Tag: Portal

An “Expert Jury” Made Some Odd Choices When Picking “20 Best Video Games of All Time” for The Times

The Times delivered its first daily edition to the people of London all the way back in 1785. The newspaper has reported on some of the biggest stories the world has ever seen in the nearly 240 years since, and they’ve given space to pieces from a very distinguished array of writers over the centuries, including Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and Albert Einstein.

But earlier this week, their editorial staff decided to wade into the debate surrounding the best video games of all time.

Jake Helm, a Culture Reporter for The Times, assembled a “jury of experts” to choose the “20 Best Video Games of All Time,” and some of the selections are a bit on the wild side.

Some of gaming’s biggest franchises (including The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Final Fantasy) went unmentioned, but Sonic Adventure 2 (#20) and Far Cry 4 (#15) both made the cut. The panel also picked Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (#16), but overlooked World of Warcraft.

All that is certainly odd, but the top half of the list features most of the big blockbusters you expect to see on a Best Games list. Doom (1993) is #6, Tetris is #4, and a combo pick of The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II is #2. Another two-for-one selection, Portal and Portal 2, teleported its way into the #1 spot.

So who was on this expert panel? That would be Charlie Brooker, former game critic and the creator of Black Mirror; Lucy Prebble, a writer on Succession; Daniel “DanTDM” Middleton, a popular YouTuber; and Helen Lewis, a writer for The Atlantic and a “self-confessed video game fan.” All of the panel’s picks can be found after the break.

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See the Bracket (and Winner) for IGN’s “Best Video Game of All Time” Tournament

IGN’s editors and contributors have produced multiple Best Games lists over the last 20 years (the most recent, the “Top 100 Video Games of All Time,” was published in 2019), but they’re doing something a little different with their “Best Video Game of All Time Bracket.”

Beginning today, IGN’s readers will guide the process by voting in a March Madness-style tournament that features 64 of “the very best” games, as selected by IGN staff.

To build the bracket, games were sorted randomly into four different regions, and then seeded by IGN’s editors. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, Valve’s Portal 2, Nintendo’s Super Mario World, and Nintendo’s Super Metroid were the #1 seeds in each region, but voters will have to make some hard choices in this first round.

I mean, how do you choose between The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim? Or Halo 2 and Mass Effect 2? Or Street Fighter II and Pokemon Yellow? Or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Final Fantasy VII?

Let’s take a look at the full seeding…

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World Video Game Hall of Fame’s 2021 Finalists Include Animal Crossing, Portal, StarCraft, and More

The Strong Museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame has announced they will enshrine this year’s inductees on May 6th. We’ll know which games comprise the Class of 2021 in just 47 days, but it’s safe to say that one of the clear frontrunners was identified exactly 365 days ago.

It was on March 20th of 2020 that Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and in the year that followed, it transformed the way a lot of people think about video games. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that the franchise’s GameCube debut, Animal Crossing, was chosen as a finalist in 2021.

It’ll be joined by six other first-time finalists vying for a spot in the Hall of Fame this year. That lists includes 1977’s Mattel Football, which introduced the world to handheld gaming, as well as 2009’s FarmVille, a game that minted an entirely new generation of “gamers” on Facebook. There’s also Blizzard’s StarCraft, which further popularized the RTS genre in 1998 and helped birth the esports scene. Finally, three games from 1982 (Microsoft Flight Simulator, Namco’s Pole Position, and Midway’s Tron) impressed the Hall of Fame’s internal committee, which chose to highlight the variety found in some of the industry’s earliest efforts.

These games will be competing against a handful of returning finalists that are getting another crack at the Hall of Fame in 2021, including Activision’s Call of Duty, EA Sports’s FIFA International Soccer, Harmonix’s Guitar Hero, Valve’s Portal, and Broderbund’s Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

The members of the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee are the final decisionmakers on which of these titles will become part of this year’s induction class, but the public can once again have a voice in the proceedings by visiting WorldVideoGameHallOfFame.org between now and March 25. The three games that receive the most votes in an online poll will be submitted as the “Player’s Choice” ballot when the Committee meets later this Spring.

You can learn more about this year’s finalists after the break, and be sure to tune in to the virtual ceremony celebrating this year’s inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame on May 6 at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time).

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“The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s” Have Been Selected by Time Magazine

The editors at Time Magazine have produced several “Best Games of All Time” lists, and with New Year’s Eve fast approaching, they’ve once again turned their gaze backwards. This time, they’ve selected “The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s,” though like most outlets, they make an exception for two very huge games from 2009:

The video game industry was already a billion dollar behemoth when it rolled into the 2010s. Over the past decade, the cultural cache of video games has grown and its profits are now greater than movies, television or music. The 2010s are when the hobby stopped being something semi-niche, and solidly took its place in the mainstream.

Those games, of course, are Mojang’s Minecraft and Riot’s League of Legends. Describing them as a “global phenomenon” and a “cultural institution,” respectively, Time’s editors argue that the rules should be bent for them as the two games were so important to what gaming became in the 2010s.

Time Magazine – The 10 Best Video Games of the 2010s

  • Dark Souls
  • Disco Elysium
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Fortnite
  • Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online
  • League of Legends
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Minecraft
  • Pokemon Go
  • Portal 2

The remaining eight selections went to Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Portal 2 from 2011, Grand Theft Auto V from 2013, Pokemon Go from 2016, Fortnite and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from 2017, and Disco Elysium from last year.

Meet the Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior fought against Mortal Kombat for the hearts (and quarters) of arcade players in the early 90s. Next month, they’ll square off again as two (of the 12) finalists the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017.

Announced this morning by The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games, this year’s finalists also include Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy VII, Halo: Combat Evolved, Myst, Pokemon Red and Blue, Portal, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Wii Sports, and Windows Solitaire.

“These 12 World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists span decades, gaming platforms, and countries of origin… but what they all have in common is their undeniable impact on the world of gaming and popular culture,” said Jon-Paul C. Dyson, the Director of The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games. “Whether it’s a pop culture icon like Donkey Kong, an innovator and true original like Portal, or a game like Wii Sports that transformed millions of living rooms into interactive zones for all ages, they’re among the most influential games of all time.”

An international advisory committee made up of journalists and scholars familiar with the history of video games will serve as advisers to the Hall of Fame’s curators during the selection of this year’s inductees. The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017 will be announced on Thursday, May 4, at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time).

You can learn more about all of this year’s finalists below…

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