games)
Pacman
...
Okay they put Tetris in there, and I agree with Doom as number 1.
Look at the people they are interviewing and getting commentary from. Ed Del Castillo? Washout from Westwood Studios, regarded as an immature idiot. Tom Mustaine? Another one of those "hey-I-used-a-Doom-editor-before, let's-move-to-Texas-and-work-near-Id" wannabes. This goes to show that 1) GameSpyDaily knows nothing about games and 2) They aren't very well-connected when it comes to prominent names in the game industry. And Doom the best game -ever-? Storyline? Plot? Detail? Richness? Replayability? Good lord. Morons.
Did anybody ever play Jumpman from Epyx on the Commodore 64? I loved that game. Spent many hours playing it back in high school.
More recently, I was sad that Myth II didn't make it to the top-50 list.
-Rob
Super Mario Brothers 3.
Games are about playing for enjoyment. SMB3 is the hands down winner in this category. It has a level of complexity and changing terain that I havn't seen anywhere else. It has ways of changing your characters capabilities and more importantly it has so manny diferent vilans as to drive you mad.
I have sat down and played throgh the whole thing the long way (world by world without the jump zones) then upon completion start over again with 30 "P-Wings" in my stash.
There simply isn't another game that can wast 6 straight hours of my time.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Quake 1 runs half life maps now and CS etc etc plus its open source :P it shoulda got 2 place next to doom :)
http://tomaz.quakesrc.org/
http://darkplaces.gamevisions.com/
http://www.telefragged.com/openquake/
Half-life was ok but any game where you have to play jumping puzzles get old fast rather be forced to play myst while watching texas ranger
m0zone
Ok, maybe it's just that I hate GSI, it's questionable business ethics, it's crappy content, and it's lame humor, but why is this news? Front page news even? I could spend the next 5 years making a list of all the 5,000 gaming networks and the 20,000 lists they've made that rate games in every possible way by all categories imaginable. But it only takes one sentence to describe every single list: Useless content-filler written by people that have to pander to the company responsible for every eligible game, or risk being refused 'exclusive content' in the future. I'd be curious to know how many of the 50 asses that were kissed in this list are presently in no position to reciprocate.
Do not forget the Zelda for Game Boy (Link's Awakening). It's not as popular because people assume it's not as good, but it's possibly the best of the series.
I couldn't watch my dad or sister play Myst for more than 5 minutes without going, 'god, get that off my computer now before it makes my other -real- games suck.' Not quite as bad as 'Alone in the Dark', but really, really, really close.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Didn't find the game that has jept me sleepless most night, the game that once you start play it always keeps you busy. And still havent completed it yet, still some more things to solve. Am I the only one playing windows here?
who shot the cat in the hat to experiment is insane
Your top 10 are incorrect. Age of Empires appearing twice (at #14 and #11) should have been a clue. The real top 10 went:
1. Doom
2. Half-Life
3. Warcraft 2
4. Civilization
5. Quake
6. Diablo
7. Ultima 4
8. Ultima Underworld
9. Starcraft
10. Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros. and System Shock 1 were nowhere on the list.
Please, what kind of "top 50" list is this? they mentioned freaking DukeNukem and Quake -- blatent take offs of Doom -- but left out the best vehicular shooter game of all time, Descent? Descent is hands down a much more revolutionary and realistic game than its land-bound counterparts Doom, Quake, and DukeNukem. Why do I say that? Well, first of all Descent took the first person shooter genre and turned it upside down on its head -- literally. Secondly, Descent's graphics were revolutionary for the time: it was really the only game at the time that really looked 3D. Not to mention, the AI in Descent I(and the rest of the series) is arguably superior to any AI in any other 1st person shooter games. Most impressive, though, is the very realistic perception of physics in the Descent series: when you bump into something, it FEELS like you've bumped into it. Unlike in Duke Nukem or Doom or Quake, where when you bump into something, the legs of the character keep on moving, and it feels like you've just hita squishy force-field or something.
And also, where is Tomb Raider? Tomb Raider was also a revolutionary game, though buggy. It really pulled you in, because you felt like you were actually on some archeological dig.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
One game that should have been on the list: Adventure, for the Atari (2600)
The first time I wandered into the lower rooms and a dragon came at me, I almost shit my pants. This was no stupid @ sign coming at me, this was a damned dragon! Ok, so its pixels were the size of (to pick a daily topic) Xenia Seeberg's lips, but that didn't matter.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
OK New list.
Top 50 'suckiest' games of all time.
Who wants to start with #50?
Let me give props to my faves -
Give me Paradroid 90 on the Amiga. Give me Uridium on the C-64. Give me Attack of the Mutant Camels on the C-64. Give me the NES and Turbo Grafx 16 ports of Galaga. Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder on the Turbo Grafx CD are so beautifully perfect they'll bring tears to your eyes, and Super Star Soldier on the Turbo Grafx quite possibly has the most perfectly tweaked play of any shooter ever.
I loved Tempest 2000 on the Saturn (I'm biased - I wrote half of that and most of Tempext/X3 on PSX.) A&E was sweet and very replayable on the Apple ][, but not half as replayable as Lode Runner on the same. Jump Man was great on every platform, and cloyingly cute as it is, Flicky may have been the best Genesis game.
Althought I think this list is missing games from before 1990, the 1st place is fair:
:)
:)
DOOM!!!
Just the best
Owh, yes, and the second: Half life
"Crie um Sistema Operacional que qualqueridiota possa utilizar e grandes idiotas o utilizarão"
The number one selling game of all times, Myst, is not on the list. Hummm.. and did I miss unreal?
Back in the days when i had all my own teeth and hair, ;-), I'd look out for stuff by 'prominent' developers including:
Ian Bell, Donald Braben (Elite)
Jeff Minter a.k.a. Yak (Llamasoft)
Geoff Crammond (racing games for Microprose plus the mind-blowing Sentinel.)
Matthew Smith (bugByte - wrote Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy)
Nick Pelling (Arcadians, Zalaga, Frak!)
Chris Roberts (Wing Commander)
and so on. One thing I'd be fascinated to see is a top (however many) games written after the 8-bit era, as ranked by a good selection of this previous generation of writers. I've got some idea of what Yak likes, from postings on alt.music.pink-floyd, wher he's still very much a regular, and perhaps a converse exercise where the 16+ bit guys rated the earlier stuff.
It's a cliche, sure, but when the tech was that limited, a game could only live or die by its gameplay. Not that it's impossible to have innovative gameplay now, but it IS a lot easierto get away with a vacuous remake of a remake as long as the pictures are unprecedentedly pretty.
TomV
Maybe it's just me, but weren't those alot more popular games? Doom took #1 which I can't entirely agree or disagree with because it is definately a classic, but I think the top 10 list is a bit askew. I wonder what type of monetary compensation, if any, gamespy is getting or has gotten from "selling" positioning in that list...
- tre
http://piclabs.com
> If we want to go retro, why is Starcraft in there?
And how could Starcraft outrank Total Annhilation (much less the tragedy of TA only ranking 50th?) Yes, the inter-mission banter was novel, but the gameplay? Good, but that spectacular?
Anyhoo, if you see Dark Colony in a bargain bin, it's a pretty good RTS, too. Very similar to Warcraft, but prettier. It never took off like TA and Starcraft, sadly.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
FF3 is the only one of the series that made the list, and Final Fantasy 3 is the only one in the FF series that I did *NOT* like, which many people I know agree with. I'm really surprised by this one.
This should have been more appropriately called
"Top 50 games of the decade". I mean, I'm glad
they included Zork, Doom, and a few other "classics",
but where in the world were ground-breaking
games like Gauntlet, Pacman, Space Harrier,
AfterBurner, etc??
