Just found an article listing those: http://www.pcgameplay.co.uk/best50.htm

Of course I don't agree with most of the choices Calling Doom the "Elvis Presley of computer games" is just ridiculous! Still, an interesting read.

Strangely enough, the number 2 game is credited not only for spawning a genre I don't particularly like, but also for starting two trends that are kind of spoiling the gaming industry these days in my opinion (in terms of quality I mean, not quantity, most big software houses must be filthy rich...). Ultima looks like a good candidate for my "50 most hated games ever" list. Thank God I don't have such a list.

Edited by The Mole at 15:01 on December, 21st 2002

As you know, I'm always in for bashing RPGs, but Ultima being an influential game can't be denied (unfortunately). If it should be up on the second place is of course questionable.

What I really don't like about this list is how it centered around the current PC world! Doom? Yes, it was influential for the second half of the 90s and still is until today. But number one? I neither created a new genre nor did it revolutionize one! At the same time, it is not quite clear why Wolfenstein 3D is up on the seventh spot, because it is basically the same as Doom - there, they should have decided whether they want to list the 'first remotely successful' game of one type (Wolfenstein 3D) or the one which really got the genre started in a commercial way (Doom). Listing both is silly (as well as Quake and possibly numerous others - I don't even know some of the games, but they certainly look like 3D shooters).

Same with Maniac Mansion and Zak Mc Kracken. Maniac Mansion deserves to be there as first Adventure fully controlled by mouse. But Zak? Good game, sure, but influential? Not at all! Same case for Adventure and Zork.

For 'RTS', we have Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft and Dune 2. I acknowledge these might be good games if you're into this genre, but they can't be all groundbreaking and influential, because they only differ in small aspects!

To me, it seems this list only takes the early games of arcade gaming into account and then directly jumps to the 'modern' PC world. Everything in between is completely ignored. A bit disappointing...

I agree - it seems like halfway through compiling the list they forgot whether they wanted to do a most influential or most popular top 50. If it truly is to be a most influential list then it really is hard to justify the appearence of several similar games. Still, it's good to see there are some real gems in there, sometimes dug right out of the dawn of computer gaming.

As for RPG's, Ultima is deservedly included, but how about Final Fantasy?

Two genres which are missing from the list completely: Gauntlet and its clones (Chaos Engine, Alien Breed,...) which are essentially the fore-fathers of all 3D shooters and hex-strategy, e.g. Battle Isle, Panzer General or all these really old SSI titles.

As for RPGs, there are already way too many of them if you look at it objectively. If Wizardry is included as 'first 3D RPG' (even though this is not true - Mattel's Dungeons & Dragons precedes it by two years), then why also list Bard's Tale and Dungeon Master? And what the hell is Chrono Trigger???

Chrono Trigger is a Japanese RPG, in the style of Final Fantasy, and also by Square Soft. There are some who consider it even better than the FF series, but as for being more influential, there definetly should have been a FF game in there instead.

Totally agree about Gauntlet. Hex-strategy is, I think, well represented by X-Com.

I don't consider X-Com a representative of hex-strategy. In fact, I don't even know why it is on the list at all! The original war games are completely different in one way: you control 'types of units' in masses whereas in X-Com, you have RPG-like individuals. Not to talk about the other part of X-Com which is really not similar to anything hex-related at all! If you ask me, they should keep Laser Squad as 'tactics with RPG elements', loose X-Com and put some SSI strategy game from the early 80s there - this was a huge genre back then!

Well, keep in mind that one knowledgeable person didn't pick the 50 games. They were voted upon by some people (not sure who) which could cause some of the poor choices.

Tuss

Now, this is the only post I plan to make in this thread, unless it's absolutly needed, for the sake of not having another bloody argument.

I have a lot of respect for you Mr Creosote when it comes to old systems and old games. You are good in those area. I usually beleive whatever you say without even wondering back on subject I know nothing about, because you proved me so many times that you do knows about what you are talking about.

However, from the quotes above and for your opinion of those "new" games, I have only one thing to say;

I feels [b][i]insulted[/b][/i].

We canvassed the opinions of dozens of famous game creators and developers in the UK, Europe and US


Thats why you get all different games from the same genre because they asked the game developers to name 5 games that influenced them obviously not all thought the same things about which games influenced the market.

