100 Greatest Games EVER

[MiracleOfSound]

It would make sense, potentially, to extricate CRPGs and JRPGs, slot System Shock 2 in as an FPS, and replace Everquest with UI (though this is debateable; Everquest was really the first MMORPG to scale major commercial peaks). As for Morrowind, I think it's appropriate that it makes the list as it was the first time the design model being pursued by Bethesda really "clicked" (i.e. wasn't plagued by so many bugs you couldn't play it), and it kick-started the threepeat commercial success and influence that would extend to Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Well, you could pick Morrowind for refining and popularizing the formula.

I ultimately chose Descent over Quake as it was the first FPS to feature polygons (not to mention Quake's gameplay was, for its technical accomplishments, still Doom-esque), but I can understand your argument, and you may be right. The debate between SS and SS2 is interesting: though I should add that I believe Dark Forces pioneered crouching, etc.

Descent has its merits, but Quake is seriously one of the most important and influential FPS games ever made. You absolutely cannot have a list of the greatest FPS games without including it. It's also quite an important game in the fields of machinima and speedrunning.

Dark Forces came after System Shock, and is very crude and simple by comparison. SS didn't just have crouching, it had a complete movement system that even incorporated leaning into all four directions.

Myst popularized CD-Rs the heavy-handed use of multimedia in adventures, so perhaps it should be there (I cut it while assembling the final list but may add it in again), but on the other hand its first-person adventure fundamentals brought little knew to the fore. And Zork is definitely a contender, though I sided with Adventure and cut it so as to not saturate the list with adventure titles.

Myst was a really popular game in general. It was the best-selling PC game of all time until The Sims came along. Zork should be on the list because of its pioneering nature, great popularity and cultural signifigance. It's a mainstay in video game culture (see MC Frontalot's It is Pitch Dark [http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D4nigRT2KmCE] for an example).

Zelda isn't a CRPG, but what I meant to infer was that its relatively non-linear design influenced them.

I guess it could have influenced some games, but non-linear CRPGs had been made prior to Zelda. Anyway, Zelda is an important game with many merits and doesn't have to be included because it may have influenced CRPGs.

I wouldn't claim my knowledge of flight simulators is very robust.

MS Flight Simulator is an obvious choice. The Falcon games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_%28computer_game%29] are possibly the quintessential combat flight simulators, especially Falcon 4.0 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_4.0] which is still played and developed. I am not an expert on flight sims so I don't know what other games are historically notable.

That's an awful long list, and I didn't see:

Fallout 3
Shadow of the Colossus
Ico
Resident Evil 4

I don't see why these should be on the list.

And most importantly, where is Zelda: A Link to the Past?

That had the first ever true open world structure and is one of the most innovative games ever built.

The first Zelda had an open world. Many other games had open worlds as well.

Besides this I question many absenses most of all where was Elite on the list no list is complete without Elite.

This list feels American to me, choosing Maddens over the likes of EA's FIFA titles or even Pro Evo in the sports catergories. Leaving out ZX Spectrum classics Manic Miner or Jetset Willy?

This is why it's so difficult to compile a list like this. You need to have a very, very wide knowledge of games, and even then you will forget many games.

You're quoting someone else's post under my name there.

 

[Yudas]

Its a good list. You obviously have a videogame knowledge that exceeds most people, and my own, by miles. I'm so glad that you based this on influence rather than personal preference. It makes the list much more useful. I understand that many of you would love to have Bioshock or Fallout 3 on the list but have their influence really been felt yet? Theres not any games yet that have been inspired by these to my knowledge. Are they good games? Yes but they haven't changed the industry like the 100 posted in the OP.

EDIT: I see you included portal, a game that is only 2 years old. Are you so certain that it will have any effect on the future of gaming or did you just include it because you liked it?

 

[brighteye]

Going by innovations used, I'd say it was pretty well stacked.

By other standards it is far out placed. Just because it is the first of its kind does not mean it's generally the best of its kind.

I agree with statement above, also on a sidenote, its kind of sad to think about how many
developers in the list is gone or in really bad shape today.
I really dont blame piracy, to many went belly up before the internet, but innovative minds dont mean profitable minds.
The success of WoW is not innovation, most of it you have seen before, but they give regular content and keep people to pay monthly.THAT is how you stay above water in a bad economy.

Even Bioware,Bethesda and Infinity Ward is talking about MMO of their IP now, THAT is innovation for the internet generation!

