A few weeks ago, I reordered the Video Game Canon to focus solely on the picks made by UK publications. That Listology article, Critics from the UK Choose the Best Video Games of All Time, was an interesting look at how our friends across the pond feel about some of the “universally-acclaimed” classics. They weren’t too fond of games like Contra and Tecmo Bowl and Ninja Gaiden, but they had a lot of praise for homegrown heroes like Sensible Soccer and Elite and Lemmings.
But what would Version 3.0 of the Video Game Canon look like if I flipped the switch the other way? What if North American publications had all the power? Let’s find out…
Zoom in on specific portions of the Video Game Canon and explore alternate sorting options from the Version 3.0 Update with Listology 3.0.
This Listology article is based on an earlier Version of the Video Game Canon. Visit the Top 1000 to see the most recent changes to the full list.
First things first, Tetris doesn’t get dethroned in this alternate reality and it remained at the top of the Video Game Canon.
This retro focus permeates the rest of the top ten, which gets almost completely reshuffled. Street Fighter II (#3), 1993’s Doom (#4), and StarCraft (#10) all placed higher, while Super Metroid (#11) and Red Dead Redemption (#23) dropped a few spots to make room. Within the top ten, Super Mario 64 (#2) and BioShock (#5) rose slightly, pushing down Resident Evil 4 (#7) and Half-Life 2 (#8).
But it was Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us that fell the furthest without the support of the UK critics. The game was still well-liked by North American critics, but it fell all the way down to #33.
You can go down the list and find a lot of subtle changes like that, so here’s what the rest of the Video Game Canon would look like using only the 25 Best Games lists produced by publications based in North America:
Video Game Canon (Version 3.0): North American Style
C-Score = Average Ranking + (100 – Appearance Frequency)