I can understand them choosing the first Civ to represent the series. Civ II and IV would be my picks though. I’d add:
System Shock 2
Tie Fighter
Planescape Torment
Fallout 2
Baldur’s Gate 2
Secret of Monkey Island
UFO enemy unknown (the 1994 one)
Master of Magic
Master of Orion 2
Freespace 2
I’d also replace Legend of Zelda with a Link to the Past.
The main problem with lists like these, especially for video games, is that there’s a huge dilemma between putting the first instance of something, the first significant/popular instance of something, or the best instance of something.
Super Mario Bros. 3 is so much better than Super Mario Bros. 1 that it’d be a farce to compare the two, yet the SMB 1 is definitely the most significant historically.
If you’re going to make a list like this, you should just stick to either the best, or the most historically significant, and not do an awkward combination of the two, which is what Time (and most creators of these lists) did.
The most glaring omission to me is the most played game ever.
Angry Birds?
Angry Birds is on the list.
Another one that just came to mind as a glaring omission: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
I don’t actually know the answer at the time, which is why I didn’t include it. It’s between two games: Defense of the Ancients or League of Legends. Both have massive player bases that dwarf other games. I’m pretty sure Defense of the Ancients is bigger, but the Chinese and SEA numbers are so fragmented it’s hard to get a good estimate. I was at a LAN a year ago and like every person there was pounding out LoL matches. It was crazy.
World of Warcraft is on the list.
I suppose they couldn’t justify filling the list with too many Tim Schafer games, so they kept Grim Fandango and didn’t put Psychonauts, The Secret of Monkey Island, or Day of the Tentacle. Still, they oughtta be recognized.
I would omit Flower and put on the same company’s more recent Journey. Journey is just more fulfilling to me.
Yeah, sorry, I was responding to Palooka but didn’t quote. AB is the best-selling game, which to me suggests it’s the most played. DotA and LoL seem unlikely candidates, incidentally.
Dave Hartwick:
I doubt that sales is a good way to gauge most played. Windows Solitaire (which is on the list) has come free with every Windows-compatible PC sold in the last twenty years (and so has Minesweeper, and to a lesser extent, FreeCell). And wasn’t Tetris (also on the list) freely included with every Gameboy?
That’s the one I was primarily thinking of.
I would put Mass Effect 2 over Mass Effect 3. I would also add Wing Commander III, since it was a very different animal from 1 and 2 and pioneered the live action cutscenes.
I guess I was thinking more along the lines of traditional video games only with my comment. No doubt countless Facebook games surpass either of the Dota-genre titles.
In the 80’s, I played the heck out of F-16 Fighting Falcon and Gunship.
In the 90’s, I played a lot of Steel Panthers and Daggerfall. I didn’t play any of the X-Wing series, and I don’t see them on the list, but I believe they were pretty popular.
They left Warcraft (the RTS game) and Age of Empires off, too.
I think the list is way too heavily populated with FPSs and quirky older titles. I find it inconceivable that there is no MoO, or MoM. The lack of a flight simulator title is quite shocking, too. I didn’t see any real-time 4E games, other than Starcraft; I am surprised that Age of Empires and it’s ilk were not represented. And goodness me, no Rollercoaster Tycoon? That pretty much spawned a whole genre of similar games. And where in the world is Minecraft (to say nothing of good old Carmen Sandiego, which actually spawned a TELEVISION SHOW, and how many video games can say THAT??).
I would certainly put Civ II over Civ, and would put Ocarina of Time over any other Link game. Some other games might be better represented by later entries.
Missile Command ate WAY too many of my quarters not to be on the list. I was pleasantly surprised to see Battlezone on the list.
Elite.
Missing that is just unforgivable. One of the most important games of the eighties, genre-defining and utterly, utterly absorbing.
This is the omission I was going to complain about, too. Starcraft and WoW are there, but not Warcraft (or, rather, Warcraft II, which still stands up, whereas Warcraft I was entirely unimpressive from the moment WCII came out)? Sheesh.
Quite a few actually…ones I’ve actually watched, off the top of my head, in no particular order…
Pac Man, Frogger, Q-Bert, Dragon’s Lair (I think the space one in the same style also had a series), Donkey Kong (original flavour and Donkey Kong Country), Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog (there were 2 on, at the same time, even!), the Legend of Zelda (packaged with Super Mario Brothers), Street Fighter, Kirby, Mega Man (several of the games), Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher - quite a few Mon series are based on games - Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat…
And that’s just the ones based on single games…you could argue that Metroid, Castlevania, Kid Icarus, and Punch-Out fit the list, too, as they contributed major characters to Captain N the Game Master… (Mother Brain, Simon Belmont, Pit, and King Hippo, respectively.)
You forgot Kangaroo! hehe
I will second Blades of Steel. Hated hockey in real life but played the hell out of that game as a kid.
Also Baldur’s Gate
Panzer General
Skyrim
Fallout
People already beat me to noticing the omission of Elite and Sid Meier’s Pirates!
I would have tried to find a place for Utopia.