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Et for the Atari 2600
Doom OG
GTA 3
Star Raiders for the Atari 400/800.
That was the first game that scared the shit out of me.
Granted, it was a jump scare, but it got me good…
I had that game for the Atari 2600 and unlike E.T, it was a great game.
Jetset Willy
Resident Evil - the original.
Tomb Raider.
Isn’t the Louve pyramid already a reference to Tomb Raider ?
Isn’t there an open source port of this?
For me, it has got to be tetris. It is still thriving, even today. Anyone can understand the base concept and play it : it’s simple and enjoyable, anywhen. Plus, it runs on remotely anything.
All of them.
Rogue Warrior?
I said all of them, so yes.
Redneck Rampage
To get the obvious out of the way: Pacman, Doom 2, Starcraft, Simcity 2000, Civ 3. All genre-defining milestones.
Total Annihilation. They’re still making sequels today (Supreme Commander, Beyond all Reason).
Fuck yes Total Annihilation. BAR is already amazing and last time I played it it was still in alpha.
Civ 3? Outside of introducing strategic resources, it is difficult to think of what innovation Civ3 brought to the franchise. Civ 2? Absolutely. Civ 4? I can totally see it. What makes Civ 3 stand out?
If anything, Civ1 should be the milestone for creating a genre.
Civ 3 was the first one I played so it sticks in my mind the most, that’s all. Any of the Civs would be fine.
I do feel like Civ 3 was a big step up in visual effects, though.
My then-girlfriend-now-wife and I went to a temporary video game exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image. A lot of the mainstays you’d expect were there, particularly from the arcade era, including ground-breaking titles like Dragon’s Lair (which is fascinatingly beautiful and a bad video game at the same time). At one point, one of the signs mentioned moving on from vector graphics, which my wife had no idea what that meant, so I immediately looked around for an Asteroids machine. You don’t really get how one of those games looks unless you’re playing on the genuine article. That’s the kind of thing that probably ought to be in a museum most.
I recently went to Galloping Ghost in Illinois, which is now the world’s largest arcade. It’s got nearly every arcade game you can think of, and they do a good job fixing them up. They have an F-Zero AX machine. I’ve always wanted to play one of those. I went to Galloping Ghost two years in a row, and it was broken both times. Turns out they’re having trouble sourcing the displays. As you go around the place, most machines are working, but even only a year later, more of them had display problems. I imagine even just getting regular old CRTs is going to make this kind of thing way harder as time goes on, and a good CRT does affect how these old games look, because they were designed for them. This is the kind of burden I’d expect a museum to take on.
So I did a class on the art of the video game and MoMA (museum of modern art) has a number of them in their collection. There is even a Wikipedia article on it. Wikipedia Article
Pretty solid collection IMO. I am surprised they haven’t included any RPGs (say one CRPG like Ultima 6 and one jRPG like say Final Fantasy 7).
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Eve Online and The Sims are excellent additions. But they are not RPGs.
I would personally include VTMB or Deus Ex, but from a broader perspective probably one of the Ultimas (6 or 7 are considered the best I believe) would be more appropriate.
Don’t play jRPGs, but from my understanding is FF7 is considered the “best in genre” release.
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With Deus Ex you definitely can play very different characters with a broad spectrum of personalities and narrative decisions. Although I do agree that an argument can be made it’s not an RPG.
Eve is a sandbox MMO and The Sims is lifeim, don’t really see how they are RPGs.
Very few RPGs execute the role playing component so well as VTMB IMO.
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Doom
I could write an essay significantly larger than the game itself and it wouldn’t be as powerful of an argument as just saying the name with the weight of legacy it commands.
Already a great book on Doom. Called Masters of Doom by David Kushner. Have the audiobook highly recommend.
https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/
a more tech oriented book about doom.
great read for anyone who is into programming.
