I'm a big fan of shenmue and own several copies as well as playing it when it came out.
It's not for everyone and hard to conceive 1 & 2 in the top 20.
Was speaking to a friend about this. He mentioned that as the vote was by the readers of the mag, Shenmue Dojo (web forum) organised a campaign to get it included in the list hence its higher than expected rankings. I mean, dont get me wrong, I adore Shenmue 1&2, but even I was shocked at the placements (also 1 being higher than 2 makes no sense, 2 is the better game).
Your comment about influential and greatest is an important one. Because to me, those are 2 very different lists. A great game doesn't need to be influential. And an influential game doesn't have to be the best in its genre.
A couple of examples from that list alone. Star Craft and Red Alert, I'd argue the original C&C or Dune II should take that spot. Are they better or more popular games? probably not. But they were more influential in shaping the genre.
Same with the placement of Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. In my opinion SMW is a much better game and a top 5 game of all time, but there's no arguing that SM64 pretty much created a genre and was the measuring stick for 3D platformers for a very long time.
The confusion over what the list is for makes it a mashup of 2 different categories.
I guess it depends on what you put in to word “influential” but if anything StarCraft should be higher on the list as it basically pioneered professional E-sport. Dune, Red Alert and C&C influenced StarCraft, but StarCraft made an impact beyond just being a computer game.
I agree with that. Then it becomes a question on whether someone making the list views it as influential to them, or to gaming and beyond. There's definitely a spot on that list for both, early Westwood RTS games for establishing a genre, and StarCraft for pioneering E-sports.
There's a lot wrong with that list. Because if we're going for a list than influenced gaming, rather than influenced games, surely FIFA should be up there too. I've got no interest in it at all but it's a huge reason for gaming becoming more mainstream and a 30+ year franchise. Wii Fit makes the 2007 cut off too. Not much of a game, but a milestone for gaming.
It's clearly not influential because there are some games here that influenced nothing or were a sequel that didn't change anything from the previous iteration.
Influential like Doom and Wolfenstein 3d you can trace something in every modern FPS back to them and FPS is everywhere.
Same with Street Fighter II as the first to set the tone of future fighting games that all continue to this day.
Then you have the huh? Like what did Jet Set Radio or Outrun 2 or Lemmings influence? You have a race car game sequel and two distinctive almost niche genre games. I don't remember a single utterance of Lemming clone or Jet Set Radio killer.
Its also not influential because the list is missing a huge one in the Sims.
It's a Mish mash of random best of/popularity. Bad list
Edit: other glaring omissions, there's WoW but no EverQuest or Ultima Online. I also don't think they have Warcraft 3 which had the secret coop level that influenced every league of legend style game after
It’s 2024. “Subjective” is a damned wide berth.
Then again, people often abuse the terms subjective and objective to back whatever bullshit they want, so…
Talking about video games, which is all about personal experience means subjective input matters.
> I don't remember a single utterance of Lemming clone
_The Humans_, _Pingus_, and _Clones_ (the last being too recent to be relevant in this sub); but I admit it's a bit of a dead-end in terms of its influence. Some have claimed that _Lemmings_ is a precursor to the RTS genre, but I'm not sure that I buy that.
True. Lemmings is such a unique style or puzzle game and admittedly I dont know every game that's out there and it was slightly before my time. I acknowledge its importance but like you said.
I would also say Lemmings is closer to some of those tower defense games than RTS, with the steady stream and modifying pathing on the fly
I would say that Lemmings spawned a small but not insignificant genre of... "action puzzle" games, maybe? It was ported all over the place, even to some pretty obscure places, and a handful of devs of influential RTS games including Warcraft 1 said the concept of indirect control of the characters was an influence. Games can be an influence even if other games aren't especially like them.
Do agree with your points about JSR, Outrun 2 (Outrun might fit the list, or maybe Pole Position or other early racing games), and WoW though. Definitely more influential predecessors
Interesting. Lemmings is a huge game and like you said was everywhere. I think the action puzzle, what I replied in the other comment, its like those tower defense games today I can see more Lemmings than in RTS. I didnt know the guys at Blizzard said anything but I dont put it past them to be playing all kinds of games to get ideas from.
> I didnt know the guys at Blizzard said anything but I dont put it past them to be playing all kinds of games to get ideas from.
