ILX'S 100 GREATEST VIDEO GAMES EVER

3rd game in a row I voted for. Thought my 9th place might be the highest vote - good work Jon. Lords of Midnight was an obsession for me when it came out, it totally cracks the non-linear story code, maybe the first game to ever do that. Of course it was a hell of a lot easier to win via the adventure game route, aka Morkin Goes for a Walk Up the Side of the Map. But it was the wargame that kept dragging me back, because waking up one morning and looking out of your castle to see an endless line of bad guy armies stretching to the horizon and no reinforcements in sight was fun fun fun. Also the Mongol-looking dude with the round helmet and the pony was HARDCORE

NB playing this on emulator/remake is a big pain without that lovely plastic keyboard overlay.

F'reals Lords of Midnight on the Spectrum was definitely one of those leaps forward where you were just like HOLY SHIT WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE

Mike Singleton is still programming now, y'know? If someone can tell me if "Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows" is worth seeking out, feel free to do so.

True sign of a great RPG game is if you can enjoy it whilst not actually giving a shit about fantasy fiction. LoM succeeds in spades w/that.

You've got the Lords of Midnight format as Comm 64 but it was o.g. Spectrum.

Lords of Midnight was the first game where I thought, FUCK this is massive, a whole world! Elite was the next after that.

True sign of a great RPG game is if you can enjoy it whilst not actually giving a shit about fantasy fiction.

60 Megaton truth bomb. Mrs V finds it very hard to understand that I don't really give a shit about pixies and goblins.

Actually I think she understands perfectly well, she just likes ripping the piss.

I lost touch with Mike Singleton after Midwinter which seemed painfully over-complicated and probably needed a nice keyboard overlay.

#87: Double Dragon II - The Revenge (1988)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ef/DD2_Flyer.jpg
http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Double%20Dragon/Double%20Dragon%202.gif
Developer:Technos Japan Corp
Publisher:Technos Japan Corp
Original format:Arcade
Highest position:#13, Euler

lol for shit games I sure spent plenty of arcade money on the Double Dragons. There's no actual skill at all involved in playing these, is there?

Euler is gonna be one of the CAMRA dudes on this thread, isn't he.

Oh man, I don't think I ever played this one. They had the first Double Dragon at Godfathers Pizza in my town, which for a while was the only pizza place we had. All I remember: "Oh shit two Abobos!"

#86: Master of Magic (1993)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c3/Master_of_Magic_boxcover.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue21/greviews/momrev02.gif
Developer:Simtex
Publisher:Microprose
Original format:PC DOS
Highest position:#2, Euler

Don't think I've ever even heard of that. Looks like it lives up my alley.

That Double Dragon II cover has it ALL! Whipping gutterpunk women in the face, ball and chain, exposed asscheek, full moon, angry subhuman swinging a club, helicoptor!

oh fucking AAAA I love Master of Magic; I too do not care about pixies and dragons but I still play this bastard and love it...it's worth emulating DOS or windows for.

Master of Magic is like Civ but with spells and pixies and shit...you get to build cities but each race has special buildings and offensive units they can build; and you create heroes who can level individually and eventually beat entire armies by themselves...and like Archon you get to play the combat, not just sim it like in Civ.

Diablo 2 = another one I haven't played. Got the first one, liked it in short doses, but the gameplay is essentially "click left mouse button as quick as you can". Hope they varied that up a bit for the sequel.

They didn't. But it was still fun.

whoa what is CAMRA? google pops up Campaign for Real Ale which I know about from other sources but I don't get the reference? B/c I do like real ale but mostly I like kicking the shit out of bad guys in video games. And Double Dragon has that in spades. I don't think skill's required, no, but sheer visceral bloodlust is. And back in the day this was as realistic as it got, which was cool: baseball bats rule (is that the CAMRA part?).

Euler did you ever play Fantasy General? Another example of the fantasy gubbins having nothing to do with the awesomeness of the game itself.

(The CAMRA thing was a joke about you repping for Old School, Trad fun. It's pure love tho, honest.)

Man, I tried to play Lords Of Midnight just now, I had no idea what was going on. I gotta sleep and then work, but I'll have something to kill a bit of time when I get home.

yeah I love the old school and the new school and I feel the love, no prob

I don't know Fantasy General, no, sorry, but it sounds nice---although it sounds hex-y, and the closest I got to playing through a hex-type game was Europa Universalis, which wasn't really that hex-y.

Yeah Fantasy General is Panzer General with a different tile set, really, so it's a turn-based wargame but I think that series just blends the playability versus deep strategy mix just right - easy to pick up, hard to master, as some old board game used to say.

actually it's funny, a lot of the games on the list are old school but are a different old school than I was into, because I didn't have a PC or commodore or TI or whatever, just an Atari and then a Colecovision and then NES. Once I got a PC in 1988 I was all about Chuck Yeager Flight Sim and Earl Weaver Baseball for many years, but I doubt they crossed over the pond much (well, that and Bard's Tale, which I suspect will come up later in voting).

#85: WipEout 2097 (1996)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/WipEout2097Cover.jpg
http://www.vpltd.com/images/wopic_02.jpg
Developer:Psygnosis
Publisher:Psygnosis
Original format:PlayStation
Highest position:#3, Ledge

yeah one of my friends is a trainspotter type for the Panzer General company, he researches old German tanks and updates their stats for them. At least he makes a little coin from that kind of aspie nonsense.

