What are the seven wonders of the gaming world?

[ThePlasmatizer]

I nominate:

Pokemon - Single biggest craze I've ever seen in gaming.

Nintendo DS - Innovative and introduces more and more people to games.

 

[meatloaf231]

[/quote]

I think Steam belongs there more than Xbox Live.

Steam is awe-inspiring, I suppose, but I see your opinions as massively skewed by your reputation of intense PS3 enjoyment.

Perhaps I am mistaken.

What the hell are you talking about?

Considering many are predicting Steam to eclipse physical mediums in terms of games (at least on PCs, assuming that the size of PC games does not spike in relation to the speed of the average users modem), I think its more deserving than an organized network - and since the Dreamcast itself had online before the xbox, the organization of said network isn't as much of an accomplishment as (potentially) re-engineering gaming as we know it.

Sorry, I just assumed you were casting down Xbox Live because of it's Xboxy nature. I do agree, Steam is a far better program. I misjudged you, sir. I apologize.

 

[The_Deleted]

Music 2000:

A cheap and fairly comprehensive misic programme for the PS1.
I lost hours & days composing tunes with this and the way you could use effects and samples was fantastic. Lost most of my tapes of tunes, sadly, as some of them were awesome.

 

[Shadow Tyrant]

The tallest point in Jerusalem in Assassin's Creed. It really is an amazing display of just how far technology has come in the past few years.

 

[tobyornottoby]

1. Pong
2. Mario
3. Lara Croft
4. Grand Theft Auto
5. World of Warcraft

(that's the history of most iconic games/characters in a nutshell I think, the basis
but pretty mainstream)

potential others:

Dungeons & Dragons
Pokemon
Metal Gear Solid
Nintendo
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Sims/Simcity
Goldeneye 007
Ico
Portal

 

[smithy_2045]

Guitar Hero. In hindsight, it's unbelievable they had so much trouble getting the idea off the ground.

 

[Dommyboy]

Dynamic Lighting. Omgss flashlights stop monsters!

 

[Ago Iterum]

I think The Sims deserves to be in there. It's an amazing franchise that has definitly stood the test of time, that has a charm that everyone can enjoy.

Nintendo is a no-brainer. They introduced most of the things that we see as standard in the games industry, like analogue sticks, D-pads, two handed controller designs (When the market was flooded with consoles using paddles and joysticks) and all kinds of other things.

I think (No matter how much I hate it) WoW has to be in there. It has created a whole other universe, that millions of people treat as if it was their first life. I can't ever see the craze going down.

I agree with The_Deleted. Music 2000 had me at 10 years old, sitting creating complex intricate music, and without it, I wouldn't be a musician. It sparked so much creativity in me, and from the first day I played it, I knew I wanted to be a musician.

xBox Live has to be in there too. I've never owned a Microsoft console, because I don't like them. But I have to hand it to them, they really took online gaming to a new level. Sure, the internet at that time had become much more advanced and fast, and the gaming market was just waiting for any console to take advantage of that, but Microsoft got there first.

And my last is Ocarina of Time. The N64/PS1 generation was when storytelling in games could be given much more emotion and length, with the invention of 3D gaming. And Ocarina of Time was, and still is the most incredible story ever told in gaming. You could tell instantly you were playing something very different, and very special.

 

[shintakie10]

Hmmm...theres some very deservin' games and whatnot that would belong on a list like this, however some of them really stand out in my mind. Most of them have been stated already, but I feel that one may end up bein overlooked.

Blizzard Entertainment - While some people have already pointed out WoW, I think it would be more accurate to say Blizzard as a whole. Starcraft is the single most played RTS of all time...there is no denyin' this. World of Warcraft has several million subscribers across the world. Diablo 2, despite its dated appearance, is one of the most played online games today. It would not be much of a stretch to say that Blizzard has shaped much of the online gamin' community as it is seen today.

 

[EsotericLB]

Daikatana probably belongs in there as a profound lesson to everyone what -not- to do.

 

[mark_n_b]

There's been a lot of really good content added in here. I'm trying to separate the "wondrous" from the "excellent" this isn't easy.

So far there are two items that I think need to make the list, they are the only two I am completely sold on thus far:

1. Dungeons & Dragons I don't think anyone can deny the global impact of this pen and paper classic and the effect it has had on gamers, gaming culture, and game design. When you think that this came out of a Tolkien loving drug culture decades ago, this is truly one of the wonders of the gaming world.

