Slashdot Mirror
The Ten Greatest Years in Gaming
Ground Glass writes "Next Generation has posted an abbreviated version of gaming's history by only chronicling the high points - the ten best years in the history of the medium. While it doesn't cover 1998 (and therefore forgets the birthdays of Half-Life, Starcraft, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time), most of the memorable moments are there. What was your best year for gaming?"
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
It has been all downhill from there.....
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
Wow, that was quick! Anyway, here's a full mirror of the one-page printable version.
Slashdotted off the Games section, no less. That's like being a super-villain with the Superfriends after you, and being busted by Marvin and Wendy instead of Superman and Batman.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Starting at 5
5: 1984, The year the apple macintosh computer was first released, thus cementing the place of PC-based video-games forever.
4: 1944. D-Day, the source of 9/10th of all game ideas ever produced.
3: 2020. Both the setting of every style of cliche 'near future cyber-tale', and the year Duke Nukem Forever will be released.
2: 1889. Namely, november 6th, 1889. Founding of a little playing card company was made in a little backwards country called japan that would later become Nintendo. The company, not the country...
1: 1992. The year E.V.O. The Search For Eden was released. Quite possibly the single greatest evolution-themed platformer for the SNES ever produced. 'nuff said.
I thought I read that "slashdotting" was no longer a concern to web sites. There's a smoking hunk of plastic and metal at next-gen.biz that would disagree.
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
In A.D. 2101, war was beginning.
....
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every 'Zig' !!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'Zig'.
Captain: For great justice.
The Secret of Monkey Island!
Nope, they just forgot to mention him. He'll be back in the new Zelda for Wii.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
It's one thing to like FF VII, or to even think it's the best in the entire series. That's an opinion and everyone's entitled to have them.
But revolutionary? I take issue with the concept, and since your conclusion is based on that one game, your entire statement.
Let me try to wrap my head around the point, starting with how it could be revolutionary within the realm of Final Fantasy games. I'll start with the most common "points" brought up, with games noted by "US/JAP" release titles:
-(Obviously)It wasn't the first FF game
-(The Aeris point) It wasn't the first FF game where characters, party members, and large numbers of innocents died (see FFII/IV's Tellah, FFIII/VI's Castle Doma, Breaking of the World, General Leo, and many others related to the recurring party members, and FFV's Galuf)
-(Materia) It wasn't the first FF game where you could teach your characters things (Espers in FFIII/VII, and the Job/Skill System in the Famicom's FFII, as well as FFV)
-(Story) It can be argued, as a matter of opinion, that FFII/IV and FFIII/VI had incredibly good stories, especially by those who played them before Playstation/FFVII came out.
-(Soundtrack) Granted that FFVII's music didn't have to be midi's, but by the same measure, FFIII/VI's soundtrack was available at the US's release date and was fully orchestrated (and sounded damn good)
-(Chocobos) Nope, been around since at least FFII/IV, and IIRC, FFII on the Famicom/GBA.
-(Party Switching) The ability to select who comes and who goes at will has been around since FFIII/VI. In fact, some of the best and more "revolutionary" sequences forced you to split up your party into multiple groups, causing some potentially difficult battles if you didn't know how to play each character's strengths and/or poorly developed their skills and misgrouped them.
-(Active Battle System) Not even close...see FFII/IV and beyond.
The only "revolutionary" action for FFVII in the Final Fantasy series I can think of is that it was the first one to come out on a platform that could support FMV-style animation sequences and also use polygons instead of sprites, thereby appealing to a wider audience.
Now, taken in a greater scope of all RPGs, I really can't think of *anything* that FFVII did that no RPG previous to it (on any computer system or console) hadn't done first, or better.
Now, for my "old man" disclaimer...I'm 25, and grew up on the early FF games. I played through FFVII, and enjoyed it. FFVIII didn't do it for me, but FFIX I enjoyed, and I found Final Fantasy Tactics (like Tactics Ogre) to be refreshing and extremely enjoyable. I stopped playin' them after that, but not for dislike of the series -- my interests simply changed, though I do plan to try to come back to the series in the future, when there's time in my life.
I've just heard the (relatively baseless) "OMG FFVII is teh best ev3r!!!" argument too often, and felt the need to offer rebuttle.
Thanks!
- 1981--My parents divorce. My Dad needs to overcompensate, so he gets an Odyssey2. I play Pick Axe Pete and KC Munchkin until I fall asleep at the controller.
- 1983--I play Galaga at the Silver Ball Arcade in Worcester, MA, and just cannot be stopped. I was in a trance. I must have played for 45 minutes. Everyone was watching. I was 10 years old.
- 1984--My friend has a Commodore 64 and we play Archon endlessly. The Banshee cannot lose.
- 1986--I see a kid play Super Mario Bros in an arcade cabinet in Orlando, FL. I am HYPNOTIZED. $290 dollars, four months, and one still-overcompensating Dad later I can retire my Atari 5200.
- 1987--I get Metroid. This is the best game ever made. (Still).
- 1991--Street Fighter 2 is released. Only Tournament Cyberball competes for quarters for the next three years. Dhalsim cannot lose.
- 1994--The University of Redlands Physics lab has many Macs hooked up with Appletalk. These many Macs all have Marathon on them. Deathmatches ensue, and ensue hard.
- 1997--I get my first Mac, and Ambrosia Software gets half my paycheck. Maelstrom, Apeiron, Swoop, Escape Velocity.
- 2003--Some minigolf place in the SVF has a Street Fighter II: Turbo game in the "cheap corner". I play for the first time in years and thrash the shit out of a dozen young Vietnamese kids for about 30 minutes. Dhalsim still can't lose. I walk away from the game.
- 2006--I re-re-re-discover Diablo 2. MAN I love this game. Watch out, Metroid.
Some lowlights...blarg.