I’m going to — as we say here in corporate America — “circle back” to a post from last week about that list of the 10 most important video games that came out last week.
Some interesting comments on this one. I put my alternative nominees out there, and so did you. Your comments are in quotes, my annotations are in parens:
— Pitfall
— Wizardry
— Ultima Underworld. “This one’s a bit self-indulgent, since I played it to bits back in the day and loved it with all my geeky heart, but it also invented the basic interface used by MMOs.” (I claim minor nerd royalty status from the fact that my brother was the designer on Ultima Underworld II.)
— Wolfenstein 3D (I frickin’ jumped out of the kitchen chair when I first heard my Apple IIe hoarsely bark, Ausweis, bitte!)
— Madden Football
— Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. “Because after that, sex in video games were never the same ;)”
— Pac Man. “Nethack didn’t have a top-10 pop song about it.” (Oh but it should! We gotta get Nerf Herder on this, stat.)
— Final Fantasy. “Countless sequels, great movies, and excellent toys. This is a name that can continually be released with pride.”
— Adventure. “I still love the bouncing dragons. Here is a flash version of the game:
http://www.simmphonic.com/programming/flash.htm# “
— Planescape: Torment. “Should get a mention for best storytelling.” (This one got a couple of nods. On the same grounds, I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Myst.)
— Mortal Kombat. “It made violence popular and brought about the ESRB.” (I thought Night Trap brought about the ESRB? But what do I know.)
— Star Control
— X-Com
— Street Fighter 2
— The Legend of Zelda
— Pokemon. “Well it might seem silly but about a zillion kids started out with Pokemon, and the franchise is still going strong — all these kids then went on to become videogame players for life, so I guess that ought to count for something.”
There were a few different posts on the subject of Sensible World of Soccer, a game I’d never heard of, both in the “yay” and “nay” camps. I’ll leave you with this exhortation from a more seasoned games journalist than I, Dave “Fargo” Kosak:
I had the same reaction when I saw “Sensible World of Soccer” on the list. I did a little digging and it makes a little more sense if you realize what a phenomena that game was in Europe — apparently the game’s theme song became a fight anthem played at soccer games. Which is pretty impressive.
Still, I can think of several other sports titles that have made an huge impact in gaming that I felt should’ve been recognized more. But, I ranted about this already in my own blog:
http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/archives/2007/03/entry_227.shtml
Let’s take this riot to the streets!
-Fargo