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Doom #1? Come on...
My picks:
#10 - Sim City
# 9 - Marathon
# 8 - Quake II
# 7 - GoldenEye
# 6 - Mario Kart
# 5 - Asteroids
# 4 - Madden Football
# 3 - Starcraft
# 2 - Metroid
# 1 - Perfect Dark
~ now you know
Not true -- skin grafts can work wonders for burnt cock.
Heroes of Might and Magic. Certainly in my top ten, and just about the most addictive game I've played. Any one in that series belongs above 80% of that list.
What about Wizball. Number 1 i think it should have been. Just pure brilliance.
1. Final Fantasy X
2. Final Fantasy IX
3. Final Fantasy VIII
4. Final Fantasy VII
5. Final Fantasy VI
6. Final Fantasy V
7. Final Fantasy IV
8. Final Fantasy III
9. Final Fantasy II
10.Final Fantasy I
Pole Position I+II were money! Need for Speed III's different multiplayer modes and unofficial cars made by fans made it great.
Super Monaco GP for Arcade or Genesis? Great!
I guess driving games just don't count or what? They seem to be pretty big sellers though!
Nobody wants to read a "these games are nifty!" page. Well, not enough to make your sponsors happy.
Nothing like Cannibalism, Suicide, Murder, and Church burnings to start off your day.
Why didnt Sierra's 'Leisure Suit Larry' make it to the top 50? :(
I agree. I remember the first time i ever saw a gameing console. My neighbor had asked me, "hmmm, so should i get this atari system or go with one of these brand new nintendo things". Heh. There where some fucking awsome games in the arcade.And not just those mano-e-mano fight games.
1. DOOM
2. Half-Life
3. Warcraft 2
4. Sid Meier's Civilization
5. Quake
6. Diablo
7. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
8. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
9. Starcraft
10. Legend of Zelda
I cannot believe Star Raiders for the Atari 400 did not make the list...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
But even besides that, the list seemed focused mainly on PC games released in the past 3-4 years. Very few older games, and even fewer console games. I don't think they explored "all time" well enough.
Pure pre-rendered beauty? Obvoisly you do not know the meaning of the word render.
The trouble with many naysayers regarding a list like this is that they don't want to compare old game to new games straight up, because they know that the old games will get destroyed technically. "Oh, well, older games had gameplay that today's game don't have," they say. Guess what? The best games ever are the games that are being made today. I'm not saying that the old games weren't good, but come on, today's games blow away the old ones.
Believe it or not, there ARE games made today that combine the best elements of the old games with today's technology and add stuff that can only be done with today's technology. You want to tell me that Spacewar was a better game than Diablo? Pac-Man than Quake? Give me a break.
Come on. We all know the most popular computer game of all time.
Solitaire.
Played in millions of office's across the country every day.
I guess they never played nintendo or older PC Games.
Where the fuck was Super mario 3!?
They just listed all the last few years of RTS's, FPS, they got bribed by advertisers.
Where is it on their list?
Simply the most addictive two player strategy game ever made! Hilarious fun while digging holes and traps for your buddie`s lemmings.
In my opinion Populous2 was the highlight of Peter Molyneux` respectable career.
I think the bias results from who they polled. (Yes, this is another stat-heavy post). The developers they list are mostly folks who presumably write those sorts of games themselves. I've never even heard of eGenesis, Shiny Entertainment, Quicksilver Software, Raven Software, Monolith Productions, or Ritual Entertainment.
Ok, I know not to take this thing TOO seriously, but COME ON... I can think of TONS of stuff that should be on the list... - Kings Quest? How could they not include a *single* Sierra game? - Autoduel - Pirates! - RailRoad Tycoon - Elite
I can't load the pages up, but I'm willing to bet they never included Rocket Jockey.
;)
J ockey , tho it's not quite the same without the soundtrack. :)
This game is just amazing... it's one of the few where it's actually fun to try for a high score after you've finished it.
More people need to play this. ('Cause I *need* a sequal...
Check it out: http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Rocket+
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Scorched Earth
Kiss my shiny metal ass
While any Top N games of all time list is going to be biased and controversial, it just makes my jaw drop that pretty much no real adventure games were mentioned. Have these guys ever played a Sierra or LucasArts game? You mention modern 3D CPU hog garbage like Asheron's Call, Ultima Online and Deus Ex and you don't mention masterpieces like Maniac Mansion 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, King's Quest, LSL, Rise of the Dragon or Monkey Island?
This list is completely devoid of heart and soul. There were some good picks, like Wing Commander, Starcraft, X-COM and Doom, but generally it appears they have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
Leave it to a bunch of FPS nerds to fumble this.
Slashdot posts a [Integer between 10 to 50] top games of [genre]/[platform]/ever
and yet again people posts the same thing, "Why didn't [name of game] isn't on the list"
Tetris. Why? Because of how simple it is, and yet how complex it is. Think about when it came out. It was coded by someone who didn't know how to code, really and ended up having MASS MARKET appeal.
A game like "DOOM" (their top game) does not have mass market appeal. How many girls do you see playing DOOM? How many adults? And then how many girls and adults do you see play Tetris? It's not because of it being advertised, because it came from the commies!
Tetris represents everything I love in video games; puzzle solving, a bit of action, graphics up to what is needed, getting in and out of your groove. Come on, admit it, how many of you love Tetris?
Tony Wawk should be in the top ten for sure.. but the whole list is wack anyways.
Go play SpaceWar or Pong, and then go play a game like Age of Empires or Civilization. Chances are you'll have a LOT more fun playing the latter.
I think the point of the original poster was a game's popularity during it's time. Comparing two different era games side-by-side is not conclusive at all in terms of popularity. Whether or not the list endeavors to measure popularity or just "quality" is not clear though...
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I don't believe it! Shoulda been in the top 10! Didn't even make the top 50??? Come on!
You're using her as bait, Master!
And even earlier Apple Panic which I even became pretty good at, at least relative to the younger gamers who hang out at our place.
Guess this is as good a place as any to hide my top five (which is as far as I can seriously get):
- Adventure (Colossal Cave)
- Tetris (the only one that made their list)
- FreeCell (the Linux version)
- Apple Panic
- Lode Runner
But I do recognise that some others were in that "significant" catgeory that appeals to us oldtimers, some of which I used to enjoy watching over shoulders, but this shouldn't be in any order:- Space Invaders/Asteroids
- PacMan
- Myst
- Pong
- The Sims
I have also enjoyed Chess, Scrabble and even Monoply which are amongst the many traditional games that survive the transition rather well.-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
How exactly could GameSpy forget to put this game on the list? I mean, the Goonies II was obviously the game that inspired Konami to work on Castlevania: SOTN (yeah, so they did take a bit from Metroid, too, but that's not on the list either).
Come to think of it, I'm noticing a distinct anti-console slant. Consoles have had an extremely large role in promoting and boosting video gaming in the past ten years, IMO.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Secret of Mana (SNES): Probably my favorite RPG of all time.
Legend of the Red Dragon (BBS door): Oh yeah. Addictive as hell.
Torment: Planescape (PC): One of the most immersive and powerful games I've ever played. As soon as I finished (40+ hours of play) I wanted to start over again.
Solstice (NES): Puzzle games never seemed as addictive as this one.
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES): My favorite SMB game.
Doom II (PC): Most fun I've ever had in network deathmatches.
Unreal (PC): Simply revolutionary.
Drol (Apple ][e): Anyone else remember this one?
Bard's Tale 2 (Apple ][e): Sadly, I never played the first one.
Star Control 2 (3DO): One of my all-time favorites on any platform, though the 3DO version was the best.
