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IGN's Top 100 Games

Posted by Zonk on from the another-list-oh-me-oh-my dept.

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.

1 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Best or Most Important? by screwballicus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.