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Games Entertainment

Walk of Game Honors Industry Paragons 98

Posted by Zonk from the go-link-go! dept.
dustrider writes "The latest silver screen to silicon crossover is the Walk of Game, a Walk of Fame style display for the Gaming Industry. You can vote in two categories, "Game/Character" and "Lifetime Achievement", until the end of October. The top four Game/Character and the top two lifetime achievers will be the happy recipients of 24"x24" brushed steel stars at Metreon in SF."
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Walk of Game Honors Industry Paragons More

Walk of Game Honors Industry Paragons

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  • almost there... (Score:4, Funny)

    by lawngnome ( 573912 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @12:22PM (#10420253)
    no word of a dikatana plaque in the bathrooms? shame...
  • I can't get the vote screen to show up at all. Anyone else having this problem?

  • Down already! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) * on Sunday October 03, 2004 @12:24PM (#10420275) Homepage
    Wow - seems that the voting apparatus went down even before the story was publicly posted here. Is their server in Florida?
  • One thing I've always wondered about these 'walks of fame' is if they ever run out of room to place stars. It seems inevitable to me for this to happen eventually. What do they do in this case? Do they make room somewhere else or do they rip out old stars?

  • Prediction (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beldraen ( 94534 ) <chad...montplaisir@@@gmail...com> on Sunday October 03, 2004 @12:36PM (#10420360)
    Since these types of things always have to have some predictions, my two cents are: Mario and Sonic, and John Carmack and Shigeru Miyamoto.

    Topic: I really can't think of anyone else who have have had greater impact. Discuss.

    • Re:Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mistersooreams ( 811324 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @12:48PM (#10420433) Homepage
      Mario is an absolute certainty. No need for discussion there. Sonic is probably a fair inclusion on balance, but it seems most people who vote in these things are quite "recent-sighted". Sonic hasn't had a decent game in years, and I don't mean that as flamebait. The Genesis games were legendary, but since then? Not much. Sonic was key to the early development of the console, but he's been silent for years now. I don't have a prediction as to who might replace him. Shigeru Miyamoto is another dead cert, and follows straight from Mario's inclusion. I'm less certain about John Carmack. I don't doubt his vast influence, from Commander Keen to Doom. But, it does depend on the demographic of the people voting in this Hall of Game (slightly lame name by the way). Techies as most of us on Slashdot are would vote him in without question. But I don't know if his name is so widely recognised by the wider market of gamers. A designer like Metal Gear Solid's Hideo Kojima might be a better known name, perhaps. Only time will tell. I do think this is a nice idea, though.
      • I'd add Roberta Williams and her King's Quest series to this list. While dead now, it started Sierra's conquest. And brought the adventure genre to new levels. If you play these games in order, you can actually see the evolution in the gaming industry.
      • True Sonic may have not had much of a good run (no pun intended) in videogames recently, but he still has a fairly popular comic book, TV cartoon series and merchandising range, which probably makes him still on par with Mario in the pop culture stakes (here in the UK anyway).

    • Re:Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @01:02PM (#10420531)
      All very solid nominations. Carmack and Miyamoto are truly giants of the gaming community. The other person that that immediately comes to mind is Sid Meier - Civilization is the gold standard and had an incredible impact on the industry, perhaps more than Sonic, IMHO.
    • ian bell & braben.. created a genre, 'nuff said.

      also the @ character should get his own.. marked the star of the uknown nethacker, 'BJ' Blaskowicz would make a fine name too.

      but alas here's what there will probably be: space invaders badguy, mario, link(from zelda), pacman, sonic, samus, master chief, doom trooper...

      they better watch out that somebody doesn't set 'em up a bomb!
    • I would say Will Wright. He invented the simulation genre. Inventing a genre is pretty big, but Miyamoto is the obvious pick, as he turned video games into a thing everyone loves.
    • I cannot guess who is on that list - Seumas McNally would be one to deserve a star there, though. No idea who that was? Start here: http://www.indiegames.com/about.htm [indiegames.com]
      or here:
      http://www.treadmarks.com/ [treadmarks.com]

  • Metreon's struggle to make games cool (Score:3, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @01:26PM (#10420687) Homepage
    The San Francisco Metreon, which is basically a multiplex movie theater with some extra stuff, has struggled to figure out what the additional attractions should be.