 

[Mr.Black]

Also, Halo. Umm... yeah, I don't mean to play the part of the fanboy, but it should be there. It really should.

Why? Because you enjoyed it? Tell me one thing Halo did that actually made an impact on the FPS community.

Didn't halo invent that regenerative health system for FPS's? Everyones using that now.

Actually Wolverine Adamantium Rage did on the SNES back in 1994. Obviously it didn't have much of an impact on the gaming community.

And Halo's regen system was just for his shield. He had a health bar.

 

[Powerman88]

First off, before I rant about how wrong you are MUCH props are due for a great (read interesting) list and a lot of effort put in. I love debating this kind of thing, so none of my post is meant as ANY disrespect. Much appreciation for the compilation. With that said here I go:

Inflential is great.

I could not disagree with you more. Influential is not mutually exclusive to great. Influential CAN be, but is not always great.

I wouldn't call Pong great at all. Its boring and repetitive, to be honest. Wizardry is very archaic and really has not stood up to the test of time; much like goldeneye (thank you for not putting that on your list). I couldn't stand to play 5 minutes of Shenmue, but I wouldn't argue its influence. Have you ever played Herzog Zwii on the Genesis; BORING and, once again, can not really stand up to the test of time.

It is hard to argue influence (but it can be done). It is much harder to argue "great". Okay, I don't have time to go through everything but here are a few thoughts on some sections.

RTS - 5

-- Herzog Zwei (1989) -- inarguably the first real-time strategy game
-- Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (1992) -- established conventions of RTS genre
-- Command & Conquer (1995) -- caused commercial flourishing of RTS genre
-- StarCraft (1998) -- made online RTS gaming wildly popular; used entirely distinct teams
-- Homeworld (1999) -- one of first fully-3D RTS; featured movement in four directions

It has been said before but omitting Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is a mistake. I would also argue the influence that Dune II really brought to the industry. If any Dune RTS were to belong on the list I would argue for Dune: Battle for Arakis on the Sega Genesis for being the first traditional RTS on a console (although it is kinda a poor mans C&C).

Also I couldn't help but notice that Total Annihilation(1997) was also not on this list. Talk about completely ignoring all concepts of unit, tech, and resource management conventions and creating a COMPLETELY unique experience that was only seconded by its 2006 spiritual successor (and awesome game) Supreme Commander. Definitely should have a spot.

Simulation - 4

-- SimCity (1989) -- popularized 'city-building' conceit; influenced Sim titles, ActRaiser
-- Populous (1989) -- first 'God' game; began career of Peter Molyneux
-- ActRaiser (1990) -- first succesful fusion of 'city-bulding' genre with different one
-- The Sims (2000) -- popularized 'life simulation' games; expanded computer-game demographic

I can tell there are some genres that may not really appeal to you because you are missing a lot. First off, Tropico(2001) completely belongs in here. Talk about the first game to really put a TON of personality as a core component of the sim genre. Also, even back in 2001, it really took politics into account as another core gameplay mechanic.

ActRaiser as influential is debatable; all it really did is combine two concepts and didn't do either particularly well.

Action/Adventure - 3

-- The Legend of Zelda (1986) -- combined several genres; popularized nonlinear CRPG design
-- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) -- benchmark for 3D design; revitalized Zelda IP
-- Grand Theft Auto III (2001) -- initiated 'sandbox era' of design; influenced countless titles

A couple Zelda games and GTA III. Once again, kind of underlooked? Maybe a work in progress? Sands of Time may deserve some mention. Also I think survival horror can maybe be included in here... I would call Survival Horror on the whole action adventure. With that in mind Silent Hill 2?

 

[undyingdh777]

I saw Starcraft and I didn't see Halo. You ma'am, are one intelligent individual. Well done.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I won't angrily list all games that I think don't deserve to be left out (Call Of Duty 4, for example), because for each their own.
However, there are a couple of games that don't deserve to appear here.
The original Donkey Kond, for example, is really lacking in content.
Super Mario Kart is not a good racing sim, therefore it uld probably make place for other, more racing-oriented racing games.
Super Smash Brothers is inferior to its sequel, Melee, and the Powerstone series.
Metal Gear is (although a great series) worse than both Hitman and Splinter Cell in terms of stealth.
Resident Evil is infinitely worse than its fourth installation and Silent Hill 2.
Modern flight sims do deserve a place here (most notably, Il-2 Sturmovik).
So I have quite a lot of issues with this list. I think you give to much honour to the games that created certain genres, neglecting their obvious flaws.

