171 replies to this topic

[kisrael]

Ze_ro said:

They had a decent list going... but it could use some work.

Yeah, it's not a terrible list as I've said all along, but the lack of Mega Man plus their final #1 pick seem very eccentric.

[Gabriel]

This list started off about average for these sorts of things and ended up in raving Miyamoto worship.

Some comments about some of the other games in the top 10:

#10 Street Fighter 2 = While this game did define the fighting game genre, it is not deserving of being in the top 10. Champion Edition or Turbo are more befitting that distinction, because people play those iterations still to this day, not this prototype.

#9 Final Fantasy 2/4 = This is a fine game in its own right. However, to rank this in the top 10 while leaving FF3/6 far behind is a total crock. FF3/6 is this game's superior in every possible way.

#8 X-Com
#7 Starcraft = On these two items, this list is fairly on target. I don't entirely agree with X-Com, but it is a quality game, and I still know people that play it regularly today.

#4 Tetris = This game was shafted by this farce of a list. It deserves #2 if not #1.

#1 Super Mario Bros.= While the other Miyamoto games being on this list are total, absolute, bullshit, this game does deserve to be in the top 10. However, I don't think that it actually has enough merit to be at #1. I'd venture #3 at best. I think it's a good thing they snubbed Super Mario Bros 3, because this game has much more fun factor and replayablity than the later effort has (SMB3 is much more like work than a game).

And Ms. Pac Man was cheated. That game is much more deserving of the top spot than anything in this top 10.

[liveinabin]

Hmm. No Space Invaders? And Mario at number 1.
I really hate this. I, like a fair few of you, have been playing games for pretty much as long as there have been games.
Now, am I just going against the grain here, or is there ever going to be any more to gaming than running and jumping over things. Miyamoto has had us running and jumping over things for bloody years now and I'd just like to say 'Enough, already!' - I'm sick to DEATH of platform games - there's nowhere to go with them but we STILL get them!!! I played a little of Mario Sunshine and, good grief, this is a new system and NOTHING has advanced. Nothing!!
Don't get me wrong, Miyamoto-san is a very clever chap, but if the 'greatest game designer in the world' is just someone who makes platform games, that doesn't really bode well for the future of this medium.

[kisrael]

Miyamoto has done a lot more than just Mario, though...he tends to get over-credited as being behind everything Nintendo does which isn't fair, but he's had a hand in many, many games in some different genres.

[shep]

Tempest said:

Nights didn't even get a mention in the list?!  WTF?!?!  This list is majorly screwed up it's not even funny.  Just another reason I stopped look in gat IGN years ago.

Tempest

NO NIGHTS!!! MY RETINAS ARE BURNING! Im glad I stopped reading them as well.

[liveinabin]

yeah. Especially in a chart that favoured character based platform titles.
Nights must be just about the only 'platform' game in the last 10 years that has truly innovated while not sucking. Hmm, maybe Ico - and that wasn't there either I notice.

[PaulEMoz]

Five out of the top six are Nintendo games? Good list....

[kisrael]

PaulEMoz said:

Five out of the top six are Nintendo games?  Good list....

It was a good (not perfect) list. Nintendo has made some of the best games in gaming history.

EGM's 1997 Top 100 had 5 of the top 10 by Nintendo, and their 2002 list had 6. That's what you get when one company brings out the Mario, Zelda, and Metroid series; all series that have either invented new styles of gaming (SMB, Metroid, Zelda) or come close to perfecting it (SMB3, Link to the Past) or both (Mario 64, Zelda: Oot)

I mean, I think Street Fighter 2 and Final Fantasies are semi-pointless games in multiple lists' top10s that aren't near worthy the time they take to play them well, but given their general reputation, I accept that my tastes aren't universal and they probably deserve the accolades.

[liquid_sky]

im just suprized there were no metal slug games.. or ANY games by enix, come on, square just rehashes the same idea, enix made some really fun innovative rpgs back in the 16bit days.

[PaulEMoz]

kisrael said:

It was a good (not perfect) list. Nintendo has made some of the best games in gaming history.

It was generally a good list, but having five out of the top six games by Nintendo smacks of slavish devotion, rather than objective reporting. I mean, two Mario games in the top 10? Super Mario Bros is good, but not all that revolutionary. I'd rather have had Pong or Space Invaders as number one, and they certainly aren't my favourite games of all time.

