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Rock Miyabi
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 Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject: The 10 games that made history |
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Well, I thought this was a pretty interesting article in the paper today. I can understand a few of them, but submitting this list to the Library of Congress as "THE" most historical videogames in history? Anyone think of other games that are more deserving than the ones on this list?
| Quote: | A panel of experts has identified early groundbreaking video-game titles it says should be preserved as part of a "game canon."
By Heather Chaplin, New York Times
When Henry Lowood, curator of the History of Science and Technology Collections at Stanford University in California, started preserving video games and video-game artifacts in 1998, he thought it was closer to professional oblivion than a bold new move into the future.
In just a few years, however, Lowood's notion that video games were something with a history worth preserving and a culture worth studying has gone from absurd to being worthy of consideration by the Library of Congress.
At the recent annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Lowood announced a game canon, an idea that grew out of a proposal submitted to the Library of Congress in September by a consortium made up of Stanford, the University of Maryland and the University of Illinois.
"Creating this list is an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance," Lowood said. And if that is acknowledged, he said, "maybe we should do something about preserving them."
Lowood and the four members of his committee -- game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky, researcher Matteo Bittanti and journalist Christopher Grant -- announced their list of the 10 most important video games of all time:
• "Spacewar!" (1962) First multiplayer, competitive game, and the first action game, too -- created by programmers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• "Star Raiders" (1979) A first-person space shooter with better graphics and more complex game play than previous games -- the forerunner of space-combat simulators.
• "Zork" (1980) Introduced the world to the adventure game.
• "Tetris" (1985) A landmark puzzle game of falling blocks that has mesmerized addicted players on virtually every video-game system.
• "SimCity" (1989) Helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it.
• "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1990) (below) Important for its nonlinear play, a mainstay of contemporary games, and features such as the ability to move backward and forward.
• "Civilization I/II" (1991) Drew inspiration from a board game to become a pioneer in turn-based strategy computer games.
• "Doom" (1993) Redefined the shooter genre by immersing players in a 3-D world in which they could battle with one another and add features.
• "Warcraft" series (beginning 1994) Represents the introduction of real-time strategy overlaid on a narrative.
• "Sensible World of Soccer" (1994) Provided a unique overhead view of the game and featured intuitive controls unlike anything the sports genre had seen.
Lowood said preserving video games presented certain challenges. For example, the hardware that games are played on changes so frequently that there are already thousands that can be played only through computer programs called emulators, which, while readily available on the Internet, technically violate copyright laws.
"We have to be really careful here, because the technology is just going to make this harder for us," Spector said. "The game canon is a way of saying this is the stuff we have to protect first."
Staff writer Randy A. Salas contributed to this report. |
There's a poll on our paper's website to vote which really is the most important. As I'm typing this, "Other" is beating Mario 3, at 24% to 21% respectively. Tetris comes in third at 16%. Go HERE if you'd like to vote or to see the article not in the quote format.
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Dougurasu
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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What about Zelda?! The first EVER adventure style game and also the first ever RPG O__O;; AND PONG!!! The first computer game ever!
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Sol
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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To be fair, a lot more people know about the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES rather than The Legend of Zelda. Mario was a household name back when the NES was released, and while Zelda was popular, I don't think it was at the level of appeal of Mario at the time.
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Midnight
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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Not to mention that the original game was bundled with every NES console, so that it was easier for the Mario series to be disseminated to the public and allow them to see the platforming quality of the game.
There are some surprising names on that list, as well as some of the classics. Obviously, the list will satisfy some and infuriate others, but it's still a fair representation of the evolution of the gaming industry as a whole.
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Izumi
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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"Sensible World of Soccer"?
I've never even heard of it. o.o;
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Hubstyle Master
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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I have Super Mario/Duck Hunt for NES. It seems like it was pretty popular. Also, Tetris should've been second, and SMB/DH at the top for NES. Tetris, along with Pong were the start of everything. Some of the oldest games can be some of the most addicting. Tetris is awsome, and Pac-Man is another classic. I could name many more.
Anyone play Galexian or Dig Dug? Dig Dug wasn't really popular, but I couldn't stop playing until I won! Pole Position is another. It was like the start of all racing games.
Classic MegaMan should've been on their too. I haven't played it (except for on a cell phone version), but I've seen what it has to offer and it's a pretty good game.
Oh and one of my friends (or aquaintences on some days) won't stop talking about the Civilization games. He's always telling me and other people how great and revolutionizing it is, so that game might be good.
Mostely Pac-Man, Classic MegaMan, SMB/DH, and Tetris should be the main ones. Oh and Zelda would've been at like number four or five. |
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HeatShadow
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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While those certainly wouldn't be my choices for the Top 10 per se, I have to admit that if you take their descriptions as fact, that is a rather fair listing of video-gaming "firsts." Maybe not bests, but firsts. Now all that remains is to go and see if their descriptions are indeed fact...
*coughGoogleandWikipediaareyourfriendscough*
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Chaos virus
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| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Very interesting. A lot of the games, esp the older ones, I have no idea. But the games on the list do seem to represent a fair genre of video games... |
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NumberGirl
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | • "Doom" (1993) Redefined the shooter genre by immersing players in a 3-D world in which they could battle with one another and add features. |
Correct me if my memory serves me incorrectly:
Didn't Wolfenstein come out before this?
Yeah, it wasn't multiplayer. I'm just asking if it did come out before Doom 
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Rock Miyabi
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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According to a quick search, Wolfenstein started out on the C64 back in '83, and the 3D game came out in '92, so yeah, it would have been out before Doom. Doom probably won the popularity vote between these guys.
Yeah, I don't know about many of these so called revolutionary concepts in some of these games. I can't believe this soccer game nobody knows about had the first overhead camera. Of all the sports games out there that get massed produced every year, the most innovative thing to get mentioned is that camera view and that needs to be preserved at the utmost? Nor do I agree with Warcraft being the first real-time strategy with narrative. But I'd have to research that, I guess. How detailed are they considering the narrative to be? And do we really need two similar really old space shooters on the list? I swear that half this list needs to be reworked. 
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Izumi
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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It's a relatively fair listing on the surface; some people who make top ten lists out of "classic" games don't go further back than the NES era. I do think that some of the titles don't belong there, but eh...
As for their positions, they seem okay as well; if you weren't around before 1990 and haven't played any pre-NES (or pre-Atari even) titles then you can't really argue that they were better or worse than others. :P
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Unknown Neo
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| That's a weird list but I don't mind all but that last one. I second izumi's post. |
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PlaguedOne
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| Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:30 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | • "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1990) (below) Important for its nonlinear play, a mainstay of contemporary games, and features such as the ability to move backward and forward. |
I can understand why they would want a Mario title on the list. It's just more recognizable. However, the first Megaman came out 3 years before this game, and was nonlinear in its stage selection and allowed the player to move backwards in stages.
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AngelfanA16
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| Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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I am also surprised that Final Fantasy didn't make the list.
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Unknown Neo
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Those are two strange things they left off. But let's just say it's not a perfect list. |
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xfyrethespooky
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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yes, it's a very imperfect list. who ever heard of "Sensible World of Soccer?"
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Unknown Neo
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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| I think that would be one of everyone's comment. It must have been obscure or foreign. |
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