Top 10 Games... of all time. And prove why.

#21 @Zach

Quote:I think any Zelda game deserves to be on any top 10 games of all time list. (With maybe the exception of "The Adventure of Link" or those crappy CD-i games.)

Hey hey hey now, them is fightin' words! I actually wrote an article about it for Classic gaming about 5 years ago:

In Defense of Zelda ][: The Adventures of Link

It's a bit loopy, but I was younger then, so be kind :)

#22 @Joshua Dallman
I think it was more in relation to Wand of Gamelon, Zelda's Adventure, and Faces of Evil for the Philips CD-I. Which most people wish had never happened.

#23 Robotron 2084: This game just rocked. The first of the "move and shoot in different directions" games... it spawned horde of children: Smash TV (by the same guy) and Crimson Land (indie! yay!) being the two I can think of off the top of my head.

And the game wasn't just about Blowing Stuff Up either. There were all those humans that needed rescuing. Incredibly intense action, multi-facetted gameplay.

#1 in my book.

#2? Humph. Tough call. Lots of competition: World of Warcraft, Tribes 2 (never played 1, 3 didn't cut it), Civ, Asteroids, Tekken, Soul Calibur, MOO(1 & 2, 3 was a disappointment), Planetside (the SCALE of it... tre schweet), Total Annihilation ( > SC, too bad about the skirmish AI though), Wolfenstein and all its children(doom/quake/HL[1-2]/etc), lots of great stuff out there.

Herzog Zwie! Mutant League Hockey! Those were the days...

AvP2: Hard to match the viceral thrill of dropping down on a couple marines from above and EATING THEIR BRAINS! Good combination of sneaking around and gibbing your fellow gamer. And the atmosphere was Great.

#24 I seem to have neglected some of the arcade greats.

Rampart - simple addictive castle destruction fun
Golden Axe - hack and slash goodness
Hard Drivin - Drive around in a 3d wireframe :)
Pigskin 621 A.D. was a great arcade classic. Bring in the trolls!

#25 Doom and Civilization have to be close to tied as the best ever. I give the edge to Civilization personally, it was infinitely replayable.

#26 @Joshua

Yeah, The Adventure of Link is actually one of my favorite games but for some reason it seems like everyone else hated it. When it first came out I think it got some of the worst ratings I"ve ever read.

@David

So...will you be home later tonight?

@Paul

I dont know why I didnt check ebay to begin with. Whelp I'm an idiot. Looks like I wont have to kill you after all David. (Just kidding) *puts knife back in the babys crib*

#27 UFO: Enemy Unknown. I actually discovered it pretty late, I believe it was era of Starcraft already and everyone and his dog was worshipping Blizzard, but i couldnt be bothered for some 3 months of sweet extasy.

Heroes of Might&Magic 3: it simply was so complete, so replayable. Rarely do games anything to me once I've finished the main campaign, but in Heroes every new quality map was a celebration.

Appended to above- Disciples 2 as close runner up. Its just have kick-donkey art direction and mood. Game mechanics are dumbed down, but whats left is pure essence and fun.

Jagged Alliance- just because. Love from the first sight, endless nights and dumb realization that its morning and you have to go to work.

Thief series. A special place in heart. Probably technically not the first stealth game, but definitely the first consistent sneaker. Never before had I felt so weak and vulnerable and loved it so much. Because I had the power of shadows and brain. Let them quakers brawl their brains out. Me and Garret are taking a late night creep around the City.
And music. And stylish cinematics. And lore... A true gem.

System Shock2. for all the reasons above and then some.

Star Control2: I'm exploration freak, I just love it. And you get huuuge universe crawling with life, ripe for exploration, resource gathering, alliance forging and distant goal of dethroning the current overlords of Galaxy. How can you go wrong?
Still havent finished it.

#28 Games aren't paintings or sculptures. They are commercial products meant to be consumed. My list is based that these best games affected sales and solidified business models.

1) Pac-Man (As old and simple as it is, it helped make the Arcade machines mainstream. There are many great arcade games, but everyone knows about pac-man. Anyone remember Pac-Man Cereal?)

2) Pitfall (So many great games for the Atari, its hard to choose one. Activision's Pitfall seemed like a huge game on the Atari. Pitfall was also one of the few games to cut across typical market. Robotron was a great game, but how many women played Robotron? Everyone loved Pitfall and made the Atari something other than an 'arcade' emulator.)

3) Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3 (No one bought a NES for Duck Hunt. Aside from the earthquake shift the original SMB had in defining and creating the platform genre, it is the most sold video game EVER made. Super Mario Brothers 3 shows how a good sequel is made and with its publication further solidified the Mario world as the de-facto game franchise. Super Mario Brothers 3 is also the best selling stand-alone video game ever made.)

4) Tetris (Very broad appeal and created a new game genre. But more improtant than that is that Tetris solidified the original Gameboy and propelled the handheld game industry into existence.)

5) Wing Commander 1 (Perhaps the most influential game ever made. Before Wing Commander 1: all games generally could be made by two designers in a garage. Wing Commander 1 put in insane production money [like $750,000 for it?] with an almost cimena style. Ever since then, games have tried to be similiar to movies in presentation. Also, all game production since then no longer had designers in control. Games then were focused on production qualities [of the sound/music/presentation/etc.] instead of the design/content qualities [of how this game is 'unique' or how 'deep' the game is].)

6) Doom 1 and 2 / Quake 1,2,3 / Etc. (Doom brought PC Gaming more into the mainstream and defined the FPS genre. Game creation would very much rely on the FPS engines. The FPS style game sells very well and keeps selling today.)

7) Final Fantasy Series (I so hate this game. I bought the first one when it came out along with the early other ones. The game series switched to a more video happy interactive movie style in the later games. Nevertheless, this is a very well selling game franchise which did something very interesting: broke Nintendo's lead on the console marketplace. People bought Playstation 1 for many reasons. But one of the biggest reasons why people chose Playstation 1 over Ultra 64 was that was where the Final Fantasy Games were. Today, Microsoft announced that it would have Final Fantasy games on its console. Why the special announcement? Because the Final Fantasy franchise, as much as I despise it, has legions of fans who will follow it anywhere.)

8) Civilization (Defined a new game genre and is the most replayable game every made. Where most video games sell for a few months and disapear from the shelves, Civilization 1 stayed on the shelves for like four years. It also invited a famous legal fight over companies on who owned the 'rights' to the name.)

9) SimCity and Sims (Defined a game genre and made gaming more mainstream. Both SimCity and Sims sold to hardcore game players and non hardcore game players making it a salesman's delight.)

10) Ultima Online (Created a new form of video game business model where instead of product oriented it was service oriented. Really made subscription fees 'almost' a norm in PC gaming [Everquest and WoW would further build on that]. Origin's dying gasp was to unleash the MMORPG craze.)

#29 These are, in my opinion, the ten best games in the endurability sense (in how they are percieved as gameplay as art).

1) Robotron (for the arcade and atari. Awesome means of controls)

2) Archon / Adept (Archon combined a type of chess with action battles. Adept made a chess type game so unique it can only be played on computers.)

3) Super Mario Brothers 1, 3, and Super Mario World (Yes, they still sell today and looks like will be played by our great grandchildren. The imagination in these games is stunning.)

4) Ultima IV / Ultima VII (Playing for virtue? What a twist! And Ultima 7 had the largest game 'world' where you could interact with almost everything.)

5) Grim Fandango (no explanation needed)

6) Star Control 1 and 2 (Takes and builds on the original video game of all time: space war. Star Control 2 combined adventure elements with shooter elements with rpg elements with tactical elements. I've never seen a game with more combinations of gameplay. The art, music, writing, and sound effects still stand the test of time.)

7) Warcraft Series (The art and humor in these games makes them playable again and again. "Zug zug")

8) Zelda Series (Zelda 1 is as playable today as the newest Zelda is. I wonder what would occur if Zelda 1 was included in the original NES console?)

9) Metroid Series (A shame Kid Icarus never got the franchise that Metroid did. But Metroid still remains playable today. It's creepy aloneness also still works.)

10) Chrono Trigger (The RPG wasn't exactly linear. With its music, art, characters, multiple time lines, multiple endings, the game shines like an art piece.)

#30 Http://24.92.168.120./Archive/needmyfix.jpg

#31 "Games aren't paintings or sculptures. They are commercial products meant to be consumed."

Actually, so are paintings and sculptures:)

#32 Zelda OOT is definetly a top 10, along with Half Life 2.

#33 Haha, yeah, paintings and sculptures are meant to be sold. But they are art because there are 'originals' and because they draw on centuries and centuries of technique. Also, they are almost overwhelmingly made by one person. No video game since the mid eighties is made by one person.

I'd say a game is more artistically similiar to a play. In theater, you can have the best actors, what you believe is the best script, the best director, the best costumes, the best set, the best posters and advertising, but the audience is always, always correct. Ever seen a bad play? Even if the audience hates it, the actors think the audience is 'stupid' because their play is so 'technical' or has such a wonderful 'message'. Many bad games (that have adequate development time and talent) end up the same way because they are so focused on 'technical' wonders, where they lose sight of pleasing the audience and fashion themselves as a type of genius designer. Master of Orion 3 is a good example of this. The audience is always, always right.

