Video game nostaligia

[yendi]

1UP.com has an excellent series on the Essential 50 games. The articles are damned in-depth, and reveal some nifty facts (including the fact that the guy behind Dark Castle and Airborne went on to give us Flash). There are a few notable omissions (Dungeon Master comes to mind), but it's still a pretty solid piece.

Comments

[techempage.livejournal.com]

15) Kings Quest - I find it extremely dissappointing that this is the only Sierra game on the list. Yes, this was the grandaddy of adventure games, but in the early 90s they put out a whole slew of adventure games, that got rid of the parser interface and the best part of these games (Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and the afore mentioned Kings Quest) was that they didn't take themselves too seriously. All of them had a great deal of humor in the games as well, which I haven't seen a lot of since either.

21) Ultima IV - Just to nit pick a little. The screenshot they show is from the redone version, the graphics are no where near that pretty in the original.

38) Final Fantasy VII - I agree with what they mention about the amazing stuff they did when they brought Final Fantasy to a new generation of console. However, Final Fantasy 3 (as it was released on the SNES, really the 6th title in the series) was the RPG to bring RPGs to the masses. They had put out a huge advertising campaign for that one. Even with the graphics of it's era, it's still probably the best in the series. And arguably the best console RPG, although I tend to lean towards CronoTrigger with that one. (Also notably absent from the list, even though it was one of the first RPGs, to let your actions in the game affect your endings and allow you to start over the game with all your stuff once you had beaten it.)

45) Ultima Online - I keep going back and forth on this one. Yes, this is the first real MMORPG; however, Everquest brought it to the masses.

[yendi]

Good point about Ultima IV and FFVII (which still tops my list of "all-time most overrated."). I think it's nigh-impossible to put together this sort of list without omitting some stuff (especially since they include things like "E.T.," notable because of what it signified in terms of the end of Atari's reign, not for its actual gameplay).

For the Quest games, as with the Infocom games, I think they limited it to one as a way to keep the list manageable.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

(which still tops my list of "all-time most overrated.").

~chuckles~ I have a friend that is FF obsessed, she sat down and wrote something to plug all the plot holes in FFVII.

For the Quest games, as with the Infocom games, I think they limited it to one as a way to keep the list manageable.

I know. And I'll admit I've got a soft spot in my heart for the Quest games. To me, those tend to be the ultimates in computer gaming. Although, one other point in the Quest games is the music. They had some of the most beautiful scores, especially in the later games in the series, once CDs were a valid option. IIRC, they created the best soundtrack for a PC game award after Kings Quest VI was created. And in the earlier ones, they kept pushing it to the limit of what MIDI was capable of.

[yendi]

~chuckles~ I have a friend that is FF obsessed, she sat down and wrote something to plug all the plot holes in FFVII.

Plot's only part of it. I hate almost everything about that game.

The Quest games did have great music, although the SDI games were also pretty nicely-scored for the late-80s.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

Plot's only part of it. I hate almost everything about that game.

I definitely don't hate it, but it's not a go back and play over and over like most of the FF games. (Other than, I'm too much of a perfectionist when it comes to RPGs and had to breed the special Chokobos and get all the special weapons/spells.) And I do have to admit, when I saw that first scene, as they mentioned in the article, I went "Wow!"

although the SDI games were also pretty nicely-scored for the late-80s.

SDI?

[yendi]

I meant Cinemaware. SDI was one of their early games.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I played the Three Stooges when it was released for Nintendo. But somehow I missed most of their games.

Although, the fact that the Three Stooges had actual voices on a Nintendo cartridge is impressive in and of itself.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

They're inconsistant about whether it was first in the genre or whether it brought it to the masses. I already mentioned Everquest vs. Ultima Online.

The put Wolfenstein 3D as a footnote of Doom, when it did most of what Doom did.

But then they put Herzog Zwei, as the leader of the Warcraft/Spacecraft genre. When it's even more obscure than Wolfenstein 3D was.

[yendi]

True on both fronts (not to mention the omission of Marathon, which probably had more influence on later 3D shooters than doom, in terms of things like plot and deathmatch variants).

[lovingboth]

Nooo, W3D was a lot of fun, and crapped over Ultima Underworld for speed.

But Doom was a complete jaw drop, even after W3D.

I'm missing Space Raiders (Atari 800) and Empire from the list.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

Nooo, W3D was a lot of fun, and crapped over Ultima Underworld for speed.

But Doom was a complete jaw drop, even after W3D.

I can definitely see why they picked Doom over W3D. However, if you're going to throw out the mainstream picks, then Warcraft should have been there instead of Herzog Zwei and Everquest should have been listed instead of Ultima Online. Either put the first in the genre or put what made it mainstream...

[yendi]

Space Raiders! I'd completely forgotten that one!

[unrepentant.livejournal.com]

Damn, to think of the hundreds of hours I've wasted playing those games.

Besides, you can download Dungeon Master for FREE these days...

[yendi]

Not to mention one of the eighty clones or re-imagingings of it.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. My one quibble is that I believe the original SimCity (or at the very least the Little Computer People Project) should have been in the final 50. Yes, the Mac's got its own heading, but considering the levels of both innovation and long-reaching influence, this should've been an easy call.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

Either that or Civilizations.

[yendi]

Heh. Another one that definitely belonged there. As I said in another comment, the real problem is that 50 is simply too small a number.

[techempage.livejournal.com]

50 is simply too small a number.

It is...

I'd have a hard time just coming up with a top 10 best games from my own experiences...

[yendi]

Very true. I think the core of the problem is that there are simply more than 50 critical games.