Countdown of the 10 most important video games in history.

Ape Escape is not there, for sure.

Wipeout... we could borderline it. While F-Zero created the futuristic racer genre (As far as I know....), Wipeout redefined it for the 32 bit, 3D era.

I might be too list-happy, I'm listing like 4 examples each post...

 

i didn't know ms. pac man was a mod, oh well. Anyway, you're maybe a bit too ''list-happy'', like you say, xerdo, but that's exactly what we want, give many ideas and choices.

as for that doom/wolfenstrein ''rivality'', doom got lan and internet options, if i'm not mistaken (+1). Anyway, if we had to choose right now, i think wolffenstrein would get the place, but i would like to hear as many opinions as possible.

and it's now, official, we've switched to 15 places until now.

and wasn't starfox the first real time 3d game on a console?

and i think we should had something around the simcity\civilisation\warcraft genre. Warcraft? Civ? Simcity? Sims (it made alot of non-gamers playing games, you know? (especially womens)? StarCraft?


Anyway, here's what's in for now:

-The Legend of Zelda
-Mario 64
-Tetris (you just can't argue on this one! )
-Pac-Man
-Pong
-PSO
-FF7
-Mortal Kombat** (??) (because of this game we now have ratings on games, and it officially started the ''nintendo's for kiddy!'' thing. Don't forget the war of Sega vs Nintendo, and the media attention.


If a game that should be in isn't already, it's mostly because there's some things to finalize, especially for these games, and i would like your help with these:
-Half-life
-Metal Gear (solid or original)
-Halo
-Wolfenstrein vs. Doom (final round!)
-Tomb raider
-Virtua Racing/ Fighter
-Mario Bros on NES (i think it sould be the very first one, but that's my opinion.)
-Golden Eye
-Sims
-Street Fighter
-Dragon Warrior

Unhappy with some nominees? take some beers and tell what feelings are *but not too much!), we need your opinion!

Ape Escape is difinitivly out. OOT, '' that one game that was so bad, it never came out'', Wipeout, duke nukem 3D , Dune 2 and Metroid are too, if no one complain too much.

Edit: Oh, and what about Myst?

 

We all agree that this list would be better if it was a " 100 most important video games in history ".

10 games can't tell the history of videogames.

 

100 would be too inacurate and list-happy. 20 will do for now. And I still don't agree with M64. No way.

Being a control freak attention whore, heres my top 20 so far:

20) Crash Bandicoot - Sony's attempt at a mascot, betrayed Sony.
19) Street Fighter Series - Made fighting games famous and popular.
18) ET - Caused the crash of 83.
17) I, Robot - First 3D arcade game
16) Puzzle Bobble - Popular Neo-Geo game that was widely regarded as "The next tetris".
15) Zelda - Famous adventure game, could save
14) Donkey Kong - Introduced Mario
13) Dragon's Lair - Intoduced FMVs
12) Virtua series - 3D!!
11) Sonic - Made Sega famous and gave Nintendo some competition.
10) Mortal Kombat - Controversial game that brought "Gaming causes violence" to the media. (And N's wussyness)
9) Metal Gear Series - First games that wasn't 100% "Rambo, kill everything style".
8) Final Fantasy 7 - Made the PS famous and started Nintendo's slow demise.
7) Halo - Brought the first American console since Atari to the mainstream.
6) Final Fantasy - Revolutionised and popularised RPGs.
5) Pac Man - Brought the sence of fear to players and popularised arcades.
4) Wolf3D\Doom - Revolutionised and popularised FPSes.
3) Mario - Recovered the industry after the crash.
2) Tetris - Revolutionised Puzzle games.
1) Pong - Brought games into the mainstream.

The locations are a little off, but you catch the drift of it.

 

If you're thinking "important" games, then you've got to think what makes the game important. Being the first or being the best, it's hard to decide. Here's my ideas for a top ten:


1) Pac-Man - Pong may have been the first big video game, but it was nothing next to Pac-man. Pac-man was the first game to have a reconisable, merchandised character. Pac-man T shirts, cartoon show, toys, cereal, etc. Pac-Man in fact characterized video games for the whole decade of the 80's. That sound it makes when he dies is like universal language for failure now.

2) SMB - Bumped up the level of what we'd come to expect from a video game. Not only were the play mechanics right on, but the game has a "world" of it's own. Also the fact that it had 32 levels was a big deal. Back then games had 4 screens. SMB became the standard by which other games were measured.

3) SM64 - Practically reinvented games, showed what a 3D enviroment can really do. Same as SMB, this one is the standard for 3D platform games.