The Wing Commander series (PC): Simplistic gameplay, but incredibly addictive anyway.
Super Metroid (SNES): One of the five or so SNES games I still play regularly.
Crystal Castles (Arcade): That bear rocked.
It Came from the Desert (Amiga): Atmospheric, spooky and awesome.
Star Wars (Arcade): You sit down in the cabinet and fly an X-Wing. What more could you want? Speaking of which...
X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter (PC): Sucked up all my time.
The Bomberman series (lots of platforms): Consistently fun on every platform.
Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis): Revolutionary for its time.
Combat (Atari 2600): Fun and addictive, blocky graphics notwithstanding.
Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo): The best of the crop of sword fighting games at the time.
Tekken 2 (PSX): Still loads of fun to this day--something I can't say for Mortal Kombat 2.
Lemmings (many platforms): They're all good.
Silent Hill (PSX): This game had me *afraid* to play in the dark, at age 29. And I don't spook easily. That's the game's saving grace, as it's far too short--I hope SH2 will be much longer and more involved.
Alone in the Dark (PC): This was another revolutionary, spooky game.
I've doubtless forgotten a great many games here. If you don't agree with me, don't sweat it--they're only opinions.
-Legion
Heh. Guess I added a bit more than I was intending to ... ;)
Good point, but nowadays there aren't any games anymore that are so good that they keep you addicted for more than a few months. The technology used in new games is great, and they blow the old games away in that respect, but WHERE IS THE FUN GONE ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
With any top 50 list, someone's going to complain that games weren't included or were overrated. I think this one's pretty bad, though.
A breakdown by game type:
Statistics by year:
Just from those numbers, we'd expect the highest-rated games to be first-person shooters based in the mid-nineties (Doom, Quake), and the lowest-rated games to be sports games based in the late eighties (Earl Weaver Baseball).
Any top list without Wasteland on it is completely and totally worthless. The absence of Fallout is perhaps even worse, considering the twerps running the site should have been out of short pants when it came out.
I spent years playing Wasteland. I even cracked it out in the late 90's and ran with it for a few weeks to push up to Supreme Jerk rank.
Obviously the people who wrote the list have no knowledge of gaming history beyond gleaning the best of screenshots from those before them.
#19845
I'd have to say the most kickass and positively scary console game of all time has to be Super Metroid for SNES. At the same time, the Megaman, Dragon Warrior and Castlevania series on NES were probably the best console series I've ever played.
ICEPHREAK
quake forever and blah blah blah.... ooh, whats this? halflife?
----
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people and assume they deserve it" - Dogbert
Ok i really hoped that DOOM would be #1 and then i clicked the link and there .. there .. there is DOOM! Excellent. Everyone knows this game or at least has heard sth. about it and back in the days everyone played it. So congratulations on a wise choice.
But i noticed sth. else: Why is Diablo f.e. #6 and Legend of Zelda only #10. Zelda is probably the best game series EVER and everyone now in his twenties should get a fuzzy feeling when he looks back.
I think they made the mistake to compare the games with their actual play/fun value. They should have compared them on the play/fun value they had while they came out. And here you can clearly see that Zelda was far more popular and fun then Diablo was (and Zelda is probably even more fun today - this can be argued).
keep it simple.
Go play SpaceWar or Pong, and then go play a game like Age of Empires or Civilization. Chances are you'll have a LOT more fun playing the latter.
You could make a case for Space Invaders or Asteroids needing to make the list, I'll agree. Some of those first games are revolutioniary, but not necessarily some of the greatest games, IMHO.
I'd also like to point out there is a big difference between the greatest games of all time, and the most influential games of all time. A list of the influential games will likely have the games you're listing.
And 3D Monster Maze for the ZX-81, of course.
Super Mario 64 shouldn't have even been on the list. Super Mario 3 should've taken it's place. Now there was a platform game.
Enjoyment of video games is a completely subjective expereince. Different people put together different lists. You can either have a list from the perspective of one type of gamer that everyone else will disagree with, or you can poll a lot of different people and come up with a list EVERYONE will disagree with. Whats the point?
Why not just get some friends together and say "these are the games we liked in alphebetical order and why we liked them"? Its a subjective list, why drape it in a poor imitation of objectivity through numerical ranking?
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Not a lot to add to this, except that I found it pretty disturbing that Fallout (RPG of the Year) and Fallout 2 (runner-up to Baldur's Gate on most lists) were missing from the list. Although I was gratified to see that Fallout and Wasteland tied on one developer's list.
...).
They gave the credit for the RPG revival to Baldur's Gate and Diablo! The RPG revival definitely came with Fallout. Baldur's Gate was a welcome addition in the following year (or was it the year after?) but I don't think I've played it more than twice. OTOH, I have played both Fallout and Fallout 2 well over 30 times each - and I *still* discover new things occasionally. They are the only two games I immediately install whenever I rebuild my main Windows machine (it's due for another rebuild this week
Diablo created a new genre - isometric action games - but IMO it is no way a contributor to the CRPG genre. I had a lot of fun with Diablo, but I never considered it to contribute anything to the CRPG genre. BTW, it took me ages to force myself through Diablo 2 on easy, and won't be playing it ever again.
In many cases, this list appeared to be based on quantity (of sales) more than quality (although I could be wrong - my opinions differ greatly to most gamers in that I only tend to play CRPG or adventure games - I *never* play first-person shooters). I agree that Doom definitely deserves to be towards the top of the list, as it popularised an entirely new genre (however, what about Wolfenstein?) but whether it should be #1 is personal opinion.
I would truly like to know what criteria were used to determine this list. Surely it should be "what games have you played the greatest number of times (including getting a long way, giving up, and starting over because you did something not quite right)?".
For me, the list goes something like:
1. Fallout 1 & 2. FO1 had the better story, but FO2 improved gameplay. I can't decide.
2. Angband.
3. Moria.
4. NetHack.
5. Elite. Where the hell was this??? Why can't any space-sim match this game??? Never got to Elite though - highest I got was Deadly.
6. Pretty much everything else. Most games get played through at most once or twice.
It was a decent game but if you look at some of the limited hardware the others had to work with, I'd say they outrank it. FF3 and Tetris should have been much higher IMHO.
Besides, where are Mighty Bomb Jack and Star Voyager?
I wish there was a place I could download all the old games that are no longer in print.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Damned revisionist basterds[sic].
moon-buggy is the best game ever!
A *little* bias? Gimmie a break - these guys have the same tastes that I do (RPG and RTS), but there is a serious bias evident even to me. Plus a bias in terms of era of game play. You can see when the reviewers got into games, and what shaped their opinions.
Incidently, it doesn't include arcade games or early pre-PC games. Besides the easy Pac-Man Defender and Dig Dug, I'd have to toss a few into the hat like the friggin' incredible Below the Root (Beneath the Root?), Rescue Rangers (that was the choplifter where you built an army, right?), Apple Panic (okay, I'm starting to date myself), Epoch (damn, that was an addictive game), MULE (Ok, I didn't like it, but it was a classic), and Jumpman (no, not Jumpman VGA, the original C64 version).
Of course, they might have reasons (like a cut off date or something), but since I can't read the article...
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
This list is really biased towards action games. You can tell because they left Mario Kart (Super or 64) out of the list all together. I'm not sayinbg its the best game ever but its pretty damn sweet. Maybe they don't have great graphics and stuff like that but even after I got 007 on the 64 (which does make the list...and deserves to) I think I still have played Kart much more.
King Arthur: Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts? Ash: Nope. Just me baby... Just me.
Descent 3 in particular, when played with a joystick with a hat, is the slickest 3D experience ever. Being a physics geek myself, I always appreciated how they went out of their way to be accurate about inertia and momentum.