2. World of Warcraft Now people have made the note that Blizzard as a company has made huge impacts in gaming and titles like Starcraft and Diablo have been bandied about. But more than the company, the fact that WoW is populated by millions of people 24-7 is something no game has ever managed to achieve. It is not the size of the game-world, it's not the graphics, it's not the game-play, it's the sheer population that makes this title the wonder it is.

Blizzard might get a double billing on this list because of the fact that Starcraft has entire Television networks dedicated to it and the professional Starcraft circuit in Korea. And this is a game that came out in the 90's. That's pretty impressive.

Daikatana probably belongs in there as a profound lesson to everyone what -not- to do.

Maybe the mythic cement block of millions of ET 2600 cartridges in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This is definitely one of the hugest urban myths (urban facts) of gaming history. The Bermuda triangle lore of gaming culture.

 

[nathan-dts]

I picked up a couple of the Hanafodu cards that Nintendo sold when they started up (You may know it as Koi Koi from 42 all time classics) off of ebay.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

There's been a lot of really good content added in here. I'm trying to separate the "wondrous" from the "excellent" this isn't easy.

So far there are two items that I think need to make the list, they are the only two I am completely sold on thus far:

1. Dungeons & Dragons I don't think anyone can deny the global impact of this pen and paper classic and the effect it has had on gamers, gaming culture, and game design. When you think that this came out of a Tolkien loving drug culture decades ago, this is truly one of the wonders of the gaming world.

2. World of Warcraft Now people have made the note that Blizzard as a company has made huge impacts in gaming and titles like Starcraft and Diablo have been bandied about. But more than the company, the fact that WoW is populated by millions of people 24-7 is something no game has ever managed to achieve. It is not the size of the game-world, it's not the graphics, it's not the game-play, it's the sheer population that makes this title the wonder it is.

Blizzard might get a double billing on this list because of the fact that Starcraft has entire Television networks dedicated to it and the professional Starcraft circuit in Korea. And this is a game that came out in the 90's. That's pretty impressive.

Daikatana probably belongs in there as a profound lesson to everyone what -not- to do.

Maybe the mythic cement block of millions of ET 2600 cartridges in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This is definitely one of the hugest urban myths (urban facts) of gaming history. The Bermuda triangle lore of gaming culture.

Why aren't you sold on Pokemon making the list?

D&D and WoW are definitely popular but when the Pokemon franchise was given birth the craze spread to epic proportions.

If you go anywhere and ask anyone, unless they are part of an undiscovered amazonian tribe or from a third world country they will have heard of Pokemon, you don't even need to go that far:

I asked my mum who is totally out of touch with popular trends if she had heard of them, she had vaguely heard of D&D and Warcraft but the one she had the most heard of was Pokemon, even people who know nothing of games will know Pokemon, it deserves a spot in the 7 gaming wonders above both Warcraft and D&D.

 

[Vlane]

1. The Digital Devil Saga story
2. Mario (I hate every Mario game except Super Mario Bros. but he is a wonder)
3. The GameCube controller
4. The PS one
5. Final Fantasy
6. MGS
7. Hideo Kojima's mind or the Atari 2600

 

[Raynaux]

1. Great Music
2. Mario vs Sonic vs Crash (original console war of my era)
3. Monkey Island
4. Final Fantasy
5. Legend of Zelda
6. Virtual Console and XBLA
7. MMO's

 

[TsunamiWombat]

1. Dungeons and Dragons - The origin of it all, it began the inteir idea of gaming in general, and it's progress mirrored Electronic Gaming- starting as a bunch of nerds playing around in their basement, growing to become mainstream, struggling with accusations of corruption from the mainstream media, and then establishing it's own sub-culture and becoming largely commercial and full of different "systems" and developers.

2. Nintendo - For being the first developer to bring gaming into the mainstream, and establishing the foundations of the mainstream gaming world.

3. The Gameboy - For pioneering the field of handheld/portable gaming

4. The Playstation 2 - For becoming the foundation of the modern age, the SNES of the late 20th century- a system with many good games and many bad games, somewhat techically behind the competition but boasting an impressive library and customer base.

5. Blizzard - For producing so many benchmark games that deserve to be on this list in their own right, I instead list Blizzard to encompass them all. Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, WoW, and future projects all.

6. Daikatana - Maybe not the first, but certainly the most famous example of hubris and overhyping destroying a title. A pet project with a powerful personality and famous devleoper behind it, it was crushed under the weight of it's own expectations and limitations.

7... Escapes me right now

 

[Jdopus]

Hmm....I think the original half life deserves to make the list. I'm a huge supporter of companies giving users the power to tweak and mod games and well, if you look at the modding community for the first half life it's pretty damn impressive that there are still mods being developed after all this time.