SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - GamePro's 52 Most "Important" Video Games Ever

Posted: Sep 02 2008 09:33 pm

joshwoodzell wrote:

Enter the Matrix is on this list. A game I beat in less than 6 hours and traded for a case of High Life.

More movies need to shoot exclusive footage for the games. I agree.

Posted: Sep 02 2008 09:35 pm

Enter The Matrix is awesome cuz you get to play as Neo.

OH WAIT, NO YOU DON'T.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Yeah and fighting vampires was fun too.

I seriously don't remember the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies, so I honest to Buddha couldn't tell you if there were vampires in them or not.

Posted: Sep 02 2008 10:34 pm

Man, GamePro is full of idiots.

Title: Alexz Aficionado Joined: May 21 2008 Posts: 2889

joshwoodzell wrote:

Enter the Matrix is on this list. A game I beat in less than 6 hours and traded for a case of High Life.

Man, that guy you traded with got played.

I think #3 should also have been #1. That game, as evident by the NBS Challenge, still gives people problems to this day :p

Posted: Sep 03 2008 02:14 am

Honestly, I would have chose Spacewar! as number #1.

History of Spacewar! wrote:

Without it, there may have never been video games, at least how we know them today.

It's a simple story of the right people in the right place at the right time. The right place was MIT, center of the computing universe in the 1960s. The right people were Wayne Witanen, J. Martin Graetz and Stephen (Slug) Russell. Like nerds around the world their main non-working interests were bad sci-fi and bad sci-fi movies. Remember that this is before the days of D&D, I'm sure they'd be into that had it existed. The right time was the day they installed the world's first PDP-1.

The PDP-1 was typically set up along with a C-shaped metal bench that sat in front of the main cabinet/console/paper-tape reader, with a "Flexowriter" (a combo tape-punch and printer) on one side and the "Type 30 Precision CRT Display" on the other. Other versions and add ons could grow the system considerably, but the basic machine was small enough to fit in the average kitchen.

One look at this machine was all it took, they decided that they're going to make the ultimate piece of demoware for it. He describes its evolution thus:

Long before the PDP-1 was up and running Wayne, Slug, and I had formed a sort of ad-hoc committee on what to do with it -- it being the Type 30 Precision CRT display which was scheduled to be installed a couple of months after the computer itself. It was clear from the start that while the Ball and Mouse and HAX were clever and amusing, they really weren't very good as demonstration programs. Why not?

Zooming across the galaxy with our Bergenholm Inertialess Drive, the Hingham Institute Study Group on Space Warfare devised its Theory of Computer Toys. A good demonstration program ought to satisfy three criteria:

It should demonstrate as many of the computer's resources as possible, and tax those resources to the limit;
Within a consistent framework, it should be interesting, which means every run should be different;
It should involve the onlooker in a pleasurable and active way -- in short, it should be a game.

With the Fenachrone hot on our ion track, Wayne said, "Look, you need action and you need some kind of skill level. It should be a game where you have to control things moving around on the scope, like, oh, spaceships. Something like an explorer game, or a race or contest... a fight, maybe?"

"SPACEWAR!" shouted Slug and I, as the last force screen flared into the violet and went down.

The basic rules developed quickly. There would be at least two spaceships, each controlled by a set of console switches ("Gee, it would be nice to have a joystick or something like that..."). The ships would have a supply of rocket fuel and some sort of a weapon: a ray or beam, possibly a missile. For really hopeless situations, a panic button would be nice... hmmm... aha! Hyperspace! (What else, after all, is there?) And that, pretty much, was that.

Well sorta. Slug was the main programmer of the group and his nickname was granted because he was always so slow to do things. Working on Spacewar was no exception. People around the lab had heard of the game and kept bugging him to start it, but he always had a excuse handy. In this case his main complaint was that he didn't have the math routines he'd need to write the movement code.

So one of the other hackers of the tixo crowd, Alan Kotok, called DEC. Sure enough they had a sin/cos routine for the PDP-1, and so he drove out and got the tape. He slammed it down in front of Steve and said "Here you are, Russell, now what's your excuse?" With his best answer no longer useful, he started writing code in December.

