Time magazine's All-TIME Top 100 games

[DoPo]

Time's top 100 list is here [http://techland.time.com/2012/11/15/all-time-100-video-games/slide/all/], if you want to see it, or also I've copied it here for your convenience:

Spoiler: The list

1970s
The Oregon Trail
Hunt the Wumpus
Pong
Breakout
Space Invaders
Adventure
Asteroids

1980s
Battlezone
Defender
Pac-Man
Zork
Castle Wolfenstein
Centipede
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Galaga
Tempest
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
Joust
Pitfall!
King?s Quest
Lode Runner
M.U.L.E.
Paperboy
Tetris
Super Mario Bros.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Castlevania
The Legend of Zelda
Metroid
OutRun
Contra
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Mega Man
NetHack
Punch-Out!!
Tecmo Bowl
Prince of Persia

1990s
Solitaire
Wing Commander
Civilization
Sonic the Hedgehog
Street Fighter II
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
Mortal Kombat
Doom
Myst
NBA Jam
Madden NFL 95
Marathon
SimCity 2000
Chrono Trigger
Quake
Resident Evil
Super Mario 64
Tomb Raider
Final Fantasy VII
Goldeneye 007
Myth: The Fallen Lords
Ultima Online
Final Fantasy Tactics
Grim Fandango
Metal Gear Solid
StarCraft
Thief: The Dark Project
EverQuest
Silent Hill

2000s
Deus Ex
Diablo II
The Sims
Animal Crossing
Grand Theft Auto III
Halo: Combat Evolved
Ico
Rez
Counter-Strike
Splinter Cell
Metroid Prime
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Cave Story
Half-Life 2
Katamari Damacy
World of Warcraft
Guitar Hero
Shadow of the Colossus
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Gears of War
Ōkami
Wii Sports
BioShock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Desktop Tower Defense
Portal
Rock Band
Braid
Angry Birds
Demon?s Souls
Flower

2010s
Batman: Arkham City
Mass Effect 3

I agree with some titles bu-u-ut not all of them. What do you think?

EDIT: here is an updated list which looks slightly better and has clickable links to the reasoning behind each title. Leaving the other one list behind because it's, uh, easier to quote if you really want that.

Spoiler: the list v2.0

Mass Effect 3 [http://techland.time.com/2012/11/15/all-time-100-video-games/slide/diablo-ii-2000/]

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I agree with some titles bu-u-ut not all of them. What do you think?

I agree with most of their choices as being deserving of mention on that list.

But I'm surprised neither "Fallout" nor "Planescape: Torment" got listed in the 90's. Or "System Shock 2" and "Command & Conquer" for that matter. I admit that I see the mid-to-late 90's and early 2000's as the supposed 'golden age' of gaming though... so if they were to list every game from that time period deserving of mention, there'd be no space left for anything else and still many deserving titles being left out.

 

[krazykidd]

This is a pretty good list . This seems to have been actually reserched . Bravo Time . Sure maybe i don't agree with all of them . But it's probably one of the best lists iv'e seen . Most of those games were difining moments in gaming in my opinion.

 

[GoaThief]

Glad there`s not a mention of Zelda OoT, to this day I am still underwhelmed by it. I think it's vastly overrated.

Heresy, I know. Prepare the hot coals and all that.

 

[Aerosteam]

Desktop Tower Defense? Solitaire? Leisure Suit Larry?

Yep, this is the most hipster top 100 list I've ever seen. Not saying that's a bad thing though.

 

[DoPo]

Desktop Tower Defense? Solitaire?

Yeah, I was quite puzzled at those, too. Notable, perhaps (but Desktop Tower Defense?), however, not really "all time" material.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Desktop Tower Defense? Solitaire? Leisure Suit Larry?

Yep, this is the most hipster top 100 list I've ever seen. Not saying that's a bad thing though.

To be fair, Solitaire (and Minesweeper!) has saved my sanity quite a few times during boring elective credit classes and slow work days.

I can offer no justification for Leisure Suit Larry, though. That's one of the games I deeply disagreed with on the list.

 

[Beautiful End]

I agree with most of them...but the 2010s should have more.

What about Minecraft? Fez? Portal 2? I'd even throw in Assassin's Creed? (I'm still surprised as to how they made an exact replica of Renaissance Europe), maybe even God of War and Dragon Age (1) for the past decade.

There has been some pretty good games out there as of recently.

 

[CityofTreez]

Add:

System Sock 2
Fallout
Portal 2
Uncharted 2
Mass Effect 2
Total War: Rome

Take out:

Portal
Leisure Suit Larry
Rock Band
Flower
Mass Effect 3
Animal Crossing

IMO.

 

[AD-Stu]

I can offer no justification for Leisure Suit Larry, though. That's one of the games I deeply disagreed with on the list.

