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Sonic Conquers UK's Favorite Games Poll

Posted by simoniker on from the knuckles-best-supporting-actor dept.

Thanks to GamerFeed for its report on UK videogame trade organization ELSPA's poll to find "the 30 most popular games of the past 30 years." In somewhat of a surprise, Sonic The Hedgehog was voted most popular title of all time, and the top 5 were rounded out by Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pac-Man, Tomb Raider and Space Invaders. Interesting votes further down the list included Elite at No.7, Championship Manager at No.23, and Shenmue at No.26.

37 comments

  1. Quite interesting... by TitusC3v5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That both GTA3's made the list, coming in at 10th and 15th, no less. One thing I did notice, is that the majority of the list is fairly recent. I'm quite disappointed that neither Thief or the original System Shock made the list, however...

    --
    And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
    1. Re:Quite interesting... by PaganRitual · · Score: 1

      people are always disappointed when people dont like the same things as them.

  2. yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hell yeah, sonic the hedgehog was one of the first games I ever played on a console system. It's also still one of my favorites. UK knows whats up i guess.

  3. hmm... by saqq · · Score: 1

    This seems like a rather peculiar list to me, do they not get a lot of the games the US gets?

    --

    small flowers crack concrete
    1. Re:hmm... by CptChipJew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Championship Manager I think is a game where you run a soccer team and trade players and such. You don't actually play soccer, but you watch your team play, I think.

      Now I don't know what it is, maybe it's because I'm not European, but I can't imagine anybody wanted to watch a virtual soccer game for 90 minutes and not interact with it.

      --
      Vonal Declosion
    2. Re:hmm... by Ianoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      The games don't take 90 minutes to play, more like 10 minutes. Basically it's all a matter of strategy, you're the manager, not one of the players. You decide what players to put in different positions (attacker, midfielder, defender, goalkeeper), what substitutions to make, what style of play you want, and when not playing, you buy and sell players, train them, manage club finances etc.

      It's quite addictive, even for someone like me who isn't a massive football (soccer) fan.

    3. Re:hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you dont find it kind of silly to sit and watch a soccer game for 10 minutes? thats not gaming.

    4. Re:hmm... by easychord · · Score: 2, Informative

      Only a minority of people in the UK would be nostalgic for the Atari 2600 and 8bit Nintendo as they wern't as popular over here.

      We also had our own games for the Spectrum, BBC and C64. Later on we had our own games for the Atari ST and Amiga.

      These days we mostly get the same games as you. Games that are mostly targeted at the American markets...

    5. Re:hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean, it's not gaming? You set tactics and formations, you make substitutions. It's every bit as interactive as most American "football" titles I've ever played.

    6. Re:hmm... by Haeleth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This seems like a rather peculiar list to me, do they not get a lot of the games the US gets?

      That, and our tastes differ. What were you expecting, Madden/NFL in the top ten? ;)

      At least this list, unlike the last few "greatest games of all time" to have shown up on Slashdot, includes Elite. 3D graphics on an 8-bit micro? Now that's impressive.

    7. Re:hmm... by DrEldarion · · Score: 1

      They DON'T get some of the games we get, and almost all the time if they DO get them, it's at a much later date than us.

    8. Re:hmm... by May+Kasahara · · Score: 2, Informative

      They also get certain games earlier than North Americans do. For instance, rhythm games seem to be more popular there (both Rez and Space Channel 5 Part 2 were released in the UK before the US). Also, wasn't the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 released over there?

    9. Re:hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes except in those games you actually play football! aka controlling players yourself, etc.

    10. Re:hmm... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      That, and they get some games you don't get - and they get other games than you do.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    11. Re:hmm... by scabb · · Score: 1

      It's like Theme Park, or Theme Hospital. Or Rollercoaster Tycoon. Okay?

  4. Absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can claim that X video game is better than the Sims, but you cannot claim that X video game is more popular than the Sims. Sale figures do not lie. This is a meaningless poll as its input is entirely from a completely unrepresentative population.

    1. Re:Absurd by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its a meaningless poll regardless, as are most. Its not like someones going to wake up one day and have their life turn around because a bunch of brits say sonic > *, its just a popular oppinion poll. If I think virtual valery is the best game ever, a bunch of people saying Defender Of The Crown is better won't make me change my mind. (For the record, DoC rocks. I heard they're making a new version.)

      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    2. Re:Absurd by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 1

      If you purchase a game that seriously disappoints you, to say that this purchase makes the game more popular is absurd. Also, the most popular game of all time should be one that remains popular long after it is released--which is not measured in sales figures either.

    3. Re:Absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's done. Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown. Look it up on either the Cinemaware (developer) or Capcom (publisher) website.

    4. Re:Absurd by SuperMo0 · · Score: 1

      It's like Spike TV's Video Game Awards...

      Wait... no it isn't... Spike TV's Video Game Awards have no meaning to ANYONE who plays video games.

