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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Game Innovators Pick Their Favorite Titles 45

Posted by simoniker from the academia-now-interesting dept.
Thanks to Ludology.org for pointing to the Georgia Tech game morphology project, which, although still in development, has asked famous creators and academics for their favorite games of all time. Interesting picks include Warren Spector's kudos for Ultima IV ("Wait, you mean games can be about more than just killing things? Whoa! This game, with its ethical underpinnings, changed my life"), Henry Jenkins' choice of Myst ("not a great game from the perspective of game play... [but influential because] it brought some degree of middle class respectability to games"), and Will Wright's picking of Pinball Construction Set ("[a] heavy influence for me - construction is fun.")
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Game Innovators Pick Their Favorite Titles More

Game Innovators Pick Their Favorite Titles

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  • Warning: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @12:47AM (#6939807)
    Saying TuxRacer will not give you cool points.

  • story counts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by X_Caffeine ( 451624 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @12:54AM (#6939839)
    I was really sorry to see Grim Fandango and Homeworld not make anyone's list (aside from a passing mention for GF's art direction). In fact, very few of those interviewed had anything to say about games with decent plots (possible exception: Spector on Ico).

    Even games that excel in playability and immersiveness are frequently saddled with sub-par storytelling. Game producers hire professional musicians and artists to do the soundtrack and graphics in their titles, but all to often think anyone can write a damned story and turn in something that a "slash fiction" author would ashamed of.

    Grim Fandango had a more polished script and thematic originality than most Hollywood movies. The freakin' manual that came with Homeworld was better than most science fiction novels that get published.

    Have a decent plot and story certainly isn't the most important element of a videogame (everyone seems to agree that the ambiguous quality of "playability" is central), but it's probably the most overlooked factor. Game publishers need to stop asking Bob in Accounting to write their scripts and farm out the work to novelists whose books aren't selling because all their audience wants to read are Star Trek and Babylon 5 licensed books.

    • Re:story counts (Score:4, Insightful)

      by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @01:35AM (#6940007)
      Story can definately hurt a game. Although it doesn't have to be the case, most games with involved stories are much more linear because of it.

      Linearity kills replay value. The older Zelda and Metroid games were great because although there was a certain order you were expected to do things in the first time through, you weren't held to that order very tightly. In Zelda 1, it's sometimes easier to do things in different orders. For example, Level 7 is much easier than Level 6, so beating Level 7 first means you can be stronger when you do Level 6. Wind Waker's heavy story eliminated those options, leaving most people with no desire to play the game a second time.

      In all the Metroid games, after you beat the game once it will become obvious that there are better paths to take to get upgrades sooner and/or get 100% more efficently. Metroid Fusion had to eliminate most of that due to the heavy story.
      • It seems to me that a good storyline cannot be linear. That's why "choose-your-own-adventure" books are not considered fine literature. Besides, look at the orig. Half-Life - very linear and also one of the best games of all time.

        I find this quote from the writer of the half-life story very applicable to your comment...
        " Marc Laidlaw: Branching storylines are part of an unholy grail of open-ended interactive story design which I have little interest in pursuing. I'm told that The Way of the Samurai d
    • I think Homeworld is just too new, the games listed are pretty dang old, since these guys were working on what made them innovators when games like Homeworld were released. Don't worry the next generation of innovators will likely cite homeworld as an influence.
      • umm, since the Sims and a handful of other nearly current games made the list, I think it's simply because Homeworld hasn't really inspired any game developers.

        The reason is fairly simple: the mechanics of Homeworld don't have a very universal application. Super Mario Bros. and Mario64 got numerous mentions because they were popular games that showed what could be done with their respective game types (2d-sidescrolling and 3d platformers). Warcraft 2 got mentions because it brought story and character to R

  • Ultima IV (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @01:07AM (#6939892) Homepage Journal
    I still play Ultima IV.

    No, I mean _I'm_still_playing_Ultima_IV_.

    I've been stuck in the Stygean(sp) Abyss for about 15 years now.