 

[haruvister]

I think you should change the title from greatest games to most influential games.

"Great" may have become a colloquial synonym for high quality, but the word's primary meaning refers to outstanding talent or respect, which does apply to these games.

 

[AlphaOmega]

I have some nitpicks all in all but it is a solid list; most of your choises I can agree with I just miss the following:

Rollercoaster Tycoon (mainly for starting the whole real hype about tycoon games and it was just amazingly good)
Age of empires 2 (lotsa of reasons, I wouldn't say it is a better choice then most of your other RTS games but it is still worthy)

Oh and this should not really be included but I think these games would deserve a honorable mention: Mass Effect (For the amazing cinematic experience) Duck Hunt(The first mainstream motion control like game) Diablo2 (for making loot driven games HUGE)

 

[EzraPound]

It would make sense, potentially, to extricate CRPGs and JRPGs, slot System Shock 2 in as an FPS, and replace Everquest with UI (though this is debateable; Everquest was really the first MMORPG to scale major commercial peaks). As for Morrowind, I think it's appropriate that it makes the list as it was the first time the design model being pursued by Bethesda really "clicked" (i.e. wasn't plagued by so many bugs you couldn't play it), and it kick-started the threepeat commercial success and influence that would extend to Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Well, you could pick Morrowind for refining and popularizing the formula.

I ultimately chose Descent over Quake as it was the first FPS to feature polygons (not to mention Quake's gameplay was, for its technical accomplishments, still Doom-esque), but I can understand your argument, and you may be right. The debate between SS and SS2 is interesting: though I should add that I believe Dark Forces pioneered crouching, etc.

Descent has its merits, but Quake is seriously one of the most important and influential FPS games ever made. You absolutely cannot have a list of the greatest FPS games without including it. It's also quite an important game in the fields of machinima and speedrunning.

Dark Forces came after System Shock, and is very crude and simple by comparison. SS didn't just have crouching, it had a complete movement system that even incorporated leaning into all four directions.

Alright, I implemented your suggestion regarding SS.

Myst popularized CD-Rs the heavy-handed use of multimedia in adventures, so perhaps it should be there (I cut it while assembling the final list but may add it in again), but on the other hand its first-person adventure fundamentals brought little knew to the fore. And Zork is definitely a contender, though I sided with Adventure and cut it so as to not saturate the list with adventure titles.

Myst was a really popular game in general. It was the best-selling PC game of all time until The Sims came along. Zork should be on the list because of its pioneering nature, great popularity and cultural signifigance. It's a mainstay in video game culture (see MC Frontalot's It is Pitch Dark [http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D4nigRT2KmCE] for an example).

I still haven't come around to the inclusion of Zork, though I did add Myst.

Zelda isn't a CRPG, but what I meant to infer was that its relatively non-linear design influenced them.

I guess it could have influenced some games, but non-linear CRPGs had been made prior to Zelda. Anyway, Zelda is an important game with many merits and doesn't have to be included because it may have influenced CRPGs.

Probably.

I wouldn't claim my knowledge of flight simulators is very robust.

MS Flight Simulator is an obvious choice. The Falcon games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_%28computer_game%29] are possibly the quintessential combat flight simulators, especially Falcon 4.0 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_4.0] which is still played and developed. I am not an expert on flight sims so I don't know what other games are historically notable.

I may do some background research and add one of these.

Besides this I question many absenses most of all where was Elite on the list no list is complete without Elite.

This list feels American to me, choosing Maddens over the likes of EA's FIFA titles or even Pro Evo in the sports catergories. Leaving out ZX Spectrum classics Manic Miner or Jetset Willy?

This is why it's so difficult to compile a list like this. You need to have a very, very wide knowledge of games, and even then you will forget many games.

I'm Canadian, so I'm naturally borderline offended, but what I will say is this: almost one third of the games (about 30) included on the list I made are Japanese. As it stands, what that means is that the Japanese have more entries on it than their nation is a relative proportion of the overall video game market, not to mention gross developer amount. ...Is that really "American" in nature? Personally, I think alot of "Greatest Games" lists heavily shortchange alot of inventive western developers while praising Super Mario World or whatever (which featured few changes from SMB3). They also tend to fixate on the last three decades, ignoring the several brilliant (and mostly western) games made in the seventies. So it was basically intentional that I gave kudos to games like Colossal Cave Adventure on this list while ignoring Final Fantasy VI.

