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IGN's Top 100 Games
fwice writes "IGN has released their list of the Top 100 Games of all time. This list covers games from all different systems, including PC and various different consoles. Each game listed has a write-up about why it was chosen and what makes it special." Yeah yeah, another list. This one's not bad, though, with selections including TIE Fighter, Tetris, and Civ II ranking high on the list.
Am I the only one who feels these "Top 10" or whatever lists are absolutely redundant? They're all the same. No matter what order the games are in, people always argue and bitch and moan. Blah blah blah.
...why bother posting it?
The original Zelda isn't on the list. This list doesn't count.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
a top 100 list of all time games and nothing from Sierra On-Line is on it?
Normally I hate these lists. I mostly agree with this list. They made good choices, especially with PC games. They gave kudos to some of my favorites like Civilization II (#4), Starcarft (#7), Baldur's Gate 2 (#25), and Tie Fighter (#9). Super Mario Bros. made #1. I prefer Super Mario Bros. 3 (#23). SMB3 is SMB but much improved, with more depth, gameplay, and secrets.
And..where is FreeSpace 2? I certainly consider that more fun than Super Mario....
I find it very interesting that alot of Nintendo games made it on the list. I didnt look. But i suspect that if you broke the list down by developer, Nintendo would have the most games on there.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
# 100 // River City Ransom
River City Ransom
Name: River City Ransom
Platform: NES
Developer: Technos Japan Corp.
Publisher: Technos Japan Corp.
Year Released: 1990
Why it Made the Top 100 List: Sometimes, kicking someone's ass is the solution to all of your problems. In the case of River City Ransom, it was kicking several hundred people's asses that solved Ryan's problems. The wonderful art style of thick headed toughies (also found in Technos' excellent Super Dodge Ball) makes beating the crap out of your enemies and stealing their money in order to buy upgrades to beat them up more efficiently so much fun! Fighting street gangs to get your girl back was pretty popular back in the early days of gaming, but River City Ransom brought style and light RPG elements into the mix to create one of the ultimate banger experiences.
# 099 // Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Name: Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Platform: PC
Developer: Blue Sky Productions
Publisher: Origin
Year Released: 1991
Why it Made the Top 100 List: Best known for being the first game to introduce full-range movement in a first-person perspective, Ultima Underworld helped usher a new era in digital entertainment. Apart from the revolutionary viewpoint, it offered a slew of innovative ideas that changed the action-RPG genre for the better. To start, you could manually change the speed and power of attacks. You could also engage in truly engrossing puzzle solving in a 3D arena. Plus, the game just plain offered a richly detailed game world for you to tear through. Blend this with solid action, cool items and spells (not to mention weapons) and you've got a recipe for gaming greatness.
# 098 // BattleToads
BattleToads
Name: BattleToads
Platform: NES
Developer: Rare
Publisher: TradeWest
Year Released: 1991
Why it Made the Top 100 List: One of the best-looking titles for the NES, Battletoads borrowed heavily from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property. It took a trio of harmless amphibians and mutated them into a band of green-skinned, ass-kicking super heroes. What made the game so unique, apart from the admittedly rad hero and enemy design, was the varied gameplay. Battletoads splits between various play styles such as racing and climbing stages, all of which sported insane obstacles. And by insane, you should understand these challengers were wildly difficult. Battletoads was near impossible to complete. While theoretically possible to complete, few gamers could profess to beating the game without having to totally lie about it. Still, it's one of the best games that came out of the 8-bit era.
# 097 // F-Zero
F-Zero
Name: F-Zero
Platform: SNES
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 1990
Why it Made the Top 100 List: While it could be argued that the newer GameCube update or even the Japan-only F-Zero X Construction Kit (N64) are the best of the franchise, the original was the one that jumpstarted the genre. It capitalized on SNES's 3D-esque Mode 7 visuals to bring futuristic racing, an incredible sense of speed, and addictive drift physics to eager gamers. In the 16-bit era it provided something unexpected and truly dazzling for the home console. It was a rare gem in its time, perfectly combining presentation and functionality to create a completely new gaming experience. Even today it is respected as one of the all-time top racers.
