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Games Entertainment

The 25 Smartest Moments in Gaming 41

Posted by simoniker from the duh-uhhh-ahhh-yeah dept.
gorgon_123 writes "GameSpy has been running a feature on the 25 Smartest Moments in Gaming. The feature has been in progress all week, and comes exactly one month after another special series, the 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming." This set of accomplishments are shrewdly divided into 'Smart Move!' ("This is your standard issue smart business decision."), 'Good Prediction' ("Someone had a vision."), and 'Blind Luck!' ("Somebody was in the right place at the right time and did something that just clicked.") Quake's multiplayer innovations, the Playstation, and, of course, Nolan Bushnell and Pong make the Top 5, but what's missing from this list, and why?
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The 25 Smartest Moments in Gaming More

The 25 Smartest Moments in Gaming

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  • When I was a teenager, in a darkened arcade, I accidentally put a $10 in the $1 changer. I didn't realize my mistake until I got home and couldn't find my $10.

    My smartest moment was the one and only time I beat Dragon's Lair.

    Oh, they meant 10 dumbest/smartest moments that actually meant something to someone other than me!

    (semi-on-topic first post, y'all...)

  • Some missed items (Score:5, Funny)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @02:19PM (#6534509) Homepage
    1) Joseph Syzlaki invents the joystick in 1974. Never files patent, commits suicide after visiting a video game arcade in early 1980s.
    2) An engineer at Xerox PARC realizes that a 3D graph on his monitor looks like a pair of pyramidal breasts, leave position to form Core and make Tomb Raider.
    3) Microsoft puts Freecell and Solitaire into Windows 98 instead of XBill.
    • 3) Microsoft puts Freecell and Solitaire into Windows 98 instead of XBill.

      Sadly, when I made a living upgrading database terminals at about the same time Windows (v3) came out, Solitaire was the "killer app".
      I think most of the people would of been happier with their old terminals if they just ran solitaire.

  • Since when did GameSpy the resource for... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dolemite_the_Wiz ( 618862 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:07PM (#6534949) Journal
    ...gaming best/worst moments?

    IMO, they wouldn't know the difference between a good or a bad game from a pile of Dog Poop.

    Dolemite
    _____________________

  • A bit generous with some (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:27PM (#6535145)
    I mean, I liked EverQuest as much as the next guy, but Delsyn (who had comments at the bottom of that page [gamespy.com]) was a bit on the generous side when talking about their customer service.

    CS was never perfected in EQ. Rather, it was pretty damn close about a year after release, at which point Sony Online showed back up, put certain people (George Scotto, for example) in key positions, and proceeded to give EQ CS the ass reaming it had been waiting for. To say that the Star Wars Galaxies team has forgotten all those lessons verges on senility. The SWG CS method (filing CS tickets which get answered later whether the player is online or off) is far more efficient, and the only reason CS seems worse in SWG is that SWG is new, and the number of CS tickets filed is way up. Once things settle, CS will likely be slightly better in SWG than in EQ, despite the lack of a volunteer-supported CSR corps.

  • Missing Things (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eluding Reality ( 691589 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:42PM (#6535287)
    What about the creation of the original game boy and the decision to go for battery life over system power? The GB wouldn't have won back then otherwise and the GBA wouldn't be the most popular system in the world today

    And what about the decision by Rare to pick up the Goldeneye license? It made them the company they are today and changed console FPS games forever, well the game not the deicision... but the decision was still some smart thinking :)

  • The demise of arcades (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:46PM (#6535335) Homepage Journal
    Smartest #23, 1993: Namco and Sega Bring Arcades Home [gamespy.com], seems to be the most depressing "advance" for me. As noted in the editor comments, designing arcade games for future home use pretty much spelled the end of the 1980s arcade culture.

    In the 80s, you had mom-n-pop arcades in little hole-in-the-wall spots. My favorite was one in downtown Tulsa that you'd never have found unless you happened to walk past and look inside. That's the one where I lost my $10 (see my lame-o attempt to First Post [slashdot.org] this article). Another was across the street from the grocery store I worked at, and was a great place to wind down after bagging groceries in the days before "paper or plastic?"