    This is not a game for playing, it is a game for turning off and avoiding.
    • http://www.uo.com/archive/ultima4/

      I remember that as being a very hard dungeon, back when I played the game about 13 years ago.

      My best advice is to make sure you've got enough experience (at least 6400 points) to have all of your 8 characters at level 8. You will also need to max out the ability scores of each character, as far as their classes will allow. Play the dungeon of anti-Spirituality (Hythloth), as it has the most efficient orbs that will raise all 3 of your character's statistics at once.

      If

  • Favorite's from a non-innovator (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Super Mario Bros. 3, Metroid Prime, Zork, Ultima VI, Resident Evil (cube remake), Tempest 2000, Dig Dug, Knights of the Old Republic, Space Quest III, Kings Quest IV, Planetfall, Beach Head, Alice In Wonderland, Wing Commander, Star Wars Arcade, Paperboy, TRON, Zelda, River Raid, Miner 2049'er, Street Fighter II, Super Mario Kart 64... Most likely missing a few.

  • Ultima IV indeed. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gklinger ( 571901 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @01:15AM (#6939938)
    I have no idea who Warren Spector is (other than what I read when I followed the link in the article) but I agree wholeheartedly with his choice of Ultima IV. What makes it so amazing, and it's as relevant and playable now as the day it was released, is that it's more than a game. It's an ethics primer that teaches the lesson about reaping the harvest you sew.

    If you've never played Ultima IV, you should, even if you don't like RPGs. It's worth your time. Luckily, Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) has made this easy to do by releasing Ultima IV as freeware. You can download the game here [the-underdogs.org] and the documentation here [the-underdogs.org]. Also, an upgrade patch has been created that improves the graphics and sounds without mucking with the game mechanics. You learn more about Ultima IV as well as download the upgrade here [moongates.com].

    One other thing, it's a long game and even if you don't have the time to play it, download it and play through the introduction (10-15 minutes tops). There are a series of ethical/moral questions that determine your character type and they're really interesting. So interesting in fact that fans have reproduced the 'quiz' on the web so if you're really not into downloading the game, you can still take the Ultima Personality Test [tk421.net].

    • Re:Ultima IV indeed. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Danse ( 1026 )

      Warren Specter is the man behind System Shock and Deus Ex.

    • Re:Ultima IV indeed. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RobotWisdom ( 25776 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:59AM (#6940640) Homepage
      I'd love to see a 'classic games' CD that universities could use for classes in game design (with everything tweaked to run on modern OSes).
    • "If you've never played Ultima IV, you should, even if you don't like RPGs. It's worth your time. Luckily, Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) has made this easy to do by releasing Ultima IV as freeware."

      I love RPGs. However, I can't help but squirm whenever I listen to 'Lord British'. For one thing we're replete with castles in the EU and the hollywood idea of the 'age of chivalry' seems to completely ignore that chivalry was rules of honour regarding the ownership of chattles.

    • I did this, sadly none of the options seem to be working to give me any sound:(

  • A Game Always Ignored But Ahead of Its Time (Score:4, Informative)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Friday September 12, 2003 @01:37AM (#6940012) Homepage
    Alter Ego by Activision (Commodore 64). This was my first gaming experience that was all about "real" life. In AE, you were simply born and lived a life until death. The way you lived your life was that you were presented a series of icons representing things like romance, career, school, etc. in each period of life (toddler, kid, adolescent, young adult, middle age, elderly). Each of these icons would present a situation that you had to resolve, and each decision affected your future. For example, as a baby you could select a family interaction wherein you were told that you were hungry. You would then have to choose whether to cry or not. If you chose to cry, that could enhance your social ability, particularly when you stopped crying after being fed; you could also continue crying which would turn out to be an indicator that you weren't progressing in terms of communication and would impact your relationship with your family.