Well, what is the problem exactly, Eagle? Feeling personally insulted because of some posts about games which isn't even talking about any people? It is your choice whether to reply or not, because I don't have anything to say about it since you didn't say why you are insulted and what is so outragous about my post (especially since everyone else so far agreed). If you think you have to argue a point, do it, but do it in a way others can react to, i.e. tell what your point is. Otherwise, just keep silent.

Tuss & sterge: absolutely true, one problem certainly lies in the 'open' way they used. One person will answer "Adventure" because it's the very first Adventure game which founded the genre, others will say "Zork" because it was the first commercial Adventure game. Knowing "Adventure" is already in and Zork is not, the second person would probably have said "Adventure", too (or the other way round of course). Same for all the other multiple mentioning of similar games.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 09:48 on December, 22nd 2002

One thing that is a big pet peeve of mine, is how they call Command&Conquere and such a Real-Time Strategy game. What the heck is so strategic about clicking the mouse as fast as you can? It's about as strategic as those olyimpic games where you shake the joystick.

Tuss

C&C is strategic I don't know how much you have played it but last time I played clicking the mouse as fast as you can, was very low on my list of things to do in the game.

And hey those olympic games require intense strategy, I mean come on yuo have to decide what method of button bashing you want to use, theres the finger slide, the pen on the finger, the two finger bash intense strategy is required there

Obviously you are right Sterge; they probably didn't played more than 5 minutes of each games in contrast to me who played [i][b]YEARS[/i][/b] of X-Com, C&C and Chrono Trigger, months of Starcraft, Warcraft and Dune 2 and weeks of Age of Empire.

As a very big strategy fan, I can tell you that those strategy games deserve the respect they got.

I finished X-Com several time, I finished Dune 2 with each fraction, I finished C&C with one fraction, I finished Warcraft, I finished half of Starcraft, I played AOE for several weeks. They're all the same (apart from X-Com of course which I consider a really great strategy game - just not influential, and that is what the article as well as this discussion is about in case you didn't notice). Again, you don't give any reasons, you just throw random statements. Great.

I also finished Xcom; Ennemy Unknown, Xcom 2; Terror from the Deep and Xcom3; Apocalypse several times, I finished Dune 2 with each faction more than once, I even played multiplayer games of Warcraft: Orc and human as well as finishing it several times for both Orcs and Humans, I Finished Command & Conquer (they don't do as interesting install programs as they did back then, for sure) with both faction, played it multiplayer more times than I can remember and even finished more than half of the Gold Missions (played them all), as well as creating my own both multiplayer and single player maps to play with. I finished Starcraft with each faction, probably is the best multiplayer game I ever played in my life IMHO (the original of course, without any patches), and I also played it multiplayer too much times to recall.

As for Chrono Trigger, it's not a strategy game; it's a RPG. The best game ever created for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System IMHO. Can beat easily any Final Fantasy game I ever played, and that game probably had a bigger fanbase at a time than FF worldwide, before they released the second part which been awfully received.

As you can see I can give facts, just like you. I know of what I'm talking here. I have experience, just like you. And to say that those games have nothing much in difference, or that X-Com should not even represent the Hex Strategy games is not something that I consider getting the facts straight.

Facts? Let's have a look at those.

Really interesting, but hardly an argument since nobody has ever questioned you played those games. My 'listing' was obviously a reaction to your bitching how 'they' can't have played those games for longer than 5 minutes.

Nobody has ever claimed that. As you could easily see if your eyes weren't blinded by irrational fury, I mentioned it in the same paragraph as other RPGs, in a serious question since I really had never heard of that game before! Dizzy kindly answered my question and pointed out exactly what I suspected.

Unfortunately, neither the original article, nor this discussion is about the quality of the mentioned games, but about how influential they were/are! So all you said in this quote is irrelevant to the point.

Looking only at one single genre, these games differ a lot. Looking at computer games in general in a historical context, they don't differ in the slightest aspect! If you take all games which have ever been made in consideration (and you have to in order to compile such a list) and try to list these games on a 'span' of differences/likeness where the extreme ends of the span indicate complete difference, you'd probably find arcade games on the one end and text adventures on the other. 'Real time strategy' would sit somewhere in between - and all games which are known under this genre these days on the same spot, because compared to the differences between genres, there are no 'internal ones' there.