By January '62 he had a dot that you could move around the screen. He then evolved the shape of the ships themselves, now forever known as "wedge" and "pencil". Next he wrote the code to handle the torpedoes, including the routines to detect when a torpedo hit something. Meanwhile Martin was working on the hyperspace function and Steve added on a random star pattern to the background.

By February the game was in debug-mode and Steve was no longer the Slug. He, like so many other hackers before and after, ended up spending almost all of his time in the computer room looking for chances to fix one more bug. Through March the bugs were ironed out and some of the other hackers added in a few features of their own. It finally settled down in April when the game went live.

And there it was, the world's first video game.

"If I hadn't done it, someone would've done something equally exciting if not better in the next six months. I just happened to get there first. "- Steve Russell

Posted: Sep 03 2008 02:21 am

Boba Fatt was a dumpy, uninformed loser fatass 12 years ago, what's changed since then?

Posted: Sep 03 2008 09:16 am

In the preface they say Sonic the Hedgehog is automatically disqualified because as a 2D platformer it was derivative of Mario and therefore did not "have a lasting influence that's still observed in modern gaming".

I beg to differ. If E.T. can make the list for burying Atari, then Sonic deserves to be on the list for the opposite reason. When Sega released the Genesis in North America in 1989, its impact was marginal at best. Though it was vastly technically superior to the NES, American games were not ready to give up their Nintendos for the untested system. Cut to 1991, when Super Nintendo has hit the market. Sega of America president Tom Kalinske pressed his Japanese bosses to make Sonic the Hedgehog, the company's critically acclaimed new game, the console's pack-in game instead of the far less appealing Altered Beast. His bosses' begrudingly agreed, and by the onset of 1992, Sega had a 10% market share advantage over Nintendo. For the first time in six years, Nintendo's complete dominance over the North America video game market had been broken.

The game also had important impact on game development. Its follow up, Sonic 2, was developed in America by a team of Japanese and American programmers, marking the first time that a Japanese developer had taken serious steps to cater to a Western audience.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 09:56 am

Syd Lexia wrote:

In the preface they say Sonic the Hedgehog is automatically disqualified because as a 2D platformer it was derivative of Mario and therefore did not "have a lasting influence that's still observed in modern gaming".

I beg to differ. If E.T. can make the list for burying Atari, then Sonic deserves to be on the list for the opposite reason. When Sega released the Genesis in North America in 1989, its impact was marginal at best. Though it was vastly technically superior to the NES, American games were not ready to give up their Nintendos for the untested system. Cut to 1991, when Super Nintendo has hit the market. Sega of America president Tom Kalinske pressed his Japanese bosses to make Sonic the Hedgehog, the company's critically acclaimed new game, the console's pack-in game instead of the far less appealing Altered Beast. His bosses' begrudingly agreed, and by the onset of 1992, Sega had a 10% market share advantage over Nintendo. For the first time in six years, Nintendo's complete dominance over the North America video game market had been broken.

The game also had important impact on game development. Its follow up, Sonic 2, was developed in America by a team of Japanese and American programmers, marking the first time that a Japanese developer had taken serious steps to cater to a Western audience.

It's not on, even thought there reasoning for FFVII is basically the same thing as the reasoning for sonic...except that Sonic was a new game when it brought the Genisis into the mainstream and FF had had 6 previous games.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 11:43 am

anorexorcist wrote:

Syd Lexia wrote:

In the preface they say Sonic the Hedgehog is automatically disqualified because as a 2D platformer it was derivative of Mario and therefore did not "have a lasting influence that's still observed in modern gaming".

