Tag: Best Games Lists

1998’s Half-Life and Zelda: Ocarina of Time Lead the Way in the Shacknews Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023

It’s December, and that means the editors at Shacknews are back with yet another batch of inductees for the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

The Shacknews Hall of Fame operates on a 25-year eligibility window, so any game released before or during 1998 is eligible to be enshrined in the outlet’s pantheon of play. The Class of 2023 is the third group of games selected by the site’s editors, and with most of the obvious titles from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s already accounted for, the majority of this year’s inductees were originally released between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 1998 (though one selection, Mario Party, didn’t make it to the US until February 1999).

Among the 38 new additions to the Shacknews Hall of Fame are Half-Life and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the twin titans of 1998 that are perennially at the top of Best Games lists from across the decades. A lot of people have gone to bat for 2023 as one of the best years ever for games, but that sentiment was also in the air during 1998, and those two games are far from alone in the Class of 2023.

Heavy hitters such as Metal Gear Solid, Pokemon Red and Blue, Resident Evil 2, and StarCraft are well represented, as are fan favorites like Banjo-Kazooie, Final Fantasy Tactics, The House of the Dead, and Thief: The Dark Project.

Aside from all this flash and substance, the editors also found some well-deserved space for Nokia’s Snake in the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

All of the titles included in the Shacknews Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 will be added to the Video Game Canon as part of next year’s update.

Sports Illustrated and GLHF Teamed Up Earlier This Year to Publish “The Best 100 Games of All Time, Ranked”

Sports Illustrated has been a staple of mailboxes and magazine racks for nearly 70 years, but it’s not a publication you would normally associate with video games.

That said, they’ve published a few great pieces about video games over the years, including an oral history of NBA Jam that helped kickstart a new appreciation for the arcade classic and this colorful interview with John Madden about his namesake football simulation. Believe it or not, they’ve even branched out into esports, with the launch of the aptly named Esports Illustrated in the Spring.

The magazine also (sort of) published their first-ever Best Games list earlier this year, though I missed it at the time.

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British GQ Polled Hundreds of Experts to Compile “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time”

As the official magazine of the British Film Institute, the editors at Sight & Sound regularly poll hundreds of critics and directors to aggregate a list of the Greatest Films of All Time. This once-a-decade undertaking was last compiled in 2022 and uses a simple premise: each voter is able to select ten films and the final list is ranked based on which films were mentioned most often.

The methodology for British GQ’s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time, Ranked by Experts” is slightly different, but the recent list is probably the closest analogue the video game industry has to Sight & Sound’s poll.

Like Sight & Sound, British GQ asked critics and developers to submit a personally ranked top ten list of games… without including any guidance as to what “The Greatest” meant. But that “personally ranked” bit means that the methodology of this list differs slightly from the Sight & Sound poll. Each voter’s top title received ten points, second place was given nine, third place picked up eight points, and so on down to a single point for the game in the tenth position. From there, the final list was ranked according to the total number of points each game received.

Sam White, British GQ’s resident Games Columnist, sent out 300 invitations to partake in the poll and received 239 responses. A total of 652 games received at least one vote and the game in the top spot not only accrued the most points, but also the most #1 placements among all voters as well.

So which game came out on top amongst this expansive panel of experts? Drumroll please…

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The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 Inducts The Last of Us, Wii Sports, Barbie Fashion Designer, and Computer Space

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us has had a pretty good year. An enhanced remake known as The Last of Us Part I helped set new standards for accessibility in games when it debuted on the PS5 in September. HBO’s hugely popular live action adaptation followed in January to rave reviews and some of the highest ratings in the network’s history. And now, it has been inducted into the Strong Museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2023.

Three other games were inducted this year, and each one sparked a revolution in video games in their own way.

Nintendo’s Wii Sports launched alongside the Wii in 2006 and popularized motion controls in a big way. Not only did Nintendo’s traditional audience love it, but the game also became a favorite of seniors and inspired Sony and Microsoft to introduce motion peripherals later that generation.

Like Wii Sports, Mattel Media’s Barbie Fashion Designer also opened up video games to a new audience in 1996. The dress-up game sold more than half a million copies in its first year (more than megasellers like Doom or Quake over a similar span of time), kickstarted a conversation about gender and gaming, and served as an introduction to technology for many women.

Finally, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabny’s Computer Space, the first commercially-available video game, has made its way into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

The historians and curators from the World Video Game Hall of Fame spared a few thoughts about the Class of 2023, which you can find after the break.

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“The Greatest Games: The 93 Best Computer Games of All Time” is a Best Games List from 1985

More than 70 Best Games lists have been used to create the Video Game Canon’s Top 1000 (with the oldest going all the way back to 1995). But did you know that an even earlier generation of writers were compiling notable lists in the 1980s?