I can't belive Game Derby didn't make it into that list. I guess it's too underground :(
Game Derby was really well done, especially the Top Secret Robots part. While the graphics are a self parody, which isn't "cool" like blood and guts, the actualy *GAME* part of Top Secret Robots is out of this world! I'm really saddened they overlooked this top game just because it wasn't violent enough.
I've noticed, over time, that any list that gets produced by any source (ie PC Gamer, Gamecenter, etc) usually contains many of the same games in it. I must say, though, I wholly agree with many of the games included in the list... but why wasn't UT on it? Ultima Underworld was on the top ten. Huzzah. Where can I find copies of some of those older games on the list, ie the bard's tale?
what?
If I had to sit down and choose between a Diablo and Zelda. I'd pick Zelda in a heartbeat.
At least the first three Zelda's. I never got into the new n64 zeldas. They were too slow paced for me. Maybe I just never gave them a chance.
Somewhere on the net there is even a 3rd quest rendition someone did by hacking the original NES rom. They did a good job too. It's really fun.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Where was Pirates on that list? That game is a masterpiece that has yet to be cloned. Not only that but the game existed on a HUGE number of platforms (Amiga, C64, PC, NES, Genesis). Im disappointed.
Not to mention - where the hell was Dune 2? I mean that game STARTED the RTS genre. I played that game for a LONG LONG time.
You gotta love it when newer gamers make their top whatever lists. They really leave alot out. Of course - I think its great that Zork made the list. And one more thing - where the hell were the sierra adventure games?
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
There wasn't a lot on there that I thought shouldn't be, just the placement was a little screwy but I honestly don't see how you can have StarCraft and WarCraft in the top 20 and not have Myst or Rivan or a Sierra game like King's Quest. That was hugely revolutionary shit when it came out. In PC land I would say it was probably the most revolutionary game until around the time tetris showed up.
"I will be surprised to still see Zork on future lists, as well - not because it doesn't deserve to be there, but because game developers will have lost that much more of their history, or never even been introduced to it."
And with the present state of companies,IP rights, and old games, as well as emulators. There will be a great deal more that will be forgotten before it's over.
Magius_AR
How they could have ignored this game is beyond me. Play it every day for an hour and it will take 2 years to win. The game was sold bundled with a guide. It was sold like that in stores that didn't even sell guides to begin with. I still haven't beaten it. Never have I been taken in by a game with such a great story. The background, the detail, the plot, the expansive world. I'll have to buy the smashpack for DC just to play it again.
You're probably thinking of Civilization, which was never available for the Apple II.
I saw a little bias towards first-person shooters here. Personally, I am willing to admit that one first-person shooter should have been on the list, but that many on the top 10?
:) !
Also, not a single sports game on the list? I think any tennis game (or its simple predecessor PONG) should have been given a nod.
And ZELDA is the best game ever
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
My favorite game is where I douse my wang in napalm, light it, and anally violate Cowboy Neal.
Come on... Everybody knows that Bubble Bobble is by far one of the greatest games /ever/.
This top accounts only for a part of games genres. Important ones are absolutely forgotten. In any list like that Microsoft Flight Simulator has to be there. Not that I like it, but it's just a game with a HUGE following. Simulation is basically not represented. What, Wing Commander is a Simulator? The Falcon series, Silent Hunter should have been there.
What about card games? Do you know how many people play those? What about Chess games? Nothing there about that. Thei "top 50" is pretty useless.
Oids Sundog Dungeon Master Lord of Doomdark Civ Mule Super Mario Kart Fallout Elite Paradroid Star Raiders Adventure VCS Atic Atak and on and on and on... The only good thing about these lists is that they remind me what games I need to emulate next!
And missile command had something kids who never experienced the cold war just miss. Maybe Bush's "missile defense" program will bring this game back some ways into the mainstream. The spooky part was that on the higher levels it is impossible to defent all 6 cities. So what do you do? Defend the one city nearest to the middle base and let the others get blown away. Which is probably what would happen in real life.
As for Pac Man... the first game popular among GIRLS! Something which modern games STILL fail to address. The cute graphics seemed to attract more girls than to any other video game.
I would also add Dragon's Lair. The first game that minimized gameplay and turned games into a sequence of FMV clips. The "gameplay" was just an annoying interlude. In this respect DL was waaaaaaaaaay ahead of its time. It failed then, but today games like this succeed.
Is it just me, or did they obviously favour PC games? For starters, Final Fantasy 3 is #1, Crono Trigger and Secret of mana should be top 10. I didn't see pacmam nor did I burger time. This is a sad day for gaming it is.
... to name but a few.
Where are they?
That list looked more to me like the best games in the last 10 years, not of all time.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Yeah. I went throught the list, with growing incredulity.
Where the fuck is LODE RUNNER ?
Cheers,
--fred
How can you name fifty games no less without mentioning some of the originals that invented the form? This list reads like a list of the "50 greatest songs of all time" all of which were recorded since 1960.
Despite a couple of nods toward the C64 and Apple ][, this list is hopelessly 90's-oriented. "All-time" indeed! Where are...
- SPACEWAR, the first video game EVER
- PONG, PONG, PONG, and PONG variants like BREAKOUT, the first home video games EVER
- TANK WAR for the 2600, still holds its own with any modern game for quick 2-person play
- BATTLEZONE, first first-person 3d game EVER
- SPACE INVADERS, ASTEROIDS, each owned the world for a couple of years
Meanwhile I've never even heard of some of the games they nominated. Then again, I'm not a "gamer" any more -- guess I got it out of my system when we were still carving video games out of wooden blocks.Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
> Rescue Rangers (that was the choplifter where you built an army, right?),
. htm
On the Apple ][ it was called: Rescue Raiders
Easter eggs can be found here:
http://www.gamewinners.com/apple_ii/RescueRaiders
There's even an open source clone !
http://216.254.0.2/~morse/copter-commander/
Cheers
Full Throttle. Yep. Full Throttle. It was yet another story board adventure game from Lucasarts. The art and the music gave it a distinctive style that I wish they'd developed further. Here's webpage about it.
I got it up and running a while back because I remembered it so fondly, only to realize how amazingly short the game was. It was pretty easy, because even after a few years, I could still remember how to solve the puzzles. There's almost no replay value, which I guess fits its lack of popularity. It's really just like watching a really cool cartoon. You can watch it once but after that it's tedious. For that matter, I wish they had made it into a cartoon. It'd be one kick ass cartoon.
Any hope for some of these titles to make it to the Mac platform?
where's King's Quest? Not even in the top 50?
Even most of the (numerous) sequels were weaker than the original, it did spawn countless imitators, and kept me stuck on my old Apple IIc many frustrated nights while I realized I shouldnt have stabbed the goat back there.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Spaceward Ho! (4.0) and Pax Imperia on the Mac (years before the 2.0 PC version) left "hot" PC games like Master of Orion so far in the dust it's not even funny.
I once had a bug on Pax Imperia where the population on my planet warped around somehow, and poof! I had 600 billion people or something on that one planet. Yeah, they weren't doing too well, but just a little tax on them and I could pop out fleets of up-to-date dreadnaughts and clear wide swaths through the galaxy.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
And Linux developers are too lame to port it.
I prefer playing DOOM to Quake any day... ;-)
At least I don't have to bother with vertical aiming
I believe that an old Penny Arcade strip is applicable here. http://www.penny-arcade.com/dogs.shtml
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
If those are the top 50 games of all time I must be missing something. Where is lemmings, where is Elite, where is Grim Fandango or any lucasarts adventure (those are fantastic works)....
:)
I may be opinionated, but I know that at least one of the above games should be in that chart. Elite should probably be in the top ten, it being one of the most popular games ever.