    As you continued through your life, you would have the opportunity to go to school/college and affect your performance there; get a job; meet members of the opposite sex and maybe get married. There were even morally questionable things like the possibility of having an affair, where you might end up being forced to decide whether or not to admit your infidelity, and it could end your marriage. The morally ambiguous actions were the most interesting to me because it made Alter Ego a truly adult sort of game - not because it was trying to arouse but because it was attempting to convey a realism that was lacking in virtually every other game available at the time.

    I know that this has been off-topic in the sense that it doesn't address directly the story, but, as in my topic title, I feel like this game gets ignored in terms of innovation and genre. Heck, most people I talk to have never even heard of it, and I consider that a shame. If you have the opportunity (through emulation, for example) to play Alter Ego (there are two versions - male and female), I highly recommend it. For me, it was a lesson that a game didn't have to be filled with nonstop action and violence to be compelling - a lesson that was all but ignored for a VERY long time, and one which some developers still need to learn.

  • Not only was it a great game -- when I worked at NASA Ames for a summer internship, my boss (who specialized in human-computer interfaces) said he believed it was the first instance of an iconic drag-and-drop interface ever written.

    Of course, you had to use the joystick -- no mouse support!
    • Bill Budge planned to follow it up with a "Construction Set Construction Set" which was an idea way too far ahead of its time. He also started a series of articles on 6502 programming for the major Apple gaming magazine (Soft-something?) which was the most profound vision of the art of programming I've ever seen, but the magazine imploded.

  • Innovation in gaming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CheeseEatingBulldog ( 703915 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @02:15AM (#6940146) Homepage
    Innovation in my book is games that did things that were new and fresh, take games like The ancient art of war or the later Dune][, the basis for all C&C/starcraft games of today.
    And how can you forget Wolfenstein 3D as a revolution in digital killing...

    I gew up playing on a BBC Acorn, but games memories of the original cga Test drive and Paratrooper all made games what they are today...IMHO that is.
  • Escape Velocity takes the cake for the best open-ended gameplay ever and the seamless integration of strategy, action/adventure, and RPG elements.

    • Re:Escape Velocity * (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rhakka ( 224319 )
      The new one, Nova, is very good. But if you feel this way, its granddaddy "Elite" was one of the most progressive games of its time. Immersive 3-D space trader with a gigantic universe and plenty of things to do, completely non-linear and open ended, and you could play it on an Apple IIe. 3-D polygon "line" graphics like asteroids come to live but still you felt it when the ships flew over your cockpit.
      • Sure, Elite sort of got the ball rolling, but Escape Velocity perfected the formula. It's kind of like the relation between the original Warcraft and Starcraft, or between Wolfenstein 3D and Counter-Strike.
        • sure it was an improvement in many respects, but for top games of all time I'll be more inclined to grant the title to the original rather than a refinement. Plus elite was 3-D where EV is not, with vastly inferior hardware to run on, that's pretty impressive by itself. Originality and progressiveness need to be taken into account IMHO :D

  • Void Runner (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Koos Baster ( 625091 )
    Jeff Minter rules [llamasoft.co.uk]! Afterall, what's a 2D / 3D shoot-'m-up worth without:

    - halucifying sounds and graphics
    - gameplay
    - sheep!

    And now, for something completely different. Go XCruise [sourceforge.net] your filesystem!

