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Walk of Game 2006 Inductees Announced

Posted by Zonk on from the stepping-on-everquest dept.

Gamasutra is reporting on next year's inductees to the Sony Walk of Game at the Metreon in San Francisco. From the article: "Lifetime achievement nominees for the 2006 Walk Of Game are John Carmack, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Toru Iwatani, and Will Wright. Game and character nominations include Castlevania, Civilization, Donkey Kong, Doom, EverQuest, Final Fantasy, Fox McCloud, Frogger, Grand Theft Auto, Half-Life, Lara Croft, Madden NFL, Mortal Kombat, Myst, Pac-Man, Pitfall Harry, Pong, Quake, Resident Evil, Samus Aran, Space Invaders, StarCraft, Street Fighter II, Tetris, and The Sims."

24 comments

  1. What, no super mario? by Hitto · · Score: 0

    Does this qualify me for an application at the time-honored GNAA? :)

    1. Re:What, no super mario? by jclast · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mario got his star last year.

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      e2 | LJ
  2. From Gamasutra by jclast · · Score: 1

    In 2005's ceremony, held alongside Game Developers Conference last March, Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda) and Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari and creator of Pong) became the first recipients of the Lifetime Achievement award, and Master Chief (Halo), Link (The Legend of Zelda), Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog also received stars on the Walk Of Game.

    Aren't these stars supposed to recognize legends? Link, Mario, and Sonic have all been in more games than I can count. They are instantly recognizable as icons of the industry. How many games feature Master Chief? Only 2. Shouldn't the industry have waited just a bit before placing Master Chief on the same pedestal as Link, Sonic, and Mario? Where are Crash Bandicoot, the goomba, and Ganon?

    I understand that Halo was a popular FPS, but I think it's too new to be considered legendary quite yet.

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    1. Re:From Gamasutra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the SONY Walk of Game. The Master Chief thing was just an attempt to appear not to be biased by including both Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft creations in the Walk of Game.

      (The fact that there really IS only one Microsoft creation not-withstanding... Although, honestly, Flight Simulator would probably have been a better choice for the "token Microsoft game".)

    2. Re:From Gamasutra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crash Bandicoot? Did anyone actually play a game involving him?

    3. Re:From Gamasutra by jclast · · Score: 2

      I thought the Crash games were fun platformers for the PSX, and he seemed to be the closest thing to Mario or Sonic that Sony had, and he's made it through 2 generations on the Sony hardware.

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    4. Re:From Gamasutra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Link, Mario, Sonic, and.. Master Chief? Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. That's pathetic. It's like a Sesame Street "One of these things doesn't belong" puzzle.

      I also find it amusing that the Sony games division is sponsoring something that inducts Sid Meier. I can imagine the description they'll have of him. "He designs games that people who play our consoles would never be interested in, since none of Sid's games involve killing hookers."

      I should probably post this anonymously, since Sony fanboys might be able to figure out how to bang their clubs against the keyboard in a way that would mod this down.

    5. Re:From Gamasutra by Kazzahdrane · · Score: 1

      Once he hit the PS2 he wasn't being developed by his creators, Naughty Dog, though. Go find reviews for the Crash games on this generation. They pretty much stink, and compared to games 1-3 + Crash Team Racing they stink a hell of a lot.

    6. Re:From Gamasutra by Kazzahdrane · · Score: 1

      Civ II on PSX. It did quite well IIRC, I certainly know a few people who had it. I also like that you insulted the Sony fanboys while implying that all the games on Sony's consoles involve "killing hookers". If you believe that then you're an idiot, or just horribly uneducated.

    7. Re:From Gamasutra by Babbster · · Score: 1
      You probably should have headed over to the actual "Walk of Game" website. if you had, you (and the others who jumped on it) would have found out that Master Chief was not inducted. Halo was. I'm sure the logic of the voters who gave it some thought was that Halo was the biggest thing on the Xbox, that it was the first big LAN-type console experience, and that its sequel was making people slobber with anticipation (assuming the voting was done at about the same time last year). Of course, since it's an award that is voted on by "gamers worldwide" the thing doesn't have to have any logic besides being a popularity contest.

