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http://games.ign.com/articles/840/840621p1.html
Top 10
Space Invaders
Ultima
Karate Champ
Tetris
Super Mario Bros.
Wolfenstein 3D
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
Super Mario 64
Half-Life
Grand Theft Auto III
Runners Up
Prince of Persia
Dragon Warrior
Alone in the Dark
SimCity
Wizardry
Doom
Pong
That's right, kids. Street Fighter II didn't even make the runners up list. I can't wait for MarkRyan's explanation of this mess.
yeah i saw this yesterday. i can't understand how GTA3 is "influential". and two FPS on the list?
Is the power about to be shut off over there or something? Is IGN having trouble paying its bills with actual articles?
Pac-Man and SF2 definitely should be there. Karate Champ, I knew that game sucked when it was new.
GTA3 Is influential it was the target and the primary spark of the Video games are corrupting our children, while Mortal Kombat did that pretty well, GTA has been much more influential in that respect.
Night Trap?Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
Their recent top 100 was pretty much an "influential" list. Why do we need another one to list almost the same mainstream stuff?
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again?
I don't know how to feel about IGN. They reword their writer's own articles, they inflate scores, they put out lists that say one thing while all the writer and the main point of it is something entirely different, then release the same list except under a different name and supposedly different criteria even though the previous list was clearly the same. They'll sell out their pages to the highest bidder, I mean besides insider looks at shit, basically when they wave their big financial cock around to get exclusive looks, are they worth anything?
Even if I disagree with Mark Ryan a lot I do like reading his reviews and I like him, and I"m sure if I met most the writers at IGN they're probably decently cool, except for the one that flipped out at Gabe from PA for his saying that reviewers for Assassin's creed didn't really deserve to have much merit (Unless that was Mark Ryan as he DID do an Assassin's creed review :P). So in the end It's just the suits probably corrupting their media.
Yes you do. They suck ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
Ok Again I will quote myself and say. BEST OF LISTS AND INFLUENTIAL LISTS DON'T MEAN SHIT WHEN YOU DON'T DEFINE YOUR FUCKING PARAMETERS!
This list feels like "First game of each Genre that one guy heard of"
IGN writers can't even spell parameters.Quote:
Originally Posted by youandwhosearmy
"I didn't make the list" is my explanation. My guess is they figured Karate Champ has that genre covered, which I don't really agree with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
I hate GTA3 but I'll admit it's a very influential game. Both influential in the success of PS2 and in the direction a lot of games took. There are numerous outright clones of GTA (Simpsons Hit and Run, Scarface, True Crime), and other games adopted very GTA-inspired elements, from established franchises like Driver and Spider-Man to new games such as Assassin's Creed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dyne
The list is pretty different I think. Besides, mainstream stuff is bound to actually be the influential stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
Wha?Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
No more than other publications.Quote:
they inflate scores
That's how advertising works.Quote:
They'll sell out their pages to the highest bidder
I've never seen this thing, sounds epic.Quote:
basically when they wave their big financial cock around
:wtf:Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
if that's the stipulations than a shit ton of games downright copied SF2, not Karate Champ.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
I know mainstream stuff is bound to be included on a purely influential list which is why I rarely complain about the picks on them. However, the top 100 factored in influence/popularity pretty heavily it seems and included most of these games already which is why it's kind of stupid to do an influential list so soon afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
I don't remember the industry going "Oh shit, Karate Champ is the balls, everybody make Karate Champ clones!" I do remember the industry going "Oh shit, Street Fighter 2 is the balls, everybody make Street Fighter 2 clones!"
I think Karate Champ did have a lot of influence. Games like Way of the Exploding Fist and International Karate were quite big on computers, especially in Europe. SF2 certainly had more imitators, though.
That same logic applies with Wolfenstein 3D over Doom. The bottom line here is that it doesn't matter what parameters or logic were used, because IGN's collective industry knowledge is so limited that they cannot possibly get it right, no matter what rules they play by.
This goes back to a review written by Frog where they basically altered and added in some paragraphs, as well as made I think it was the ending give off a completely different message.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
I'm not trying to just put IGN on the cross here, it is all of them, but IGN is the one I regard as the biggest and the trend setter in the crowd.Quote:
No more than other publications.
Doesn't make it any less shit. I mean it's ok to have Ads I understand that but things like the cover the whole site in McDonalds leaves a bad taste in my mouth.[/quote]Quote:
That's how advertising works.
Well IGN gets previews some companies don't because they're bigger, more influence, bigger financial penis.Quote:
I've never seen this thing, sounds epic.
but a giant financial penis does sound epic.
