ILX'S 100 GREATEST VIDEO GAMES EVER

#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.

I don't think there's any verb-guessing, more importantly. It tells you all the words you need to use.

#82: Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/Halobox.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/First_official_halo_screenshot.jpg
Developer:Bungie Studios
Publisher:Microsoft Game Studious
Original format:XBox
Highest position:#6, stet

This didn't make my list, but it is a robust, fun game, obviously MADE for hanging out with buddies and blowing stuff up together. The multiplayer, from what I observed, seemed a bit frantic and pointless, but the single player was totally a blast. I feel incapable of judging the game since I hadn't really played another FPS since Unreal Tournament, and before that, Duke 3D - I just don't know the state of the art for this generation of work.

(Whereas with, say, Goldeneye, I felt very comfortable saying it was a godawful embarassment to the genre, since it was so evidently behind what was going on with PC FPSes at the time.)

BOOOOM !!! with the challop

The AI in GoldenEye was pretty good.

You mean like when you have to lead/protect the girl informant (or whatever) and she keeps getting stuck wandering into tree trunks and shit while you're getting shot to pieces?

I put AMFV very high, maybe number 2 in my list. It's incredibly well-written, and the non-linearity thing worked - the game-world is immersive, and the option of wandering around trying stupid things is perfectly balanced with a clear purpose. Also, no fucking goblins.

#81: Defender (1980)
http://www.labelmaker2600.com/images/Defender.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/A5200_Defender.png
Developer:Williams Electronics
Publisher:Williams Electronics
Original format:Arcade
Highest position:#30, Raw Patrick

That should be #1, Raw Patrick, obviously.

I first saw some kid playing Defender in the Winter Gardens at Blackpool, early 80s. Another one of those "this is the next level" moments. When the dude had finished his huge score, I leapt in. Lasted about 30 seconds, to my Dad's amusement. I'm slightly less shit at Defender now, but I still find it stupid hard. I had to give it a vote tho. For me, because it invented a bunch of things: radar, a new kind of movement round the screen. And because it's still really beautiful in its way, more so than other games of this vintage. And cos I wish I was that cool kid at Blackpool.

that's touching, man

Never had enough access to this one at the right time to get really into it - but I appreciate its freaked-out, fried neon aesthetic. Like, that laser beam in the screenshot is just cool. Yars Revenge for Atari had a similar kind of thing going on.

i had a PC clone of this called Stargate, pah

#80: River City Ransom (1989)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/River_City_Ransom-front.jpg
http://www.gamewad.com/gw_images/overlooked/rcr.jpg
Developer:Technos Japan Corporation
Publisher:Technos Japan Corporation
Original format:NES
Highest position:#6, TOMBOT

Defender had the courage to be HARD as FUCK and juggles it's few variables magnificently.

I'd kinda forgotten I put it no 1 tho'.

*barf*

!

i hope there aren't more shitty NES games that only tombot cares about in this poll

Obligatory comment on wipeout as i placed it highest... my favourite racing game ever. No arsing about with boring phsyics type stuff like traction so you don't need a diploma to play it, just a pure mindless adrenalin racing fix, with the added fun of a whole suite of weapons for wiping out (geddit) your opponents - or being wiped out of course. The computer opponents could be real fuckers and this game caused me to lose my shit more than any other, screaming obscenties at the TV. I'm told I could easily be heard from the street outside. I was 24 at the time.

With a pitch-perfect 90s lolectronica soundtrack and a neon future setting lovingly imagineered by the Designers' Republic it was a stylistic dream as well, waaaaay ahead of cheapo contenders like f-zero.

90s lolectronica soundtrack

this game got dug out of the cupboard a couple of weeks ago and yes, lol 90s

I placed River City Ransom at #10, so it's not just Tombot! Possibly the epitome of a 2D game of "middle" depth - it's not solely button-mashy action like your Double Dragons (which I love), nor is it as endlessly explorable as your Metroidvanias (which I love even more). You can basically beat it in an afternoon and it's hard to imagine this game taking over somebody's life...but it's also not really a pick-up-and-play game either. It's just a game that always, always delivers what it's supposed to - fun, SMOOTHly flowing action, a few surprisingly tough moments, and lots of stupid crap to save up for so that you can become an absolutely unkillable machine. If you liked throw turnips at people in SMB2, you haven't LIVED until you've thrown trash cans, crates, your partner, etc., at leaders of gangs with names like THE JOCKS, the COWBOYS, and the game's best contribution to my personal lexicon, the GENERIC DUDES. The one endlessly repeated theme is surprisingly elaborate, never gets old, and perfectly frames the jumpy, shiny, happy whompings you're dishing out - obviously the graphics are part of that too. The special moves are satisfying to perform, and somehow milk a lot out of the NES's percussion/noise track for nice soft hitty sounds.

Does anyone still make games like this? The Symphony of the Night genre isn't so far off, I guess...

(ps re wipeout, for more 90s lolectronica - albeit of a different lineage - see TETRISPHERE.)

also Lumines

#79: Ico (2001)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Box-l-jp.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/sabre2922/ICO%20PS2.jpg
Developer:Team Ico
Publisher:Sony Computer Entertainment
Original format:Playstation 2
Highest position:#7, abanana

^nerd bracket #2

Shadow of the Colossus better not place higher than that...

The reviews of this game were like 60% of my never-fulfilled desire for a PS2. (The rest was playing Dynasty Warriors 2 in my dorm lobby.) Never played it though.

wau, I feel like I am single-handedly responsible for KOTOR and EOTB2 making it onto this list! MY VOTE MATTERS

Actually, three of my games have made it onto the list so far (Diablo 2 being the other one) so I'm pretty well on track to represent the lolnerd hivemind.

#78: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/BGII_cover.png
http://www.deafgamers.com/bg22.jpg
Developer:BioWare
Publisher:Black Isle Studios
Original format:PC Windows
Highest position:#3, HI DERE

lol that closet sounds like my life

ok this should have placed higher for everyone