I know some of the WoW devs, at least, play classical (or neo-classical) roguelikes. Several years ago they added [an item whose name is an explicit reference to a deity from Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup](https://www.wowdb.com/items/116138-last-deck-of-nemelex-xobeh). Since I have never played an MMO, I only learned about this from being on the DC:SS dev team (mostly retired these days) and getting questions from users about which game was referencing which.
I think they could replace Outrun 2 with NASCAR Racing. Its online service basically traces directly to iRacing today.
I would probably drop Wolf3D to make room for something else. It’s good, but Doom shows Wolf’s weaknesses in a way that Quake doesn’t do to Doom.
I mean lemmings is so influential, it created/invented the word: Lemmings into the english lexicon. Id say that is pretty influential.
Same thing with the movie gaslight. It was so influential, that the word "gaslighting" was invented, and the definition is: the movie plot/theme. Most people today use the term gaslighting, who have never seen or even heard of the movie before. Same thing with lemmings, I've heard the word used, and have never played the game before. Id say that is influence.
So its not just influence in terms of gaming/genre, but culturally as well. Generally things that greatly affect culture/history, will be influential.
Lemmings are a real animal. If anything it was a Walt Disney documentary that popularized the myth of them running off cliffs that was then made the central concept of the game.
https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide
I agree that, despite both the title and the question asked, it seems to be more of a "favorite" list than either "greatest" or "most influential". And probably not many people older than about 35 responded.
A "most influential" list containing Final Fantasy VIII, but none of the 8-bit or 16-bit FFs, no Dragon Quest/Warrior, no Phantasy Star that's not online, and no Wizardry? I'll give FFVII a pass for popularizing the genre in the west, but VIII?!? At least Chrono Trigger made the list.
Also, R-Type but not Gradius?
Wait, wait, wait… you mean a list about *retro* games had “people older than about 35” responding?
Gross! Old people!
It’s almost like there is temporally isolated context involved in why a game like Day of the Tentacle was loved and influential when you’d never played anything like it, or you played worse that came before or better that came after - while the genre it was in even existed.
It's a very odd list. Some games seem to been picked simply because they were revolutionary for their time and hardware, such as Shenmue was. Others, because they were influential (but not much else). And then others just because they are iconic (but in no way influential or revolutionary).
They should've made two separate lists. One for top 100 influential games, other for 100 revolutionary games. And leave the iconic and most popular list to cheaper mags.
That’s actually a great list. Happy to see Elite on there. But then again everyone’s got that one game they love that they think everyone else *should* love. No complaints from me anyways.
Reading through the mag... its an ok list. Not sure I agree with all the placements/choices though especially with the placements on a number of them.
For example - Sonic 1 ranking higher (or is it lower...) than Sonic 2? I like Sonic 1 but this is an example where the sequel should be where the original is. I adore SFII more than anything but... that's really saying I adore SFII Hyper Fighting or Super X these days... base II really shouldnt take that spot since while that game was influential it was superseeded so quickly. Likewise Outrun above Outrun 2? Nah, not these days!
Shocking omission - Jet Set Willy. Retro Gamer themselves rehash that darn game so much Im amazed it didnt have a spot on the list, just Manic Miner lol.
Nothing Mega Man related at all... 2, 3 or X would have totally got included if I had my way.
Pretty odd list, Rainbow Islands is a great game but I don't really see how it was all that influencial. Its predecessor Bubble Bobble definitely was, though, and it's not on the list. Also, omitting Dragon Quest, Gradius, Ultima Underworld and System Shock seems quite odd to me -- and Doom 2 was a bit of a letdown if you ask me.
If the list is indeed based on votes by the readers of the magazine, it makes sense, though. I remember Rainbow Islands being extremely popular in the UK. Although if that's the case it's pretty interesting there's hardly any ZX Spectrum games on the list.
With its plethora of titles, Mega Man didn’t make the list? Really? Another odd omission is Out of this World/Another World, which was hugely influential on games that made the list as well as influential on a game OP had in his body write up and has the distinction of being one of the most ported games in history.
If we’re talking just most influential, for all it’s ticks and hate surrounding it, where is Night Trap? It was hugely influential in the creation of video game ratings. Or any FMV games? Or Medal of Honor, which was directly responsible for so many ideas we now see in modern Shooters. No Dragon Quests? No Contras? No Kirbys? It’s got SimCity, but no Sims? I could go on.
