More Lists – Page 5 – Video Game Canon

Over 1000 Games Have Been Ranked by Hardcore Gaming 101’s “The Top 47,858 Games of All Time” Podcast

The folks behind Hardcore Gaming 101’s “The Top 47,858 Games of All Time” podcast have been ranking their favorite games for nearly seven years, and while they haven’t reached their goal just yet, they hit a major milestone last month when they added the 1,000th game to their list.

The visually-impressive Vectorman, a side-scroller from Sega that debuted during the waning days of the Genesis, was the subject of the landmark episode, and the podcast’s hosts ranked it at #385 (just ahead of BioShock and just behind Wasteland).

“The Top 47,858 Games of All Time” features a dynamically-ordered list, and each new episode of the podcast adds at least one more game to the overall ranking. Unfortunately, Vectorman hasn’t been able to hold onto its position in the weeks since, and as of today, the game has fallen to #403 (where it’s still just ahead of BioShock and just behind Wasteland). You can visit Hardcore Gaming 101 to see where your favorite game is currently ranked.

Tetris currently holds the #1 spot, and you’ll find some interesting choices in the rest of the Top Ten (including NetHack at #2, Nier: Automata at #4, and Katamari Damacy at #7). There’s also a lot of Mario near the upper reaches of the list (including Super Mario Bros. at #3, Super Mario 64 at #6, and Super Mario Bros. 3 at #9), but things get pretty wild pretty fast (Minesweeper at #76!), and Mirage’s infamous Rise of the Robots sits at the very bottom at #1023.

Congratulations to everyone at “The Top 47,858 Games of All Time” podcast on this accomplishment. Just 46,835 games to go!

VG247’s “The Best Games Ever Podcast” Answers the Important Questions

You’ve got plenty of options if you’re looking for a panel discussion about the answer to simple queries like “The Best PS2 Game” or “The Best Horror Game.” So that’s why VG247 decided to answer the truly important questions in The Best Games Ever Podcast, their brand new podcast.

Hosted by Jim Trinca (who also declares a winner at the end of each episode), three members of the VG247 team are given an absolutely ridiculous prompt (my current favorite is “The Best Game Someone Not in the Know Would Think You’d Made Up“) and then they have to justify their selection:

“What is this new podcast?” you ask, with the child-like glee usually reserved for when you spot a new type of M&M or an ice cream version of a favourite childhood sweet. Well, it’s quite simple, really. Each week three of us must present our choice for the best game ever that meets certain criteria. Then our host/judge, Jim Trinca, will decide who has made the best case and declare a winner.

A few other gems include “The Best Game With a Minigame Better Than the Main Game” and “The Best Game That Journos Love But Most People Think is a Bit Naff” (it probably doesn’t need to be said, but VG247 is a very British publication).

Eight episodes of The Best Games Ever Podcast have been produced so far, and a new episode will appear every Friday.

The Hosts of The MinnMax Show Talk About “The Greatest Games of All Time (That Nobody Talks About)”

A quick perusal of the Video Game Canon’s Top 1000 will give you a good idea about the games that are always in the discussion for the Best Games of All Time. There’s Tetris and Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life 2 and Mario, but also your Zeldas and your Marios, and a handful of other familiar titles.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that list? What if you wanted to talk about the greatest games of all time that nobody talks about? That’s where The MinnMaxx Show comes in.

The hosts of the popular podcast recently uploaded an episode all about “The Greatest Games of All Time (That Nobody Talks About).” Each host was given the chance to pick three games that go unmentioned whenever a publication puts together a Best Games list. And at the end of the segment, they also each added a few rapid fire picks to the discussion, bringing the total to 26 titles. How’d they do? Well…

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2021 GOTY Scoreboard: It Takes Two, Returnal, and More

There have been years where the “Game of the Year” honors were spread far and wide amongst several big titles… but 2021 went even further than that.

Four games shared in the five major year-end awards, a nearly unprecedented outcome that last occurred during the 2007-2008 awards season. This time around, Square Enix’s resurgent MMO (Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker), Daniel Mullins’s visually-impressive card battler (Inscryption), and Housemarque’s action-packed roguelike (Returnal) all collected a single award. But that’s only three, and the tie was broken by Hazelight’s It Takes Two, which managed to capture a second statuette.