I do agree with DOOM being number 1 though, that was a fantastic game
Weevil
ghaa.
But, who cares? The games in the list are good, and the #1 is definately the #1!
(By the way, I still prefer DOOM to "anything" else over LAN)
Where's Might and Magic, or the best space game of all time, Elite?
They put both Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 in their list, but no mention of either Fallout. That list is absolutely worthless.
I'm a mario fan so I think u can understand that when I say something about it I'm not kidding super mario bros 3 is a nice game it is very very good but it is not the REVOLUTION which SM64 in it's time was, it was the first 3D game which made real virtual worlds and between it is more funny then SMB3 , what makes me really lough is that Doom is on place 1 hehe but I think if all think like u it is sure something normal...
...is still one of the best, as far as I'm concerned.
... as a matter of fact, I used to play it so much (monochrome green screen and all) that I used to have nightmares about being burried alive in stone.
:)
Lode Runner, on my Dad's Apple ][e
Never mind it was played on a computer that didn't have a hard drive.
$0.02 (CDN)
I didn't see Unreal at all. I haven't had much experience with quake and half life but Unreal and Unreal Tournament were pretty awesome games in my opinion. The first unreal inspired me to buy a voodoo2 and UT inspired me to buy an athlon and a GeForce and a T1.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
>First post's on weekends don't count.
No need for the apostrophe in the word "posts" in that sentence.
:-)
I think another title that they're missing is ZZT- the first game with a level editor, and it was so damn engrossing... I truly loved ZZT in every way.
-bugg
I feel truly bad for anyone who missed Starflight. Today, it's probably almost unplayable because of the dated graphics, but oh, when I played that game, I was completely immersed. Starflight still has fan pages out there to this day, and even has a fan sequel project in the works.
I really thought that Some of the Space Quest, King's Quest and Quest for Glory games should have made that list, but I didn't see a single on one there.
3d Monster Maze on the ZX81... predates DOOM (an Wolfenstein - why isn't that on there too?) by several years.
I used to play that one for hours... I jumped out of my skin when the monster got me!
I dunno about the rest of the world, but speaking for the /. crowd (as well as the sick people that protest with 'AYBABTU' on Deer Hunter on Battle.net), but doesn't good ol' Zero Wing for Genesis deserve a bit of...Fame!?
-
And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
All the pre-90s games in the list are either PC games or Nintendo games, cause they didn't play on anything else in the states. They never had BBC's, C64s, spectrums, amigas, atari STs or anything else we would classify as a non-PC "home computer" (well, at least, not in such large proportions). It's highly unlikely these guys never even PLAYED elite. Or any of the following, for that matter : Elite (the mighty) The last ninja trilogy The Turrican trilogy Microprose Soccer (first ever top-down football game?) International Karate (and IK+!) Marble madness Carrier Command Lotus esprit turbo challenge Speedball 2 Shadow of the beast Trailblazer Head over heels Jet set willy Super Stardust Mercenary (did anybody ever manage to complete this?!) Another World Sentinel ...need I go on?
Meanwhile, there's a few ommitions that they MUST have played.. Descent? Carmageddon? (surely the most hilarious fun 8 people can have on a LAN? :-)).
Please someone tell me! (cringing with nostaglia!!)
My favorite game of all time is Electronic Arts's Mail Order Monsters. You bought selected a body for your monster (arachnid, brontosaurus, hominid, amoeba, lyonbear, etc), improved its attributes (strength, life, armor, speed, muscle, and brain), added traits to it (photosynthesis, hands, tenticals, poison spit, etc), outfitted it with weapons and armor, and then sent it into battle.
I spent many a day coming home from grade school, and wasting many an afternoon and evening playing as my mom put it "that mind numbing game".
Remember that period in your mid-teens, when the music of the period imprinted on you? Of course you do; you still listen to it today, don't even try to lie :) Video games are the same way -- it hits some individual engram buried 'way back in your head. It's fairly obvious how old the sample group and writers for this article were ^_^ I was waiting for the page to load at the end and thinking to myself, "If it's Doom I'm going to scream ..."
/still/ get together and LANplay House of Pain, Lack of Vision and No Disintegrations, five years after the game was released. Halo is cute and all, but Durandal is eternal. (Literally.)
And, OK, yeah, I was kind of disappointed some personal favorites didn't get the shout-out I thought they deserved, but who wasn't? That Starflight wasn't even mentioned was a mark of shame -- when you realize what you've been using for fuel all that time --
You PC folk may not empathize, but for the Mac, Marathon 2 deserved a nod more than 1 in my opinion; the story was more intricate (Marathon was *always* about the terminals), gameplay was light-years better, and the atmosphere as thick as a sack of lard. Maybe it's because I was playing it during a really rough patch of my life, but We're Everywhere (yes, that specific map) sticks with me, for no obvious reason. My RL-friends and I
You know they've done something right when you can crack people up just by quoting BOB.
I was glad to see some of the individuals' top-10 lists (such as Tom Hall's) had some older Apple ][ games. And Wizardry was one of the top 50. I spent a lot of time on that one. And I don't know how much time I spent on Ultima II. (Or was it III? The one where you start out using horses and buggies, and by the end of the game technology has advanced to the point where you actually have to use a space shuttle to go out in space and do something to win the game, although I forget exactly what.)
But most of the games on their list are ones with an "epic" feel to them. What about the classics which were simple, but people spent just as much time playing? E.g. things like Miner 2049'er (the first title ported to nearly every computer and console out there at the time; I had the Apple ][+ version), Jumpman on Atari computers, and so on? Those were basically the console/computer equivalents of arcade titles such as Joust, Robotron, etc. Simple ideas, but tons of fun and you could spend endless hours on them.
Wow, a total lack of Japanese games on this list....and not just Japanese games but Japanese games that make it here (about 80% of our games). The Japanese create many more, better games then we do here in the states and prople like Sheigeuru Miyamoto are greater game developers then anyone. and yes, Mario64 should be high on te list because it was the first time a "real" 3D walkaround game came out with great control and feel.
But this list had a few especially ludicrous entries, especially in the top 10...
10.) Legend of Zelda - NES
Nah. Wouldn't be on my top 500. If they put Link to the Past here, or Mario 3 (did I miss it in the top 50?), I wouldn't disagree.
9.) Starcraft
8.) Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
7.) Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Agreed on all three. (Though I am puzzled why Ultima VII was shafted in the top 50. It's better than either Ultima V or Ultima III, I think.)
6.) Diablo (the original)
It was addictive, for sure, but was it really that great a game? I don't think so. I'd put it around 30. Maybe.
5.) Quake
Why? What makes it a better game than, say, Jedi Knight?
4.) Sid Meier's Civilization (the original)
Of course Civ2 was the better game, but it was Civ that was actually innovative. I loved this game, and I think it deserves its place.
3.) Warcraft 2
Huh? How? Why? It was good, no doubt. It was top 50 of all time, maybe. But it wasn't as good as Starcraft or a number of other RTS games. Moreover, it wasn't particularly innovative or groundbreaking.
2.) Half-life
No way. The single player game is outclassed by System Shock, Thief, et al. The mods should be judged separately (as Counterstrike was).
1.) Doom
Whatever.
It seems to me that console games were represented rather poorly overall, though my bias is also towards PC games. The fact that I played every one of the console games listed is telling--I haven't played all that many.
Older games are definitely shafted, but the authors probably come from about the same generation I do, so I'm not really able to correct them.
Not to mention giving Blizzard 30% of the top 10...and id's forgettable splatfests 20%.
How can that be?