Its a good list. You obviously have a videogame knowledge that exceeds most people, and my own, by miles. I'm so glad that you based this on influence rather than personal preference. It makes the list much more useful. I understand that many of you would love to have Bioshock or Fallout 3 on the list but have their influence really been felt yet? Theres not any games yet that have been inspired by these to my knowledge. Are they good games? Yes but they haven't changed the industry like the 100 posted in the OP.

EDIT: I see you included portal, a game that is only 2 years old. Are you so certain that it will have any effect on the future of gaming or did you just include it because you liked it?

The fact that "playability is considered" is sort of a caveat allowing me to put whatever I want on the list, though I try not to abuse it. In the case of Portal, I'm anticipating an uptick of first-person puzzle titles, though (because of its recent release date), we'll have to wait and see.

Adventure -- Grim Fandango (1998) -- first critically sucessful 3D adventure game

To be honest I think this honor goes to Alone In The Dark (1992). Or you could put it as the inventor of the Survival Horror genre in itself.

Okay, I fleshed out the survival horror genre by adding Sweet Home and AITD.

Didn't halo invent that regenerative health system for FPS's? Everyones using that now.

Halo could be included for popularizing Internet multiplayer on consoles and being a big deal in general.

It could be - it popularized alot of schtick, from limited weapon carrying to regenerative health to console online shooters - but I'm just trying to be a d-bag by not including it.

I think you should change the title from greatest games to most influential games.

"Great" may have become a colloquial synonym for high quality, but the word's primary meaning refers to outstanding talent or respect, which does apply to these games.

Ditto plz.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Very nice list. And for those saying Halo should be on that list. GTFO! Halo changed NOTHING!

 

[Artemis923]

Ouch. No Might and Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, or Warcraft.

Not a bad list, just missing a few things. XD

 

[Socius]

meh I agree on some of them but mostly I find this an insult to many great games.
and a gloryfication of many lousy games. seriously, Everquest but no Oblivion?
(or Dragon age: Orgins for that matter)
what have you smoked?

Why should Oblivion and Dragon Age be on the list? Everquest was very influential and one of the pioneers of MMORPGs, but what have Oblivion and DA done? DA hasn't even been out for a month, for fuck's sake.

No need to be rude.
Oblivion has been one of the most played RPG's ever made with a revulutionary gameplay brought from other TES games, no other RPG has this ammount of ingame personal choice and freedom. and hey, Dragon age: Origins may be new but hell it's the best thing Bioware has made since KOTOR. but still, point taken about everquest.

 

[FURY_007]

Metal Slug should definitely be up there, for innovation of hand drawn animations, plus superior gameplay to Contra

 

[Aardvark Soup]

As a Metal Gear fanboy, I'll have to correct you here:

-- Metal Gear Solid (1998) -- popularized stealth genre; influenced FMV storytelling in games

Metal Gear Solid did NOT use FMV, or CG for that matter. All cutscenes were rendered by the game engine. And it certainly didn't influence FMV storytelling, because by 1998 developpers had finally realised how much FMV games sucked and how people where not buying into games resolving around the gimmick anymore.


Furthermore it's a very interesting list and I agree with a lot of its entries. Although you'd better call it the 'top 100 most influencial games' list.

 

[Thaius]

Also, Halo. Umm... yeah, I don't mean to play the part of the fanboy, but it should be there. It really should.

Why? Because you enjoyed it? Tell me one thing Halo did that actually made an impact on the FPS community.

1) It practically kept the Xbox alive long enough to become a strong system.
2) It popularized the two-gun limit in shooters.
3) A huge amount of console FPS games released after Halo can safely be considered a "Halo clone:" the control scheme and such is now the standard for console games.
4) It's simply a cultural revolution, one of the most popular games in modern times.

To name a few. Say what you want about Halo, but you'd be blind to say it wasn't influential.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Did you compile that list because that is seriously awesome.
There are some games on there that I'd totally forgotten about, but I wholeheartedly agree with their inclusion. A lot of innovative titles, like Space Station Silicon Valley, that got overlooked at the time did have a big influence on titles that followed, and this is often forgotten.

Yeah, I completed the list.

It's rarely talked about, but DMA designed several antecedents to GTA III prior to its release - Body Harvest, for example, found the player trekking across large locales and controlling vehicles, where SSSV featured the 'take-over-vehicle' conceit as essential to its gameplay.

Yeah I was going to mention Body Harvest as you could use different vehicles in a kind of sandbox environment, but SSSV did feature the 'hi-jacking' element much more prominently.