  5. Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by paulcammish · · Score: 2, Funny
    21 1988 Street Fighter
    22 2001 Gran Tourismo 3
    23 1992 Championship Manager

    Gran Tourismo? Gran Tourismo? Gran TOurismo?!?!

    Nice to know they can spell the titles of the damn games properly...

    Hmmm, maybe theyre on about this? Nah, maybe not.

    And dont even get me started about the first Street Fighter in '88, the way they got the wrong Final Fantasy, and Manic Miner being released in 1997!?!?!... Please mod the atricle up as '-1 : Full Of Typos'!

    1. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll mod you up as -1: raging nerd!

    2. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      What do you mean, "the way they got the wrong Final Fantasy"?

      If you mean you think one of the earlier ones was better than FFVII, maybe you should bear in mind that FFVII was the first Final Fantasy game to be released in the UK.

    3. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by DrEldarion · · Score: 1

      This is the UK we're talking about, they love to throw in random vowels.

    4. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by paulcammish · · Score: 1
      What I mean, is: "1999 Final Fantasy VI"

      Now, I know Square (and now SquareEnix) are damn slow releasing games over here in the UK - FFXI is slated for Q4 2004 - but it wasn't FF6 that came out in the UK then...

    5. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by May+Kasahara · · Score: 2, Informative

      What about Final Fantasy Anthology, which included FF6? Wasn't that released around 1999?

    6. Re:Gran 'Tourismo'?!?!? by paulcammish · · Score: 1
      Yep, 1999 in the states, but it took till 2002 for it to be released here...

      I suspect they mean Final Fantasy VIII (FF8), which would follow type with the C&VG Fanboys...

  6. No Surprise by megalomaniacs4u · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sega always sold better in the UK than Nintendo until the Saturn debacle.

    As for Elite and Championship Manager. UK games players have never been console crazy until recently, during the 80s as Atari suicided the Home computer was doing very well in Europe.

    From Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, through Atari ST and Commodore Amiga the consoles didn't really get a look in until Sega & Sonic broke through with the 16 bit Megadrive (aka Genesis).

  7. Sonic r rox0rz by genrader · · Score: 1

    Sonic was my first console game to ever play back in the days of the Genesis, still love Sonic to this very day. Can't wait for Sonic Heroes on the GameCube next year :)

    --
    the Political Inquirer
  8. Championship Manager quite low? by TwistedSquare · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Championship Manager 3 and 4 and possibly other versions as well set new records in the UK for being the fastest selling PC games on their release (Diablo 2 set the record at one point but has now been toppled).

    Given that statistic and the tendency of these lists to produce mainly recent successes, I'm surprised that CM and is so low down the list! I guess it's because a lot of people who don't typically play computer games that much play CM, and don't get included in the poll..

    Sonic is no surprise at the top, though Tomb Raider seems higher than I would have expected

  9. Sonic NOT "UK's Favourite" by FortissimoWily · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Keep in mind that this poll was conducted in association with ComputerAndVideoGames.com. The article describes ComputerAndVideoGames.com as "the UK's leading multi-format video games website", but it's really quite a biased magazine/site combo. I know plenty of people in the UK who prefer better games/characters than Sonic (such as Mario, Mega Man, Dizzy, Klonoa, and more), so the poll is only really representative of the readership of ComputerAndVideoGames.com...

    But then, what do I expect? It's an opinion poll just as meaningless as those 'Best Character' polls GameFAQs does every summer. ;P

    1. Re:Sonic NOT "UK's Favourite" by SuperMo0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ANY poll done on a website is biased. It's affected by the fact that the only people who respond are

      1) People with internet access
      2) People who know of the site
      3) People who care about the poll

      Which severely limits the sample space, and can severely skew the results.

    2. Re:Sonic NOT "UK's Favourite" by bersl2 · · Score: 1

      Now, I may be one of those Sonic fans your mother warned you about, but even I am highly skeptical of this. It flies in the face of my conventional wisdom, which is that animal video game characters cannot win over the Western public in general but may find a niche market and be sucessful.

  10. Re:Final Fantasy VI by Leynos · · Score: 1

    Final Fantasy VI was never released in the UK on the SNES, nor in the first run of the PlayStation FF Anthologies. It was released later as a single game for 10 (around US$15). 1999 sounds a bout right.

    --
    "Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
  11. Ah, memories... by oberondarksoul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Elite, Lemmings, even Doom and Quake... all games one can find on the classic Acorn home computers. Elite started out on the BBC Micro and to this date is an excellent game, while the port of Lemmings from the Amiga to Archimedes was nothing less than stellar. (To this date I prefer the Acorn version)

    Shame the latter pair won't run on much less than a RISC PC, but I digress...

    --
    And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
    1. Re:Ah, memories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did Acorn Lemmings have simultaneous two-player* lemmings like the Amiga version? The two-player lemmings mode on the Amiga means it is still my all-time favorite lemmings version.

      (*split screen, two mice (amiga had two mouse ports), green lemmings with blue hair + blue lemmings with green hair).