It’s true. People were already having fierce debates about which games should be considered the Best Games of All Time, even though we were just a decade removed from the launch of Computer Space.

Dan Gutman and Shay Addams, the editors of Computer Games magazine, were two writers who wanted to try their hand at creating just such a list. Branching out from their day jobs, the pair took their gaming expertise to Compute! Books, who agreed to publish The Greatest Games: The 93 Best Computer Games of All Time in January 1985.

The Greatest Games first appeared in bookstores during a very strange time for the industry. This was just after “The Great Video Game Crash” of 1983 marked the end of the line for the Atari 2600. But it was also a time when players were migrating over to a growing number of different computer platforms (especially outside the United States). You also have to remember what was still to come, as the book was published before Street Fighter II revitalized the arcade scene, before Tetris escaped the USSR, and before the NES changed everything.

So what were a couple of video game experts talking about as the best games ever in the 1980s?

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Shacknews Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 Includes Final Fantasy VII, GoldenEye 007, Mario Kart 64, and Many More

The Council of the Old, better known as the editorial team at Shacknews, has announced the latest inductees into the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

The Shacknews Hall of Fame was created in 2021 to honor “the creators, the platforms, the technology, the publications, and the games that have influenced the direction of our industry and shaped our favorite hobby.” Like any good Best Games list, last year’s wide-ranging inaugural class (comprised of more than 100 titles in total) featured many beloved favorites alongside a few more obscure surprises. The Class of 2022 has blown the doors open even wider, with 57 additional titles, all released before May 31, 1998.

As you might expect, multiple games from the heyday of the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 can be found amongst the more than four dozen selections. The PlayStation faithful will be pleased to see that Bushido Blade, Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, and PaRappa the Rapper all made the cut. The Nintendo 64 was famous for its multiplayer games, and they’re now well-represented in the Shacknews Hall of Fame by GoldenEye 007, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

You also don’t have to look very far to find a few PC titles in the Class of 2022, including Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Fallout, and Quake II.

An eclectic group of people were also inducted into the Shacknews Hall of Fame this year. There’s a quintet of Mario actors (“Captain” Lou Albano, Danny Wells, Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Charles Martinet), a few athletes (John Madden and Ivan “Ironman” Stewart, a trio of Midway men (Ed Boon, John Tobias, and Dan Forden), and the unmatched Raul Julia.

All of the games included in the Shacknews Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.

USA Today’s For The Win Ranks “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time”

USA Today launched their irreverent sports blog, For The Win, in 2013. But in the last few years, the imprint has branched out to also offer coverage of video games with the editorial assistance of Good Luck Have Fun (GLHF), a media group headquartered in Sweden.

It’s an interesting arrangement, and earlier this month, several of GLHF’s editors got together to produce “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time, Ranked” for For The Win. That means that what we have here is essentially a European-centric list published under the masthead of a US-centric publication.

Yup, very interesting.

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World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 Includes Civilization, Dance Dance Revolution, Ms. Pac-Man, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Put on your dancing shoes, the Strong Museum has announced the four inductees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame‘s Class of 2022.

After coming up empty in two previous years (2018 and 2019), Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution finally boogied its way into the Hall of Fame. It was joined on the virtual stage by Sid Meier’s Civilization (2016) and Bandai Namco’s Ms. Pac-Man (2018), two other titles that fell short in previous years.

For the fourth inductee, the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in its first year as a finalist.

Historians and curators from the World Video Game Hall of Fame put together a short presentation video highlighting this year’s inductees, as well as shared some of their thoughts.

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is #1 in IGN’s 2021 Update to Their “Top 100 Games of All Time”

Just a few months after hosting a “Best Video Game of All Time Bracket” for their readers, IGN is back with the latest update to their staff-curated “Top 100 Games of All Time” list.

Games in our top 100 have to measure up to a few key metrics: how great a game it was when it launched, how fun it is to still play today, and how much the game reflects the best in its class. While past versions of this list have put a big emphasis on a game’s impact and influence, we’ve essentially taken that out of the equation. Many games that left a mark and inspired future developers may not stand the test of time and be all that fun to play right now. Or, quite simply, they may have been surpassed by other games.

With all of that said, IGN’s list reflects the current staff’s 100 best games of all time – a collection of games that continue to captivate us with their stories, wow us with their revelatory approach to game design, and set the standards for the rest of the industry.

This year’s update is the seventh iteration of the list, which was first published all the way back in 2003. That group of editors and staff writers chose Super Mario Bros. for as the greatest game of all time. Mario’s first super-sized adventure is still hanging around the upper reaches of IGN’s list (it’s at #21), but a different Nintendo-published title claimed the top spot in 2021.

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