Most Important Game Ever Made

[jokemaster]

I'd say:

Pong: the game that started the craze

Tetris:the game that hooked my (then) 60 year old grandpa

Super Mario Bros.: Obvious reason

Super Mario 64: This game was a gamble, since it used the analog stick. The gamble worked, and now everyone's using analog sticks (may I remind you that the PS1 launched with an analogstickless controller

Goldeneye: Proved that console FPS could be more than bad ports. IMO, way more important than Halo

Half Life: Proved that the mod community could extend a game's lifetime indefinetely

[SoccerDude28]

Here's a list of the "essential" games that I think is a bit silly in its format, but does provide some other ideas as to key points in gaming history.

http://classic.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3116290

Now, the definition of "essential" here is incorrectly considered to be landmarks in gaming history rather than games that are key to understanding the pleasure and possibilities of video games. For example, I'd call "Grim Fandango" essential even if it wasn't the most influential game, because I consider it the greatest game ever made, so it's certainly essential for someone to play. Likewise, I wouldn't put "Super Mario Brothers" 4 spots under ET, which is apparently important because it was so bad it almost ruined the gaming industry.

The editors reveal a complete lack of any perspective other than chronological. Look at the years of each game and you'll see that this could almost be a timeline of landmarks in the history of video games, which would have made it a much better article. They do say that it's more based on chronological order, but they still present it as a ranked and not entirely chronological list. Oh well. Sorry to rant, just thought I'd clarify my opinions of the list if I was going to link to it.

Now, to the question at hand: Based on my studies of other arts like painting and film, I'm reluctant to call the primitive games the most important. For example, a decade and a half had passed before The Birth of a Nation came out and put all the elements of cinematic language together, and 28 years later Citizen Kane was another major landmark. (I'd highlight many films in between, but am speaking in very broad and general historical terms.) So I'd probably favor Super Mario Bros. with props to Donkey Kong for opening format and also bringing video games into the mainstream. But I'll keep thinking.

This opens another interesting question: When was the golden age of video games? Has it happened yet?

The list looks pretty decent. It has the major forefathers of most of the genres today. One game I would add to the list is Dune 2, the father of all Real time strategy games.

as far as Golden age, I would think it was 1998. 2004 was a pretty good year too, albeit one more packed with sequels than original content.

[lailoken]

well I miss some games in there, in general I don't think it makes so much sense to make a list of all video-/computergames since to me (IMHO) the two are quite different for a lot of reasons I will not go into here.

I am missing Strike Commander and Wing Commander, the former more than the later!

EDIT: What about Elite?

[Chris]

The list looks pretty decent. It has the major forefathers of most of the genres today. One game I would add to the list is Dune 2, the father of all Real time strategy games.

as far as Golden age, I would think it was 1998. 2004 was a pretty good year too, albeit one more packed with sequels than original content.

Oh, 1998...

[manny_c44]

Yeah, 98 was probably the best in terms of quality...Half-Life, Grim Fandango, Zelda 64, Metal Gear Solid. I'm sure there's more, maybe System Shock 2? It's been down hill since then.

[Chris]

StarCraft! Oh man, StarCraft...

And if you say 1998+/- 1 year, it gets even better. I mean, one year isn't much of an "age".

[Tanukitsune]

This opens another interesting question: When was the golden age of video games? Has it happened yet?

We're definetely not in it now, it's not even a copper one...

I do consider the Amstrad era the Golden Era, becuase games cost a tenth of what the cost now, and they really weren't in it for the money back then...

We didn't care about graphics back then, heck I wanted to switch to the "inferior" Speccy...

[nsps]

The list looks pretty decent. It has the major forefathers of most of the genres today.

Yeah, I think I complained a bit too much in my first post, as it's a solid tour through gaming history. My main beef with it is the decision to make it look ranked, but basically do it chronological (which they point out on the page). And the questionable use of the word "essential," of course. I guess they're doing a second list of great games that didn't meet the criteria of that list...like, say, Monkey Island, Zelda or Metroid, for example, but that you must play. So yeah, good list of games to consider if you're thinking about this topic...

[nsps]

Yeah, I don't think a year qualifies as an age. The medium has evolved very quickly though, so it's hard to say. Look at the evolution of film and photography, which went very quickly, and then look at gaming go even faster. Still, seems like we'd at least need, like, a console generation or something to justify an age.

[Chris]

I'd probably end up with about 1990-1998, which I guess is pretty much Walter's range too. In 1990 you have Monkey Island (duh), Super Mario Bros. 3, Prince of Persia, etc.; 1991 has Civilization (completely owned my life at the time, you have no idea), Monkey Island 2 (duh), Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (I feel like Zelda sort of reached new heights with this one), Out of this World/Another World (I wish I'd played this), Metroid II (the GameBoy one, solid like every single Metroid game until the forthcoming Metroid Pinball soils the legacy--fuck you, Nintendo arghg), Quest for Glory II (a big step up from I), Sonic the Hedgehog (woot), etc. Ok, time to stop, this is going to take forever.

Actually, looking at that list, it seems more like a Silver Age to me. I guess this is pretty semantic, but the Golden Age seems like it would be about the six or so years before this era, when the medium was really turning into something particularly meaningful and diverse. 1990-1998 was not NEARLY as formative, it was more when the techniques and accomplishments of the previous years came into their own. I mean, honestly, any of the games I listed above, which are themselves part of the earlist couple years of that range, are still COMPLETELY playable today. I can't really see any exceptions in there. You can't really say the same for the predecessors of these games, but they were definitely more pioneering. I might be wrong, but that's kind of the difference I see between a Golden and a Silver age.

Either way, they're both a fucking boatload better than whatever the fuck age we're in now. The Tin Age? The Carbon (Copy) Age?