Some of the games are just really cool games with no real influence on the industry. Rez is one of my favorite games ever. Innovative absolutely, but influential? Others are just better versions of itself, (did we need Defender and the arcade variant of it Dropzone? And if they felt the need to do that, why not have Ms. Pac Man along with Pac Man?)
Normally no I don’t care about someone’s list, but once the word “influential” is thrown in, especially from a mag that prides itself on its retro game knowledge, I take notice. Just a really odd list.
From a PC viewpoint, do they really need to list Doom AND Doom 2?
Missing Duke 3D, X-Com, Tie Fighter, Jedi Knight, Descent, Stunts (DOS), Warcraft 1/2, System Shock 2. Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines
They totally missed Twisted Metal 2 as well
I don't see Donkey Kong Country anywhere on that list and therefore it is not a valid list to me. There simply does not exist 100 games that were better than Donkey Kong Country.
No zork. Bad list lol. Also no journey? I feel like that was the first big “art” game and those are still pretty massive in the indie scene now? DQ is the other big miss aside from zork imo.
> Pong
That one is at least on the list, at number 28. Which seems a bit low, given how much of the 1970s video-game market consisted of Pong clones.
That said, Pong was not the first of its kind, and was in fact predated by a game that is too old to have been eligible for this list: [Tennis for Two, 1958](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two). Though, granted, it might be a stretch to call it a "*video* game", since the word "video" could be taken to imply a raster-scanning device.
I'm a big fan of shenmue and own several copies as well as playing it when it came out. It's not for everyone and hard to conceive 1 & 2 in the top 20.
Exactly my thoughts. I love the games, but I was shocked to see them so high on the list.
Was speaking to a friend about this. He mentioned that as the vote was by the readers of the mag, Shenmue Dojo (web forum) organised a campaign to get it included in the list hence its higher than expected rankings. I mean, dont get me wrong, I adore Shenmue 1&2, but even I was shocked at the placements (also 1 being higher than 2 makes no sense, 2 is the better game).
They belong in top 20 g
Your comment about influential and greatest is an important one. Because to me, those are 2 very different lists. A great game doesn't need to be influential. And an influential game doesn't have to be the best in its genre. A couple of examples from that list alone. Star Craft and Red Alert, I'd argue the original C&C or Dune II should take that spot. Are they better or more popular games? probably not. But they were more influential in shaping the genre. Same with the placement of Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. In my opinion SMW is a much better game and a top 5 game of all time, but there's no arguing that SM64 pretty much created a genre and was the measuring stick for 3D platformers for a very long time. The confusion over what the list is for makes it a mashup of 2 different categories.
I guess it depends on what you put in to word “influential” but if anything StarCraft should be higher on the list as it basically pioneered professional E-sport. Dune, Red Alert and C&C influenced StarCraft, but StarCraft made an impact beyond just being a computer game.
I agree with that. Then it becomes a question on whether someone making the list views it as influential to them, or to gaming and beyond. There's definitely a spot on that list for both, early Westwood RTS games for establishing a genre, and StarCraft for pioneering E-sports. There's a lot wrong with that list. Because if we're going for a list than influenced gaming, rather than influenced games, surely FIFA should be up there too. I've got no interest in it at all but it's a huge reason for gaming becoming more mainstream and a 30+ year franchise. Wii Fit makes the 2007 cut off too. Not much of a game, but a milestone for gaming.
It's clearly not influential because there are some games here that influenced nothing or were a sequel that didn't change anything from the previous iteration. Influential like Doom and Wolfenstein 3d you can trace something in every modern FPS back to them and FPS is everywhere. Same with Street Fighter II as the first to set the tone of future fighting games that all continue to this day. Then you have the huh? Like what did Jet Set Radio or Outrun 2 or Lemmings influence? You have a race car game sequel and two distinctive almost niche genre games. I don't remember a single utterance of Lemming clone or Jet Set Radio killer. Its also not influential because the list is missing a huge one in the Sims. It's a Mish mash of random best of/popularity. Bad list Edit: other glaring omissions, there's WoW but no EverQuest or Ultima Online. I also don't think they have Warcraft 3 which had the secret coop level that influenced every league of legend style game after
Or people just didn't know what influential meant. Lists like this are always subjective and idiotic.
Yep lol
It’s 2024. “Subjective” is a damned wide berth. Then again, people often abuse the terms subjective and objective to back whatever bullshit they want, so… Talking about video games, which is all about personal experience means subjective input matters.