At the end of the day though, a top games list is always a matter of opinion. That top 100 is IGN's opinion, which is nice to read, and may help me to seek out some games I hadn't previously played, but in the end is irrelevant really. The only top 100 that matters to me is my own top 100, the games I've grown up loving and still do love.

[kisrael]

PaulEMoz said:

kisrael said:

It was a good (not perfect) list. Nintendo has made some of the best games in gaming history.

It was generally a good list, but having five out of the top six games by Nintendo smacks of slavish devotion, rather than objective reporting.

Well, given that EGM has the same thing, Nintendo's high placement is probably as objective as such a "all time" list could get...I wish I had the Game Informer list or some other lists at hand to see how Nintendo does in those other ones. But I think as objectively as possible, Nintendo deserves no fewer than 1/3 of top ten spots, if only because the series of Mario, Metroid, and Zelda are that important to gaming history and gamer's hearts.

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I mean, two Mario games in the top 10?  Super Mario Bros is good, but not all that revolutionary.  I'd rather have had Pong or Space Invaders as number one, and they certainly aren't my favourite games of all time.

I think SMB is pretty revolutionary; I can't think of too many precursors to the genre it set on the scene; maybe Donkey Kong or Pitfall 2? Later games (like SMB3) were probably better gameplay wise. And Pong and Space Invaders were more innovative in their way, but, IMO, don't hold up as well for the modern gamer.

I think what SMB did was bring the idea of interesting worlds to the fore, with all those levels. Other games like Adventure and again DK kind of hinted at that, but not as well.

If you read about Miyamoto's childhood, he had a very active imagination, and SMB was where he finally had the technology to start putting in a sense of wonder and discovery into his games.

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At the end of the day though, a top games list is always a matter of opinion.  That top 100 is IGN's opinion, which is nice to read, and may help me to seek out some games I hadn't previously played,  but in the end is irrelevant really.  The only top 100 that matters to me is my own top 100, the games I've grown up loving and still do love.

True enough. But then what would we have to post about?
I always like discussing the history of games, how new game ideas came on the scene, and where you can see the roots of later games in the earlier ones.

[Ze_ro]

I still think that SMB3 deserves a place above SMB if only for the innovations it adds... you actually have a world map, and can choose with path you wish to take. You can earn and save some powerups to use when you see fit. Speaking of which, there's TONS of cool powerups, many of which don't show up terribly often (remember the green boot you can hide in? that was only in one or two levels). There's also tons of secrets. SMB may have had the warp zone, but I think SMB3 really opened things up with the warp whistles, the flying coin ship and various other secret areas to find Tanooki suits and junk. Also don't forget stuff like the minigames, hammer bros, boss enemies that weren't all the same, and so on...

In my opinion, it was the first of the Mario games to actually get big and long enough that you'd need a good amount of time to finish it. Unlike SMB1 and 2, finishing the whole thing in one sitting without warps takes a pretty damn long time! Too bad Nintendo didn't add battery backup...

--Zero

[kisrael]

Ze_ro said:

I still think that SMB3 deserves a place above SMB if only for the innovations it adds... you actually have a world map, and can choose with path you wish to take. You can earn and save some powerups to use when you see fit. Speaking of which, there's TONS of cool powerups, many of which don't show up terribly often (remember the green boot you can hide in? that was only in one or two levels).  

Seanbaby sure as heck remembers the shoe! All his old pages are so great.

Anyway, I won't strongly disagree that SMB3 deserved the nod over SMB. I think it's a much richer game. then again, SMB2 is my favorite, so what do I know. (I still think SMB is still more innovative, inventing a genre is always more amazing than refining and perfecting it (though yeah, putting in the original non-Super Mario Bros was pretty cool), but frankly I never got into SMB much in terms of actually playing it...too much fiddling jumping)

[Xot]

In light of this list, I would like to point out that the infamous Next Gen listing did one thing right - they grouped games by series. IE, Street Fighter II, CE, Turbo, Super, etc. counted as ONE game. SMB, SMB2, SMB3 were ONE game.

I disagreed heavily with that list (Mario 64 being number one before its US release) but that was a pretty decent idea IMO. It eliminates the question of which is better - the original idea or the perfect manifestation of it.