Also, no BBS door games? WTF?
the top 50 reasons why teens nowadays just don't get it? or perhaps the top 50 reasons why you guys are considered old farts and don't belong?
i don't know. i read through that (and yes, FPS bias) and thought to myself, "self, why are those games considered the greatest of all time?" "well, self, i can see why x-com, and zeldas and FFs are on the list, but doom the GREATEST of all time?" "true, self, i didn't see any of the old ssi games on there (you know, the company that was able to get ad&d on the computer and do it well)."
"oh, self, and where the fuck is leisure suit larry and its brethren?" heavens to mergotroid, no games by sierra on-line at all? sigh.
to recap, what does it take to be one of the greatest games of all time? fast paced, no plot, good eye candy.
and the Irishman took the fly in his hands and yelled, "spit it out!"
hey, at least I recognized most of the list.
for reference, here's the whole thing:
there are actually 51 games, due to their inability to pick a number 10 and then numbering the next one number 11. sigh.
anyway, I've never even heard of: #10 (the second one), #12, #20, #24 (huh - in there twice?), #31, #32, #35, #38 (well apart from the movie :), #46, and #50. so obviously I can't comment on those.
and I quite definitely agree that quite a few of these titles need to be on the list. ones I specifically object to:
games which I think are missing:
Oh yeah. And there are no "realistic" karate games. SF2 is the only game listed, with denigrating reference to its descendants, all of which were full of people throwing fireballs and the like. Games like Karateka are totally forgotten.
I stopped playing karate games because of SF2 and its children. The goofy "special moves" are just plain, well, goofy. :)
Anyway, I think I'll go finish last night's SMAC game off now. Enjoy. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Where is PacMan? Where is Pong? Where is Breakout? Where is Hunt the Wumpus? These guys have no idea. I still play these games because they are far better than most of the games released today.
If you never had video games before and then Pong came along it was the best and most fun game. It was simply awesome at that time since it was the only game in town.
But yeah if Quake is the first game you played and then someone tries to show you pong, it probably won't look all that much fun now.
This may just be a troll, but I ask this:
Why should we care?
Making a list is so useless and subjective that almost everyone would disagree with it. Now we're going to end up with posts like "Why isn't game X on the list?"
And why is DOOM #1? There are plenty of games out now that outrank DOOM. If we want to go retro, why is Starcraft in there? Plenty of games that came out in that genre before that. Why isn't Pong on?
this isn't really complaining, but I just find it very odd that Wolfenstein 3-D was somehow left out of the list, especially since they gave it praise while they were commenting on Doom, and given the obvious FPS tilt. Once again, i'm not trying to complain or anything, just an observation.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Ok, I'll disagree. I have all three of those platforms and didn't buy Tony Hawks. I did get it for the GBA however, and much prefer the 720-style view. I've played the Playstation version a little and didn't like it at all. All in all, as with every list it says more about the compilers than the games though. Warcraft II above Quake? Mario 64 not in the top three? I'm sure everyone can find something to disagree with.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Shit, this game is still incredibly playable today and was one of the first games that I could play on a LAN since AppleTalk boxes were so much cheaper than Ethernet equipment back then. But shit, wasn't this one of the earliest head to head muli-player network games? I was really tickled to see Pirates! I could never figure out the optimal way to swordfight aside from going to the open line and using combos.
These guys COMPLETELY forgot the online genre before UO. BBS games were the first truly persistent online games. Later, some you could connect to over the internet (telnet into the BBS) so they were even worldwide in some cases. Other fans of this genre of games, suggest your favorites.
As well, how could tetris be that low on the list? It practically CREATED the graphical puzzle genre of games. In the review, they gave it quite high praise talking about it, but it got a crappy rating. They were right talking about "What other game are you still playing 10 years after it was made?", but they fail to see its significance.
All in all, quite a bad show from their staff and reviewers.
Erioll
P.S. Doom is #1? That is the funniest thing i ever saw.
I'm glad one list finally recognizes one of the greatest games of all time - Star Control II If you haven't played it, you really need to. Awesome story, fantastic music, decent graphics, a killer ending, and the best villains ever in a computer game. You can probably find it free on the web as abandonware!!!
Granted, LORD was an amazing game, but once you delve into the realm of BBS games, you simply can't do better than the MBBS version of Tradewars 2002. God, I wasted a lot of my life playing that...
Marathon is #44! It deserves number 1! Or at least number 7...
I'm sorry, but there's just one game missing from that list. Oregon Trail, though simple, was one of the most addictive early games I'd played. I mean, come on managing everything, and don't tell me you didn't like hunting. I'd always buy max bullets and little food, do all hunting. Sucked that you could always only carry back 200lbs regardless of how much you shot.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Anyone willing to setup a free vote of /.'ers favourite games of *all* time.. It would be interesting to see what came out top (nethack i'd guess :PP)
If I had my own server with enough bandwidth i'd do it myself :)
(That link to the list in the original article appears to be broken for me.. )
Tribes didn't even make the list? You've got to be kidding me. It was far and away the first game that brought large team multiplayer TEAMWORK gameplay to the FPS. You don't work as a team, you loose. I mean the first in the sense that working together goes beyond just the weapons side of the game. This game in my mind deserves to be at least in the top 20.
I think compiling a list of games that are more fun than Pong wouldn't be too hard. Now, if the list was of the most important games of all time, I'm sure Pong would top the list.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
- Wizardry I-III (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, LL, etc, which I still play on occasion under Apple ][ emulator)
- Zork/Enchanter (I lump them as one, and yes, I still have my box sets)
- Eye of the Beholder I-II (which I still play on occasion)
- Sim City 2000 (which I wish I hadn't broke, I was SO addicted to this game)
- Ultima III (which I don't play anymore, although you can under Apple ][ emulator)
- Warcraft II
One of the reasons I REALLY love Blizzard games (and no, I don't work for them) is that their hardware requirements vs. how great they look and play is absolutely right up there with the best in the 'biz'. Check out the hardware requirements for Starcraft or Diablo, probably a P-90. And I -loved- those games. Call me biased (bait) but I hate overloaded FPS games like Quake, UT, Daikatana, etc, etc. They take a P-300 and mega graphics cards to play. I'll stick with Blizzard and my trusty P-120, but I just might upgrade for Warcraft IIIThe REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Where is Legend of the Red Dragon? Can we not include our BBS Door-game brethren in this fine list?
and how is Counterstrike not in the top ten.. tisk tisk.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Similarly, the list was compiled by polling Gamespy staff and several "prominent" PC developers' top 10 games of all time. Which means you get a list mostly by people who had a NES rather than a 300 baud modem. And the general elitist view on CS is that its a "mod" not a game. Yea. Its bullshit too. But Half-Life is number 2, so hey!
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
What happened to Bubble Bobble? How could they not include that game??
I've never even heard of half those games, but that's probably because I don't play games on a PC.
What a stupid list...
Outrun, Defender, Galaga, Metal Slug 3, etc... Where are they?
This list does seem to be lacking the good old 80's and early 90's games that really deserve recognition. So I'm summit a list of the top 3 games that should be on the list for there high quality at the time.
3. Kingdom of Kroz (1987, Apogee) - This games was really the first overhead 3rd person game I ever saw.
2. Commander Keen (1990, Apogee) - No list should be without this great side scroller, rememeber not all of us has GebeForce 8 video cards. This game really lead to Duke Nukem (the origanal, not 3D), then Wolfenstein 3-D and eventually to Doom.
And
1. ZZT (1991, Epic MegaGames)- This game really was great for it's time, It had unlimited playablity with it's built in programming language (ZZT-OOP). Game development continues on it even today! Also it can run on just about any PC you have laying around. First really great game from the makers of Unreal.
Elite.