Wolfenstein over Doom was the correct choice. As soon as Wolfenstein came out the industry exploded with clones. Doom was merely a logical evolution and by the time it came out, just a year after Wolf, Wolf clones were already a genre.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Half Life has no fucking business on this list. Period. And I love Half Life as much as the next guy, but it was really just a matter of presentation.Well editing and rewrites are common practice and if I were to make a generalization I'd say IGN doesn't edit enough. It's not the fact that they did it that bothered me so much as the edits themselves being in poor taste.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
Fair enough, I mean they were certainly very different edits too, aimed at completely changing how your review sounded for the game. I mean editing is fine, as long as you keep the tone the writer was going for, I always thought that was a key rule in editing.
People have been talking about how revolutionary and influential Half Life was since the day it came out and I just don't see it either. I loved the game but I don't really see how it was a major industry influence. It was an FPS with a more cinematic presentation than any FPS before it; the entire industry was already moving towards more cinematic games in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
An influential games list without Street Fighter 2. Let that sink in for a moment everybody. It's a list of the most influential games. The game that defined our generation is not on it.
Part of an editor's job is to edit copy, especially stuff that comes in from freelance. I didn't play the game Frog reviewed so I can't at all say that the edits were logical or not, but my understanding is that Frog's original text was published in full for the PC version of the game and edited for the 360 version, which the channel editors feel is considerably worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
This I can't agree with. Ads are how free publications (and cheap mag subscriptions) survive. Selling ad space, even in the ugly cases of McGriddles, is fine by me as long as it doesn't influence editorial (and it doesn't).Quote:
Doesn't make it any less shit. I mean it's ok to have Ads I understand that but things like the cover the whole site in McDonalds leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It doesn't have anything to do with a financial penis, just having more readers. I don't think you can expect it to be any different.Quote:
Well IGN gets previews some companies don't because they're bigger, more influence, bigger financial penis.
We agree here.Quote:
but a giant financial penis does sound epic.
I think the lists are pretty different in both scope and make-up, though I wouldn't disagree that the timing is odd.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
I am not real familiar with PC-originated genres to begin with, but didn't Half-Life sort of popularize the notion of doing more than just shooting with a first person shooter? It worked puzzles, platforming and story telling into the genre in a way that's still mimicked (in almost every FPS) today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
I just dare to dream of unbiased media.
Yeah, it was the tone of it that bugged me not the principle. It took a "fuck this game and fuck anyone who likes it" attitude for a game that does have a following. Reviews aren't to tell people not to like things that they do like.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
That was my complaint, not the fact that they edited it. They just weren't respectful to the tone of the review, nor to the readers. I don't like when reviews sound like they have more of a right to their opinion than the readers, and I like it less when my name is attached to it.
Duke Nukem 3D had plenty of platforming and puzzles in it. That was nothing new. Unreal also had those elements going plus a seamless world and a story. Quake 2 kind of had the seamless world going as well, but it still felt like levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
Half Life didn't really do anything new, it just did it better and with an immersive presentation. I don't know that there are any "Half Life clones" out there, so I wouldn't call it especially influential at all.
This influential list seems to be a little schizophrenic. Half the games seem to be the first of the genre and half seem to be the popular breakout title of the genre. There are also some important genres entirely absent. Do Half-Life and Wolfenstein 3D both need to be on there when there are no simulation games listed?
Karate Champ was basically the first fighter (excepting stuff like Warrior) while Street Fighter 2 was what every game since then has used as a template.
Similarly, the original Grand Theft Auto was earlier and did most of the things that GTA3 did. Elite could arguably be a sandbox title as well. I defended the importance of GTA3 in the thread about GTA4, but that all depends on how you approach importance - first or most widely referenced?
If by first, here's my list:
- Spacewar!
- Colossal Cave
- Baseball
- Dungeon
- Space Invaders
- Battlezone
- Space Panic
- Utopia
- Karate Champ
- Alpha Waves
If by most influential on later games:
- Baseball
- Night Driver
- Adventure
- Galaga
- Super Mario Bros.
- Tetris
- SimCity
- Street Fighter II
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
The problem is IGN wants to use games they know their readers will have heard of, so they can get a hard-on over "Yeah that game was fantastic."
What they should be doing is going back far and picking out older games some people won't have heard of so that people can go look it up. But we all know people are lazy, and IGN is catering to that.
Being the first to do something doesn't mean shit in terms of influence.
Influence is nothing more than getting other people to do what you're doing. Therefore, the most "influential" games are simply the ones whose formula/template has been copied the most.