# 096 // Mafia
Mafia
Name: Mafia
Platform: PC
Developer: Illusion Softworks
Publisher: Gathering
Year Released: 2002
Why it Made the Top 100 List:Illusion Softworks really pulled out the stops with their organized crime epic in 2002. It took the free roaming style of city-based gameplay that had become popularized in the Grand Theft Auto series, but created a much more detailed world set in the classic gangster ridden '30s. This heavy third-person action game not only provided some incredible missions both in challenge and variety. The developers managed to make all of the
Cool, but useless.
The problem with this list is they're trying to straddle the line between honouring games which offer the best possible gameplay to players of any era and, simultaneously, games which, while historically signficant and great in their time, are now far from the best of their kind. And these two categories do not necessarily have anything to do with each other, in many cases.
If this were a list of the 100 Most Historically Important Games of All Time, Super Mario Brothers would certainly fit in their as crucially influential. But few will argue that Super Mario Brothers is a better game than Super Mario Brothers 3, Super Mario World, and various successors in the genre. It probably shouldn't even be in a list of the "best" games of all time at all, evaluated independent of any and all history associated with it as a present day, uncontextualised gameplay experience. If SMB1 were released today as a never-before-seen title, it's fairly obvious what reviewers would have to say about it. Something I expect to the effect that, as free Flash games go, it's pretty dull. You certainly couldn't charge money for it.
Creating a list which mixes unrelated criteria (good games and historically influential ones) as its basis for honouring certain titles is a ridiculous and purposeless exercise. Some will say any sort of list of this type is a purposeless exercise, but I think having an active critical discourse in the gaming world is crucial to its functioning as a meaningful artistic and recreational culture. But naming the "Top" games without basing those choices on something more specific is especially silly.
Where is Marble Madness!??!?!!?!
BattleToads is number ninety-something? Is this game not universally reviled? IT'S FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Seriously, only Rush'N Attack was harder. If you want to put a hard game on there, put Rush'N Attack. If you want to put a great NES game on there, put Metroid. God of War makes the list? That game's like a week old! Where's Zork? NetHack? Street Fighter 2:Championship Edition? M.U.L.E.? 1-On-1: Larry Bird Vs. Dr. J? I'm just scratching the surface.
blarg.
It also just feels like the opinion of a single person, like something you would see on a message board that nobody would listen to.
But no, it's on IGN and people are paying attention to it for some reason (this is the second place I've seen it now). There's a good bit of lip service too, like even putting Halo on the list.
I'll stop being cynical when the world allows
Like
:)
- Any Kings Quest
- Any Space Quest, esp space quest I
- Wolfenstien 3D
- Tomb Raider
Those were all major games as I grew up as a kid and into my teenage years. Wolfenstiend led the way for me and first person shooters. Kings Quest and Space Quests are the games that got me playing on the computer and insted of a console. And Tomb Raider waisted most my university time
Where is Alpha Centauri and Planescape: Torment? Why isn't Doom in the top 10? Was Ocarina of Time accidentally switched with the original one at the last minute?
This is a terrible list.
I would have had Lode runner (c64) and stunt driver (amiga) on my top 20 at least.
There was also a apple II game called dungeon quest or something like that which I know some people were very addicted to.
Ocarina of time at #2 and beating all the others in the series?
Rome: Total War is at #14? While Counterstrike is #71 and Final Fantasy VII is #88?
FFVII was below every other Final Fantasy on the list?
Thrilled to see Starcraft at 7, but no mention of any Warcraft or Diablo?
As with just about every 'top' list, it doesn't tell you what it is ranking these games by. Number of units sold? Gross revenue? Most profitable?
Without even reading it, I'm going to assume its totally subjective. I'm going to spare myself reading the comments, which I assume will be "What! Why isn't [Game X] included?!" and "You jerks, [Game A] is wayyy better than [Game B]".
Subjective top x lists are pointless, unless you're a rabid fanboy prepared to soak up the opinions of basically anyone like a dry sponge. You can argue that IGN is a reputable game site that is worthy of your respect, but seriously, there is no way that they're going to anywhere near the same 100 games that I, or anyone else, probably would.
I was playing dragon warrior just about an hour ago. Level 15. I've beat and restarted that game I don't know how many times. Theres something so calming and mind numbing about smashing slimes and drakes after a stress filled day at work. I receive a satisfying sense of accomplishment from beating a goldman sensless and robbing him of his gold.