      Whatever one might think of Halo's worthiness (I'm not a fan myself), the bottom line is that they didn't put Master Chief up with those three iconic characters. They honored the game and not the character, despite the sloppy work of the "journalist" who wrote the Gamasutra story.

    8. Re:From Gamasutra by shoptroll · · Score: 1

      Welcome to last year's debate. Quite honestly, Wolfenstein 3D should've gotten it, but Master Chief I think is more of a character than the the original BJ Blascowicz (sp?). That's the only reason I can think of.

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      Insert Sig Here
  3. dear diary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    please lord of gaming dont let anything "halo" make that list.

    1. Re:dear diary by FLAGGR · · Score: 1

      Master Chief won an award last year.

  4. Character nominations? by Fjornir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd like to go ahead and throw out a character nomination they missed. I think that @ should have a star too.

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    I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
  5. Uh, no. by MMaestro · · Score: 1
    Doom

    NOW they induct Doom? Wth?

    EverQuest

    Induct Ultima Online and then you can talk about MMORPGs.

    Final Fantasy

    I'm surprised the Squaresoft/SquareEnix fans didn't screaming their heads off about this already.

    Frogger

    Important in gaming history, yes. Easily recognized as a character, no.

    Grand Theft Auto

    HIGHLY debatable. Wide, 'do whatever you want' worlds are not new.

    Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

    If the character needs to be identified with the series, it doesn't belong up there.

    Madden NFL

    Not fair since you're basicly listing 'Football' up there.

    Myst and Pac-Man

    Again, wth?

    Resident Evil

    Debatable. Alone in the Dark series came eariler.

    Samus Aran (Metroid)

    At the risk of Nintendo fanboys flaming me, again debatable due to her long period of absentee.

    The rest are more or less acceptable for one reason or another.

    1. Re:Uh, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm surprised the Squaresoft/SquareEnix fans didn't screaming their heads off about this already.

      They're all still too busy working in Final Fantasy XI. Playing it is a fulltime job.

    2. Re:Uh, no. by MisterMurphy · · Score: 1

      Samus Aran (Metroid)

      At the risk of Nintendo fanboys flaming me, again debatable due to her long period of absentee.

      First off, you bring up series that were earlier than than the ones that got awards and should have therefore gotten them, despite the fact that they have a "long period of absentee". Secondly, Metroid Fusion? Metroid Zero Mission? Metroid Prime? "A long absentee" is two years?

    3. Re:Uh, no. by MMaestro · · Score: 1

      Super Metroid was released in '94. Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were released in '02. Eight years is a long time especially when your consider the fact that most modern gamers aren't old enough to even remember Super Metroid (let alone Metroid 1 and 2). No other major video game series has been unused for such a long period of time (cameos in the two Super Smash Bros games doesn't count either.)

    4. Re:Uh, no. by MisterMurphy · · Score: 1

      Why don't "cameos" in the SSB games count? I assume by this that any and all characters in other fighters, such as Street Fighter, have never actually been in a video game if their appearance within it doesn't count?

    5. Re:Uh, no. by MMaestro · · Score: 1

      Because by that logic Fire Emblem should've been released much eariler in the U.S. (it dates back to the NES days in Japan). Mewtwo (from Pokemon) should have his own game since hes one of the first 'bosses' and Mr. Game and Watch should be getting modern remakes given his popularity even before SSMB.

  6. Classics? by Magnakai · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't things like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong and Pong be auto-accepts? They've put us where we are today in gaming. In a good way! (though I did hear an interesting argument that Space Invaders ruined gaming, since it was about violence and thus set the scene for gaming to be generally revolved around violent behaviour.)

  7. No introduction needed by halleluja · · Score: 1

    Larry Laffer.

    1. Re:No introduction needed by Fjornir · · Score: 1

      Laffer was a good character, for sure. But by sheer number of hours spent and emotional investment @ beats our Larry.

      --
      I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
  8. Re:Uh, no. Everquest ... by lake2112 · · Score: 1

    Considering its the SONY Metreon theater in San Francisco, and they have a store dedicated to Everquest materials inside ... you can see why they chose Everquest.