Top 10 Series: All-Time Video Games
Hello ladies and gentlemen,
Time for another installment of my Top Ten series. This time I thought I’d focus on video games. I’m a bit of a gamer so I feel like I can consider myself an authority in this field. However I’m not choosing my personal favorites entirely, I’m taking into considering various things. But I am not a fan of first-person shooters so don’t expect to see HALO or Doom on this list.
This list encompasses a number of gaming platforms from Arcade, to Atari, to PC, to the current Nintendo, X-box and Playstations.
Honorable mentions are:
I really enjoyed STAR WARS GALAXIES until Sony Online went and screwed up the game. It was a shame too. I literally spent hours and hours on that game creating a “life” and I enjoyed it so much. I met my future wife on this game and we both agree that it’s no longer a game for everyone, but a game for those who want to be Jedi and 10 year old’s. (Usually one in the same.)
One of the first video games I ever played was SPACE WARS and I played that awesome little game at the Montreal-Dorval (now the Montreal-Pierre Elliot Trudeau) International Airport with my sister. The ships looked like the wedge ship from Asteroids and the Enterprise from Star Trek. I do believe we both won a game or two, I don’t recall that much about it. I just remember the experience and it began my journey into gaming. The game also lead to the classic Asteroids.
Two other arcade games from my childhood deserve a little recognition. Q*BERT and FROGGER were favorites, though I wasn’t as big a fan as my sister was. She could play them for hours, especially Frogger. I was always a fan of the trick in which you moved up to the lily pad with a single continuous movement.
The awesome Jet fighter game to beat all other jet fighter games was particularly cool. I mean AFTERBURNER of course. It had the best design for an arcade unit, allowing you to sit inside and gyro with the planes. Set a new standard.
Finally I will give a little credit to HALO and DOOM for doing whatever they did to the First Person Shooter. I may not like them, but any game that helps to elevate the industry is fine by me.
Here we go, the list!
10. Splinter Cell (Ubisoft, 2002)
Tom Clancy put his name to this game and no one had to guess why. Stealth Action Redefined was how they promoted this game and yes they were right. The idea of a shooter game that didn’t really shoot was quite ingenious. Each subsequent game seemed to get better (though was never a fan of Chaos Theory) and like with a franchise, bugs and game issues are worked out so that you can enjoy the next experience.
But Splinter Cell is so important in that it helped to redesign the whole stealth genre which then had creators thinking in a new direction. The gameplay was interesting since going into a mission with guns blazing was how not to succeed. Myself I rather enjoy a game where it’s not about blasting away and killing everything that moves. It’s nice when someone thinks outside the box for a moment and when they do, usually a change in the system takes place. Splinter Cell may not have revolutionized the gaming industry, but some change was the result.
And a kudos goes to whomever hired actor Michael Ironside to assume the role of Sam Fisher.
09. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Atari Inc., 1982)
How does one put this game on their list? I tell you how. It was an awesome game of simple graphics but with such a mystery that kept me gripped for 3 years. I was literally playing this game for 3 years and this was long before the Internet and walkthroughs or hint guides so I was on my own and I can proudly state that I finished it on my own.
The meagre hints provided in the manual did little but show me where to start, but that’s how games should be I think. I have a lot of fond memories of this game and hearing the music as Indy moved up to the Ark Of The Covenant made me beem with pride. Most important I didn’t feel cheated that nothing else was the result, by beating this game I got my reward.
08. Space Invaders (Taito, 1978)
Space Invaders was one of the first games that really assumed a place in the history of video games. Myself I didn’t play it very much as I was not a fan. But you have to respect a game that caused a coin shortage due (in Japan) to the lack of Yen. In the United States, the pumping of coins into those machines had parents complaining that their children were being used, but a valuable life lesson was also being taught. No matter how hard they tried, the game could not be beat.
Pong may have been the first, but Space Invaders was the first arcade blockbuster and those who love their Tomb Raider or HALO or Final Fantasy owes a debt of thanks to Space Invaders.
07. Tomb Raider (Eidos Interactive, 1996)
Most people like the Tomb Raider series for Lara Croft, personally I could care less about the pixels of some guy’s fantasy woman. I prefer a good ol’ fashioned adventure game with puzzles and the occasional fight. That’s what the Tomb Raider series offers.
I suppose for horny teenagers the game is all about Lara Croft but in gaming history dear Lara is the equivalent to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. An action hero who is female, just as tough and just as popular as the boys. That’s what I like to see in gaming, evolution of heroes. We say that a woman can kick as much ass as the guys.
To be clear it’s just a series of pixels, but Lara is as real as any other video game character. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s less valid a creation. Considering that Tomb Raider’s debut created a 14 million dollar profit for Eidos, I think many agree with me.
06. Hitman (Eidos Interactive, 2000)
This entry is less a single game as it is an entire game series. To me there is no other game in the stealth genre that I love more than Hitman. I love the Hitman games, each and every title has never failed to disappoint me. In fact I think the Hitman series is the only franchise I play that always gets better with each new chapter. The idea of assassination as a goal always played on my dark side and I’ll admit that killing only the villains seemed annoying. But my moral compass (as small as it is) rather preferred it that way since killing bad guys makes you a hero.
The first game of course is the roughest with limited means to accomplish your goals and the Silent Assassin system not even a part of the game yet. However once the second game was made, and that ranking system came into play, it opened up new possibilities that to this day makes them still fun.
Beyond the game itself, the behind scenes work keeps me loyal. David Bateson in the role of 47 and his compatriot Diana as played by Vivienne McKee are as much a part of the series as is the design work. And of course Jesper Kyd and his wonderful music, my personal favorite score being Hitman: Contracts, makes playing just a little more fun. Put all these elements together and you have a series worth buying when the next installment comes out.
