The SDMB PC Game Hall of Fame: The First Round

The Game Room
1

It’s time to create our PC Game Hall of Fame. There are a lot of rules and explanations, so I’ll try to keep it not too boring.

We’re all going to create an SDMB PC Video Game Hall of Fame in a series of voting rounds. This round is Round 1, and is in effect the Inner Circle vote, our chance to select some games that are no brainer selections.

You will vote for AT LEAST TEN GAMES, but no more than TWENTY. I’d suggest voting for twenty if you can. Take your time, peruse some online greatest game lists, think your vote through. If you vote too quick and want to change your vote, just repost and let me know.

Assuming we get a good number of votes, the 20 games with the most votes will be immediately inducted. If ties result in having to induct more than 20, so it shall be.

Here are some FAQs:

  1. What games are eligible?

The eligible games are any game that has ever been released FOR HOME COMPUTERS. Game exclusively on consoles, tablets or phones are not eligible, but games ported to home computers from mobiles/consoles or released for computers plus other platforms are.

“Home computers” means any home computer; not just PCs and Macs, but also Commodores. Apple IIc, VIC-20s, the Timex-Sinclair 1000, anything.

  1. What are the criteria?

Anything. It’s up to you. If you just want to vote for your favourites, okay. If you want to vote for landmark achievements even if you didn’t like them, great.

  1. What about sequels? Are they separate games?

This is a great question and for now I’m not sure what to do about it. Clearly there is no one right answer; in some cases games in a series can barely be considered different games. “Out of the Park Baseball 22” and “23” are the same game despite different titles; Civilization and Civ II are visually different but very similar in mechanics; Masters of Orion 1 and 2 are not at all the same game. Sports games are very prone to this confusion.

For now what I’d ask is please vote for a SPECIFIC game and we’ll decide later if we need to combine some or make one title the standard-bearer.

  1. What about categories?

Let’s just get the inner circle. I realize it’s hard to compare two totally different sorts of game; how do you compare Diablo II and NHL 95? Oregon Trail and GTA V? Portal Just put down your 20 top picks, and we’ll do some balancing later. If you wanna vote for 20 strategy games or 20 shooters, okay.

  1. I can’t narrow it down to 20!

Don’t worry, this isn’t the last round. You’ll get more votes.

Voting begins… NOW

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Not my complete vote, just getting a few out there

  1. Tetris. There are so many people who would never play a video game played this one. The idea of packing odd shaped packages is known as playing Tetris.

  2. MS Flight Simulator. I’d still consider this a game and let everyone be a pilot.

  3. King’s Quest. Built Sierra On-Line Games

  4. 7th Guest. First big interactive movie game

  5. Sid Meier’s Civilization. How can this not be in there?

  6. Ultima. Started the RPG genre on the PC

No vote yet) I really want to get one on the Microprose air combat simulations here. I’d say Falcon, but maybe Falcon 3.0. F-19 was the best I think.

3

Doom

Bard’s Tale

Zork

Ultima

Castle Wolfenstein

Karateka

Minesweeper

One on One Dr. J vs Larry Bird

Snake

Wizardry

4

This list is a bit of a mish-mash. I took the games with the top hours played from my Steam library, but trimmed out some redundancy and ones that didn’t quite reach greatness. I added several more that I played and are considered greats. Finally, I added a few more that are classics in some way. I played and enjoyed all of them, and don’t consider any of them “obviously great but I didn’t like it”. And even for the old ones, I wouldn’t mind firing them up again (i.e., nothing with gameplay that’s so dated to be annoying, though Dune 2 is on the edge).

Oxygen Not Included
Kerbal Space Program
Factorio
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
X3: Terran Conflict
Fallout: New Vegas
Dragon Age: Origins
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Cyberpunk 2077
Subnautica
Half-Life
DOOM
Deus Ex
Minecraft
Mass Effect 3
Portal 2
Homeworld
Disco Elysium
Half Life Alyx
Dune 2

5

Deus Ex
Monkey Island 2
Prey (2017)
Quake 2
Unreal Tournament 99
Portal 2
Mass Effect 2
Dune 2K
Half Life
Dishonored 2
Subnautica
Bioshock
Horizon: Zero dawn
Doom

6

2 from the Apple II:

Lode Runner
Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set

7

My list is pretty RPG-heavy, with a handful of shooters and a walking simulator that I believe exemplifies the genre as an artform.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima VII: The Black Gate
Baldur’s Gate II/Throne of Bhaal
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Dragon Age: Origins
Portal
Deus Ex
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
World of Warcraft
Fallout
What Remains of Edith Finch
X-Com: Enemy Unknown
Dark Souls
Mass Effect
Planescape: Torment
Doom II
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy XV
Chrono Trigger

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I genuinely think you should ignore single games and focus on series’. I mean, sure, include one-shots like the Bill Budge listed above (though I think even PCS had a sequel), but don’t try to differentiate between Civilization 2 and, say, Civilization 5.

