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Final Fantasy 7, Tomb Raider Headline Inductees To World Video Game Hall of Fame (polygon.com)

Posted by msmash on from the recognition-time dept.

Dave Knott writes: The 2018 World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees have been announced. The Hall Of Fame "recognizes individual electronic games of all types — arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile -- that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general." The 2018 inductees are: Final Fantasy 7, John Madden Football, Spacewar!, and the first Tomb Raider.

43 comments

  1. Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Because it wasn't "3D" enough?

    1. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by decipher_saint · · Score: 1

      Well, it kinda says what the honour criteria is in the summary "that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general"

      There's no doubt in my mind that FF7 fits the bill, heck I bet there's somebody cosplaying Cloud right now somewhere in the world. There are a lot of great games (FF6 among them) but there are some that stick out more than others.

      Obviously "Hall of Fame" type organizations are strange in that they seek to honour stuff that quite frankly is already pretty well known, so the accolade rings somewhat hollow. Then there's almost always drama about inductees and sometimes even the order they are inducted. But at least we got an article on what appears to be a slow news day.

      ALSO I don't think I've ever seen a post disappear before in real time but there were two anon posts when I first read this article, one was already modded -1 but now its gone (whatever it was, I didn't read it). Weird.

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
    2. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by omnichad · · Score: 2

      I am not even an RPG fan, but I know that FF7 is absolutely massive by comparison. It was a real accomplishment far beyond anything like it at the time.

    3. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by ThePyro · · Score: 1

      Personally I liked FF6 better, but FF7 sold about 6x as many copies. It's really no contest.

    4. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by chispito · · Score: 1

      There's no doubt in my mind that FF7 fits the bill

      Despite its impact, games in that era are uniquely difficult to go back and enjoy. The graphics just do not hold up like 2d games or subsequent 3d games.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    5. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Dunno, they inducted World of Warcraft, but not Everquest. Not even mentioning EQ on the write up (though conspicuously referencing Ultima Online.)

      WoW was certainly influential, but in no way, shape, or form was it more influential than the original Everquest. UO came along prior (along with a bunch of other MUDS, graphical or not) But in terms of mass market, 3-d, first person MMO's -- if EQ wasn't first, I'd be curious as to what came first.

      This points out the problem with these sorts of things (be it one of those clickbait lists that i keep clicking through, despite knowing better; or a hall of fame). In just about every case it turns into a popularity contest, or a massive case of personal bias.

    6. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      I can overlook outdated 3D graphics, but the old control schemes are what kills many of these games for me. Some of those older 3D games have terrible controls, typically coupled with bad camera placement. The graphics often did a good job of pushing the limits of the developers ability and systems at the time, but most developers had no experience with designing three dimensional game worlds. The original PlayStation didn't even have a controller built with those kinds of games in mind.

    7. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a Hall of Fame, not a Hall of Achievement.

      WoW beat the fuck out of everything else in the industry in terms of popularity. It did nothing novel or interesting, it just came at precisely the right point in time - EQ was stale, Mythic was already ruining DAoC, and the other contenders in the industry were struggling to merely be contenders.

      It McDonaldized MMOs - which is certainly worth a Hall of Fame induction. EQ was pretty widely known, admittedly - you'd occasionally get a funny EQ addict story here or there out of the media. But WoW made every man, woman and child on the planet understand how many goddamned nerds masturbate over cartoon elves.

    8. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

      Because the transition from 16 Bit to 32 Bit was the point where video games truly broke into the mass market and became a fundamental way of entertainment. I remember that back in the day me and one other classmate where the only ones who owned a Super Nintendo. Since I'm from Europe, I had to import FF3/6 from the US and was the only person I know who had it. Then the PSX came and half of my class had one. FF7 was the first FF to be released in Europe ever, so for many people it was also the first FF ever. So while 6 is my favourite, I have to admit that it didn't pave its way into the collective memory as FF7 did.

    9. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About your first sentence: uhwat. No.