'Nuff Said.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Also, since they seem to be stuck in the 90s, (ie- omitting Maniac Mansion and Wasteland) why is Tony Hawk Pro Skater not on this list? Anyone who owns a playstation or dreamcast (or even PC) has bought this game and still plays it! (I know I do). Anyone agree?
I don't care if they missed Super Mario Bros. or Elite, not putting Nethack in the top 10 is unacceptable; but it's not even on the list. Pthooey!
Okay... I love FPS games as much as the next guy, but to omit Myst???
C'mon! Was there anyone who didn't have their proverbial socks blown off when they first saw that game back in 1994?
The exquisite soundtrack, the skillful 3D art... Pure pre-rendered beauty!
(Anyone who's opened up an 800 can testify to this!!!)
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
God Lord, i didn't even noticed it. But you are right. And it is a shame the game is not on the list. I've played this game forever on my C64! I didn't know you could save the game so i had to start i new game every time and unfortunately the day is quite short and me and a friend of mine probably replayed it 50 times until we finished it :)
Oh my, that brings some memories back.
keep it simple.
How the hell did Starcraft get ranked 9th? It has archaic technology, piss poor game play, a bad "plot". The game is all about clicking as fast as you possibly can. If you want a real game, play Myth (The Fallen Lords, Myth 2: Soulblighter, Myth 3: The Wolf Age)
I can't believe I just witnessed a list of "top games of all time" that didn't include a variant of Pac-Man, Galaga, or any other arcade game on it! Computer games have come a long way, but in the very beginning, when personal computers still cost insane amounts of money for most people, those 25 cent coin-ops were CREATING this entire industry. The fact that these "top developers" didn't remember these just shows how quickly your 15 minutes of fame passes in the gaming world, and how easy it has become for people to forget life before Windows 95 and Nintendo.
I will be surprised to still see Zork on future lists, as well - not because it doesn't deserve to be there, but because game developers will have lost that much more of their history, or never even been introduced to it.
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
This game got about 2 minutes of my attention, and i am still angry I paid for it. Did people actually play this one? I can't believe it made top 50 and Myst did not. Someone has to be on crack.
That being said, I'm surprised that a lot of very influential games weren't able to crack the Top 50:
[Pac Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pitfall, Pole Position, NetHack, Donkey Kong (which spawned literally hundreds of spin-off games), Space Quest, Missile Command, Lode Runner, Super Mario Bros.]
As you can see from my list, I think there should have been more early console and coin-op games on the list. The list totally ignores a huge segment of the gaming world.
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
Of course I forgot L.O.R.D. Because it S.U.C.K.E.D. You finish the game, and it starts you at the beginning. Plus, it really wasn't that interactive with others. Sure, you could fight if you wanted to, but for the most part it was independant. And not that fun either. What I was meaning are the persistent games, like Tradewars, and Galactic Empire. I didn't list them because I wanted people to say what THEY liked, not list all the ones that I used to play.
Eriol
P.S. Sorry everyone else for this flame. This post just seemed to be screaming for one back from sheer ignorance.
that's my opinion and I'll say more I'm a big Zelda and mario fan and a nintendo orthodox but SM64 is better then SMB3 not only better it's a revolution wheras SMB3 is the better version of SMB, go play it again and then mmake ur comments
1. Wizardry
2. Digger
3. Kings Quest
4. Dune
5. Ultima Underworld
6. Doom
7. Ancient art of war
8. Civilisation
9. War of the lance
10. Eye of the beholder
Wing Commander
Ultima III: Exodus
Alone in the Dark
Ultima Online
Tomb Raider
Falcon 3.0
SimCity
Half-Life
Civilization
Diablo
Dune II: Battle for Arrakis
King's Quest IV: Perils of Rosella
Myst
Doom
Quake
Interesting to make the comparison as to which of these pc games rate well when compared with other consoles etc.
Okay, I don't like First person -- or 3rd person shooters, PERIOD! But I know they will always top such lists of games for I don't know what reason but I accept it. OTOH, any list that puts Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss -- my personal #1 at #8, Legend of Zelda at #10, Diablo at #6 and Civilization at #4 is definitely worth looking at even for folks like me. I would have put Wolfenstein higher and will never underestimate the power of Solitare for its simple convenience ("Quick Fix") value, but all in all, agreeing with 4 of the top 10 is pretty darn good in a list of 50.
Devo Andare,
Jeffrey.
Time Lord, Dark Horse: The Techno Mage of Gallifrey
Here you can find almost the same thing looked from another angle: Amiga Report Top 100 Games Of All Time .
Since no one's mentioned it.. that was my favorite nes game.
I'm just astonished that they remembered M.U.L.E. (25)
I think about half my free time in college was taken up yelling at the tv or my friends when they wouldn't sell me enough energy to run my production. We used to collect players for a game just by sticking our heads in the door of someone's room and yelling, "MULE!". Hell, it was even a spectator sport. Lately I scrounged up an old C64 that we still use exclusively for playing MULE.
Goddamn Mechtrons.
Back when Doom was the big thing, Marathon came out. You actually had to aim up and down. Enemies would float down on you from above and behind. There were real puzzles. And the story! Never have a played a game with as engrossing a story. Marathon II took things up a notch, but wasn't as revolutionary. Marathon Infinity was a whole new story--a troubling and confusing one, at that. And Marathon still lives. There are tons of interesting mods (Tempus Irae, a Rennaissance Italy mod, is one of my favourites), and even an open source (yes, that means Linux!) version. Marathon II had a Windows version; all other commercial version were Mac-only; the open source is Mac, Linux, Windows and BeOS.
Want an exploration game? Want to be a space trader (remember trading games?)? Want an arcade space combat game? Want to conquer the galaxy? Escape Velocity allowed one to do all that and more. An incredible engine, not in terms of graphics, but in terms of capabilities. Truly outside-the-box thinking, it was one of the real greats. It is Mac-only.
First there was rogue. Then there was Moria. And then there was Angband. Expandable, extensible, just plain fun. It was winnable, too, which I cannot say for NetHack (which is in many ways a superior game, except that I spend all of my time on the first 6 levels) or Omega (I've just not played it enough).
Another one that came out right around Doom. Doom (and Marathon) had a boring map type--walls went straight from floor to ceiling; all floors and ceilings were parallel. The player ran around killing things. Descent changed all that by offering a FPS with true spherical movement: the player flew through tunnels, able to turn in any direction, control pitch, yaw and elevation. The gameplay was incredible. I'm not certain why this genre has not caught on. In many ways, it's similar to a flight simulator, but with an arcade flavour. A ripping good time; I'm playing Descent III on Linux these days. Descent was originally offered for Mac and Windows boxes.
I'm not certain why, but Contra was one of those games I could just play for hours and hours without end. I loved it deeply, and was awful at it. But man was it fun!
Incidentally, when's slashdot going to support <dl>?
I know this is a little off subject, but gamespy as of late has gown down the tube.
They now force you to create a gamespy login ID to download off of fileplanet.com. Also, once you get your ID registered and go to start downloading, it can put you in a queue for quite some time before you actually get to download it.
I just can't see how this game was passed over and yet so many of the Ultima games made it. I mean, I played those, but they were nowhere near as pleasing as Chrono Trigger. The exception is Ultima Online, which I consider a very good game, and it only gets 48!
I'm sorry, but any one of infocoms 100+ games should have dominated that list.
Suspended took me three years to figure out. Beyond Zork: The best game ever.
Trinity? Awesome game.
Nord and Bert? Good lord, how'd they miss that?
Oh wait, maybe flashy graphics make a game good..
Explains why there aren't and space/kings/heroes/police quest games there either. And each and every one of those were much better than any First-person shooter.