[MegaManFan]

If that's the case, there DEFINITELY should have been at least one entry for Mega Man. Now I'm even MADDER.

[kisrael]

MegaManFan said:

If that's the case, there DEFINITELY should have been at least one entry for Mega Man.  Now I'm even MADDER.

Agreed. That was an oversite. I love Bionic Commando (which made the list) but at BEST, as a single game it's neck and neck w/ Mega Man 2; given the legacy the latter left behind that the former hasn't (a GB port and GBC sequel are all that comes to mind for BC), it shoulda been there.

I think it's good for a list like this to group series; are there any situations when it's not obvious when it counts as two series? Like, it's pretty obvious that Super Mario World -> Mario 64 was pretty much a total paradigm shift, but actually given the play mechanic, Link to the Past -> Z:OoT, it's less clear. (I only played Zelda 2 growing up, folling around with Zelda 1 after playing Z:OoT I was amazed at how much of the game I knew best was there in the original.)

[Clock]

It must be hard to make an accurate list of this sort. Here are my casual observations and feelings about this.

I mean what makes a great game one year, when a similar but improved sequel comes out 3 years later, will it impress as much. It may have been amazing in 1984 but when a better version comes out in 1987 it was old hat. Which game is better..... the inferior 1st version but was great in it's time, or the 2nd technically better game but nothing special in it's time?

I personally feel the first one is better, and they should be judged for the time they were made, and to a degree they have, but I also feel that some Nintedo fanboyism has crept in and distorted the results somewhat.

If they were judged for the time period then Knightlore/Manic Minor/Doom/Elite/Space invaders all would have been in the top twenty for sure.

Yet Ms. Pacman rated very highly but surely wasn't a great acheivement seeing as Pac-man had already been around for a while.

Halo was rated vey poorly, which surprised me.

I think the judgement should have been made on how much fun the games gave you. A game which pulls you in and keeps on pulling and you just want to keep on playing for weeks on end....that is a great game.

So Tetris should have been #1 maybe - not technically great but boy did you keep playing and playing and playing etc etc

All I know is, I don't like this list. Maybe it should have been broken up into mini lists, Top 20 RPG's/ Top 20 Puzzle games/ Top 20 Platform games/ Top 20 Shoot 'em ups for example... I guess even that wouldn't be perfect.

[kisrael]

Clock said:

It must be hard to make an accurate list of this sort. Here are my casual observations and feelings about this.

Well, it's not just "accuracy", it's opinion as well.

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time they were made, and to a degree they have, but I also feel that some Nintedo fanboyism has crept in and distorted the results somewhat.

I've already argued that I don't think "Nintendo fanboyism" is unjustified in the history of gaming...nor is it unique to this list.

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I think the judgement should have been made on how much fun the games gave you. A game which pulls you in and keeps on pulling and you just want to keep on playing for weeks on end....that is a great game.

So Tetris should have been #1 maybe - not technically great but boy did you keep playing and playing and playing etc etc

Yes, but then it becomes hard to tell a great game apart from an obsessive compulsive disorder...

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All I know is, I don't like this list. Maybe it should have been broken up into mini lists, Top 20 RPG's/ Top 20 Puzzle games/ Top 20 Platform games/ Top 20 Shoot 'em ups for example... I guess even that wouldn't be perfect.

I liked the list. A collection of Top 20s would be fun as well, though maybe hard to pinpoint genres for every worthy game.

[Ze_ro]

Clock said:

It may have been amazing in 1984 but when a better version comes out in 1987 it was old hat. Which game is better..... the inferior 1st version but was great in it's time, or the 2nd technically better game but nothing special in it's time?

It's even harder to judge when the games come out on different systems... for example, you can group together SMB1, 2, and 3... but Super Mario World can't really be included.

Since SMB3 was as good as it was on a technically inferior system, should it get some sort of extra merit for the accomplishment?

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I also feel that some Nintedo fanboyism has crept in and distorted the results somewhat.

I don't know about that... if I were to chose the best games ever, probably about half of the top 10 would be Nintendo games. And I don't consider myself a fanboy... except for the Gameboy and GBA, I have never owned a Nintendo system until after it was obsolete (although I'm likely to get a Gamecube before long)

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Yet Ms. Pacman rated very highly but surely wasn't a great acheivement seeing as Pac-man had already been around for a while.