Yes, it's the question of direct influence vs indirect influence.
Something like MIDI Maze is extremely influential because the games that DID popularize the genre were heavily based on it. If you trace the influence of FPS deathmatching back you can connect the dots directly to MIDI Maze even though a game might be imitating Doom or Quake.
There are firsts that aren't influential, though. I don't think Alpha Waves ever influenced much beyond Geograph Seal and Jumping Flash. Jump Bug was the first scrolling platformer, but no one really copied it in any way that you could say with confidence.
Basically, some firsts are Columbus, and lead the way for an entire population, and some of them are Leif Ericson who discovered America 500 years earlier and just looked around, left and didn't come back.
True enough, but what about the games they copied from? Should their influence be noted or should it just be the ones that got copied from with the most attention.
Outdone by Frog.
I'd also like to point out that this list is somewhat obsessed with games that are influential right this moment. I guaruntee you Colossal Cave Adventure, which served as the foundation for hundreds of games if not more, influenced a lot more games than GTA3. Those games just aren't en vogue at the moment.
I just watched the feature. It was decent, honestly, except it goes back and forth between saying "There were later games that popularized blah blah but this game started it." and then other games it'll say "There were games that started it first but this is the game that popularized it." So which one matters?
Also the case it made for Half Life is really bad. It just doesn't belong within a mile of this list, and I love the game.
The most influential games list is
what yoshi says
what neozeed says
what frogacuda says
what no one should really care about unless it's 4:27am and you're really just passing time because you just woke up in front of the toilet and you don't know how you got there and you really just can't get back to sleep.
IBTNQuote:
Originally Posted by Finch
I think Dune II was a good choice.
Even if the list was 100% accurate and everyone agreed with it I still couldn't be bothered to care.
Karate Champ? Influential? Has there ever even been another game where movement and attacks were controlled by the combination of two joysticks and no buttons?
OK, I'll give Smash TV and Total Carnage, but they don't seem influenced by Karate Champ anyway.
I mean, I like Karate Champ and all but the concept was dropped like a sack of injured skunks. I don't see the influence.
Right, because there was nothing else in the game. It was just a black screen with one guy on it and two joysticks, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
In fact, Street Fighter wasn't influential either, because no other game has Dhalsim in it.
Karate Champ over Street Fighter II is a complete joke. There is absolutely no intelligent argument to the contrary.
Well it goes back to what I was saying before: Are you looking for the original influence or the most direct influence? This list seems to pick and choose which it wants, but Karate Champ is definitely a significant game for the genre. And make no mistake it WAS a vital genre long before SF2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
One game saved the entire arcade industry. It doesn't matter what criteria you use, that's the more influential game.
Unless your criteria is on how many conventions it originated and how widely adopted these conventions were. Then it does matter.
Obviously SF2 was very influential, but it's a different sort of influence, and both are important.
The only part of Karate Champ that lived on was the 1-on-1 fighting aspect. But not a shred of the gameplay lived on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
To me, Karate Champ was defined by the originality of it's controls and the unique gameplay that came from those controls.
1-on-1 fighters dropped the Karate Champ controls that defined it.
1-on-1 fighters dropped the 1-hit rounds.
1-on-1 fighters dropped the tournament-style point/half-point system.
Yier Kung-Fu and Karateka are the forefathers of 1-on-1 fighters if you ask me. Karate Champ influenced nothing.
Not when the answer is still the same. At best, Karate Champ influenced a bunch of European-developed games that no one cares about. The entire present-day 2D fighting genre is closely linked to Street Fighter II in nearly every way. It's night and day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
And Yie Ar Kung Fu, which in turn influenced Street Fighter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
And almost all of those conventions were present in SF1, SF2 was just a better game.Quote:
The entire present-day 2D fighting genre is closely linked to Street Fighter II in nearly every way. It's night and day.
The side-scrolling view, the use of life bars to reach KO...Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
Was Kevin Bacon in that? I cannot believe we are fortunate enough to have someone to actually argue this point against. Saying that Karate Champ influenced Street Fighter and should receive any credit for the genre's explosion is like saying that some asshole that knocked an apple off a tree influenced Isaac Newton. Karate Champ wasn't even good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Obviously.Quote:
And almost all of those conventions were present in SF1, SF2 was just a better game.
Karate Champ did not scroll.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Karate Champ had no life bar. It was all 1-hit wins the round.
Like I said, I give Yie Ar Kung Fu or Karateka credit for the genre, but not Karate Champ.
Well I know it didn't scroll I just meant that viewpoint. I thought it used a life bar, though... what am I thinking of then?