  • Best games (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Twylite ( 234238 ) <twylite&crypt,co,za> on Friday September 12, 2003 @07:51AM (#6941106) Homepage
    • RPG: Wasteland, Ultima IV, Rogue/Hack/Moria: Despite ancient graphics they are simple in interface, enjoyable, and keep me interested for long periods of time.
    • Turn-based strategy: Warlords, Empire, Baron Realms Elite: Warlords was a fun game from the old days when friends shared a keyboard while playing multiplayer games. Empire is an ancient text-interface game where you move space ships between planets to dominate the "playing field". BRE was a multiplayer, long-running BBS game (similar in concept to Empire).
    • RTS: Dune II: One of the original RTS and still the best. Easy to understand and enjoyable while still being challanging for an irregular gamer.
    • FPS: Doom II, Hexen: The graphics and handling put these ahead of Wolfenstein, but their perspective (no up/down) makes them easier to control than newer games. Again, the choice of someone who doesn't play games enough to go pro.
    • Arcade: Manic Miner, Prince of Persia: (I'm not considering Atari here) Both leading games in their time. Manic Miner is a classic of arcade style games that kept you interested by constant changes of scene. Prince of Persia combined "static" skill of running and jumping with the "dynamic" skill of interactive combat. Combined with changes of scene and a plot, this made it an excellent game.
    • Adventure: Day of the Tenticle, Star Control II: The DOTT graphics, gameplay and story line puts it ahread of Seirra's offerings. It presents challanging but interesting puzzles without combat and/or other instant-death problems. Star Control II combines various forms of arcade action into a strong storyline; compelling stuff.
    • Simulation: MechWarrior, SimCity, LX: MechWarrior's focus on combat puts it in the simulation rather than adventure category (few people realise it had a storyline ;) ). Fun, and completely different to the often impossible to control flight sims (okay - I don't like simulators much). Everyone knows (and loves?) SimCity. LX is an ancient attack helicopter simulator that was somehow very playable (perhaps because takeoff and landing was easy?).

    Well, that's my 5c :)

    • FPS: Doom II, Hexen: The graphics and handling put these ahead of Wolfenstein, but their perspective (no up/down) makes them easier to control than newer games. Again, the choice of someone who doesn't play games enough to go pro.

      Just a note: Hexen had the look up/down features, as did it's predecessor, Heretic. It just wasn't needed very often. Hexen is actually the game I spent most of my time on when Duke3D came out, and why I didn't really play Duke3D until after I had played through Quake's single pl

      • Just to prove how often I play games ... I meant heretic ;) And I had completely forgotten about the look up/down -- it was so seldom that it really had to be used ;)

  • Fighting games? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JimTheta ( 115513 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @10:26AM (#6942193) Homepage
    Unless I missed something, this whole article seems to have completely overlooked fighting games.

    Fighting games may not have amazing storylines, but ignoring them seems to be a pretty big oversight. Are they really that non-influential in the big picture?

    The original Street Fighter 2 would have to be the earliest influential game in the genre. Do fighting games have any influence in genres beyond their own?
    • I might be wrong, but most of these people seem to be involved in PC game development. Fighting games have almost no market on the PC, and any influence they might have outside their own genre generally shows up in other console or arcade games before having influence in PC games.

      That being said, the whole Virtua series of games using the same engine could be pointed to as a fighting game having influence outside it's own genre (especially with Shenmue), and I think in the future we may see fighting games
    • I do think they have influenced some other games - the Tony Hawk series has a very fighting game style combo system, and it is that quality which really makes it so addicting, IMO.

      But in most cases, I do think fighting games are ignored by most game designers. Even other fighting game designers ignore most fighting games - the basic innovations of DOA2+ are still ignored by every other fighting game I can think of.

      (The main two innovations being:
      Counters are a foundation of the gameplay, equal to strikes,
  • I have to admit that Ultima IV's system of ethics, now years old, still affects me to this day. I really do tend to think in terms on honesty, compassion, valor, justice, etc.

    I would have to add, though, that System Shock 2 receive intense kudos for being one of the all-time greats as well. SS2 captured the essence of science fiction horror, distilled it to a mighty level of proof, and sold it for about 50 bucks a pop. The bleeps of consoles, the baleful gaze of Xerxes (the master computer), the groan

    • If you still have a DOS setup anywhere, try to get a copy of the original System Shock as well. The graphics aren't great but in many ways it has better game play than the sequel because they didn't try to do a role playing aspect which didn't work too well in SSII IMO. The game is also less linear as there is a central elevator which takes you pretty much anywhere in the game so you have more choice in the order you accomplish your goals. With the plot level at its highest difficulty setting it is extre

  • I'm disappointed that Guantlet wasn't in anyone's list.

    Blue Wizard needs food!

    To this day I can play Guantlet and Choplifter for hours on end.

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