Just do “Civilization: series”. “Ultima: series.” Etc.

Because, my God, your starting list will be 256 games, lol.

Myst

9

Meh. The Civilization games are basically each just a remake of the previous game, with better graphics and gameplay tweaks. You can’t say that of Ultima, which spanned three entire generations of PC gaming styles and philosophies, and went from a generic “kill the big bad” story in a fantasy kitchen sink setting with everything from hobbits to TIE fighters, to creating an entire moral code for the protagonist to uphold and a world full of unique NPCs with stories of their own that the player might or might not even ever find out about.

10

Fair. And I forgot this is a ‘hall of fame’… for a second there I was thinking this was the set up for a elimination-style game.

But, still, a HoF which starts out with hundreds of titles… isn’t.

Again, imho, and as it is not up to me, my opinion has been offered and I’ll be quiet on this point from now on.

11

Indeed. There has to be at least one Infocom-style text adventure, and this is probably the most famous.

A couple more nominations from way back:
Rogue
and, though I’ve never played it myself, I’ve heard it mentioned so much that I figure it belongs in a hall of fame:
The Oregon Trail (ETA: which I see was mentioned in the OP, but not formally nominated)

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Incidentally, my choices:

SimCity
Civilization II
World of Warcraft
Knights of the Old Republic
TIE Fighter
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Grand Theft Auto V
Diablo II
Minecraft
Total Annihilation
BioShock
MULE
X-Com: UFO Defense
Half-Life 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Total War: Shogun II
Zork
NHL 95
Red Baron
Empire

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I did explain that in detail in the OP.

Also, you must vote for at least ten games.

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These are my initial picks for the Hall of Fame, meaning games that really changed things:

  1. Portal
  2. Wolf 3d
  3. Doom
  4. Dune 2
  5. Colossal Cave
  6. MS Flight Simulator
  7. Wizardry

And, here are my votes for other games that I just loved and should be in the HoF:
8. Portal 2
9. Mass Effect series (except last one) (or, break it into 3)
10. Quake III Arena
11. GTA V
12. Command & Conquer series (or, just Red Alert and Tiberium Wars, if I have to get specific)

ETA: I assumed PC meaning Personal Computer, not necessarily PC-compatible. If that’s wrong, remove Colossal Cave and Wizardry, and maybe MS Flight Simulator, since that also started on the Apple ][.

ETA ETA: Forgot Half-Life!

  1. Half-Life series, or certainly 2 and onward.
15

Dang, I thought we were going to have some sort of political correctness showdown. What a disappointment!

Dan

16

OP, shouldn’t this be in The Game Room?

17

I kind of voted for some sequels that were better than the predecessor, but would accept other games in the same series, especially Portal 1 and Myst 2(Riven) or Myst IV, both of which were probably better than the original.

Myst

King’s Quest VI

Portal 2

Zork

SimCity

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Half-Life 2

Monkey Island 2: Lechuck’s Revenge

Fallout 2

The 7th Guest

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OK, I’m trying to make this list without reading any of the other answers, because if it doesn’t jump out at me without being reminded, it probably doesn’t belong here. And this is in no particular order: I assume we’re looking for sets, here, not ordered lists. This more or less works out to be one per genre, because these games were largely so influential that they defined genres (usually not the first of each, but the ones that made the genre really take off).

1: Doom
2: Zork
3. King’s Quest
4. Tetris
5. The Oregon Trail
6. Snake
7. Starcraft
8. World of Warcraft
9. Minesweeper
10. Civilization II
11. Myst
12. Nethack
13. Diablo II
14. Scorched Earth
15. Portal
16. Baldur’s Gate
17. Stardew Valley
18. Baba is You
19. Pong
20. Microsoft Flight Simulator

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Moving.

20

How do mods count?

Like Half-life is an okay game, but Counter Strike is a masterpiece.