    Now, it's virtually impossible to support a stand-alone arcade. Oh, you can drive down any street in Texas (at least) and see video parlors, but they're devoted to Cherry Master and Video Poker, not Pac-Man and Asteroids. The only place you can find a real game selection is at the mall or the movie theater. I wasn't into the mall scene as a teen, and I'm even less inclined that way in my 30s.

    Although I did manage to embarass my daughter at DDR [ddrfreak.com]. She tried it out, but was wearing the wrong shoes and bailed. So I hopped on, much to her embarassment, but to the amusement of the rest of the teenyboppers. I don't think she's forgiven me yet...

  • Yaaaawnnn.... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Was I the only one who found both lists kind of boring?

    All the events discussed were pretty much no brainers for inclusion.

    I would have preferred some more controversial selections, eg. N64 as a dumbest moment, downloadable patches for PC games as a smartest momemt, etc.
    You know, something to stir up some conversation.

    I also found the editorial remarks pretty inane.

  • RPG (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stargoat ( 658863 ) <stargoat@gmail.com> on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:56PM (#6535435) Journal
    They left out the first RPGs. What about the first time characters improved as the game progressed? Or the first game you could save a game? When was the first time stats were used in a game? What about the first time an influencable plot was added to a game?
    • No they didn't.

      RPGs were around for at least 10 years before PCs. Should they include the first time chess or solitaire was created on computers too?

  • More... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BadmanX ( 30579 ) on Friday July 25, 2003 @04:37PM (#6535757) Homepage
    Hmmm...some of mine, in no particular order:

    * Wil Wright invents the "software toy" or "sandbox" type of game with SimCity

    * The VGA card cements the PC as the gaming computer of the future and closes the door on the Atari ST, the Apple IIGS and the Amiga

    * Square realizes they are getting a raw deal, breaks off relations with Nintendo and embraces the PlayStation


    • * Wil Wright invents the "software toy" or "sandbox" type of game with SimCity

      The invention of the "software toy" is *very* important - but there were earlier examples:

      1982 Rock'y Boots [warrenrobinett.com]

      1960's Logo [uni-hamburg.de]

      1960's Eliza and Parry [stanford.edu]

      I'm sure there are earlie examples of interactive, exploratory, non-games.

    • * The VGA card cements the PC as the gaming computer of the future and closes the door on the Atari ST, the Apple IIGS and the Amiga

      I wouldn't say that the VGA card cemented the PC as the platform of the future. At least, not the first few years of the VGA card. Back in the late 80's and early 90's, the Amiga and Atari ST still provided better graphics performance than any other platform out there. It wasn't until VGA cards started to implement acceleration features that it started to shift.

  • ...how many of the original Playstations were defective in their first season.
    • I don't know if mine was defective, but it did have the tendency to overheat and crash while playing Tomb Raider of Resident Evil. The reason for this was the CPU was located directly below the CD optical head, causing random glitches and crashes during CD access. The quick fix I found for this is just flipping the PlayStation upside down when playing CPU intensive games, and I never had a problem after that.
      • It's got nothing to do with the CPU location AFAIk.
        The laser unit ran on plastic rails.
        these would wear down (usually on one side only) causing the laser assembly to no longer be horizontal over part of the disc.
        Flipping it over lets the laser unit rest horizontal and causes the read errors to go away.
        A few years ago you could get a "repair" kit that while involved would let you replace the rails in the laser assembly (for $5) rather then buya new PSX.
  • Well, this article is much less interesting than their recent 25 DUMBEST moments. I'd suggest you read that one first, and then read the NES one, which is an entirely fascinating article for someone like me, who is ready to admit that their childhood was closely linked to the history of the NES.
  • I can't remember which #'s they are, since there is no index to search through, but they mentioned two of the most important things ever to happen in computer gaming (IMO):

    Myst pushes CD-ROM sales. I can't remember how many times I sat through a 5 to 20! (Return to Zork) disk install of many games in the early 90's. Not only that, but I bet the CD-ROMs helped curb casual piracy. I mean, everybody had copies of Doom and Doom2 floppies, right? ;)

    DirectX/Glide drivers. This is way overlooked. I was talking t

  • What about Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British) and the early Ultima series? Those had to have been some of the best RPGs of their time and gave birth to RPGs on the PC.

    And I know Elite had a great impact on me, "An Apple 2 can do this?!?"

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