#34 Well, I almost physically feel how thread derails, but, Mike- by your logic movies can not be art, because they are made by collective of people. As can not be books, because they are being printed and there are no "originals":)

#35 Alright, this is my list of the to 10 most influential video games:

Yes, i know many of these have already been said.

And no, they are not nescisarily in order of importance.

1) Pong. Why? It showed the world that video games existed.

2) NetTrek. Old old game, originally released for mac os 6 or something. Why? It was (to my knowledge) the first ever networked multiplayer game. Uses rudamentary AppleTalk to provide networked players with 2D startrek-like combat. W00T!

3) PacMan. It brought video games out into the mainstream.

4 thru 6) Doom, Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament
And Xan skimmed across the asteroid. And Xan separated the Red from the Blue. And thus were born LAN parties. And it was good. Amen.

7 thru 9) Starcraft, Warcraft, Tribes II
It was these games that in my view brought internet gaming to the masses. Starcraft and Warcraft with the Battle.net service and games that could be played even on a modem, and I think anyone on this website knows the glory of Tribes II.

10) Halo. This game was a truly remarkable shooter, and remains so today. So good in fact, it brought the LAN culture to console gamers with the advent of XBox LANs, and became THE title for the platform.

There are many more games I could list, but i'm tired, and i already have 10 here.

#36 1) Pong (of course, it started it all, developed originally as a missile simulator for the government, accidentally became the first two player table tennis game with people lining up around the block (literally at one point in time when it was demo'ed(sp?)))

2) Super Mario 1, 2, 3 (Brought videogames into homes of people who wouldnt normally play video games, and widened the market)

3) Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64 (Werent the first polygon based games, but they got the general population excited about polygon based videogames)

4) Dance Dance Revolution, Barbie games, Mary Kate and Ashley games (of course I would NEVER be caught dead playing one of these games, but its pretty hard to argue against the fact that they did bring a LOT of girls (from kids to late teens) into console gaming, and after they realized they could win at them, they got interested in playing the boys games as well)

5) The Sims (of course, I had to put that on here... I've honestly never played the sims, but I cant deny that these games were some of the bestselling games of all time. The whole simulating life concept must have really caught on, and they have a wide fan base (from 10-50+ years old, male and female))

6) Doom and other old FPS games (ushered the 5,000,000,000 first person shooter games that are around nowadays, if they were never created, we would have 5,000,000,000 less games now)

7) Jak and Daxter (one of the first mainstream games with an engine that eliminated load times seamlessly on a cd based system - ps2 (I'm sure other ones did it first, but this one did it GOOD, and was very popular))

8) BBS Door games (ushered the online multiplayer facet of gaming, although they were simple, they were addictive, and got a lot of people thinking into online compatibility for mainstream games)

9) Myst, Final Fantasy, and other older RPGs (pushed people to integrate more story elements into videogames rather than just pacman style and pong style *twitch* games, this way people became more a part of the game than just something to play when you're waiting around and bored)

10) Big Game Hunter MCMXVII Deluxe (yeah I know its not real, but the Deer Hunter series and the Big Game Hunter series, I'm sure there's a lot more where that came from, but they're actually very popular titles for the PC and I believe were ported over to some consoles (xbox and ps2, because gamecube is more geared towards younger audiences) because they'd sold millions and millions of copies. To whom? Rednecks... who now play video games as well thanks to Deer Hunter and Big Game Hunter games. And I dont know about you, but if I'm making a vietnam title, I'm going to be really happy that rednecks are playing videogames, because that's just going to automatically boost sales of my game. Why do you think there's so many vietnam and ww2 games out there?

Those are my ten choices, from more of a business standpoint (which matters when you're trying to produce videogames for maximum sales), I've had to work on crappy cookie cutter games like Spy Kids (which I hated every minute of Development for), but its what sells, and keeps your game studio afloat when you're working on your pet titles like MMO RPGs, and FPS games with duck launchers.

~fin

#37 @Nauris

Movies are a mode of theater (which are plays). What is a movie but a play in front of camera? I'd put movies and plays in the same category.

Art is a reflection of Human Nature. Art remains relevant because Human Nature never changes. Shakespeare held he was putting a mirror up to Humanity, not writing 'plays'. Paintings, sculpture, plays, and movies have reflected Human Nature, so they become timeless.