Other than the obvious "it's just someone's opinion" is that they tend to put real innovators on there, leaving out games that surpassed them. Case in point, Final Fantasy 3, where they left out the compilation for the Playstation, which was almost a direct translation except for better graphics. Do they just prefer the old version? Maybe for nostalgia value, but most of the rest of the world would probably prefer the updated graphics.
Same goes for Super Mario Brothers, the number 1 on the list. It was good--for its time. But it absolutely shouldn't be on any "top X best" list because of the huge number of flaws. Give that game to anyone who didn't grow up with it, and they'll probably throw it across the room. You couldn't go backwards (to the left), the graphics are terrible, there were bugs all over the place (some of them were cool, but nevertheless, they often broke the game). The ending was nothing to speak of, and the music was, of course, sub-par compared to anything new.
If you're compiling a nostalgia list, or a list of "best games of their time" you can get away with this sort of thing. But to consider innovative games as "the best" simply because they innovated is stretching the generally accepted definition of the word.
Super Mario World 2, is in no way even close to being better than Super Mario World!
Ha, I just remembered the time I bought Mario is Missing... Super Mario Bros 3 it wasn't!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I'm very surprised neither Sims or Sims 2 did not make the list... One of the Diablos should have been there as well, I think they're a better choice than Baldur's Gate... Starcraft as high as it is... I absolutely agree :)
There were too many good Mario games.
I'd have thrown in a Pikmin too...
Personally, I believe DOOM should have been higher on that list than 39th place. DOOM was the first game that got Amiga users to switch to PCs. It also started the 3D gaming revolution.
At my Uni at the time large groups of people used to sneak into the computer labs to play it on the network. It also ushered in 3D games into the mainstream. I think it's probably had the greatest impact of any game in the PC market, and should be higher than 39th place. 'Sydnicate' should have been up there too IMHO.
But I cannot believe Golden Eye beat out both of the Half-Lifes.
Hey, now that there's been 2 half-lives past are we down to a quarter life?
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
I really think it's a pretty good list, but the lack of Katamari Damacy shows poor foresight IMO. Katamari opened my eyes to the future of gaming in a lot of ways. After playing it at my friend's house, I borrowed his PS2 for a while just so I could play that.
Also annoying is that they seem to think that the NES was the first video game system. When they're leaning towards landmark releases, not including a single Atari 2600 game seems odd for people who are supposed to be experts on video games.
-paul
We've done it all before, and will do it all again, several times a year. Oh yeah, no Manic Miner on the list (he said with certainty, without even checking the article), so who cares anyway.
Did anyone else miss Chrono Trigger? It was easily one of the best games I've ever played and deserves to be on that list much more than FFX or FFVII. The epic storyline (with a sense of humor), the magnificent soundtrack, the detailed graphics (excellent for its time), the battle system (with triple techs), the lack of random encounters, and the replayability (so many different endings) all add up to make the game so enjoyable.
Do yourself a favor, if you've never played it. Buy the remake for the PlayStation, but don't play it. (The load times will make you want to gouge your eyes out). Then download the ROM for the original SNES Chrono Trigger and play it on one of the emus. It'll be well worth your time and money, even for a game that's now 10 years old.
NETHACK
Roses are red
Violets are blue
In Soviet Russia
Poems write you!
What kind of a Top 100 gaming list doesn't include at least one of the two BIGGEST games out there?
Not only that, but when was the last time you walked into an arcade and DIDN'T see a Dance Dance Revolution setup?
Sadly, no FreeSpace. Or EarthBound. So sad.
But it didn't even make this list's top 100? And yet Dune 2 did? Dune 2 may have started the RTS genre, but TA polished the interface until it shined. Games like Starcraft certainly had a much better story (and I like my games to have good stories) but TA had the interface down better than anything that came before and I think anything that came after it. And it was so much fun in multiplayer, and the ability to add units (and Cavedog kept releasing new ones) kept it fresh for a long time ...
Capture 20 years in 100 games? Of course we're going to miss some personal favortires.
Some games i spent many hours with: Elite, Simcity, Lemmings, OMF2097
Sample this!
And, BTW, i feel Doom should be ranking a bit higher. It truly was a groundbreaking, well made, influential and fun game. The rest of the list was actually quite fine, and i enjoyed seeing so many Lucasarts games and System Shock 2 in the list.