God, Twitch, shoot, twitch? Do the video game companies really want us to build up large muscles in our hands?
prolixity
Sure, all "Greatest Hits" lists are subjective, and won't come close to satisfying everyone, but I'm gonna yell anyway: how in the hell did FO1 or 2 miss that list? Starcraft and BG1 make it, but neither FO? That's screwball!
Omitting Descent 1 or 2 I can see, although barely, despite the fact that one or the other would easily make my top 20. What about Jagged Alliance 2? An absolutely awesome game with endless replay potential.
They got it right in some respects: Doom should be #1. It's succesor was the sole reason I decided to buy my first computer: I shelled out $600.00 for 16 Megs of RAM: remember those days?. However, games like X-Com TFTD and Descent 1 quickly validated my purchase. That was back in the day when I'd play from dusk to dawn.
The inclusion of X-Com UFOD was spot-on as well. Both System Shocks definitely deserved to make the cut, as well as Duke 3D.
Wish they'd omitted consoles. At least Super Metroids made the cut, but I would have had to choose Herzog Zwei as well.
In fairness to the reviewers, there are entire genres I've virtually ignored (simulations, god-games, fighting). The editors had to make room for games from every genre in both PC and Console. They made some tough calls, I know, but I have to say that the omission of one of the Fallout games has to be the biggest boner of all. I went through them from 50 to 1, in that order, and as I went I was increasingly please because I fealt certain that FO was going to score higher than I'd anticipated. It wasn't until I got to the 10-2 page that I realized it had been overlooked: I knew Doom had to be #1.
Think it's time for me to contact Gamespy and ask for an explanation.
You're taking me back to the day....
Either Defender or Stargate deserved to be on that list. Stargate had me hooked so bad that, given the choice between $3.00 worth of Stargate or a porno mag, I wouldn't have thought twice. What a game.
Now, I'm not so sure about Pong or Breakout: I think I played those games (on the Atari) when it was either that or Gilligan's Island. But It wasn't as though I'd miss Starsky and Hutch just to play Pong.
These mooks have ported dark castle to newer, less-suckful macs and made it colour at the same time. It also looks like they've been doing the same with other badass-but-unmentioned-in-the-list games like spaceward ho.
Oregon Trail! Hunting, entertaining diseases, suicidal fords, and you were encouraged to do all this in an educational facility. What more could you want?
They should take half life off the list and replace it with magic carpet in the same spot.
...Tetris....
I have to mention Saturn Bomberman, and this seems to be the right thread to do it in. What other non-mainstream sports game gives you ten human-controlled players on one screen at one time? In that mode there's very little having to get used to controls -- up, down, left, right, BOMB. The ultimate party game.
The early games couldn't rely on the crutch of snazzy graphics to grab your attention so they were meticulously tuned for playability. The distance and speed torpedoes travelled, the EFX reward for explosions and captures, the size and brightness of images and responsiveness of controls, were all play-tested for months before a game was released to market. At a place like Atari, dozens or even hundreds of people might play a game for hours before it went out the door. All that feedback went back into making the game more playable.
Today, games are built in closed shops which do not have these resources, and much of the resources they have are spent creating necessary artwork. Simple games of dexterity or strategy are simply not to be found. Doom is not a hopped-up Battlezone; it is another thing entirely. Wolfenstein 3D comes somewhere in between. But the closest you will get to Battlezone today is the Microsoft port, which doesn't play like the original. Sure, it looks like the original, but it doesn't play the same, especially when the missiles come out -- I should know, since in its heyday I could walk up to an arcade Battlezone machine and write my name vertically on the high score list.
Game makers just don't pay attention to that fine-level play any more. Early games made awesome play out of limited graphics and CPU time. DigDug took a liability of early hardware -- difficulty of re-rendering the landscape after an object had passed and erased it -- and turned it into a play feature. (Lode Runner took this to the next level on the 8-bit home computer.)
I trace the beginning of the death of game play to the Intellivision. Every console since has continued the trend -- immersiveness substitutes ever more for cleanness and simple play. A great game takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master, but most of today's games are the other way around; by the time you can even get through them without cheat codes, they're lame and stale and you're ready for the next new even more immersive experience that will bore you just as fast.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Not a single Sega game on the list?? This list is hardly accurate then.
Many people seem to be complaining about the lack of oler titles mentioned. What did you expect? GameSpy has too keep in mind it's target audience/demographic. On top of that you can bet the list was made by members of that audience/demographic. Yeah, not many old games, but us teenage to young adult gamers are going to have a hard time remembering those, for the most part.
For a list clearly too heavy on first-person shooters (even old-school ones), Descent and sequels' absence is a joke. Myst/Riven also deserve a place - perhaps developers didn't think much of them, but their audiences certainly did. How many more copies were sold of Myst/Riven than of Doom or even Quake? Plenty. But the most egregious slight is to Myth and its sequel. A revolution in gameplay no FPS since Wolf 3D has managed, groundbreaking atmospherics and beautiful finish (Dwarves have never bitched and moaned so entertainingly) made Myth unquestionably one of the best ever - even for pale-faced freaks with index-finger twitches.
Four words - Ancient Domains of Mystery.
;)
ADOM is a roguelike game, and while it didn't start this genre, it is certainly the best. This deserves to be on the top 10. Easily one of the most addictive rpg's available. The amount of customization for your character is tremendous. Learning everything that there is to do, and learning what everything does burns many many hours. Don't look at the spoilers...
-Nitar
how could they have missed that one...definitely one of the best (maybe even THE best) PRGs of all time.
My cat's breath smells like cat food.--R. Wiggums
I didn't see any qualifications in GameSpy's article about only computer games. Maybe Katz should write an essay "Does life exist outside of computers?"
Top game of all time? Chess.
Monopoly ought to be in the top 10 too.
It's too bad this (and Dark Castle) were on the Mac, or they'd have made the list certainly.
While the PC traded off having color for having pixels the size of JLo's right ass cheek, the Mac, pure B&W, had teeny-tiny square pixels and this excellent Lode Runner game, with digitized sound (another feature years away on the PC in any kind of quantity.)
Pure puzzle brilliance and you could design your own levels, too. Yeah, it came out a decade later on the PC as a nostalgia game (which I bought), but still.
I do note a curious lack of puzzle games. Where is the Lemmings series? Tetris is on there, but that's about it. I think the bias showed up in the comments over Half-Life, where they denegrate the last episode because of all the jumping puzzles. As someone who loves puzzle games (not to mention once being in an excellent Quake clan) the "troublesome" jumping was right up my alley.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
What do they mean by "Top 50"?
- Most evolutionary (e.g. Half-Life?)
- Most revolutionary (e.g. Wolf 3D?)
- Most time-wastingly-addictive (EverQuest, Quake CTF?)
- Biggest thrills (Duke Nukem, Half-Life?)
Their list (and the reasoning presented by the selectors) shows some kind of mish-mash of these things.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
WTF are they smoking. There's far too many FPS's in the list and they've left out Wolfenstein 3D the one that started it all. Obviously those guys don't play too many other types of games. The original Red Baron was a great WWI flight sim! Mechwarrior 2 was a great pseudo tank sim! What about Sim City? What about Tomb Raider & Myst?
They've also left out all of the Aces of the ??? flight sims. And... the apple II wireframe flight sim. What about all the Scott Adams text adventures?! Ultima 1 & 2 sucked but Ultima 3 should have been there instead of 5. Ultima 5 was basically Ultima 4 with extra tiles and a few extra clues to solve. It should have been released as an expansion pack.
Defender
Robotron
Pong
Joust
Gauntlet 2
Asteroids
Bostonian
Galaga
Pacman
Lode Runner
Frogger
Spaceward Ho!