Gamespy.com's "Top 50 Games of All Time"

Alex Bischoff writes "In this article, Gamespy.com rates the "Top 50 Games of All Time" (both console and computer games), including commentary from developers at 3DRealms, id Software, Monolith Productions and others. Needless to say, Daikatana is not on the list ;)."

Missing Some?

[EarTrumpet]

They did list Zork, but in my opinion they were missing Colossal Cave Adventure [delphi.com] & Nethack [nethack.org].

Some statistics

[CaseStudy]

With any top 50 list, someone's going to complain that games weren't included or were overrated. I think this one's pretty bad, though.

A breakdown by game type:

• Adventure/Interactive Fiction - 39 (but no Sierra games or Myst)
• Action - 1, 2, 5, 11, 12, 13, 18, 24, 29, 30, 32, 38, 40, 44, 46, 47 (but no Pacman or Pong)
• • Fighting - 30 (but no Mortal Kombat)
  • FPS - 1, 2, 5, 12, 13, 18, 24, 29, 32, 38, 40, 44, 47 (but no Castle Wolfenstein)
  • Platform - 11, 20, 46 (but no Super Mario Bros.)
• Console - 10, 11, 20, 28, 38, 48 (but no Super Mario Bros.)
• Flight Sim - 34 (but no Falcon or X-Wing)
• Hybrid - 26, 35 (but no Starflight)
• Puzzle - 19 (but no Fool's Errand)
• RPG - 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17, 21, 23, 27, 28, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48 (but no Fallout or Ultima 7)
• • Console RPG - 28, 48 (but no late Final Fantasys)
  • Online RPG - 15, 27, 48 (but no MUDs)
• Simulation - 33 (but not The Sims)
• Sports - none at all
• Strategy - 3, 4, 9, 14, 16, 22, 25, 31, 35, 50 (but no Master of Orion)
• • 4X - 4, 22 (but no Master of Orion, Alpha Centauri)
  • RTS - 3, 9, 14, 16, 31, 50 (but no Dune)
  • Wargame - 49

Statistics by year:

• 1981 - 21
• 1982 - 39
• 1983 - 25, 41
• 1985 - 7, 17
• 1986 - 10, 19
• 1987 - 49
• 1988 - 42
• 1990 - 34
• 1991 - 4, 30
• 1992 - 8, 26, 28
• 1994 - 1, 23, 24, 35, 44, 46
• 1995 - 3, 31
• 1996 - 5, 6, 11, 13, 22
• 1997 - 14, 20, 38, 47, 48, 50
• 1998 - 2, 9, 36, 40, 43
• 1999 - 12, 15, 16, 27, 45
• 2000 - 18, 29, 37

Just from those numbers, we'd expect the highest-rated games to be first-person shooters based in the mid-nineties (Doom, Quake), and the lowest-rated games to be sports games based in the late eighties (Earl Weaver Baseball).

Did I miss Unreal Tournament?

[Mustang Matt]

I didn't see Unreal at all. I haven't had much experience with quake and half life but Unreal and Unreal Tournament were pretty awesome games in my opinion. The first unreal inspired me to buy a voodoo2 and UT inspired me to buy an athlon and a GeForce and a T1.