    10. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      EQ was not stale, EQ was difficult and rewarded perseverance and the ability to interact with other humans in a respectful manner (unless you were Furor, then it rewarded being an asshole)

      WoW rewarded turning up and being an asshole, exclusively.

      Given there are more asshole children than adults* in the world, WoW was wildly popular.

      *Age at which you become an adult may vary.

    11. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      FF7 to me was one of the first games that tried to be bigger than itself - and pulled it off - it was an extravagant cinematic/multimedia experience and one of the first of its kind to do so successfully.

      The scene with Aeris death still makes me cry.

    12. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      WoW simply would not exist had it not been for eq.

    13. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not a bunch of games that are way better than anything in their shitty little list?

      Where is

      Alone in the Dark
      Anachronox
      Another World
      Descent
      Deus Ex
      Duke Nukem 3D
      Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
      F.E.A.R.
      Fallout
      Fallout 2
      Flashback
      Freelancer
      Full Throttle
      Grim Fandango
      Half-Life 2
      Homeworld
      Legend of Grimrock
      Little Big Adventure
      Little Big Adventure 2
      Loom
      Maniac Mansion
      Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
      MDK
      MDK2
      MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
      Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
      Nethack
      Outcast
      Prince of Persia
      Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow & The Flame
      Psychonauts
      Rogue
      Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters
      Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force
      Star Wars: Dark Forces
      Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy
      Star Wars: TIE Fighter
      Syndicate
      System Shock
      System Shock 2
      The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
      The Curse of Monkey Island
      The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
      The Longest Journey
      The Operative: No One Lives Forever
      The Secret of Monkey Island
      Thief: The Dark Project
      Thief II: The Metal Age
      Thief: Deadly Shadows
      Total Annihilation
      Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
      Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
      Ultima VI: The False Prophet
      Ultima VII: The Black Gate
      Unreal
      Unreal Tournament
      Wing Commander
      Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
      Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
      Wing Commander: Privateer
      Wolfenstein 3D

      Along with a whole lot of other games responsible for defining the industry and widely to be considered the best...

      Instead, they have utter garbage like Halo, John Madden, Pokamon, Tomb Raider and World of Warcraft. It's like a list created by a child ticking off half of a historical games checklist (of game they have never even played) and filling the rest with subpar console crap.

    14. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by BetterSense · · Score: 1

      Parent is correct that FFVII is actually a low-point in graphics. The 2D games that came before it were at the peak of development, whereas FFVII was a very clunky attempt at the next generation, graphically. It's really obviously bad. It doesn't even really "work", graphically.

      Nobody knew how to do 3D games at the time. FFVII field graphics used hand-drawn 2D backgrounds, with 3D animated characters overlaid on them. Other contemporary games did the exact opposite (like Xenogears), and had 3D environments but 2D characters running around on them--that worked out much better IMO, because 3D character animation was definitely not there yet. The FFVII battle graphics are totally different from the field graphics, because that was acceptable at the time, but FFVII itself should have convinced everyone that wasn't going to keep working out in the 3D era. And just to make things more jarring FFVII threw in lots of pre-rendered videos, which sometimes used models from the battle graphics and sometimes from the field graphics. It's really terrible.

      The glass-half-empty view, FFVII was the worst of both eras. On the other hand, there were several things that still make people look at it and say it's good or better than modern games. Basically wherever FFVII retained things from the previous era it wins, so the glass-half-full view it is a "modern" game but one that isn't fully devolved.

      --no voice acting. All dialog is text. This is a bonus because voice acting sucks in this type of game.
      --it used a full, explorable overworld map, the way previous 2D games did. This pretty much got dropped in later games. The overworld map was one of the good carry-overs before they realized they could cheap out and players would give them a pass.
      --it retained the use and the central importance of the score. The music score was extremely important in 2D games as a storytelling device. Modern games sometimes have very good scores, but they are situated in a role more similar to movie scores; as accompaniment. FFVII used theme music the "old" way.
      --The whole story/gameplay was not fully watered down. It was starting to show signs; since the difficulty is pretty easy and mechanics are fairly simple. But you still need to play it hard and get the special characters and the extra cut-scenes in order to fully play it. Modern games are much more hand-holdy.

      obtw Aeris dies.