I beg to differ. If E.T. can make the list for burying Atari, then Sonic deserves to be on the list for the opposite reason. When Sega released the Genesis in North America in 1989, its impact was marginal at best. Though it was vastly technically superior to the NES, American games were not ready to give up their Nintendos for the untested system. Cut to 1991, when Super Nintendo has hit the market. Sega of America president Tom Kalinske pressed his Japanese bosses to make Sonic the Hedgehog, the company's critically acclaimed new game, the console's pack-in game instead of the far less appealing Altered Beast. His bosses' begrudingly agreed, and by the onset of 1992, Sega had a 10% market share advantage over Nintendo. For the first time in six years, Nintendo's complete dominance over the North America video game market had been broken.

The game also had important impact on game development. Its follow up, Sonic 2, was developed in America by a team of Japanese and American programmers, marking the first time that a Japanese developer had taken serious steps to cater to a Western audience.

It's not on, even thought there reasoning for FFVII is basically the same thing as the reasoning for sonic...except that Sonic was a new game when it brought the Genisis into the mainstream and FF had had 6 previous games.

Speaking of final fantasy, I hate how they make comments essentially insulting all previous FF games, but as far as I can tell this list was written by people who were just too young to actually play most of these games when they came out.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 12:09 pm

If Sonic was disqualified for being a 2D- Platformer that was a "derivative of Mario", then what the fuck is every FPS other than Wolfenstein 3D on there?

Bullshit.

Sonic sold the Genesis, and made it Sega's most successful console. I'd call that pretty damn important.

Isn't that why Halo is on the list? For selling the X-Box?

Fucking Retards.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 12:10 pm

I personally think that Pong and Super Mario Bros. should have been in the Top 5.

Also, where is Sonic The Hedgehog? Isn't that important, too?

Oh well, at least the original Legend of Zelda is in the Top 3. I'll give the list points for that. Confused

Posted: Sep 03 2008 12:27 pm

Knyte wrote:

Honestly, I would have chose Spacewar! as number #1.

Spacewar is actually not the first video game. At least two earlier games are known to exist:

OXO (Naughts and Crosses), a tic-tac-toe game which was made at Cambridge University in 1952.

Tennis for Two, a 1958 tennis game which was put together at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a tech demonstration for visitors.

Joined: Feb 24 2006 Posts: 2578

And while Pong isn't the first videogame ever, it's likely the first commercial videogame.

GamePro wrote:

Spacewar is as important to the history of the video game industry as the invention of the wheel was to the automobile industry.

Nonsense. The wheel was ubiquitous. Spacewar was not. I suspect that Pong was created without any knowledge of Spacewar.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 12:41 pm

Pong was most likely also created without any knowledge of Tennis For Two, of which it was a direct rip-off.

Joined: Jul 16 2006 Location: 22 Acacia Avenue Posts: 324

Madden was important in that it produced one of the biggest cash cows in videogame history. But it's focus is simply too narrow to be considered one of the most influential games of all time.

I thought GTA III was a good choice for #1, although you could make an equally good case for Zelda 1, SMB1 or Street Fighter 2. All of these were landmark games that revolutionized the way people thought of their respective genres, or of videogames in general.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 03 2008 01:20 pm

Okay, more history lesson.

The first commercial video game was called Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell (the guy behind Atari). He got hooked on Spacewar at college and thought it could be a mass-market game, coin-operated like Pinball. The game was too complicated for people to play, and it flopped.

So we set his first Atari employee to work on a new game: a tennis game. The result was Pong, and this time, it was wildly popular.

It turns out, though, that Pong was identical to the "Tennis" game released on the Magnavox Odyssey, created by Ralph Baer. It was demonstrated a few months before Pong was released, and Bushnell was probably at the show (he both confirmed and denied it in later interviews, but he was probably there). Magnavox filed a lawsuit and they settled out of court.

I don't know much about Tennis for Two, but I do know it was played on an oscilloscope and likely Bushnell had no knowledge of it. Baer apparently did, though.