I dunno - I'd be interested to read their justification for including that one. In a vacuum sure, it's just a smutty version of Kings Quest and not really anything special. But it was also one of the first games designed to appeal specificially to an adult audience. So in that sense I think it's an important moment in gaming history.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I dunno - I'd be interested to read their justification for including that one. In a vacuum sure, it's just a smutty version of Kings Quest and not really anything special. But it was also one of the first games designed to appeal specificially to an adult audience. So in that sense I think it's an important moment in gaming history.

I'd be interested in reading it too. I can understand your reasoning for its placement on the list, I'm just not sure I really agree with it since I know that adult games had already been around for quite a long time. Granted, Leisure Suit Larry didn't nearly crash the industry like, say, Custer's Revenge... so maybe that's the qualifier. That it was the first adult game that wasn't objectively terrible on every single level. I dunno. I admit, I'm not super familiar with the genre as I've never really had any interest in it whatsoever.

 

[DoPo]

I dunno - I'd be interested to read their justification for including that one.

I'd be interested in reading it too.

You...could have gone to the website and clicked on the title, you know. It even says the following

Remember King?s Quest from a few slides back? Imagine King?s Quest, except the hero is a loser in a leisure suit and the goal of the game is to score with women. And there?s nudity?sort of ? blocky, pixellated, 1987-era computer game nudity.

Leisure Suit Larry was porn you really had to work for. You played as Larry, a nerdy-looking salesman who lived in a city called Lost Wages and spent the majority of his time looking for love. If you?ve seen The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Larry?s less likable and more desperate than Steve Carell?s character.

Lest you think the game is merely computerized smut, it won the award for ?Best Fantasy, Role Playing or Adventure Game? from the Software Publishers Association the year it came out. Oh, and due to the game?s adult nature, it wasn?t even marketed or publicized initially. A humor-filled adventure game that wasn?t bashful about showing some skin? The world hadn?t seen anything like it.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You...could have gone to the website and clicked on the title, you know. It even says the following

I can't. For some reason it's one of the websites that my employer has blocked. Yet this one's allowed, go figure.

Slow work day.

 

[kingthrall]

I am stunned myth the fallen lords is in this list. I feel like saying like some old person "see I told you people it is one of the most under-rated greatest strategies ever made!"

Oh and Baldurs gate is not in the list strangely.

 

[WoW Killer]

Very reasonable. It seems they've picked out a representative of each identifiable genre/sub-genre and tried to cover a little bit of everything, which is probably the most sensible thing they could have done. And it's understandable why they've picked most of those. I mean you could scoff and ask why they picked FF7 rather than FF6, but while FF6 would obviously have been a worthy choice, that era of JRPGs is already covered with Chrono Trigger. So, understanding that they can't pick too many similar games, it does mostly make sense.

The one I don't quite get is Oblivion. I mean you've got to have a TES game on there, but why that one? Both Morrowind and Skyrim would make a lot more sense to me. Oblivion just seems like the weakest of those by a long way.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's an eclectic list. Without going through point by point, I'll say there are some fairly significant and (IMO) indefensible omissions, coupled with some truly bizarre inclusions. But of course, we all have our own opinions when it comes to this kind of thing.

 

[dimensional]

Yup well FFVII and Okami are on there so theres two I definitely agree with I would have replaced legend of zelda with link to the past and super mario bros with super mario bros 3, Super Mario Bros 64 with Galaxy and SF 2 with SF 2 turbo. maybe they are going with greatest as in greatest influence? I dont know its a bit unclear.

But Mortal Kombat, Solitaire, Angry Birds, Wii Sports, Mass effect 3 and Batman Arkham asylum get out of here theres no way these should be in the top 100 greatest some are extremely prolific and well known but not great while Batman is really good but not top 100 good.

Also no Valkyria Chronicles or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 classics they missed there no Persona 4 either and oh god grand theft auto 3 is on there one of the most disappointing games I have ever played oh well I agree with some and really disagree with others just like every other top 100 list it seems.

Also no Soul Calibur that game practically sold the Dreamcast oh and FF tactics is on there god I hate that game put Disgaea in its place its a far superior game.

Of course this is all my opinion .... and so is absolutely 100% unarguably correct.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

This is surprisingly better than most other lists like this. I mean, there are several I don't agree with being on there (Angry Birds, Oblivion, Wii Sports) and several that should have been on there that weren't (Morrowind, Psychonauts, any Black Isle style RPG), but it is overall much better than most other lists like this that I have seen. I especially like that Nethack was on there, because that is a very important, but often forgotten about piece of gaming history that holds up extremely well today.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Good list although with some noticeable exceptions *cough* no 90s point n clicks on the list. But a good list nonetheless.