Top 100 list here, spanning the 1970’s until today: Best Video Games | Best Video Games of ALL-TIME | TIME.com
Since they include games from all platforms, I’d start with Battlefield 1942, Skyrim and Fallout 3 as glaring omissions. What are yours?
I nominate the AD&D “Gold Box” series of games-- Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and others whose names I’ve forgotten, and also the Microsoft “Close Combat” series.
Good to see some love for* M.U.L.E.*
Baldur’s Gate (any of them) is probably the most glaring omission.
Planescape: Torment, Operation Flashpoint, any of the Fallout series, any of the Rainbow 6 series (though they did include Splinter Cell), Gauntlet, Missile Command, XCOM, most any racing games (where are Pole Position or Sega Rally Championship?): are some of the others I went WTF?! on.
I’d pick Civ II over Civ, but that’s just me, I guess.
They found room for Dune II, but none of the above that any of us have already mentioned?
At least Tempest and Defender were there.
I hate lists like this. They left off Super Mario 3 so now I have to go sharpen my knife, someone’s about to get cut.
My gaming effectively ended (aside from Hearts, Solitaire, and Spider Solitaire on my computer) in the 80s with the NES.
I would’ve put Blades of Steel on the list, as I spent a better part of my youth playing that game.
It’s an odd old list this one. Many games seem to have been included with the first edition of the game as the representative of the entire series.
You can make strong cases that later iterations of Civ, Mario (both the NES/SNES side scrollers and the later 3D versions) and Resident Evil (especially Resident Evil - where 4 is the best version of the game by some distance for my money) should all be included.
Personally, I’d likely have included Championship/Football Manager, Assassin’s Creed and Gran Turismo in amongst this lot.
Mods, can you please edit the title of the thread to read “Time Magazine’s Top 100 Videogames”? I just realized my error and it is somewhat misleading…well, until you open the thread anyway…
The comments to the article list a bunch of others that really should be included: Bejeweled, Farmville, Red Dead Redemption, Sid Meier’s Pirates, any of the Ancient Art of War series, Minesweeper, Minecraft… I’m sure we can come up with a better list.
Much like “Top 100 NFL players of all time” or some such lists, there’s always problems comparing things/people across eras. I mean, Pong was groundbreaking and all, but it would be absolutely horrible to be stuck playing that game now.
Where’s Final Fantasy VI, Ocarina of Time, or Link to the Past?
My video game years were during the late 1970s-mid 1980s arcade era. From that era, I’d add Missile Command and Crystal Castles, and I’d replace Pac-Man with Ms. Pac-Man.
-Team Fortress 2.
-Final Fantasy, FFIII (VI), and maybe even Final Fantasy Tactics.
-The only thing Tecmo Bowl had going for it over Super Tecmo Bowl was Bo Jackson.
-Ninja Gaiden for Xbox.
-I’d put Super Metroid ahead of Metroid.
-I’d have included at least one of the Tekken, Soul Calibur, or Virtua Fighter games (gun to my head, I’d go with Soul Calibur).
-Killer Instinct.
-Planescape, Baldur’s Gate 2, Dragon’s Age - Origins.
-Super Dodge Ball, River City Ransom.
-ActRaiser for SNES.
-Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
-I’d argue that the Duck Hunt/light gun combo was underrated in terms of tipping dads towards buying an NES system in the first place.
Missile Command is a definite glaring omission from the late 1970’s early 1980’s arcade game era.
My notable omissions:
- Baldur’s Gate/Baldur’s Gate II
- Fallout II
- Morrowind
- Ultima VII
- X-Com (the original, not the remake)
- Final Fantasy VI
- L.A. Noire
- Deus Ex Human Revolution
- Duke Nukem 3D
I’d say “Dance Dance Revolution” is a glaring omission.
I also think Chip’s Challenge deserves a spot, but that might just be personal preference.
Also, Pole Position belongs in the early arcade games pantheon with Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, etc. OutRun might have been a better driving game, but Pole Position pretty much pioneered the genre and was crazy addictive to that generation.
No Robotron, Qbert, Zaxxon, or the ground breaking Dragon’s Lair.
Intellivision should have at least one title in there. MLB, Astrosmash, Space Armada, Space Battle?
It was a great game, but I suspect that very few people ever heard of it. You’re not going to get a Top 100 list with the low market penetration Chips got.
If there was a turn-based wargame on that list, I missed it. I’d say Panzer General should be on as a representative of the genre.
Not only was there no Fallout representation, Wasteland was missed out.
Civ made the list, but not Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Harumph.
System Shock 2, people!
There were lots of arcade games, but not Robotron or Sinistar?
I was gratified that RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and (ugh) Planescape: Torment were not on the list. RPG fans tend to be verbose and online a lot, so games discussions are often warped into RPG discussions.
Tactics came in at #62. It was a good game, and the best of its archetype, but I definitely think it should have been left off in favor of a lot of other games. It seems like almost every genre of game had a representative game in this list, to the point of including a lot of games that just simply weren’t ever that great. It especially hurt platformers, RPGs and FPS games which just simply have had a much better history of quality titles than others. (Madden 95? Sure, it was a big leap forward in football games, and the Madden franchise has had a massive amount of cultural impact, but the game has never actually been -good-)
In that vein, however, I must admit I was a bit shocked that Wing Commander was put in instead of Tie Fighter as ‘groundbreaking space fighter’ title.
“Knight Lore” isn’t included therefore the list is immediately invalid