On a side note, Baer managed to get Bushnell back later on. Bushnell invented a small "Simon says" electronic toy and showed it off at a trade show. Baer saw it, created Simon, and sold it to Mattel...and since he patented it first, he got away with it (A large part of Atari's downfall is Bushnell's inability to patent his work. Had he gone through the effort to do so, he could have squelched the 2600 clones and crappy games that flooded the market and killed the industry. Hell, they probably could have stopped the NES...the NES and 2600 are similar enough)

Posted: Sep 03 2008 01:23 pm

Games that should not have been on this list from hell:
Enter the Matrix (by the way joshwoodzell, the case of high life was a good trade you made out on that one)
Halo 2 (shouldn't have 1 Halo sufficed for the list)

Games not on the list that should have been
Battlezone (3d Tank Simulation on Atari)
Afterburner (3d Flight Simulator)
SoulCalibur
Tekken
Starfox
Eternal Darkness
Conker's Bad Fur Day (I mean all the hoopla that went on over that game)
Night Trap (Same reason as the last game)
Zack & Wiki
Punch Out

and any upmteen tons of games I can't think of that mean way more then quite a few that are on the list

Joined: Jul 16 2006 Location: 22 Acacia Avenue Posts: 324

King wrote:

Games that should not have been on this list from hell:
Enter the Matrix (by the way joshwoodzell, the case of high life was a good trade you made out on that one)
Halo 2 (shouldn't have 1 Halo sufficed for the list)

Games not on the list that should have been
Battlezone (3d Tank Simulation on Atari)
Afterburner (3d Flight Simulator)
SoulCalibur
Tekken
Starfox
Eternal Darkness
Conker's Bad Fur Day (I mean all the hoopla that went on over that game)
Night Trap (Same reason as the last game)
Zack & Wiki
Punch Out

and any upmteen tons of games I can't think of that mean way more then quite a few that are on the list

I'll definitely agree on Punch Out. (Mike Tyson's, that is.) What male between the ages of 20 and 30 doesn't know at least something about this game? I don't know if influential is the right word, being that nothing else ever came out that was like it, but it was certainly one of the most well-known and highly regarded games of all time.

It gets bonus points for being the only game I know of to feature a real-life rapist as the arch-villan.

Joined: Jul 15 2008 Location: Spanish Harlem Posts: 280

What; no Leisure Suit Larry?

Posted: Sep 03 2008 03:20 pm

i think halo 2 should've sufficed instead of having both 1 & 2.

i think WoW is way too high on the list.

dragon warrior should've been higher.

Docinsano's Channel 63 · Posted: Sep 03 2008 03:26 pm

I guess I better read this article. I'm sure there's bound to be something that'll piss me off.

Posted: Sep 03 2008 04:03 pm

Enter the Matrix should stay on the list if more movie adaptations utilized specifically filmed footage and followed subplots there were no time to explore in the movie. Instead, we have the Marvel games that throw in more comic book characters into the game to lengthen it, Quantum of Solace which will have a level that was cut from the movie before production, and games like Batman Begins that follow the exact same movie but stretches things out / creating alternate events from the movie.

So until more movies shoot exclusive footage, mentioning Enter the Matrix is kind of like mentioning a novelty that never took off.

That said, the script for "Enter the Matrix" was way better than all the games I alluded to above (pending Quantum of Solace).

Posted: Sep 03 2008 04:05 pm

username wrote:

dragon warrior should've been higher.

While Dragon Quest is an undeniable culture phenomenon in Japan, the claim the writers make that the Legend of Zelda owes its existence and success to Dragon Warrior is bullshit. The first LoZ game out in February of 1986 in Japan; the first Dragon Quest title came out in May of 1986 in Japan. In America, LoZ came out in 1987 and DW in 1989. The two franchises run parallel to each other and offer up distinctly different fantasy environments. To say either one owes its success to the other is ignorant and uninformed.

Title: Titlating Joined: Dec 17 2007 Posts: 5042

DarkMaze wrote:

And while Pong isn't the first videogame ever, it's likely the first commercial videogame.

GamePro wrote:

Spacewar is as important to the history of the video game industry as the invention of the wheel was to the automobile industry.

Nonsense. The wheel was ubiquitous. Spacewar was not. I suspect that Pong was created without any knowledge of Spacewar.

http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/play-value/the-founding-fathers?autoplay=true