The classic X-Com games consist of two different parts: strategic planning (intercepting the Ufos in the first part) and tactical battles. That alone is already enough to call it different from classic hex-strategy because in this genre, no game has something like this first part! In addition, I pointed out another major difference before: X-Com mixes RPG elements into the tactical part. There aren't two identical 'units' - that would be unthinkable in a classic hex game!
Furthermore, even if it did 'represent' this genre in some way (it doesn't....), it would still not have a place on this list, because (again) it is supposed to be a list of influential games and not a list of good or perfected games! X-Com was released at a time when hex-strategy was already dieing, its biggest time had been long over - so which games are left X-Com could have influenced?

This goes for all the examples you're raving about: their quality is not the question, but whether they've been influential! To be considered influential, a game doesn't have to be good, it can be horrible - it doesn't matter at all. Being influential means that it showed ways other games later adapted or tried to imitate. If you want to stick with your views in this thread, you should try to point out games which have been influenced by the games I (amongst all the others who posted in this thread apart from you) don't consider worthy being on the list. Just saying they're great games isn't enough, because it's completely off-topic (compare my posts about Adventure/Zork, Maniac Mansion/Zak Mc Kracken, Wizardry/Bard's Tale/Dungeon Master and also all the 'RTS' games - in none of these I said they're bad games, because whether I consider them good or bad doesn't matter in this discussion).

Edited by Mr Creosote at 00:57 on December, 23rd 2002

[quote]So all you said in this quote is irrelevant to the point.[/quote]

It's quite normal Mr Creosote, since you didn't quoted anything which was. Blinded by irrational fury? And what about you?

Who ever said Chrono Trigger is a strategy game? [b][i]I[/b][/i] did! In fact I didn't, but one of my last posts presumed that it was, because I didn't stated otherwise and I wrapped that tittle in the middle of all the other games which are strategic. Better get off of your big horse before you hit a wall.

Difference between games; Of course, if you flag all those games as "Real Time Strategy", all those games don't have a difference at all. However, who said the article was about [i]genres[/i]? Where can you read that they even mention that the genres were something to talk about in the article? [b]Nowhere[/b]! That's why you can't say all those games are all alike; taken alone one by one, there is a gap so big between each of them that you could not even fill the grand canyon.

To end this post, here is a quote of the article itself;
[quote]Our aim was to find the 50 most influential games of all time, the seminal works of the art of interactive electronic entertainment that have helped to shape the games we enjoy today.

We canvassed the opinions of [b]dozens of famous game creators and developers in the UK, Europe and US[/b] and asked them to name the five games they believe have had the most [b]affect on the games that they create and [i]we play[/i].[/b] [/quote]

Since Xcom; Ennemy Unknown been ranked number 8, you can bet that at [i]least[/i] half of the games created by the current staffs of [i]3D Realms, Rebellion, Bad Management, Ritual, Raven Software, Microsoft, Bullfrog, Io

Personally, I'm a bit dissapointed Computer Space isnt on that list somewhere. Not counting Higginbottom's efforts on an oscilliscope(sp?) in the 50's and that crappy Spacewar on a PDP-1 box that only 0.00000000000000000001% of the worlds population had access to it was the first true 'video' game ever and you cant get more influential than that.




Arguably the person who compiled this report has gaping holes in his knowledge of the beginnings of gaming wider than the grand canyon. After a comment of such nonsensical magnitude , for me, that list commands no respect whatsoever.

1971 -
http://www.klov.com/C/Computer_Space.html

Edited by fretz at 10:38 on December, 24th 2002

Interesting since I quote your whole post. So you admit you didn't say anything relevant. Thank you. I rest my case.

For the last time: if you can't name those differences, don't expect to be taken seriously. It doesn't matter if they're talking about genres in the article, because I merely used the differences between genres as an example - or do you want to claim the difference between an Adventure and a shooter is as big/small as between two games of the same genre?

But you can't name them. Great argument. But you're right of course: Duke Nukem is definitely influenced by X-Com.