Game Innovators Pick Their Favorite Titles

Thanks to Ludology.org for pointing to the Georgia Tech game morphology project, which, although still in development, has asked famous creators and academics for their favorite games of all time. Interesting picks include Warren Spector's kudos for Ultima IV ("Wait, you mean games can be about more than just killing things? Whoa! This game, with its ethical underpinnings, changed my life"), Henry Jenkins' choice of Myst ("not a great game from the perspective of game play... [but influential because] it brought some degree of middle class respectability to games"), and Will Wright's picking of Pinball Construction Set ("[a] heavy influence for me - construction is fun.")

Comments

Ultima IV indeed.

[gklinger]

I have no idea who Warren Spector is (other than what I read when I followed the link in the article) but I agree wholeheartedly with his choice of Ultima IV. What makes it so amazing, and it's as relevant and playable now as the day it was released, is that it's more than a game. It's an ethics primer that teaches the lesson about reaping the harvest you sew.

If you've never played Ultima IV, you should, even if you don't like RPGs. It's worth your time. Luckily, Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) has made this easy to do by releasing Ultima IV as freeware. You can download the game here and the documentation here. Also, an upgrade patch has been created that improves the graphics and sounds without mucking with the game mechanics. You learn more about Ultima IV as well as download the upgrade here.

One other thing, it's a long game and even if you don't have the time to play it, download it and play through the introduction (10-15 minutes tops). There are a series of ethical/moral questions that determine your character type and they're really interesting. So interesting in fact that fans have reproduced the 'quiz' on the web so if you're really not into downloading the game, you can still take the Ultima Personality Test.

Re:Ultima IV indeed.

[Danse]

Warren Specter is the man behind System Shock and Deus Ex.

A Game Always Ignored But Ahead of Its Time

[Babbster]

Alter Ego by Activision (Commodore 64). This was my first gaming experience that was all about "real" life. In AE, you were simply born and lived a life until death. The way you lived your life was that you were presented a series of icons representing things like romance, career, school, etc. in each period of life (toddler, kid, adolescent, young adult, middle age, elderly). Each of these icons would present a situation that you had to resolve, and each decision affected your future. For example, as a baby you could select a family interaction wherein you were told that you were hungry. You would then have to choose whether to cry or not. If you chose to cry, that could enhance your social ability, particularly when you stopped crying after being fed; you could also continue crying which would turn out to be an indicator that you weren't progressing in terms of communication and would impact your relationship with your family.

As you continued through your life, you would have the opportunity to go to school/college and affect your performance there; get a job; meet members of the opposite sex and maybe get married. There were even morally questionable things like the possibility of having an affair, where you might end up being forced to decide whether or not to admit your infidelity, and it could end your marriage. The morally ambiguous actions were the most interesting to me because it made Alter Ego a truly adult sort of game - not because it was trying to arouse but because it was attempting to convey a realism that was lacking in virtually every other game available at the time.

I know that this has been off-topic in the sense that it doesn't address directly the story, but, as in my topic title, I feel like this game gets ignored in terms of innovation and genre. Heck, most people I talk to have never even heard of it, and I consider that a shame. If you have the opportunity (through emulation, for example) to play Alter Ego (there are two versions - male and female), I highly recommend it. For me, it was a lesson that a game didn't have to be filled with nonstop action and violence to be compelling - a lesson that was all but ignored for a VERY long time, and one which some developers still need to learn.