This is one of the things I've really never understood much in video game history. Somehow Ms. Pac-Man gets TONS of press time... much more than Pac-Man himself. When they do remakes of the game (Lynx, Game Gear, Genesis, etc), it's almost always Ms. Pac-Man that they remake. Now, I know that the game is better what with the different mazes and moving fruit and all... but it would be rather trivial to do that to normal Pac-Man. After all, how many Luigi Bros games did they make?

Maybe it's just me...

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So Tetris should have been #1 maybe - not technically great but boy did you keep playing and playing and playing etc etc

One thing about Tetris that I think makes it a good #1 candidate is that it never gets old. 30 years from now, people will probably still be able to appreciate this game just because it's fundamentals are so sound and simple to understand. Forget all these Tetris Worlds or Tetris Attack games that have gimmicky things like flashing bricks or joining bricks. In any form, with any graphics, and with a minimum of controls, there's almost nobody that can't get into this game. This is one of the few timeless games that will never age.

--Zero

[kisrael]

Ze_ro said:

It's even harder to judge when the games come out on different systems... for example, you can group together SMB1, 2, and 3... but Super Mario World can't really be included.

Since SMB3 was as good as it was on a technically inferior system, should it get some sort of extra merit for the accomplishment?

I disagree that Super Mario World can't be included...I mean, technology for games is always improving, I'm sure SMB3 used a ton more cartridge memory than SMB did, and even if not developer's for systems are always finding new techniques.

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This is one of the things I've really never understood much in video game history. Somehow Ms. Pac-Man gets TONS of press time... much more than Pac-Man himself. When they do remakes of the game (Lynx, Game Gear, Genesis, etc), it's almost always Ms. Pac-Man that they remake.

Dunno exactly, but I remember the guy who designed Pac-Man resisting the urge to give him an eye, because then they might want to add in a little mustache, or a hat, and where would it stop? Ms.Pac-Man, which I beleive started as a hacked Pac-Man ROM, went all out with the character frills. Could that, along with an enhanced sense of "woman friendliness" that the whole series was known for, have cranked up the future nostalgia value?

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One thing about Tetris that I think makes it a good #1 candidate is that it never gets old. 30 years from now, people will probably still be able to appreciate this game just because it's fundamentals are so sound and simple to understand. Forget all these Tetris Worlds or Tetris Attack games that have gimmicky things like flashing bricks or joining bricks. In any form, with any graphics, and with a minimum of controls, there's almost nobody that can't get into this game. This is one of the few timeless games that will never age.

I dunno, Tetris isn't that much fun for me any more...though I agree its simplicity has let versions be played on the side of buildings all the way down to the nanomolecular level, and that's cool. Still, Tetris Attack, which is also a simple idea- though not as simple because it kind of requires the idea of an enemy player, and garbage blocks-achieves so much more depth in what you can do...a great Tetris player is more or less a sped up novice Tetris player, with maybe a few better general strategies, but an expert Tetris Attack players sees things and makes things happen that the novice can only dream of...

[ElectricTroy]

liveinabin said:

Ms. Pacman?  Either Pacman is in the top 10 (and this is a silly entry into the top 20) or IGN really think that the importance of Pacman in the history of gaming isn't quite up to the importance of a sequel where they give the little mouth a ribbon.  Odd.  

Sequels often outshine the original. Empire Strikes Back is better liked than the original. Mario 3 is better than Mario 1. Ms.Pac-Man is better than Pac-Man. AND unlike Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man is still popular enough to sit inside arcades. It deserves a spot in the top 100 more than PacMan does

[kisrael]

ElectricTroy said:

Sequels often outshine the original.  Empire Strikes Back is better liked than the original.  Mario 3 is better than Mario 1.  Ms.Pac-Man is better than Pac-Man.  AND unlike Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man is still popular enough to sit inside arcades.  It deserves a spot in the top 100 more than PacMan does

I think, though, from a visual and design design point of view, Pac Man has it all over the sequel, there's something about its clean blue and black lines that holds up better than the all the colors the Ms. uses.

I agree that just the great continuing presence of the sequel probably indicats her place in the top 100, over the more groundbreaking original.

For a site called TileMachine.com I made this tiling wallpaper...
At my gallery page you can see that I also tried frogger, q*bert, and a zaxxon that came out particularly well...

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