    They used to have "The Way Things Work", a big walk-through mechanical demo and a theater with a boring presentation. That didn't work. So they converted that theater to show anime, and that didn't work. Now it's mostly used for meetings.

    Then they had Portal One, which is a video game arcade with really good interior decoration. It's modelled after Moebius' Airtight Garage series in Heavy Metal back in the 1970s. Nobody got this. Their giant custom multiplayer game became dated, their simulator ride didn't get much traffic, and now their big attractions are virtual bowling and retro games.

    Between these two non-attractions is a little-used suspended walkway about 100m long. That's now the Walk of Game.

    • Between these two non-attractions is a little-used suspended walkway about 100m long. That's now the Walk of Game.

      I was down in SF for a business meeting back in July, and I can confirm this statement. The Walk of Game is in the middle of nowhere on the second floor, and as the OP notes, is going to be little used because it doesn't connect anything useful. The stars need to be on the ground floor, not a 2nd story walkway in a chunk of the complex no one visits.

  • Lara Croft (Score:4, Funny)

    by GordoSlasher ( 243738 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @01:30PM (#10420730)
    I vote for Lara Croft for two lifetime achievements.

  • Monkey Island (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cowclops ( 630818 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @01:44PM (#10420827)
    I'd really like to see Ron Gilbert get some recognition, but it won't happen. SCUMM made graphic adventure games FUN and Monkey Island 2 belongs in my top 5 for best game ever on any system. Going on to make Total Annihilation is a definite plus.

    Unfortunately, though he was instrumental in starting LucasArt's line of graphic adventure games, he hasn't done anything recently of note and nobody plays adventure games anymore, so he won't be remembered. In a sad way of looking at it, its Carmack's fault that nobody plays adventure games anymore because first person shooters took over the took PC game genre spot from adventure games.
  • Is this supposed to appeal to the Engrish crowd?
  • ... because the last time a friend and I tried to come up with the best video game characters of all time, it became this birthday present [deviantart.com]. And this artist is a very busy person who ought not be obliged to make me another one!

    The careful Slashdotter who actually follows links will immediately discover my two opinions on the matter.

  • I've heard they are already working on a plaque for Duke Nukem.
    No word on when it's done.
  • I vote for the hot wood elf I saw running around Kelethin last night.

  • Being that the Metreon is a "Sony Entertainment Center", lets hope the results of these awards aren't influenced by Sony-developed or Sony-exclusive titles.

    Since the voting doesn't seem to be working at the moment (and the rest of the site is lacking details), does anyone know the specifics of the "Lifetime Achievement" award? Is that going to a company, or a certain developer/creator, or a game series?
  • Yuzo Kushiro really deserves something for his outstanding work. Anyone who has knowingly played a game for which he wrote the soundtrack would understand.
  • The Fat Man deserves recognition for his unparalleled contribution to audio in games:

    http://www.fatman.com/ [fatman.com]

    Bruce

  • As Develop magazine says... Jeff Minter, Peter Molyneux and that French guy :-) I imagine they have already given an award to Shigsy.
  • A cool start. It's nice to see game developers getting some recognition for a change. (Of course, I'm a game developer, so my reasons might be a bit obivous. ;)

    But, it seems there's a bit of bias here. Focusing on game characters instead of games seems a bit unusual. What about exceptional games that didn't have strong characters? Consider the Ultima games, for example; the main character, the Avatar, was an archetype that was supposed to represent the player. Sure, there were character that were fle
  • I do hope that the voters consider some of the seminal characters in interactive fiction - such as David Braben's Commander Jameson from the 1984 classic Elite.
    If it had not been for visionaries such as DB and Iain Bell, the genre would not have had such scope to develop.

    For those who have not yet had the pleasure, a link to the free port, Elite, The New Kind, is included.

    http://www.noodan.com/page.php?id=902 [noodan.com]

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