Moving beyond the major awards, many publications were equally split on their “Game of the Year” choice, though a few titles stood out from the pack. That list includes Bethesda’s Deathloop, Playground’s Forza Horizon 5, Nintendo’s Metroid Dread, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Capcom’s Resident Evil Village.

And it didn’t stop there. You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles in the 2021 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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Returnal Breaks the Loop and Wins “Best Game” at the 2021-2022 BAFTA Games Awards

Housemarque has been caught in a familiar loop throughout their attendance at The Game Awards, the DICE Awards, the SXSW Gaming Awards, and the GDC Awards. Their acclaimed third-person shooter, Returnal, was nominated in multiple categories at each show, but the developers came away emptyhanded almost every time.

That pattern certainly changed at the 2021-2022 BAFTA Games Awards, as Returnal was honored with the “Best Game” award and three other statuettes (“Audio Achievement,” “Music,” and “Performer in a Leading Role” for Jane Perry).

A handful of other games also took home multiple awards during the ceremony, including Hazelight’s It Takes Two (“Multiplayer” and “Original Property”), Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (“Technical Achievement” and “Animation”), and Witch Beam’s Unpacking (“Narrative” and the fan-voted “EE Game of the Year”).

The BAFTA Games Awards are headquartered in London, and the organizers also annually hand out an award for “Best British Game.” This year, that honor went to Playground’s Forza Horizon 5.

You can find the complete list of nominees and all the other winners (including Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Inscryption, Psychonauts 2, and more), as well as a replay of the ceremony (which was hosted by Elle Osili-Wood), after the break.

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Inscryption Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2021-2022 GDC Awards

A new player got dealt into the game at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Just an hour after claiming the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize” at the Independent Games Festival, Daniel Mullins Games’s Inscrpytion also took home “Game of the Year” honors at the 2021-2022 Game Developers Choice Awards.

Even though we’re more than a decade removed from the rise of the indie movement, this is the first time a game has won both awards in the same year.

While Inscrpytion made history, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart continued to do what it’s done at nearly every ceremony this year, collecting statuettes for “Best Visual Art” and “Best Technology.”

But the GDC Awards usually gives the spotlight over to a lot of unique games, and that certainly happened this year. Other winners from last night’s ceremony include Iron Gate’s Valheim (“Best Debut” and the “Audience Award”), Witch Beam’s Unpacking (“Best Audio” and the “Innovation Award”), Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2 (“Best Narrative”), Kitfox’s Boyfriend Dungeon (the “Social Impact Award”), and Hazelight’s It Takes Two (“Best Design”).

A full list of all the nominees at the 2021-2022 GDC Awards can be found after the break, along with a replay of the ceremony.

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Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Wins “Video Game of the Year” at 2021-2022 SXSW Gaming Awards

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker made history this weekend at the 2021-2022 SXSW Gaming Awards.

Square Enix’s MMO won “Video Game of the Year” at the close of the ceremony, marking the first time an MMO has ever won the top prize at one of the major year-end award shows. Not content with a single trophy, the game also took home the “Excellence in Narrative” and “Excellence in Original Score” awards for Square Enix and Producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida.

As in years past, the SXSW voting body chose to spread out the remainder of the awards among a wide variety of deserving titles.

The developers at Witch Beam can put the “Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award” on their shelf for Unpacking, but it was Kena: Bridge of Spirits that was honored with the “Indie Game of the Year” award last night. Another buzzy indie from last year, Daniel Mullins’s Inscryption, cashed in a winning hand with a victory in the “Excellence in Game Design” category.

Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart rode its next-gen accolades to a trophy for “Excellence in Technical Achievement,” and Playground’s Forza Horizon 5 did the same in the “Excellence in Animation, Art, and Visual Achievement” category.

The creepy soundscapes of Capcom’s Resident Evil Village claimed the “Excellence in Audio Design” award, while stablemate Resident Evil 4 VR won “VR Game of the Year.”

Finally, after scoring “Game of the Year’ victories at The Game Awards and the DICE Awards, Hazelight’s It Takes Two had to settle for “Excellence in Multiplayer” at SXSW.

A complete list of winners and nominees from the 2021-2022 SXSW Gaming Awards can be found after the break.

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Hazelight’s It Takes Two Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2021-2022 DICE Awards

Hazelight’s It Takes Two continued its improbable run with a “Game of the Year” win at the 2021-2022 DICE Awards (and making it two-for-two after its triumph at The Game Awards).