    15. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FF6 wasn't a terrible game, but I think it was flawed to the point it was the worst FF on the SNES. Part of the problem is the story structure. There's no single protagonist, so it goes off the rails at several points.

      Basically, FF7 improved upon FF6 by focusing on one main story and reducing the character roster to give a bit more depth to each character. Plus, the Materia system is a direct improvement of the Magicite system. And made the party system usable (no going back to the airship to swap characters).

      Chrono Trigger was also an improvement over FF6 (for most of the same reasons) and probably better than FF7.

    16. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Kopp · · Score: 1

      feel free to nominate all the games in your list, it's open !

    17. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On top of selling better in both the US and Japan, FF7 was the first Final Fantasy game to be released in Europe, strengthening its significance for the WORLD Video Game Hall of Fame.

      FF6 was not released in Europe until 1999 when it was ported to the Playstation, and the SNES version was only (formally) made available last year with the SNES Classic

    18. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I am not even an RPG fan, but I know that FF7 is absolutely massive by comparison. It was a real accomplishment far beyond anything like it at the time.

      It's not the size of the game, it's the second part. There was nothing like it at the time. And they were smart enough to make a multi-platform release! You could get it for the PC, and it had support for the plethora of 3d accelerators available at the time. It was still better on the Playstation, though, if you could live with the low resolution. They used Direct3d over DirectVideo on Windows and the two didn't sync, so going up elevators and such looked bad.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    19. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      That's the nature of "Hall of Fame" lists - it's a popularity contest, not an olympic competition.

      Everquest may have done all the things WoW did before WoW came along, but WoW added the approach ability and is still the reigning king of MMOs. Everquest never had 15 million+ subscribers.

      Similarly with FF7 and FF6. FF7 was a 4-disk story that created a world and characters that inspired movies, figures, remakes, fan art and so on for DECADES afterward. FF6 is widely regarded to be the best of the FF series, but it just didn't have the same impact. More people recognize Cloud than Kefka.

    20. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Compare the numbers of the Super Nintendo (strongest contender of the 16 Bit era) to Sony Playstation 1-3. There is a significant rise. In Europe this trend was probably more extreme due to the huge change of the market landscape in the mid 90s.

    21. Re:Why not Final Fantasy 6? by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

      Oh, and compare the number of available games for SNES and MD and the PSs.

      https://www.neogaf.com/threads...

  2. My first serious game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FFVII was the first game that tracked /played. I remember quitting after about 80 hours and thinking it would be near impossible to spend 100 hours in any one game.

    1. Re:My first serious game by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      I've got at least 100 hours into Klondike solitaire, if I can include the times I've played with physical cards.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  3. What, no Trio the Punch? by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Never forget!

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  4. I hated FF7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guess I'm the only one

    1. Re:I hated FF7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you're not; I could not play it either. I was happy just watching my sister play through, just so I get to watch the in-game cinematics. Later on, I d/loaded the clips and tacked on FooFighters "My Hero" to create an awesome music video, using only mplayer in Linux =] -- command line too LOL

    2. Re:I hated FF7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you seen this Slashdot video yet? Have you bought the family freindly Goat C shirt?

      - FatCashewsLoveMe

    3. Re:I hated FF7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


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  5. WORLD Videogame Hall of Fame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why do Americans always do this?

    World Videogame Hall of Fame : John Madden Football

    1. Re:WORLD Videogame Hall of Fame by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      Because the European version titled "John Madden Handegg" didn't sell nearly as well.

  6. No Skyrim? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm kinda surprised to not see that in the list.

    Skyrim was the first game I ever played where I wasn't stuck on a track with only really one path of progression.