Have video games reflected Human Nature? Do you feel more enlightened about the Human Condition from playing Pac-Man? If anything, video games are a 'stage' either to see a perfomance (the single player story game the developer guides us through) or a set for all of us to make our own little plays on (multiplayer and massive multiplayer games). I doubt video games will come to reflect anything more than a circus of masculinity since they are more focused on the graphical stunts of explosions and gore than, say, developing the digital variety of emotions that can be expressed on a face.

@Leo

Thanks for mentioning Nettrek. Loved that game.

#38 In no specific order:

o Elite & Frontier First Encounters: I still keep coming back for more. EVE-online couldn't satisfy me (probably because in MMOs the character advancement is so much slower). The greatest game ever for me.

o The Sentinel: Captivating but hard to describe game by Geoff Crammond. A combination of capture-the-flag, stealth and energy management. Worth checking out if you have never heard of it! It's available at Home of the Underdogs.

o Dungeon Master: The Bard's Tale set me up and Dungeon Master delivered the knock-out blow that kept me in that bloody dungeon for weeks. My first experience with an FPS-like game, although it was actually a first-person hack & slash game with some role-playing / stat tweaking thrown in.

o Diablo 1 & 2: Rogue with yummy graphics, just what I was waiting for. I think I skipped college for a few weeks once I started playing Diablo 1.

o Marble Madness: Such a basic game idea (like for example Super Sprint) and so much fun.

o X-Wing: Finally I could fly one! And boy was it good.

o X-Com: Atmospheric, great story, hilarious situations one could end up in and I always got attached to the squaddies that kept surviving.

The following three have been touched upon in previous posts more than enough:

o Doom: Nothing to add here that hasn't been mentioned before :-)

o Street Fighter 2: Still the king of beat 'm ups for me. Great variety in characters.

o Fallout series: Incredibly addictive, hilarious dialog options and a nice RPG system. One of the few RPGs I know that made it fun to play a non-fighting character.

#39 In No particular order...

Doom: (PC) A 3D game that ran well on a 486.. felt so real that It used to scare me with the volume up and the lights off. Played it recently and it still rocks. Started Net gaming for me.. 4 people in an office 'till 7pm when we should have left at 5:30... Nothing quite like chucking rockets at the boss on a stressful day.

Dungeon Siege:(PC) A RPG game with no loading screens... (almost) You can walk from the start to the finish and never get snatched away to reality by the big "LOADING!" screen. The closest you got was the chapter headings and to be honest, you didn't really need those.

Dungeon Keeper: (PC) Be the bad guy. Build a dungeon, set traps, slap your creatures, torture the guud guys and make them work for you. There's something quite sweet about having a level 10 lord of the realm on your side. Got a bit samey.. but the idea was great.

Bionic Commando: (Arcade) My favourite arcade game from my childhood... along with Bomb Jack.

UFO Enemy Unknown: What a game, recruit your soldiers, train them up, research weapons and kick some alien arse... It got incredibly hard and I ran out of that Alien radioactive isotope thingy, 'cos my intercepters were too good at shooting the UFO's down.

Outcast:(PC) An adventure in a voxel landscape. OK so it was a shooter, with some NPC interaction, but the story was great. It's the only game that got me so involved that I was actually angry with the bad guy...

Rez:(PS2) What a game!!! Pulsing trance music which appears to change as you kill the baddies. Very simple shooter that just gets better and better...

Neverwinter Nights: (PC) Never really got into D&D but this game takes all of the complexity and dice rolling away and leaves you with the results.. which adds up to a realistic fantasy fight. The spells are awesome and the story lines are great. Also one of the most polished games I've seen.

Tekken4:(PS2) A game anyone can play and be reasonable at by hitting random buttons. The ultimate pick up and play fighting game. Then with practice, you can be unbeatable... well, almost. Cool characters and awesome graphics. (for a PS2)

Eve-Online: (PC) Just finished my love affair with this game due to real life getting in the way. Utterly beautiful and the largest single online universe ever I think, with over 10,000 players online at once in the same universe.. Just awesome.

#40 Mike, its completely offtopic, but games actually *do* reflect human nature. There's more to humans than just love, duty and other shakespearian values. There's fight for territory, wish to be acknowledged by your peers and other "caveman-ish" values that havent gone anywhere. Games work those.
Ok, so those are "primitive" values, but it doesnt make them less human. Paintings on cave walls are also art, just because we have had Da Vinci and Dali, doesnt nullify efforts of that dude with charcoal in his hand and vague urge to graffiti perfectly nice cave walls :)