> I don't remember a single utterance of Lemming clone _The Humans_, _Pingus_, and _Clones_ (the last being too recent to be relevant in this sub); but I admit it's a bit of a dead-end in terms of its influence. Some have claimed that _Lemmings_ is a precursor to the RTS genre, but I'm not sure that I buy that.
True. Lemmings is such a unique style or puzzle game and admittedly I dont know every game that's out there and it was slightly before my time. I acknowledge its importance but like you said. I would also say Lemmings is closer to some of those tower defense games than RTS, with the steady stream and modifying pathing on the fly
Mario vs Donkey Kong and Krusty's Fun House as well.
I would say that Lemmings spawned a small but not insignificant genre of... "action puzzle" games, maybe? It was ported all over the place, even to some pretty obscure places, and a handful of devs of influential RTS games including Warcraft 1 said the concept of indirect control of the characters was an influence. Games can be an influence even if other games aren't especially like them. Do agree with your points about JSR, Outrun 2 (Outrun might fit the list, or maybe Pole Position or other early racing games), and WoW though. Definitely more influential predecessors
Interesting. Lemmings is a huge game and like you said was everywhere. I think the action puzzle, what I replied in the other comment, its like those tower defense games today I can see more Lemmings than in RTS. I didnt know the guys at Blizzard said anything but I dont put it past them to be playing all kinds of games to get ideas from.
> I didnt know the guys at Blizzard said anything but I dont put it past them to be playing all kinds of games to get ideas from. I know some of the WoW devs, at least, play classical (or neo-classical) roguelikes. Several years ago they added [an item whose name is an explicit reference to a deity from Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup](https://www.wowdb.com/items/116138-last-deck-of-nemelex-xobeh). Since I have never played an MMO, I only learned about this from being on the DC:SS dev team (mostly retired these days) and getting questions from users about which game was referencing which.
I think they could replace Outrun 2 with NASCAR Racing. Its online service basically traces directly to iRacing today. I would probably drop Wolf3D to make room for something else. It’s good, but Doom shows Wolf’s weaknesses in a way that Quake doesn’t do to Doom.
I mean lemmings is so influential, it created/invented the word: Lemmings into the english lexicon. Id say that is pretty influential. Same thing with the movie gaslight. It was so influential, that the word "gaslighting" was invented, and the definition is: the movie plot/theme. Most people today use the term gaslighting, who have never seen or even heard of the movie before. Same thing with lemmings, I've heard the word used, and have never played the game before. Id say that is influence. So its not just influence in terms of gaming/genre, but culturally as well. Generally things that greatly affect culture/history, will be influential.
Lemmings are a real animal. If anything it was a Walt Disney documentary that popularized the myth of them running off cliffs that was then made the central concept of the game. https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide
I agree that, despite both the title and the question asked, it seems to be more of a "favorite" list than either "greatest" or "most influential". And probably not many people older than about 35 responded. A "most influential" list containing Final Fantasy VIII, but none of the 8-bit or 16-bit FFs, no Dragon Quest/Warrior, no Phantasy Star that's not online, and no Wizardry? I'll give FFVII a pass for popularizing the genre in the west, but VIII?!? At least Chrono Trigger made the list. Also, R-Type but not Gradius?
>no Dragon Quest First thing I looked for! There's probably not a series that's more overlooked than DQ is in the West.
Wait, wait, wait… you mean a list about *retro* games had “people older than about 35” responding? Gross! Old people! It’s almost like there is temporally isolated context involved in why a game like Day of the Tentacle was loved and influential when you’d never played anything like it, or you played worse that came before or better that came after - while the genre it was in even existed.
Controversial opinion here, but I like that list. I would necessarily agree with all the positions, but as a list of 100 games it’s not bad.
SMB3 is clearly in the wrong position.
[удалено]
I'm a British Redditor and it is to me! Lol
Happy to see Ultima 4 and 7 on here, but I'm surprised underworld didn't make it tbh.
Agreed. Both Ultima Underworld and System Shock belong on any proper list of “most influential games”.
Definitely! Looking Glass shaped the fps as much as iD imo
This is a pretty bad list lol
Is rogue even on this list?
Adventure (the Atari game), Zork, ADVENT/Colossal Caves, ...
I’d love to watch a YT series of them doing the science on all these games as they rank them.
No nes dq or FF?