Added to my wishlist. Pricey but looks worth the read.
the full book in pdf is linked on the page for free , it’s very much worth the price for a paper coppy however.
the blog is also a treasure trove of techincal details for various games :)
Yeah not interested in a pdf version. I believe in reading books on paper. But I do the occasional ebook. But this will be worth having in my library.
Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
Also what’s the game in the screenshot?
the game in the screenshot is Elden Ring.
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tetris, because it is tetris
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pong, and probaly other examples of early home console games
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wolfenstein3d, doom, quake, quake3, doom3 because all of them were technical milestones, had lasting impact on the industry and they show the rapid advancement of pc gaming in the 90s and 2000s
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the elder scrolls series, as a simmiliar showcase.
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final fantasy 1, 6 and 7, as a showcase of jrpgs through various generations and the fmv of 7 and onwards were imho precursors of 3d rendered movies.
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half-life, because of the impact of it’s scripted set pieces and its level design
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counter-strike and starcraft, as the games that probably gave us professional e-sport.
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dota, because its for mobas what doom is for first person shooters.
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deus ex and thief, pioneered the “immersive sim” and they are great showcases of the interactive nature of games
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Pokémon, cultural impact can’t be denied and the trading aspect is a great example of a non traditional multiplayer experience
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various Mario Games, but definitely Mario Bros. Super Mario World and Mario 64 and probably Galaxy as a showcase of the evolution of plattformers in 2d and 3d, maybe throw a spyro or banjo kazooie in there.
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Grim Fandango, Kings Quest, Monkey Island, point and click adventures are there very own beast and often feature actual memorable characters. I definitely think more often about Manny Calavera than i do about Gordon Freeman or any Morrowind NPC, even though i played half-life and Morrowind much more than Grim Fandango
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Minecraft
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super meat boy, fez, hollow knight… lots of interesting indie games and they show how much more accessible game development has become.
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Prince of Persia and karateka, the way they were animated alone would be enough, but they also featured an actual story, they were interested in showing and featured music used simmiliar to a movies soundtrack.
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probably much more
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games that are a product of a very localized culture (gothic could not have been made anywhere else but the ruhrarea for example)
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the whole military complex is missing (from Mil Sims like Operation Flashpoint to actual recruitment vehicles like Americas Army)
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more modern games, which i just don’t know or that have not been rattling around in my brain for long enough, but baldurs gate 3, the last of us, or alan wake would probably end up on my list in a couple of years.
Amazing list. I personally would add couple games, that defined my “gaming hobby”:
- XCOM/UFO: Enemy Unknown - not sure how this fits in the list, but it was ground breaking for me: perfect blend of micro- and macro management, strategical decisions, tactical battles, what a great game and so much memories of it (and I’d put honorable mention of Jagged Alliance 1&2 here, 'cause they are very similar concept)
- Civilization - genius idea, one of the 4X pioneers, easy to pick up, hard to master, and so much replay value; its overall depth is quite a feat, especially given it’s from 1991, no wonder the franchise is still alive and well now
- Fallout - esp. 1 & 2 might not be the best gameplay-wise, but their world building, characters and atmosphere are excellent… and everyone knows the legendary intro “War, war never changes…”
- Planescape: Torment - similar to above, amazing world, unbelievable story, one of a kind game
- Gothic - mainly 1&2 were simply awesome, there are no barriers (ahem), the world is your to explore, but it’s deadly so you have to plan your progress, nothing is streamlined for you; I can’t remember different game with such a vibe (other than piranha bytes later production)
- VtM: Bloodlines - kind of similar to Deus Ex, but also taking from the table top; and in my book it has THE best atmosphere of all the games I’ve played
- Witcher - this might be just European thing, but playing especially W1 felt kind of like folklore fairy tale from childhood turned into pretty grim adult game
- Disco Elysium - this is probably the only “sort of new” game that I’ve played and which definitely deserves a place in the list, great characters, amazing story and writing
there are plenty of others too, but my brain farts
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oh, absolutely, rogue and nethack, they are the foundation of crpgs and dungeon crawlers.
i just fear we’d need increased security to break up the fight between groups with various definitions what ‘roguelike’ means.