If the list was meant to reward genre trailblazers, then skipping proto-RTS/builder games like Sea Battle and Utopia on the Intellivision was a major oversight, as was skipping INTV's sports titles, which were the first to let you call plays and control every character on the field. And don't get me started on all the Atari 2600 games that were overlooked.
If the list was meant to reward pure gameplay quality, then where are the classics that still hold up today, like The Dreadnaught Factor, or damn near any other Activision or Imagic game from the pre-NES period? What about the Colecovision version of Donkey Kong, which was considered to be the first near-perfect home translation of an arcade game?
Granted, they only had 100 slots, and they did include some worthy games that you might not have expected them to (e.g. Herzog Zwei) -- but it's pretty obvious that the editors were weaned on the NES, and that's clouded their perception a bit. Oh well.
Nice that Rome made it to the list. If any Rome-fans here hasn't heard of it yet, Rome: Total Realism 6.0 is out, check http://rometotalrealism.com/. It adds so much to the game, and does away with all the historical stupididties of the original game, like the anachronistic egyptians.
One of the biggest selling games ever, that pretty much defined adventures for many years, not on the list?
Well, fine. They made a fair attempt at listing the games that they know and like, but it's obviously nothing more than that (one group's opinion).
It would be possible to make a very interesting top 100 games list, but you would have to think about it and research it.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Half of their top games can be emulated on the Nintendo Revolution, and most for free and legally. And they will be available through easy to use official channels, not only from underground P2P networks.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
Come on Phantasy Star was an awesome RPG.
It kicked FF1 into the dirt. It is in the top 10 for sure.
You can't take the sky from me
Too many console games on the list and two versions of Tetris?
PC classics missing
StarFlight by Binary Systems, has anyone equaled what they did on two 360k floppies?
Empire, the only pure strategy game and one of the oldest
No MMORPG titles made it though I think either UO or EQ deserve to be on the list because they helped establish their genres. I think that a key to making the top 100 list is how the game has either never been equaled, set new standards or established them, or is still played.
Still way to many console games.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Every body knows Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing is best game of all time. It's winner!
The list is obviously wrong if they put Mario as #1 and Ocarina of Time as #2. Ocarina of Time is the definition of a Good Game. It's not only a great game, it could be proposed as a ludological constant to compare other games to. =)
I was kind of worried about the list though - some really great games, yes... but I was reading this like this: "FF7 as #88? Could it be possible they considered it better than... that game? Oh no. FF10 as #86? Oh dear god no. (Nervously hits pagedown) Phew! That game, the Best PC Game of All Time (According to Me), is #84." Well, there's still hope for IGN. Or something.
I could disagree with the order, but I didn't really notice too many games that didn't belong. Nor did I notice too many games that were missing. But the order was totally out of whack. ICO at #18? Give me a break.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Is better then FF7? Better then Syndicate? Better then Alone in the Dark? Common, this had to be one of the worst basketball games of all time.
And while there were only eight selectable teams and modes were limited to Exhibition and Playoffs
Whoot. Hours of fun.
I was going to make a nasty joke about you sucking at math, but it's just too easy.
How about a joke of you sucking at physics?
The time it takes for a radioactive substance to decay into half its original value is the half-live. Wait for another half-life and you have one quarter of the original left (it's exponential decay). Hence two half-lives = one quarter-life.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
No mention of Moria? I can STILL get locked up in that game for hours at a time letting my @ wander at dizzying depths facing creatures great and small.
;-)
Maybe I'm just yearning to get back to my late 80's early mornings in the VAX lab.
I forgot what I wanted to say, but honestly, it was important.
No Amiga games, no Atari ST games, no Spectrum or C64 games in fact nothing predating the NES and Megadrive (Genesis). Where's Elite, Sensible Soccer, Jeff Minter's games, and they've got a platformer at number one, I was bored of platformers years before it even came out.
Is it just me, or does this list seem like they randomly picked some names out of a hat? Lakers vs. Celtics? Dear God! There are some important titles missing like Zork, Kings Quest, Wizardry, Phantasy Star, Karateka, Radient Silvergun, Fallout 2 (although they did get the original), Diablo I/II, etc. I suppose no list is going to have them all, but this lists seems so random. At least this one includes some 80's games for a change, most Top 100 lists start at the Playstation era.
