100 most influential games site idea...

Since this would be a collaborative project, not only would several members suggest titles but all involved would also have a hand in deciding what makes the final cut. The method I'm thinking of right now is a simple 1-10 vote from everybody. The only downside to this method is that it would work against the more obscure titles.
 
Reply to: spudlyff8fan:

Not everybody has the same definition of important/influential though. Let's say...Tomb Raider. Many would say it's important/influential because is was the first game which pushed sexuality in a game, and arguably set things up for the Dead or Alives, or the like. Another I would say would be influential would be Halo. It wasn't particularly influential...but it DID single-handedly put the Xbox on the map, which makes it important. But for my obscure title, I'll say...Otogi: Myth of Demons. I personally thought it was one of the best playing games on Xbox...EGM agrees with me, GameInformer and the reviewer at mygamer (it used to have a 7.8...what happened) don't. I'd say it was important because it was one of the first Xbox RPGs, and also was influential because since its release, more and more RPG aspects are being incorporated into action titles, and more action elements are being incorporated into RPGs. I'm sure people here will disagree with at least some of my choices. So how would we deal with that?
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I think you've justified your reasons for saying that all of those were influential. Now, once we have a nice long list of games with justifications, we as a staff will go through them and decide which deserve to be on the list. This is the process one has to go through in order to produce anything that deals with rankings. It's also the process we have to go through to create anything with value.

I think we're making this a bit more difficult that it needs to be. Write up your drafts on the few games that you think are influential and why. Once we have a nice big pile, we can sift through them in order to create the best possible list. It can't be all-inclusive and we wouldn't want it to be--the point of writing anything is to express an opinon or make a statement of some sort--and we wouldn't want to compromise this goal. If there are any games that are on the border, some might not get on the list. Some might not agree with our decisions. Good. This is the beauty of critical thinking--we justify our choices and let people disagree if they want. Plus, a game doesn't have to be a great game, per se, to be influential. This is an important distinction.

And although thinking and talking about it is helpful and justifiable, the only way that we can begin to address the actual issues that this project might present is after we write something. So let's get writing. The beautiful thing about word processors is that we can revise/edit/delete so easily. We don't have to get it right the first time.
 
Bennett, I think the voting idea is a good one. In the print journal industry, anytime there was a poem or work of fiction that the staff didn't like, but was a favorite of one or two people, they "campaigned" for it. They were allowed to state their reasons for including the piece to the rest of the staff. This works well, because it gives those outside-of-the-mainstream works of art a bit more representation than they might normally get.
 
Okay, I think a combination of rough drafts/voting is a good idea. Everyone writes a couple of sentences about game sthey want to nominate, they are collected and all collaborators review them and vote on them. How does that sound? Or should there be a smaller number of voters, perhaps those who are not writing for the project?

I would also like to do "important" games rather than "influential". That leaves it a bit more open to interpretation.

I would also be happy to write the article introduction, one or two paragraphs to introduce the concept.
 
Where are we in this project? Do we even know how we are going to go about this? Do we know who's contributing to it? I know I want to -- it's my top ten baby, just all grown up.

I think we should get a list of who is going to contribute to this right now; I'm in, that's for sure. Who else?
 
Reply to: spudlyff8fan:

Ehh, there probably would've been, just in more renowned games....with better eggs. The thing is Adventure's easter egg wasn't the kind of idea other developers would've gone "Aww! Why didn't I think of that?!?" like other games were just because it was that obscure. Plus, most people usually just put their names in the credits....or if you are arrogant like Tom Clancy or Hideo Kojima, you'll just slap it on the box......show offs.
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This game may not be well-known in modern gaming circles, but it's one of the Atari 2600's more famous and enduring titles. I wouldn't call it one of the Top 10 most important games for the Easter Egg thing, but it has other merits. The template for the game is almost a direct ancestor to The Legend of Zelda, although I'd definitely rank a couple of Zelda games higher than it in the list. Adventure is definitely not a shoo-in for a Top 100 Influential list, but it can't be dismissed outright.

On an interesting note, for me at least, the game title 'Adventure' has a different meaning between console and computer audiences. For the computer, it was an alternate title for the first text-based adventure, Colossal Caves, which also deserves consideration for the list (although it was Zork which basically defined the genre.)
 
Reply to: spudlyff8fan:

Not everybody has the same definition of important/influential though. Let's say...Tomb Raider. Many would say it's important/influential because is was the first game which pushed sexuality in a game, and arguably set things up for the Dead or Alives, or the like. Another I would say would be influential would be Halo. It wasn't particularly influential...but it DID single-handedly put the Xbox on the map, which makes it important. But for my obscure title, I'll say...Otogi: Myth of Demons. I personally thought it was one of the best playing games on Xbox...EGM agrees with me, GameInformer and the reviewer at mygamer (it used to have a 7.8...what happened) don't. I'd say it was important because it was one of the first Xbox RPGs, and also was influential because since its release, more and more RPG aspects are being incorporated into action titles, and more action elements are being incorporated into RPGs. I'm sure people here will disagree with at least some of my choices. So how would we deal with that?
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I completely agree about Halo, even though it wouldn't be nearly as high as other FPS titles like DOOM, Quake or Half-Life.

