The 52 Most Important Video Games of All Time

[+SpiceWare]

The 52 Most Important Video Games of All Time

Some of the games on this list are great. Others are downright awful. But all 52 games on this list have influenced the medium of video games in a lasting, meaningful way. Here are 52 games for the ages.

52. Pitfall!

42. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

28. Adventure

[espire8]

Where did you get that quote from?

[vdub_bobby]

Ehhh. The usual list from a games mag: top-heavy with games from the last 10 years, a few token representatives from pre-1990 to establish cred, almost complete ignorance of pre-1995 computers, with lots of questionable assertions.

 

Or, a three-word criticism: No Space Invaders.

[jboypacman]

Yup its official modern game magizines dont know there head from a hole in the ground.How could you not include Space Invaders?

[Gregory DG]

Wow. I'm not even going to bother looking at that list if it doesn't have S.I... Does it have Pac-Man or Asteroids?

[Lord Helmet]

It does have Pac-Man.

 

The no SI does the list in completely...along with the #1 game being GTA3

[+SpiceWare]

Where did you get that quote from?

The very first paragraph of the article

[jboypacman]

Am old i dont get "GTA" being so great and popular.I hate thoses games

[riffraff]

why did they choose 52? Are they making a deck of cards? Instead of Saddam as the ace of spades it's Mario?

[espire8]

Where did you get that quote from?

The very first paragraph of the article

Oh! I did'nt know the first sentence was a link to the article as there were no quote references in the quote you posted. My bad.

[godzillajoe]

The dragons in adventure are "bosses" ?

[PressureCooker2600]

The dragons in adventure are "bosses" ?

 

 

Like everyone said.....typical game mag....trying to sound cool to the youth and still have credibility with the older gen. gamers.

[Gregory DG]

^^ AKA pandering. Trying to please everybody yet pleasing no one.

[bretthorror]

Now, I love the GTA series, but "No other game in the last 20 years has had more impact than Grand Theft Auto III. It radically evolved the bond between gamer and game, in the process changing everything about how games are made and played." The bond... in GTA. It's shooting people in the face. That's it.

 

Really, the list is really off the wall to me. The very nature of the list should have featured a game like Pong near the top and Super Mario Bros. very close. Tetris, even, as that game nearly single handedly exploded the portable gaming craze. No Space Invaders, or even Combat? The list just seems uneven to me and inconsistent.

[Dino]

Also no sonic the hedgehog

[Crazy Climber]

I'm sooo tired of hearing this quote....

 

*taken from greatest video games of all times list*

Notorious as the most colossal flop in the history of the industry, E.T.-- reportedly made in just five weeks and by many accounts the worst video game ever made -- cost Atari millions of dollars in unsold cartridges and did even more damage in consumer trust. E.T. is also greatly responsible for the video game crash of 1983, which spelled disaster for the once omniscient Atari. Nintendo rose from their ashes, Atari never again regained market relevance, and gamers who had learned a major lesson about licensed titles spoke definitively with their wallets.

 

This is the most incorrect statement ever....except for the 5 weeks part.

[Gregory DG]

^^ So... E.T. wasn't a colossal flop?

[carmel_andrews]

The only reason i guess why space invaders wasnt included is because the originators (Taito) admitted that the game is basically a reverse engineered version of atari's 'breakout'

 

To say that space invaders should be included because it was the first time a non atari made arcade game was licenced for home play....i think you need a lot more then that

 

Is Manic Miner on the list or Miner 2049r...not even going to bother looking at the list (probably pc/sega/nintendo or sony dominated)

[Cybergoth]

The only reason i guess why space invaders wasnt included is because the originators (Taito) admitted that the game is basically a reverse engineered version of atari's 'breakout'

 

Yeah, you really have to look twice to notice a difference.

[Lord Helmet]

^^ So... E.T. wasn't a colossal flop?

 

The list isn't the 52 best games....its the 52 "most important games"

[almightytodd]

The only reason i guess why space invaders wasnt included is because the originators (Taito) admitted that the game is basically a reverse engineered version of atari's 'breakout'

 

Yeah, you really have to look twice to notice a difference.

I am truly LOL. All of the comments in this thread are really good reading. Doesn't it make a lot more sense that the number one "Most Important" game would be one that launched the industry? Or at least saved it when it seemed like it was about to come to an abrupt end like so many other fads of the time? (Roller-disco, Pet Rocks anyone?) I think an argument could even be made in favor of Computer Space, because despite the fact that it was a big flop commercially, it proved to Bushnell that the technology was at least feasible, and provided him with a few hundred dollars to launch Atari.

[candiru]

I thought it started out OK, but really took a nosedive about half-way through. No Space Invaders?!!!? Unless I missed something, they didn't include ANY "death from above" or typical Shmup type games. The closest I saw were Geometry Wars and Spacewar.

[DanBoris]

I'm sooo tired of hearing this quote....

 

*taken from greatest video games of all times list*

Notorious as the most colossal flop in the history of the industry, E.T.-- reportedly made in just five weeks and by many accounts the worst video game ever made -- cost Atari millions of dollars in unsold cartridges and did even more damage in consumer trust. E.T. is also greatly responsible for the video game crash of 1983, which spelled disaster for the once omniscient Atari. Nintendo rose from their ashes, Atari never again regained market relevance, and gamers who had learned a major lesson about licensed titles spoke definitively with their wallets.

 

This is the most incorrect statement ever....except for the 5 weeks part.

 

It's annoying how E.T. has become the univeral fall guy for the video crash. I've seen articles that go even further and make is sound like E.T single handedly brought down the industry. Yes E.T. was not a great game, and yes Atari lost a lot of money on it, but if E.T. hadn't been made, the crash still would have happened.

 

Dan

[Deteacher]

And just to add to that (I know it's been discussed in other threads) but there are LOTS of games that are worse than E.T. There are some that are downright unplayable (Mythicon games come to mind.)

 

E.T. Didn't bring down the video game industry...I think it had something to do with all these "fly-by-night" 3rd party companies trying to get a piece of the pie. (I'm not referring to companies like Activision or Imagic, they put out some great stuff!) Over at Mythicon, I'll bet they'd eat a bowl of bran flakes, and whatever code they could crap out would end up in an Atari cart shell.

 

So, while E.T. didn't really help prevent the crash, it's not fair (IMO) to blame the crash on it.

 

I wonder if any programmers could take the existing code for E.T. and turn it into something more playable...THAT would be cool!

[Cybergoth]

The thread went E.T. and died.