4) Street Fighter 2 - First big fighting game to become a cultural phenomenon. It's influences can still be seen today, everytime there's a game where you do a "special move." The thing about this game was that the characters had personalities, storylines, histories, rivalries, etc. Fighting games before this were Karate Champ.

5) Doom - Others may have come before, but Doom was the game that made first person shooters popular. First game to make playing on-line against human beings a must, first game to organize people into clans, first game to take advantage of the internet to a large degree in the way it was sold and distributed, the game that spawned the modding community, etc. Also the first game to get console players (and console game publishers) to start looking at PC games seriously. Before Doom the only games you could get on PC were point and click adventure games. Doom bridged the gap.

6) Phantasy Star - the first big RPG on which every one afterwards has been based. RPGs before Phantasy star were more action driven. Phantasy star made the story the prime focus, so you're not just killing mosters to get gold and the next dungeon, you're working to unlock the next chapter.

7) Tetris - I'd say Tetris was important because it was one of the first games to break out of the 12-21 male age group. Even my mother plays tetris. So it showed that video games could appeal to a wide audience, and also practically invented the puzzle genre. I don't think there's even any puzzle games worth mentioning before tetris came out.

8) I think a MMORPG should go here, but I purposely don't play them so someone else needs to decide what it is. I avoid them becasue games like those are addictive to me and have the habit of taking over my life. Like when Diablo II came out I didn't leave the house for a year.

9) Sonic the hedgehog - for the way it was marketed (attitude, extremenes, coolness factor,) the fact that it made Sega, and that every game since then needs to have a mascot or characters who follow the same model, I think Sonic deserves a place in the top ten. Plus it was fun and again upped the ante as for what is expected for games, along with Mario as a standard that other games are measured against.

10) MGS - The thing about this game is that it kind of bridges the gap between video games and movies. The game unfolds like a movie, has a plot with an arch, heroes and villains that learn things, change, etc. Plus all the atmosphere. I'd almost say Resident Evil could be in this spot too, but MGS does it better.

Some other games worth considering for a top 20 list-

Defender - People went nuts over defender. Guys would save up extra lives so they could take a bathroom break and come back to play for another five hours.

Robotron - This game was like crack, people couldn't get enough of it. This game truley seperated the men from the boys.

FF7 - Problably the first modern RPG, and showed what truely could be done on a 32 bit platform.

Halo - Should problably get a mention because Halo is like the birth of on-line professional sports. People win thousands of dollars in those tournaments, and no doubt one day this is going to lead to "professional" game players hired by clans like any other professional athlete. And your mother told you video games were bad for you.

Mortal Kombat - Should at least get a mention as it was the game that made blood and guts popular.

-edit-

You know, it just occoured to me that this list should be divided up between "Classic" games and "modern" games. Becasue there is a definite line. Everything 16 bit and below pretty much follows the same 2D genres, while 32 bit and above follows 3D genres, and while there's some cross over I don't think it's fair to mix the two. Really, SMB and SM64 might both be platform games but are really far apart from each other. Same with say, Street fighter II and Tekken, same basic genre, totally different universe. So maybe we should make 2 lists?

 

This list is the most important games in the US, which is entirely different from worldwide. For instance, Night Trap is unimportant globally, while Space Invaders and Dragon Quest are definites for a Japan list and Wipeout for a Euro list. That said...(in no order, just top 10)

Pong - not the first game, but the first popular consumer game
Doom - not the first FPS, not even the first iD FPS, but much, much, much more important than Wolf3D. Did Wolf3D or Doom make deathmatching popular? Does you grandma know what Doom is or what Wolf3D is?
Myst - The most important PC game ever made, easily.
The Sims - Vastly broadened the PC game audience.
Tetris - the most important *game* ever made. Incidentally, it's also the first game known to have been played by a US President (the first Bush)
Super Mario Bros. - made Nintendo's fortune (though SMB3 is close here)
Street Fighter II - brought back the arcades
Pac-Man - made arcades huge the first time
Super Mario 64 - it's still the best game ever made, so I feel like I should mention it
Ultima Online - the first popular graphical MUD, aka MMORPG.

Close: Sonic the Hedgehog, Halo, Computer Space, Pokemon, FF7, Starcraft, SMB3, Dance Dance Revolution (arcade), Night Trap, Counterstrike

 

More 2600 games are needed in those lists. I'd say Defender should be there, Asteroids as well, Space Invaders, Missile Command and Pitfall.

Ys would be great there because it's the first console CD Rom game, at least this side of the ocean.
Donkey Kong and Xevious also need places there.

 

OK, we're switching to 20 places, maybe even 25 places. 50 or 100 would be way too difficult to place in order, and imagine all those games we should place to fill the holes. it would lose his power, i say.

