Start your weekend off right by diving into a trio of videos highlighting some of the lesser-known stories behind the creation of Doom, Splatoon, and Ubisoft’s annual E3 extravaganza.
Start your weekend off right by diving into a trio of videos highlighting some of the lesser-known stories behind the creation of Doom, Splatoon, and Ubisoft’s annual E3 extravaganza.
This time on Bite-Sized Game History… Pong takes flight, Mother 3’s hype train leaves the station, and Nintendo’s battle with ROM hosting sites is yet another blow to game preservation.
There are a lot of great video game historians on Twitter, and they manage to unearth some amazing artifacts in 280 characters or less. Video Game Canon’s newest column, Bite-Sized Game History, will aim to collect some of the best stuff I find in my timeline.
This time on Best-Sized Game History… Pong takes flight, Mother 3‘s hype train leaves the station, and Nintendo’s battle with ROM hosting sites is yet another blow to game preservation.
Tetris earned the top spot in the first version of the Video Game Canon, and easily repeated in the Version 2.0 update I put together earlier this year. But what happens if you limited the formula to just Best Games lists that have been published this decade?
Not much, it turns out.
No other game was able to knock Alexy Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece off the top of the heap, though Valve’s Half-Life 2 (#2) came very close. The remainder of the Top 10 also looks fairly familiar, with Resident Evil 4 at #3, Super Mario 64 at #4, BioShock at #5, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #6, Super Metroid at #7, The Last of Us at #8, World of Warcraft at #9, and Grand Theft Auto V at #10.
However, using only the 27 Best Games lists that were published between 2010 and 2017 does produce a few interesting swings. Some games moved up (like Portal from #19 to #11), while others slid down (Street Fighter II went from #16 to #28).
Other games made bigger leaps, which might lead to some massive changes to the Video Game Canon’s Top 100 in future updates. For example, Nintendo’s EarthBound may have launched to a rocky reception in the mid 90s, but critics in the 2010s are coming around on it as it moved to #62 (it was #119 on the regular Video Game Canon) Likewise, Myst had a strong showing, and landed at #87 versus #137 on the regular ranking.
See where the rest of the 1,041 games from Version 2.0 of the Video Game Canon landed after the break.
Slant Magazine recently updated their list of “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” and named Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as their #1 game. The oft-ignored sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been undergoing a bit of a reevaluation in recent years, and it’s selection by Slant is the first time it’s earned the top spot on a “Best Games” list.
In addition to old favorites, the editors at Slant gave four games their first exposure on a “Best Games” list… Platinum’s Nier: Automata (#7), Bracket’s Three Fourths Home (#73), Croteam’s The Talos Principle (#82), and Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (#94).
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey have been on a perfect streak since their release in 2017, and Slate kept it alive by slotting Link’s latest adventure at #39 and Mario’s Cappy-tivating quest at #31.
Slant Magazine’s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time” will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.
Hyper, Australia’s oldest gaming magazine, has always had a slightly skewed perspective on the industry. Earlier this year, they published their latest “Best Games” list, “The 200 Games You Must Play.”
Hyper, Australia’s oldest gaming magazine, has always had a slightly skewed perspective on the industry. Their previous stabs at “Best Games” lists in 1995 and 2013 often focused on titles that no one else was looking at. And the same is true for “The 200 Games You Must Play,” which was published earlier this year.
“The 200 Games You Must Play” is an unranked list, just like Hyper’s previous lists, so you won’t find a consensus pick for the “Best Game of All Time” from the magazine’s editors. Instead, the 203 games on the list (there were a few ties) cut across a huge spectrum of genres and decades, as well as the inclusion of almost three dozen titles that are brand new to the Video Game Canon.
We’ve still got 18 months to go, but the 2010s have been a pretty great decade for games. To make sure they stand the test of time, all games released after January 1, 2014 are ineligible for Version 2.0 of the Video Game Canon, but you’ll find several very important games in the decade’s earlier years.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo extended the lifespans of the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii beyond the standard five years in 2010, and developers used this extra time to produce software that took full advantage of each platform’s quirks. That was especially true of the 2013 launch of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which took the top spot on this list. But it was Rockstar Games that might have had the biggest impact on the decade so far. The publisher controlled the rest of the Top 3 thanks to strong showings from Grand Theft Auto V (#2) and Red Dead Redemption (#3).
And while 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is still too new to qualify for the Video Game Canon, I have a feeling this category will get very interesting once its eligible.
Find out where all of your favorite games released between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2013 placed after the break.
The good folks at Game Informer published their 300th issue last month, and a big part of the celebration included the unveiling of a brand new “Best Games” list, “The Top 300 Games of All Time.”
The good folks at Game Informer published their 300th issue last month, and a big part of the celebration included the unveiling of a brand new Best Games list, “The Top 300 Games of All Time.”
The editors of Game Informer chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as the #1 game, writing this about Link’s third adventure: “Although many of the series’ conventions debuted on the NES in The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past defined the blueprint Nintendo has used for most sequels, and is still one of the most ambitious entries to date.”
Yesterday, the Strong Museum and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games announced this year’s inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame.
Yesterday, the Strong Museum and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games announced this year’s inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. The Class of 2018 includes Final Fantasy VII, Square Enix’s beloved RPG; Tomb Raider, Eidos Interactive’s 1996 introduction to Lara Croft; John Madden Football, EA Sports’s first football simulation; and Spacewar!, an early game created by the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT in 1962.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. What more needs to be said about 2017? Honestly, not much.
Not only did Nintendo rebuild one of their marquee franchises into something even bigger than before, but they also launched a brand new console/handheld hybrid, delivered the biggest Mario game in more than a decade, and updated Mario Kart 8 with an actual Battle Mode. Not a bad run for a company that struggled in recent years with the Wii U.
But it was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that took home the most “Game of the Year” accolades in 2017, leaving the rest of the field fighting for scraps. Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey was a popular choice for publications that didn’t have Hyrule on their itinerary, as was Atlus’s Persona 5.
You can see more of last year’s “Game of the Year” contenders in the 2017 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.
IGN recently published a new update to their “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” list. The selections from the list will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.
IGN recently published a new update to their “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” list.
This time around, Super Mario World landed at #1, climbing 13 spots since the last time IGN selected a Top 100 in 2015. Three years ago, Super Mario Bros. 3 claimed the top spot, but it fell to #6 in the most recent ranking.
The site also enshrined several 2017 releases in their latest Top 100, honoring The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at #26, Persona 5 at #81, and Super Mario Odyssey at #84.
IGN’s “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.