Oh man I remember the time I played the first Wipeout, it was on a Sega Saturn. That first time I hit the first big jump in the first level = GAAASSSSSP!!

I only played the original Wipeout, never 2097, but all I remember from it is how dramatically the walls would slow you down. You'd glance at the corner at the screen and find out you were going 928 km/hr and life would be good, and then one nick on the wall, and it was all over.

Wipeout is awesome when you're fucking stoned and you lean back and forth on a gnarly futon

lol was about to say I have only ever played Wipeout over at stoners' houses.

#84: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oblivion_Cover.JPG
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/697/697211/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20060320080708445-000.jpg
Developer:Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher:2K Games
Original format:XBox 360
Highest position:#7, bnw

If I'd been able to play this, I would've placed it first, but I'll save the majority of my spiel for when Morrowind turns up. My eldest son has been playing Oblivion since Christmas and tormenting me with stories about just how detailed and perfect a world those Bethesda guys have made. This is the first placing that I will hand on heart say is at LEAST 70 places too low, you horrible people.

Master of Magic was AWESOME. It was a Civ clone at the top level - cities on a tile map, you build various improvements to them, etc...but the combat switched over to an isometric turn-based thing, moving your little expendable hordes around on a map. There was also a really great hero system to build up specific underlings with cool +3 HP type gear. AND you could make your own widgets and give them names (if I remember correctly) - like, for a certain amount of magic points you could infuse a ring to make it have flame power. It was a LOT of fun. Probably the last game I was really into, for a long spell anyway.

oh i guess euler already said most of that stuff, xpost.

Anyway basically it was Civ + Warcraft III, with the graphics of the former (although a bit brighter and friendlier - Civ is a bit dingy outside of the city views!).

#83: A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985)
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/apple-ii-games/7-1.jpg
http://www.abandonia.com/files/games/388/A%20Mind%20Forever%20Voyaging_3.png
Developer:Infocom
Publisher:Infocom
Original format:Commodore Amiga
Highest position:#1, Mordechai Shinefield

SMB2 I played the hell out of at the time, but can't seem to recall with too much fondness now. Noodle Vague is right about the satisfaction of smacking Birdo with a well-lobbed egg, but too much of this game is just kind of tedious and forgettable. The desert stage is just terrible, and I wish I could have back all the hours of my life collectively robbed by ducking down into rooms/pipes/jars and finding nothing down there... I mean, if E.T. has to get docked for pointless exploration of empty holes, Mario should have to suffer it as well.

I can only assume that if this had been published in the US under its original name, it would be a somewhat warmly regarded footnote, cult classic at best, but by no means a contender for top 100. Great music though!

My friend Indy and I were talking recently though about this - when exactly did the material from SMB2 become imported into the Mario canon? Like, the Shyguys, Bob-ombs, the floating Princess, Toad as major playable character, etc... I think these things are a considerable asset to the Mario universe, this game has a really charming feel in general - but this is stuff that would have been either invented by the US Mario office, or in Doki Doki Panic... when and how did it become part of Mario for Nintendo of Japan? (I'm thinking Yoshi's Island but I have no idea.)

I like how screenshots of text adventures are basically all the same. If I'd known this was an Infocom title I would have given it my vote on behalf of Zork II...

A Mind Forever Voyaging is good and all, but it's absolutely punishing to get into.

Non-linearity gone mad in fact.

I have never played that game, but I will sum up the gameplay:

>look
you see a bat, and a key inside a glass container.
>use bat on container
i don't understand.
>attack container
i don't understand
>use bat
you don't have a bat
>pick up bat
i don't understand
>get bat
you got a bat
>attack container
with what?
>attack container with bat
the glass container shatters!!
>get key
you got the key
>use key on door
i don't understand
>use key with door
...nothing happens
>look at door
it is brown. it appears to be locked.
>attack door with bat
...nothing happens
>use key in keyhole
the door opens. you have no girlfriend in real life

lol as that is, you're actually rong Z S. AMFV is a whole different ballgame of nerd intensity. It's like comparing Philip Dick to, um, somebody who wrote run of the mill space operas.

did anyone else vote for that

I couldn't in good conscience place it top 30, it's too dry for me and I've never got deep enough into it to become engrossed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging

^ wau!!!

Four people voted for AMFV. If they want to demask themselves, they're free to do so.

Strong Bad: "And you're like, GET YE FLASK, and the game's like, YOU CAN'T GET YE FLASK. And you just have to sit there and IMAGINE why on earth you can't get Ye Flask, because the game's certainly not going to tell you."

If G-Kit voted then I reckon he'll be one.

"Dr. Abraham Perelman, PRISM's "father", informs Perry of his true nature and gently brings him from simulation mode into reality. Perelman explains that he has awakened PRISM so a vital mission can be performed: running a simulation of a revitalization plan (dubbed the Plan for Renewed National Purpose), sponsored by Senator Richard Ryder."

Wait, PRISM is awakened from simulation mode into reality so that it can...run a simulation?

WHOA, AND THE SENATOR'S NAME IS DICK RYDER! AHHAHAHA

Actually, though the description of the plot on wikipedia, as you said Noodle Vague, does sound leagues beyond normal games of this ilk. Apt Philip K Dick comparison, too.