Good list.
Vampire the masquerade bloodlines also deserves a honourable mention
Missing Space Invaders it started a coin shortage in Japan.
Others I can think of off the top of my head:
- Donkey Kong
- pacman
- zelda
- Halo
- Unreal Tournament
- Sonic
- GTA
- Gran Turismo
- Chrono Trigger
- Earthbound
- Castlevanna
yes, arcade stuff is lacking on my list. The few i have played where mostly on an atari 2600 and simmiliar home consoles way after the fact and the only arcade i’ve ever seen was in a holiday resort thingy :D
Zelda: yep, was surprised there was no mention of it after i looked over my “finished” list, original Zelda and ocarina of time should probably be there, maybe a link to the past. did not play breath of the wild, so don’t have an opinion on it. But zelda -> altp -> ocarina of time is a nice showcase of 2d games transitioning to 3d, and the item based exploration and progression is found in a lot of games.
halo: i am not a console shooter guy and on pc it felt like a very good game, but atleast to me not ground breaking. through the lense of console shooters it’s probably a huge milestone.
unreal tournament: if i’d be listing my favourite games it would be there. but it did not have the impact on e-sport cs or the quakes had so it would be another technical showcase. the unreal engines became very important however.
sonic: yes, at the very least to show another take on plattformers.
gta: yeah, 3 onwards as blockbuster movie equivalents. don’t ask me why they are not on the list, no idea.
gran turismo: if we include simulators, we should also list a bunch of microprose work, richard burns rally, the microsoft flight simulators and so on. Definitely an interesting section of gaming, but not one iam part of so hard to tell what to include for it.
chrono trigger: yeah, my list lacks non western games and chrono trigger deserves to be there simply because of its ambitious scale and the fact that its one of the greatest games i’ve ever played, what was i thinking?
earthbound: never played it :(
castlevania: the early metroids and later castlevanias for what we know as “metroidvanias” today. I’ve played castlevania 1 and 2 and there is not much of what makes metroidvanias in them. fun games though.
Shadow of the Colossus should be in there too. It has pioneered orchestral music in video games and gad a huge impact on them as a whole.
shadow of the colossus seems like a great game, but i’ve never heard its music referenced as pioneer work, what did it different in that department?
To my limited knowledge, it was the first games where true orchestral music was used. It was influential enough to be remade for PS3 and PS4, there are few games to get such a treatment.
i think that honour might go to total annihilation.
i also remember the final fantasies on the psx having an orchestral pieces jn their soundtrack, but those might have not been performed by an actual orchestra originally.
From my quick search, looks like it would be The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in August of 1997. Total Annihilation was released in September of 1997.
Possible. Might warrant more reserch on my part. Still, there is very few games to be remade for 3 consecutive console generations.
I would add the OG Mortal Combat gave us the MSRP rating system.
Probably shouldadd Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Tekken 2, and Marvel vs Capcom.
Double dragon, Street Fighter, the original Simpsons arcade game.
Great list!
I would add KSP, Guitar Hero and/or DDR, Beat Saber, WoW, and Portal.
Kerbal Space Program is awesome :)
Videogames are still a young medium, very diverse and changing so rapidly, that i feel like there is no established canon of ‘classics’ or ‘high impact’ works. We’ll probably end up with dozens of lists like this in such a topic, and might end up without a single game that made it onto all of them, besides tetris.
if a simmiliar question was asked in a movies community i’d bet any list with more than 10 entries would include metropolis, nosferatu, citizen kane and star wars, just because those are widely agreed upon movies that had an impact.
- Grim Fandango, Kings Quest, Monkey Island, point and click adventures are there very own beast
Maniac Mansion was the OG in the category, at least with graphics.
Myst deserves a place for is graphics too, even if it was mostly static renderings.
Awesome effort.
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Dwarf Fortress is, in fact, in a museum.
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