More than 50 games received at least one nomination at the DICE Awards, but the membership of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences continued to come back to the same titles over and over again… which benefited the developers at Hazelight with a second trophy for It Takes Two in the “Outstanding Achievement in Game Design” category.

While it didn’t win “Game of the Year,” Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart took the momentum from its nine total nominations (the most entering the night) and tallied up four victories during last night’s ceremony across an eclectic set of categories (“Outstanding Achievement in Animation,” “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction,” “Outstanding Technical Achievement,” and “Family Game of the Year”).

Several other games secured multiple awards at the DICE Awards, giving the development teams from Eidos Montreal (“Outstanding Achievement in Story” and “Adventure Game of the Year” for Guardians of the Galaxy), 343 Industries (“Online Game of the Year” and “Action Game of the Year” for Halo Infinite), Ready At Dawn (“Immersive Reality Technical Achievement” and “Immersive Reality Game of the Year” for Lone Echo II), and Housemarque (“Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition” and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design” for Returnal) two chances to deliver a speech on the DICE stage.

You can find the full list of winners and nominees from the 2021-2022 DICE Awards after the break, along with a video replay of the IGN-produced ceremony, which was hosted by Greg Miller and Jessica Chobot.

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Japan’s TV Asahi Unveils the Top 100 from “50,000 People Vote! The Video Game General Election”

It’s something of a rare occurrence for journalists in Japan to produce a list of the best games of all time. Typically, this process is turned over to the public, with the results hinging on huge write-in campaigns from passionate fans across the country. Such was the case earlier this week, when TV Asahi aired “50,000 People Vote! The Video Game General Election” just after Christmas.

As you might have guessed from the name of the special, TV Asahi polled more than 50,000 viewers to create their list. You’ll probably also be unsurprised to find out that games from Japanese developers dominated the Top 100. Nintendo-published titles accounted for nearly half the list (42 in all) and Square Enix (with 25 entries) wasn’t too far behind.

Stepping beyond those two powerhouses, you’ll find a smattering of games from Atlus (including Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal), as well as a handful from Capcom (most notably, a quartet of games from the Monster Hunter series). In the end, just six titles from the list were developed outside of Japan (Respawn’s Apex Legends, Behavior’s Dead By Daylight, Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, Mojang’s Minecraft, Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris, and Toby Fox’s Undertale).

The full list was helpfully transcribed by Famitsu, and you can find it below (North American translations are used when available).

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“Game of the Year” at the 2021 Game Awards Goes to Hazelight’s It Take Two

The new release calendar was a bit thinner in 2021 for a variety of reasons, so this year’s slate at The Game Awards was truly a free-for-all. With no clear frontrunner, many people expected a big night for Arkane’s Deathloop, which received nine nominations across eight categories (including “Game of the Year”). But with more than 100 games receiving at least one nomination, there were bound to be some surprises.

And there were definitely some surprises… such as It Takes Two winning “Game of the Year.” Hazelight’s weird and wild multiplayer adventure also won “Best Multiplayer” and beat out four Nintendo-produced titles to triumph in the “Best Family Game” category.

In between a dizzying amount of trailers for upcoming games, musical performances, and a short scene from The Matrix Resurrections, host Geoff Keighley gave out a few other awards.

While it was denied the big prize, Deathloop collected two statuettes (for “Best Game Direction” and “Best Art Direction”). Other “Game of the Year” nominees had their moment in the sun, including Nintendo’s Metroid Dread, which won “Best Action/Adventure Game.” And Maggie Robertson’s appearance as Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village won over the Internet earlier this year, which made her “Best Performance” win at The Game Awards rather fitting.

Other multi-award winners included Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5 (“Best Audio Design,” “Best Sports/Racing Game,” and “Innovation in Accessibility”), Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV (“Best Ongoing Game” and “Best Community Support”), Ember Lab’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits (“Best Independent Game” and “Best Debut Indie”).

This year’s group of nominees also included Cyberpunk 2077, which was released in December 2020 and missed the cutoff for last year’s judging period. While it received a chilly reception at launch, after a year of updates and bug fixes, CD Projekt’s sprawling futuristic RPG received two nominations, but didn’t win in either category. This year’s cutoff (November 19th) was particularly early, so we’ll likely be talking about Halo Infinite at the 2022 Game Awards.

But that’s next year. Right now, you can find a video replay of the 2021 Game Awards after the break, as well as a complete list of winners, and all the nominees.

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