Give credit where credit's due. Karate Champ is awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
It just didn't influence crap.
Right, so we can all agree that Mortal Kombat belongs on the list and can stop arguing this Street Fighter II bullshit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Well... It probably does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano on the Phone
Not for influencing the fighting grenre in any way, but for giving birth to the "mature" blood, guts, and tits we've see all over the place since then.
Naw what was that "racing game" with all the killing and shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race
Tightly wound panties over violence in videogames way predated MK.
Yes, MK is not significant for the tightening of assholes, but rather for the trend of over-the-top tastelessness over the next few years that fizzled out sometime before Thrill Kill was canned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
Mortal Kombat is the best selling bad game ever, so that actually might be worth something.
Hitman says sup?Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Hitman? :wtf:
RE: Hasn't fizzled out yet. There are plenty of tasteless releases every year.
Who cares what the first game to get a rise out of a senator was?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
Mortal Kombat made gore cool. Nobody gave a shit about red pixels in a game before MK. After MK, insecure teenage boys would only play a game if the blood flowed genreously.
On the fighting game origins thing, NeoZeedeater did a nice article about this a while back:
http://www.got-next.com/features_read.php?id=407&pno=0
Quote:
The following year had one of the most important games in the history of the genre, the arcade release Karate Champ, which was developed by Technos and distributed by Data East. Not only was it graphically more impressive than any other fighting game at the time, it had bonus rounds, voices, and was more complex as it gave you higher points for landing better blows. Being the first mainstream hit in the genre made it an influence on other developers.
How is Hitman tasteless? It's a well-made series that is not at all over the top in terms of gore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
debatable.
Yoshi is right. It is neither tasteless nor over the top. Almost every other violent game I can think of blows it out of the water in terms of gore. There is usually a game released each week that tops it. SoF: Payback, for example.
Madden says "hi".Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
And the difference is that Mortal Kombat is pure awesome in addition to it's "bad". It's the "House of the Dead - the Movie" of the video game world.
Madden was once good though. It wasn't until the 32-bit versions where it really fell apart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
MK is inherently campy. Just like Master of the Flying Guillotine.
It is also completely awesome. At least until they gave up on digitized graphics.
Facts about Mortal Kombat from the year 2006:
* Once again the Mortal Kombat franchise takes home Spike TV's Video Game Award for Best Fighting Game of the Year for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
* GameSpot awarded the Xbox Live downloadable Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as Best Fighting Game of 2006
* IGN.com awarded Mortal Kombat: Armageddon Best Fighting Game of the Year 2006
* Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has received a number of awards, nominations and top review scores including IGN.com's Editors' Choice Award, 9 out of 10 from GamesRadar.com, 4.5 out of 5 from GameDaily, 9 out of 10 from Official Xbox Magazine and many more
* 1up.com nominated Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for Best Fighting Game of the Year
Facts about Street Fighter from the year 2006:
* There is still a SFII machine in the bowling alley across town. The stick is broken.
Street Fighter II can't touch Mortal Kombat in terms of lasting influence.
lol @ Spike TV. You can stop right there.
No no, the lol continues.... IGN, 1up.com, etc
POTYQuote:
Originally Posted by Kano on the Phone
Dude, the makers of World Karate Championship/International Karate were sued by Data East because they thought it ripped off Karate Champ. It had a judge in the background looking almost the same, had bonus rounds like Karate Champ, and felt similar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
Yoshi might dismiss this series and other games as "European-developed games no one cares about" but that's not true. These games sold millions of copies (on piracy rampant formats) and are among the most critically acclaimed 8-bit computer games. There are plenty of gamers that remember and care but since the average 8-bit computer owner in North America is probably around 35 now, and the media is now made up of newer gamers, they seem a lot more obscure than they actually were.
LOL. The first thing I thought of when I saw that list was, "Where the fuck is Street Fighter 2?"
I played Karate Champ years before I played Street Fighter 2, and when I did play Street Fighter 2, I never really thought about how it seemed to be influenced by Karate Champ. There were some noticeable things such as white and red karate gi's, diverse stages, and bonus rounds, but that's about it. The two games played so differently that I wouldn't think one influenced the other. Karate Champ always seemed more like a karate simulator, whereas Street Fighter 2 was a presentation of fast-paced fantastical fights. Although, that could just be a matter of degree rather than a complete difference. I guess my bottom line is the same as Yoshi's: everyone aped Street Fighter 2, not Karate Champ.
I've been on the fence about whether or not I should italicize game titles. That post helped me decide.