Tomb Raider has to be on the list, but not for the sexuality reasons - there were many games before that used sexuality, such as the early-to-mid-90s "interactive movies" like Night Trap and Voyeur. Rather, the puzzle and exploration-style gameplay was a huge influence on stuff like Soul Reaver and more recently, Prince of Persia (the original PoP was ironically a huge influence on Tomb Raider to begin with.)

I'm not really convinced about Otogi. The Xbox still struggles to get RPGs, so it's certianly not an influence in that respect (and I'm not sure it's really an RPG to begin with, any more so than God of War or Devil May Cry 3.) I can recall action games including RPG elements since the days of System Shock and Strife in the mid-90s, and especially notably Deus Ex at the turn of the century.
 
Nah, Tomb Raider is important because it successfully incorporated it, not based it on it. There were games like Giggalo and Blow Job (yes, really) back on the Atari which based the whole game upon blocky intimacy, and there were the ones in the mid-90s. But Tomb Raider was the first to really pull it off, and still be a GAME, not just an 'interactive movie'. It still would've offered the same gameplay and such if it were a male lead, but it wouldn't have been as widely known, and it definitely wouldn't have as much of a following. You can see its effect on other games too. Look at Dead or Alive before and now. Same with Final Fantasy. The puzzle things weren't as important though.

For Halo, that's what I mean about disagreeing. Sure, it wasn't particularly influential to the genre, the only really influential FPSs were Doom, Quake, maybe Wolfenstein and Goldeneye (mainly for its multiplayer). But it was incredibly influential because it is what made the Xbox a viable console.

Otogi isn't really influential, it was just an example. It is considered an RPG by most sites, just because it has in--depth stats and weapons. But I don't think the mission-by-mission thing makes it an RPG.
 
Goddamn, sackville! You're a nerd and I bow to your gaming knowledge. I am humbled. Not really but wow you sure know a lot more than I do.
 
Reply to: Yoggs:

Goddamn, sackville! You're a nerd and I bow to your gaming knowledge. I am humbled. Not really but wow you sure know a lot more than I do.
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Heh. Well, thanks for the backhanded compliment.

On a more general note, there needs to be a "pot calling the kettle black" emoticon whever the term "nerd" is used in a gaming forum. :)
 
Reply to: spudlyff8fan:

Nah, Tomb Raider is important because it successfully incorporated it, not based it on it. There were games like Giggalo and Blow Job (yes, really) back on the Atari which based the whole game upon blocky intimacy, and there were the ones in the mid-90s. But Tomb Raider was the first to really pull it off, and still be a GAME, not just an 'interactive movie'. It still would've offered the same gameplay and such if it were a male lead, but it wouldn't have been as widely known, and it definitely wouldn't have as much of a following. You can see its effect on other games too. Look at Dead or Alive before and now. Same with Final Fantasy. The puzzle things weren't as important though.
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I have a better idea of what you're talking about, and I agree with a lot more of it than I did before. It certainly did open the floodgates to hypersexed videogame chicks.

One thing I'm wondering is that Lara Croft was in fact the first titular, no pun intended, female character to reach blockbuster status. The earlier female player characters I'm coming up with are from either fighting games or Sierra adventures.
 
She was really the first prominent strong female lead. That's what made the game so different. Yeah, she was oversexualized like every woman in a video game, but instead of just being tits on an ass, she had a strong and willful personality and could mix it up with the boys. It's questionable wether we would have all the female leads we have today like Bloodrayne without Lara Croft. I remember right around when Tomb Raider 2 came out, my mom was taking a feminisim course and she did her final project on Lara Croft, even with some game footage I recorded on VHS for her.
 
I doubt she'd be particularly popular with the female gamers, just because she was the first sex-based female character. Not that there are a wide range of females in game who are made to be ugly except for like...Macha in Chrono Cross.....but the whole sexuality in games thing is another issue. Let's stick with 100 top games discussion.

But what about the Bouncer on PS2? It was influential in how it was the first game which really showed off how much better the PS2 was in the graphics department. It was also one of the first big current-gen letdowns.
 
From my experience, women gamers specifically and women in generla seemed to like Lara even though she was overly sexualized. The fact that she had a strong role and did everything the "boys" do earned a lot of respect, and it seemed like lost of women could look past the sexual themes because of it. That's why the topic is so interesting.

In terms of influential games, I'm personally looking for games that featured some element, whether gameplay, design, or concept, that was new or revolutionary at the time and was later seen in other games. being successful helps. Being the first game to do something isn't necessarily a requisite, but being the first game to do something well enough to be emulated by others is... Street Fighter 2 wasn't the first fighting game, but it's certainly one of the most influential.
 
Still, if I were a female, I'd probably be more of a fan of the non-sex based female leads...there aren't oo many though. Chris from Suikoden 3, Chun Li in Street Fighter....and so on.
 
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