05. Dragon’s Lair (Cinematronics, 1983)
In 1983, famed animator Don Bluth released a video game that would help change things much like Space Invaders and Pac-Man did years before. That game was Dragon’s Lair.
The one thing about video games of that era was of course the restrictions of the bitmaps which limited artist’s ability to create images with great detail. But Dragon’s Lair was able to bypass those limitations with the use of the laserdisc system. It’s arrival created a sensation that to this day I still remember and reports state many of the game cabinets broke down by overuse.
I wasn’t a major fan of Dragon’s Lair, as I thought having to go through so many decisions in that game and remembering the moves so carefully was too hard. That and the price of 50 cents seemed a little steep. But now I know that the legacy of Dargon’s Lair is not merely the animation. The legacy of this game was a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at how games were made. With each advancement in the gaming industry there’s a game that inspired others to technically grow, or grabbed the attention of the industry with its success, or sparked creativity by creating something new.
Dragon’s Lair may be the one game that did all three.
04. Asteroids (Atari Inc., 1979)
Asteroids is a seminal game in the history of video games that few may know about. First it became Atari’s best seller of all time. Second, the demand for the game was so high that the game was shipped to arcades in different cabinets and arcade owners placed large boxes on the machine to accommodate the intake of quarters. Finally, one important factor of this game is that it was the first to include a high score ranking system, which I imagine only encouraged kids to stuff more quarters in the machine.
For me this is one game from the ancient times I could play and play well. I would play it in the arcades and when my parents finally relented on buying my sister and I an Atari 2600, I played it at home. I enjoy the simplicity of the game, firing on asteroids and breaking them up. Don’t think I ever made an issue of my score, since that was never important to me. Survival was the name of the game and I suppose that’s why I enjoy stealth games so much. Stealth is about surviving, not confrontation. Asteroids taught me that lesson and my gaming life is the better for it.
03. Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981)
One of those games that makes a few changes in the video game lexicon, Donkey Kong was developed by Nintendo in 1981 as a means to enter the U.S. market which had not proven friendly. The lead designer conceived of a paper thin plot, but introduced innovations such as cut scenes and multiple levels to enhance the gameplay. Nintendo gambled with this little game and it paid off, Donkey Kong would be a major success and helped to catapult them to the top of the market, which they have dominated for most of the 80’s and 90’s.
Myself I only played Donkey Kong sparingly since I wasn’t a fan, but I can appreciate the simplicity of the game play and the addictive qualities. Not unlike the Pac-Man phenomenon the year before, DK became a pop-culture icon and a favorite character to this day. DK was animated in the CBS Saturday Supercade, turned into plush toys, cereal and board games as well. The licensing of this character rivalled other video games and on the strength of the ape, Nintendo came out from near bankruptcy to a windfall of eventual billions. Thanks to DK the company Nintendo is also the oldest intact company of the video game era, a piece of history because of this game.
The most important change that Donkey Kong brought about is of course the introduction of Mario which in turn brought us…
02. Super Mario Brothers 3 (Nintendo, 1990)
I wasn’t a fan of the Super Mario Brothers series until my cousin Carol introduced me to chapter 3 and got me hooked. I just loved this game, expanding on the original parts with mini-games, fortresses, different unique worlds and those lovely airships. To us the game was not just a game, but a challenge to see if we can pass it and unlike when I played Raiders Of The Lost Ark eight years ago, we cheated.
The thing about Super Mario Brothers 3 is that it was really a 2 player game. We had our strengths and weaknesses, I could work within one world better than Carol and vice versa. I recall that Carol had mastered the ice world with an unmatched skill, myself I barely could get through it. Working together to play this game is what made it so fun. Case in point, we learned a trick to give us infinite lives and practiced and practiced until it was second hand. But we had to do it together, I might fail, but she’d learn from my mistake and succeed.
And having the levels tougher and tougher is also a nice feature. The final airship was so hard a level that normally we skipped it, but my cousin decided one day that she’s pass it without help and made an attempt. It took her about 50 lives, but eventually she did cross it and I applauded her efforts. But I’m pretty sure if not for the P-Wings, we’d never have finished this game, the first time we did. Super Mario Brothers 3 opened me up to a new style of game I always dismissed and for that it ranks number 2 on my list.
Now for the best game of all time…
01. Pac-Man (Bandai Namco, 1980)
The all-time champion has to be of course a certain little yellow dot muncher who picked up where Space Invaders left off becoming a pop culture phenomenon and a top seller in the arcade. The very thought of a video game usually leaves one with the thought of Pac-Man. The game also did what no other game had done before, crossed mediums and entered the merchandising world with numerous products like plush toys and breakfast cereal.
The idea behind the game is very simple, players move Pac-Man around the board gobbling up the dots while avoiding the ghosts. Up to that point video arcades had mostly space shooters or pong-like sport games and along came Pac-Man to open up the video gaming world to new possibilities and new game genres. It’s when a video game does this that the system continues to evolve.
With Pac-Man comes Donkey Kong, with Donkey Kong comes Super Mario Brothers, with Super Mario Brothers comes Tomb Raider with Tomb Raider comes Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell may inspire the next Doom. Pac-Man set the video gaming industry on a new course back in 1980 and we all owe the little guy a debt of thanks. Pac-Man is the champ!
And so there it is, the definitive list on the best video games of all time. Now stop being educated and go play a game or two.
I bid adieu,
your Origami reporter,
L.Manly
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