Ok, slashdot is a bit behind here. They've been revealing these 10 at a time for a couple weeks, and they've been done for nearly as long. Also, X-COM (Otherwise known as UFO: Enemy Unknown) was moved down four spaces. The top 8 used to be my best experiences in gaming (with the exception of Master of Orion, but I'm happy with its placement), but no longer... Also, their reasoning for the placement of Metroid Prime is more than a bit odd.
--Rogue--
/.'ers, it was even released open source by Guys at Berkley.
I mean... this game spawned its own genre, was the first GUI D&D game [Even Baldur's Gate (#25) owes it homage], is still played at college campuses nationwide... and c'mon,
So let's hear it for the great-great-great-granddaddy of Neverwinter Nights, Pool of Radiance, and who knows what else.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
1.) Robotron
2.) Tetris Attack
3.) Robotron
4.) Arkanoid Doh It Again
5.) Robotron
6.) Also Robotron
There's no need for a seven. Every other game sucks.
But they should at least have a decent explanation for the #1 game being #1. They missed the most important aspect of Super Mario Brothers. It changed the format of action games from quick games based on arcade economics to long games based on an adventure game framework. This marks the point in history where home consoles stopped chasing the arcade games and became a profoundly different experience.
Just because you didn't like the new style given to your precious pixels doesn't make it a bad game. You are letting nostalgia cloud your memeory.
FF10 has one of the better skill impliments of ANY FF.
(allowing customization, certain skills only optainable after story, yet at the same time everyone has a role to begin with and it is your decision if you want to diviate from that role.)
FF7 had a good story, actually CHALLENGING sidequests, and a good mix of tech/fantasy.
FF1-6 are not really better, Hell some of them are honestly worse!
1,3, and 5 have EXTREMELY weak stories.
5's is so bad its Job system was honestly the one of the only redeamable features of the entire game It was a HORRIBLE TRAVESTY this game came between 4 and 6.
2 has a HORRIBLE skill/battle system. It is a nightmare of a design. AVERAGE players MUST cheat it if they even want to survive!
4 was practically perfect, yet horribly edited, moreso than just about any other FF, in more than one case the bad translation left the player confused or completely changed story elements.
6 was practically perfect...yet buggy. How buggy? don't use Relm or you'll often enough crash your game. Setzer could also crash it if you stacked enough battle actions after a gamble (easy done if on haste) Some of the story elements were a nightmare to actually open up on your own.
(IE Shadow Inn scenes) I really have a problem with saying FF6 was great yet dissing FF10. Both have the same basic story and honestly FF10 does it better overall, while FF6 has a better villian.
everything else is just the pixel art vs 3d.
I'd rather see some sort of database of all videogames ever made.
Is there something out there like this on the internet. Sorta like imdb but for videogames?
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
I saw this list the other day, and I was impressed. Usually these lists totally suck. "OMG HALO2 BEST GAME EVAR!!!!11", and so on. (This list still inexplicably includes the first Halo, but you can't be perfect, I guess.)
Mainly I was happy to see Star Control 2 so high. Such a wonderful game. "Do not forget to *enjoy the sauce*!"
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
It is interesting to see the lack of mmorpg's. I personally loved early Ultima Online. I was glad to see the two Ultima titles that were chosen, although it was a bit odd to see the neglect of both Wizardry and Might and Magic. Still, a surprising good list for IGN.
Not having Quake 1 on the list is a travesty. It is one of the most groundbreaking PC games of all time.
Quake was one of the first games that was able to successfully take advantage of OpenGL. I know I wasn't the only one who ran out and picked up a Voodoo 1 card when I saw what it looked like.
Don't forget Quakeworld. Quakeworld was a groundbreaking addon that allowed you to actually play the game over dial up, something almost unheard of at the time.
Don't forget all of the mods. Quake was one of the first games out there that had a successful modding community. Sure there were a few Doom mods, but nothing like Quake 1 had. Does anyone remember Team Fortress or CTF?
If Quake 1 was truly a groundbreaking game that should not be so easily overlooked.
roche
Bah Humbug!
I found the lack of MMOs very suprising. Personally I would have added EQ and UO (as the original MMO archtypes) instead of the THREE versions of Metroid (prime DEFINATELY does not deserve a slot).
Sigpilot : I'm in the pipe, 5 by 5.
No Diablo.
No Diablo II.