-i don't think we should split the list in 2, it's not because you're 2d or 3d that you're more or less important.

and i think Doom won the war, the only thing for wolfenstrein is that it's older than doom, and that it have nazis in it. it wasn't the the first fps either. Doom, on the other hand, popularised the genre. the chainsaw is like a symbol, it started the internet deathmatches and all.

-Myst now in the list, along with the sims and halo.

was dragon quest the first console rpg?if yes, i think it would need a place, and don't forget it's the most selling game in japan.

Anyway, i need to go to work now, i hope many people will contribute or continue to.


cahaz _

 

There were console RPGs way before Dragon Quest, but Dragon Quest was the one that caused the RPG explosion in Japan. Maybe also Final Fantasy. You really can't tell which one is completely credited with it.

 

I can't stand how Half-Life gets so much praise. Other than not having "levels", what was the big draw to the game? I don't understand...

 

well, it was the first FPS to have no levels, to get a story other than destroy the bad guy at the end of each level and you'll eventually bring peace, the editors helped to create alot of mods, one of those is now known as the most played fps online (if not game), it was pretty good and sold very well. If it get a place in the countdown though, i doubt it will be placed very high.

 

it sum it all. And still, the only thing i could label as important here is the media, not
what's on it.

But Donkey Kong should be in, indeed. it introduced Jump Man (remamed mario after a while) Paula and Donkey Kong.

So how many games do we have right now? (this list may change, don't worry):
in no special order:

1-Super Mario Bros (1 or 3)
2-Metal Gear (solid or original)
3-The Legend of Zelda
4-Mario 64
5-FF7
6-Halo
7-Mortal Kombat
8-The Sims
9-Tetris
10-Pong
11-Pac-Man
12-
13-Phantasy Star Online
14-Doom
15-Street Fighter
16-Dance Dance Revoluton (?)
17-
18-
19-
20-
-----------------------
21-
22-
23-
24-
25-


so we need to fill 5 or then more places, then we will decide wich ones have high priority and wich can close the countdown. after that, we will eventually places each games one by one by a method i haven't determined yet (maybe so kind of vote system)

 

The Sims was nothing special. That can go right now.

 

I disagree. Ashamed to admit it as I am, I wasted far, far too long playing it. It's also one of the first games which didn't try to sell itself as exciting, and which sold largely on word of mouth, not reviews etc.

 

it's not because you dislike a game that you can't agree with the fact that the sims started a real phenomenon. Alot of people that weren't attracted by video games at all started to play this game, and really got into it, Especially Womens. It just created a new market, a new type of customers. Hell, even my mother played this and my grand-mother too (well, it wasn't her first game, it was dunk hunt. a 85 year old grand-mother loving to ''Crash ducks into the grass''
,hehe... well, anyway, i'm going way too of topic! ) I don't like this game, for some reasons, but i just can't denny that this game appealed to a group of people never before touched by video games, and it's because of these people that this game is now one of the best selling video game of all time. And you can't denny that either.

 

I didn't like the Sims, but I do think they started a fairly big commotion among gamers and non-gamers, alike. Whether or not they should be on a Top 10 list, I haven't decided.

 

maybe not on top 10, but on top 20 or 25, definitivly.

 

number 12, I'd say Pitfall. Yeah, Pitfall was a big deal back in the day. It seems primitive today, but it was one of the first home console games to have playability comprable to arcade games. As in it came out on consoles first, not the other way around.

What was the first modern Shump? By modern I mean with a scrolling screen, power ups, and bosses. Gradius? Problably some early computer game. But whatever it was it needs to be on there.

Also Double Dragon maybe. One of the first games where you had different techniques to master, definitely the game that made beatem-ups popular, elements of which are still in games today (an endless stream of enemies that have their own special attacks/looks/weaknesses/patterns/etc.) Maybe Final Fight could replace this.

 

The first scrolling Shmup... well, there was Vanguard in 1982, that even alternated vertical and horizontal Shmups.

Phoenix had progression in screens in 1982 as well, but no scrolling. Still, it had what I think was the first boss ever in a Shooter.

Xevious or Time Pilot, I think, would be candidates to be the first modern 80s shmups, in 1983, but I think Defender was the first horizontal one in 1980, and Xevious was the first vertical one in 1983.

This Wikipedia Article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrolling_shooter, says so as well. Still, Vanguard had vertical scrolling before, even if the mechanic was far different from modern verticals like Xevious.

 

Yes the Sims was popular, but it hasn't changed much has it? I know people who have ONLY played the Sims, years after it came out.