    I could just decide "I don't feel like going there, I'm going over here". I'm not constrained by the plot or the story line if I don't wish to be, and I can endlessly play it and totally ignore aspects of it. In fact, I still do.

    The ability to just go exploring and mapping out the environment, not being in some endless grind, not getting stuck on some damned level which causes me to stop playing after dying 50 times (as I often have done) ... this is why I think Skyrim is entirely different.

    Maybe there's other completely open roamers out there, but I'm not sure what they are.

    I absolutely hate games that devolve to "follow this path, you can't go anywhere else, hit long cut scene where you watch the story play out for you, fight boss character -- then repeat on another level". I want to play a game in which the world is mine to explore, I can choose to do quests or not, and if I don't ... oh well.

    For some of us, the environment and the ability to go wherever we want is the best part. To a certain extent Tomb Raider had this, but you were still stuck inside of a level until you solved the puzzle. I like the option of saying "OK, failed on that a bunch of times, let's ignore that and go someplace else".

    1. Re:No Skyrim? by Gamer_2k4 · · Score: 1

      Maybe there's other completely open roamers out there, but I'm not sure what they are.

      Have you never played a Fallout game?

    2. Re:No Skyrim? by PixetaledPikachu · · Score: 1

      I'm kinda surprised to not see that in the list.

      Skyrim was the first game I ever played where I wasn't stuck on a track with only really one path of progression.

      I could just decide "I don't feel like going there, I'm going over here". I'm not constrained by the plot or the story line if I don't wish to be, and I can endlessly play it and totally ignore aspects of it. In fact, I still do.

      The ability to just go exploring and mapping out the environment, not being in some endless grind, not getting stuck on some damned level which causes me to stop playing after dying 50 times (as I often have done) ... this is why I think Skyrim is entirely different.

      Maybe there's other completely open roamers out there, but I'm not sure what they are.

      Man, Skyrim was not even the first title among TES series that did "open roamers" stuff

    3. Re:No Skyrim? by sabbede · · Score: 1

      That would be the first TES game, Arena. The genre-maker.

    4. Re:No Skyrim? by sabbede · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing you're much younger than I, and thus missed the Might and Magic series, first two Fallouts, first 4 Elder Scrolls games, the Ultima series, and a bunch of others. They were all awesome, but many are probably too dated to go back and play now. CGA graphics are ugly as hell.

    5. Re:No Skyrim? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The first two Fallout games are still enjoyable, but the interfaces on all those other games (except maybe the later TES games) are atrocious. I never understood how anyone found Ultima enjoyable. It's all the tedium of playing a pen and paper game without the enjoyability of other humans

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:No Skyrim? by sabbede · · Score: 1
      That seems a bit unfair. Like criticizing a '68 Mustang for not coming with airbags, you can't really come down on a 25+ year old game for not having a modern user interface. Yeah, the UIs may suck by current standards, but for the time they were okay-to-amazing.

      The first Might and Magic (The Secret of the Inner Sanctum, 1986) was amazing. It had a deep story, crazy huge world with dungeons and overworld exploration, multiple towns, and secrets you would never expect or be able to find if you weren't making your own map with graph paper because in-game automaps didn't exist as an idea yet. It was so much fun when it came out, but I would never want to play it again because yeah, by contemporary standards it's damn-near unplayable and I'm spoiled.

    7. Re:No Skyrim? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the UIs may suck by current standards, but for the time they were okay-to-amazing.

      The various TSR-licensed games had better, for doing basically the same thing. I call shenanigans. By the time they got to Pool of Radiance the interface was really quite enjoyable... for the day. It would be tolerable now except for the font

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Diversity? by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

    The four inductees span multiple decades, countries of origin, and gaming platforms,

    One can only hope this is a happenstance noticed after the inductees were selected rather than an important selection criterium to somehow validate the "World" in World VG HoF...

    --
    When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
  8. Wait, Spacewar! is only being inducted now? by sabbede · · Score: 1

    Three inductees from the 90's, and the first videogame, from 1962. How was Spacewar not the very first inductee?