No Warcraft.
No WoW.
But there is Starcraft so it's not a total snub of Blizzard, which has been one of the most consistently high-quality producers (albeit slow) in the field.
And besides there are hordes of "cartoonish" Mario-like games that made the list that were in no way should have qualified them for "top", so apparently there was a bias going into it.
Or Space Invaders? Those two were HUGE in the early days of video arcades.
:-) :-)
I agree with others that Lode Runner and Elite should have been there, as well as The Sims.
Where was Sopwith??
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
TA lacked a storyline, but frankly it didn't need one, and it *still* has the best and most consistent interface I've seen in an RTS.
:-(
If only Blizzard and others would take a serious look at it and actually IMPLEMENT some of its ideas...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
An entry for the many superb incarnations of Team Fortress, the MMORPG genre, Metal Slug and many great Sega releases such as NiGHTS, Sega Rally etc... The futility of the exercise has been outlined by many preceding comments, though it was an enjoyable read & many of my favourites are present. Extra kudos to IGN for the inclusion of Advance Wars.
Hah, you got me there. Exponential functions such as the half-life have never been my forte.
2002:
http://www.kisrael.com/vgames/egm100.2002.html
1997:
http://www.kisrael.com/vgames/egm100.html
In 2002 I did some comparisons of how the list looked vs 1997...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Doom and Quake totally started and defined FPS games, doom was somewhere around 30 and quake isn;t even listed? Quake was one of the best selling games of all times, and Defined FPS games with 360 degres of movement and aiming... wtf?
As a lot of other people have pointed out, a lot of good games weren't even mentioned but a lot of shitty ones were.. TA where are you?!?!
TA defined RTS gaming and to this day still has all of the best elements that make a great RTS...
Quake 2 at #93?
Blasphemy.
Tecmo Super Bowl had this "how is the player feeling" status where on a given week every player's condition would be bad, average, good, or excellent. Bo was always better than Barry, except if Bo was in a worse "condition" than Barry. If Bo was about one level down from Barry, then they were about equivalent.
When I used to play full season schedules of this game with a couple of friends of mine, we used to have to agree to a "no San Francisco" rule. Joe Montana throwing to Jerry Rice really was unstoppable. The game abilities were so skewed on those players that you could triple and quadruple-team Jerry Rice, and he would still catch it almost every time.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Funnest game I ever played. 'Twas addicted to it back in '96 or so. It would have been nice to see it on the list, but, from the comments I read, no one else seemed to miss it:-(
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It may be offtopic, but an IMDB for videogames is the best idea I've heard in years.
Worms was FUN !!!
That's the most important thing in a game
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
When did IGN become the VH1 of video games?
Gross revenue or number of units sold are a few of the ways that you could try to measure the goodness/popularity/influence of a game. You might also find the inflation adjusted gross revenue. Or divide the gross revenue by the revenue of the industry as a whole. Or divide the number of units sold by the estimated consumer base.
My point is that there are numerous ways to objectively determine goodness/popularity/influence of a game, but most of them rely on finding hard to find data. The games industry is not as open (or flamboyent) about game grosses as the movie industry.
Of course you could do as suggested and create a IMDB-like games database and have people vote. Of course, there might be vote stuffing like I found on a message board where John Wayne fans conspired to stuff his movie The Searchers to the top of IMDB. (I like his films too but come on, don't cheat).
Another way with such a database to determine the historical influence of a game would be by adding a section (probably moderator approved) where you could submit which games directly influence a given game. Then you could analyze the database as a whole and find the most influential games. However, some influence might be over or understated by such a system. For example would DOOM be the most influential game because nearly all FPSs have borrowed from it, and PONG be nearly influence-less because very few games actually borrowed from the gameplay (although it definitely inspired hords of people in from the 70's to early 80's to risk time and money to get a must-have arcade machine, or console game- yes I admit that it was only must-have at the time because there was nothing else). Such a system is currently being developed by academics to weight the influence of their papers. Somewhat easier for them because they already have to include references.
Furthermore the simplest and perhaps most accurate way to determine the most popular video games would be to simply conduct a statistically sound phone poll and ask people to name all the video games that they know off the top of their heads. Maybe you're wonderding why I would spend so much time writing about objectivity etc. Well I just read Freakonomics and it's a great book to read if you like thinking about the world.