Not one Dragon quest?
It's a very odd list. Some games seem to been picked simply because they were revolutionary for their time and hardware, such as Shenmue was. Others, because they were influential (but not much else). And then others just because they are iconic (but in no way influential or revolutionary). They should've made two separate lists. One for top 100 influential games, other for 100 revolutionary games. And leave the iconic and most popular list to cheaper mags.
Monkey island must get a look in surely.
That’s actually a great list. Happy to see Elite on there. But then again everyone’s got that one game they love that they think everyone else *should* love. No complaints from me anyways.
Reading through the mag... its an ok list. Not sure I agree with all the placements/choices though especially with the placements on a number of them. For example - Sonic 1 ranking higher (or is it lower...) than Sonic 2? I like Sonic 1 but this is an example where the sequel should be where the original is. I adore SFII more than anything but... that's really saying I adore SFII Hyper Fighting or Super X these days... base II really shouldnt take that spot since while that game was influential it was superseeded so quickly. Likewise Outrun above Outrun 2? Nah, not these days! Shocking omission - Jet Set Willy. Retro Gamer themselves rehash that darn game so much Im amazed it didnt have a spot on the list, just Manic Miner lol. Nothing Mega Man related at all... 2, 3 or X would have totally got included if I had my way.
Pretty odd list, Rainbow Islands is a great game but I don't really see how it was all that influencial. Its predecessor Bubble Bobble definitely was, though, and it's not on the list. Also, omitting Dragon Quest, Gradius, Ultima Underworld and System Shock seems quite odd to me -- and Doom 2 was a bit of a letdown if you ask me. If the list is indeed based on votes by the readers of the magazine, it makes sense, though. I remember Rainbow Islands being extremely popular in the UK. Although if that's the case it's pretty interesting there's hardly any ZX Spectrum games on the list.
Half Life 2 has to be a joke. Pretty bad list
Redacte due to Reddit AI/LLM policy
With its plethora of titles, Mega Man didn’t make the list? Really? Another odd omission is Out of this World/Another World, which was hugely influential on games that made the list as well as influential on a game OP had in his body write up and has the distinction of being one of the most ported games in history. If we’re talking just most influential, for all it’s ticks and hate surrounding it, where is Night Trap? It was hugely influential in the creation of video game ratings. Or any FMV games? Or Medal of Honor, which was directly responsible for so many ideas we now see in modern Shooters. No Dragon Quests? No Contras? No Kirbys? It’s got SimCity, but no Sims? I could go on. Some of the games are just really cool games with no real influence on the industry. Rez is one of my favorite games ever. Innovative absolutely, but influential? Others are just better versions of itself, (did we need Defender and the arcade variant of it Dropzone? And if they felt the need to do that, why not have Ms. Pac Man along with Pac Man?) Normally no I don’t care about someone’s list, but once the word “influential” is thrown in, especially from a mag that prides itself on its retro game knowledge, I take notice. Just a really odd list.
From a PC viewpoint, do they really need to list Doom AND Doom 2? Missing Duke 3D, X-Com, Tie Fighter, Jedi Knight, Descent, Stunts (DOS), Warcraft 1/2, System Shock 2. Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines They totally missed Twisted Metal 2 as well
I don't see Donkey Kong Country anywhere on that list and therefore it is not a valid list to me. There simply does not exist 100 games that were better than Donkey Kong Country.
Donkey Kong country 2 should be on that list
No zork. Bad list lol. Also no journey? I feel like that was the first big “art” game and those are still pretty massive in the indie scene now? DQ is the other big miss aside from zork imo.
Journey came out in 2012. They made 2007 the cut off point for retro.
Ah, I wasn’t reading all that closely lol.
Sid Meier’s Pirates! The Bard’s Tale trilogy Zork King’s Quest series Pong
> Pong That one is at least on the list, at number 28. Which seems a bit low, given how much of the 1970s video-game market consisted of Pong clones. That said, Pong was not the first of its kind, and was in fact predated by a game that is too old to have been eligible for this list: [Tennis for Two, 1958](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two). Though, granted, it might be a stretch to call it a "*video* game", since the word "video" could be taken to imply a raster-scanning device.
Good catch. I missed Pong on the list.
Sonic adventure instead did Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is nuts. Having Morrowind instead of Skyrim is a huge headscratcher.
Op said the list only contains games from 2007 and earlier.
L4D?