Comments: 0 (Go to Comments)
Categories: Commentary
Tags: lists
At this year’s GDC, videogames got their equivalent of the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Stanford University’s Henry Lowood, Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti and Christopher Grant named the “10 most important video games of all time.”
Unlike a desert island list, Lowood and company are presenting digital games which deserve preservation–something Stanford’s History of Science and Technology Collections does. However, if a top ten list has any purpose, it’s igniting discussion, so here we go.
Spacewar! (1962)
At first glance this looks like one of those safe, classic choices, like Murnau’s Sunrise, but if you’ve ever enjoyed Geometry Wars then you owe a debt of gratitude to this ancient mainframer.
Star Raiders (1979)
Star Raiders, I know thee not. Or so I thought. Turns out it looks similar to Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator which I enjoyed thoroughly–thanks to this game. Actually, it looks like Star Raiders borrowed from a text-based Trek game and was influenced by TOS, in addition to Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars, and then gave back in terms of game design. Okay, 2 for 2 so far.
Zork (1980)
Well, you can’t hate on Zork, but I’d have picked Adventure first. After all, Adventure laid the framework for Zork and every “adventure” game since then.
Tetris (1985)
A flawless choice, Tetris was a hit, ended the Cold War, and introduced gaming to nontraditional gamers. The PopCap game of its day, Tetris showed that nothing was more addictive than casual gaming.
SimCity (1989)
Another topnotch choice. Will Wright made urban planning cool. Of course he made paying bills cool in The Sims and will soon make single-celled organisms cool in Spore, so he might just be a witch. You can play the original game here.
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Probably the only thing lamer than this choice is Grant’s reason for choosing it, “nonlinear play” to quote the Times. Yeah, we never saw that before. Now if we were talking about its importance as a platformer, Grant might be able to convince me, but he’d have to explain why SMBs 1 and 2 weren’t more significant.
Civilization I/II (1991)
So if you have the balls to single out Super Mario Bros. 3, why can’t you decide on Civ I or Civ II? Hell why not lump III and IV in, too? Aside from that, I don’t have a complaint.
Doom (1993)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Warcraft series (beginning 1994)
How vague. Dune II is more important in terms of its contribution to real time strategy and Ultima Online for MMOs. If you’re talking about Warcraft in terms of a gaming franchise, then I can think of a dozen franchises as significant.
Sensible World of Soccer (1994)
I guess if you have to pick a sporting game, you might as well pick any sporting game, but I’m still not sure how this rates above Madden or Excitebike. The original is coming out for Xbox Live Arcade, so I might change my mind, but I think they dropped the ball with this one. Although any love for the Amiga is good love.
Don’t get me wrong, we have a good starting point here, but I do think importance and the need for preservation aren’t necessarily synonymous. For instance, most of these games have migrated to newer platforms or exist on media still accessible today. In other words, Doom isn’t doomed. I think this list, which I hope is the first of many titles set for preservation, should have focused on older games which are no longer accessible.
And how can you make a list of “the most important games” without mentioning Pac-Man?