The 10 Most Important Games Ever

The New York Times reports that according to a panel of “experts”, which included 2 game designers, an “academic researcher” and a “game journalist”, the 10 most important games ever made are as follows: Spacewar! (1962), Star Raiders (1979), Zork (1980), Tetris (1985), SimCity (1989), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990), Civilization I/II (1991), Doom (1993), Warcraft series (beginning 1994) and Sensible World of Soccer (1994).

There are probably dozens of other games that could’ve gone into this list, but I’ll focus on a few that, to me anyway, seem like odd choices.

I’ll leave Spacewar and Star Raiders alone, as I don’t have much experience with them (although Spacewar does make sense, as it was one of the first video games created). Zork, while debatable, is at least reasonable, as it was one of the first hit adventure titles. Tetris and SimCity, also solid choices, as Tetris is obviously still revered and updated today, and SimCity basically introduced one of the first Simulation games, as well as introducing a game with mass appeal that also didn’t really have a final “goal” or “boss” to defeat.

Then we get to Super Mario Bros. 3. While Super Mario Bros. 3 is an amazing game, and I would certainly rank it as one of the best games ever made, what the hell happened to Super Mario Bros. 1? Isn’t Super Mario Bros. 1 really the game that showed what a “platformer” was? Isn’t Super Mario Bros. 3 really just an updated and refined version of Super Mario Bros 1? Hell, doesn’t every platformer ever made owe a debt to the original Super Mario Bros? That seems, to me, to be the more “important” of the games. And while I’m at it, as long as they were “cheating” with the list and putting in “series” of games (like Civ 1/2, and the Warcraft “series”), wouldn’t it have made sense to say the “Mario Series”, considering not only the groundbreaking original, but then they would include Mario 3, as well as the groundbreaking Mario 64?

Moving on, Civ 1 and 2, while I could never get into them for whatever reason, are completely understandable choices (although for a list about “most important” games, if we’re going to try and not cheat, why not just list Civ 1?)

Doom was not the first first-person shooter, but it probably was the first one that really took off and showed what could really be done in an FPS. It was also probably one of the most violent games to come out at the time, leading the way for more “mature” content.

And then the Warcraft “series.” It’s hard to really tell why they had to incorporate the entire “series” into their list, but perhaps it’s because World of Warcraft is such a worldwide phenomenon and the original Warcraft was one of the key Real-Time Strategy games to ever come out. The problem is, they are 2 completely different kinds of games, and the original Warcraft wasn’t even the first Real-Time Strategy game. The RTS game that essentially introduced all the elements of the modern Real-Time Strategy game was Westwood Studios Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (according to Wikipedia, the first RTS game was Stonkers, a game I’ve never heard of). Perhaps, as far as how “influential” the game is, Dune II belongs on the list as WELL as World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the success of World of Warcraft seems to have retroactively caused people to lump the original Warcraft game as something that was so influential it created World of Warcraft today, but this seems to be a bit revisionist to me.

Finally, Sensible World of Soccer? Perhaps this is as a result of my American ethnocentrism, but I’d never even heard of this game until today (and unlike Spacewar and Star Raiders, I was alive and certainly playing games by this time). Does this really deserve a place on the list over probably the dozens of other games that we could probably list out?

What does everyone else thing? What would go on your list?