"Like last time, our criteria for this uber-list of games consisted of a variety of factors, including how good the game was compared to others at the time, the overall game design, how well it stood up over the long-haul, how influential it was in the realm of gaming and just plain how much fun we had playing the damn things." - the article
For those who don't want to read the articles explanation for each game.
IGN Top 100 Games
1. Super Mario Bros. 2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3. Tetris 4. Sid Meier's Civilization II 5. Super Mario 64
6. Sid Meier's Pirates! 7. StarCraft 8. Street Fighter II 9. Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM 10. Super Metroid
11. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 12. X-COM: UFO Defense 13. Chrono Trigger 14. Rome: Total War 15. Super Mario Kart
16. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 17. Star Control 2 18. ICO 19. Metal Gear Solid 20. Ms. Pac Man
21. Deus Ex 22. Half-Life 23. Super Mario Bros. 3 24. Tecmo Super Bowl 25. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
26. Final Fantasy II (IV) 27. Burnout 3: Takedown 28. Half-Life 2 29. GoldenEye 7 30. Halo
31. SimCity 2000 32. Resident Evil 4 33. God of War 34. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 35. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
36. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 37. Wave Race 64 38. Madden NFL 2004 39. DOOM 40. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution
41. System Shock 2 42. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec 43. Soul Calibur 44. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island 45. Battlefield 1942
46. Super Mario World 47. NHL 94 48. The Secret of Mana 49. Grim Fandango 50. Wing Comander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
51. Grand Theft Auto III 52. Metroid Prime 53. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 54. Panzer Dragoon Saga 55. Fallout
56. Final Fantasy III (VI) 57. Mike Tyson's Punchout! 58. Super Smash Bros. Melee 59. Bionic Commando 60. Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
61. Sam & Max Hit the Road 62. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time 63. Sonic the Hedgehog 64. Advance Wars 65. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
66. Homeworld 67. Rayman 2: The Great Escape 68. Starsiege: Tribes 69. Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs 70. Pokemon Red/Blue
71. Half-Life: Counter-Strike 72. Galaga 73. Return Fire 74. Syndicate 75. Crimson Skies
76. Tetris Attack 77. Archon: The Light and The Dark 78. Star Wars 79. Shining Force II 80. Baseball Stars
81. Freedom Force 82. Gunstar Heroes 83. Contra 84. Ultima VII: The Black Gate 85. Prince of Persia
86. Final Fantasy X 87. Thief II: The Metal Age 88. Final Fantasy VII 89. Alone in the Dark 90. Master of Orion
91. Virtua Tennis 92. Dragon Warrior 93. Quake II 94. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 95. Herzog Zwei
96. Mafia 97. F-Zero 98. BattleToads 99. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 100. River City Ransom
I'm disapointed that Donkey Kong Country didn't make that list. It may not have been "revolutionary" in terms of gameplay or anything, but it was damn fine eye candy, and the gameplay was varied and addictive. There were dozens (hundreds?) of hidden rooms to find for those players who like finding every hidden doo-dad in a game, while more casual players could just play from level to level and still enjoy it. There were so many different kinds of levels, like the mine car levels, the "On/Off" barrel levels, the ice rope levels, underwater levels, moving platform levels, moving platform levels where you had to get fuel barrels, and so on. And there was a wide variety of difficulty in the levels too. I remember a few levels where it took a fair amount of time to practice the platform jumps, and learn where you had to pick up a barrel and how long to hold onto it in order to kill the guy on your next platform, and so forth. And the fake ending, oh man, I still remember the first time I beat the game and how it caught me by surprise. It was so awesome, it had 3 sequels, though I really wished they had kept Donkey Kong in them, he was definately the most fun to play, at least for me.
Lunar: Eternal Blue or Lunar: The Silver Star were pioneers back in the day on the Sega CD. I remember way back right when FF7 came out that Gamepro had an article about top 10 RPG's and the Lunar Games were 2 and 3 on the Sega CD.
You're completely correct in breaking down this comment on Tecmo Super Bowl. It really makes you wonder if the author(s) have actually played some of these games or how many of these descriptions are skewed.
Seriously, if anyone wants to work on this, I have already done some work on the database structure. To me, the important thing is to list all of the various connections between games: spinoffs, sequels, remakes, and so on. Let me know if you would like to help.