TIME's All-"Time" 100 Games by Decade

[Bolivar]

I never thought there'd be a list that could make us happy we have IGN, but I think this could be it for some of you:

Full List | All-TIME 100 Video Games | TIME.com

Surprises? Castle Wolfenstein, when I think they meant the Return to. The wacky-sounding Ultima IV one of our EoFFers posted in their top 10 RPGs made the list.I didn't know the Oregon Trail was from 1971. My teacher has me playing a 20 year-old game! Also, there's only one numbered Final Fantasy on the list... guess who it is! And isn't!!! Joy!!!!

[Skyblade]

Well, Chrono Trigger made it, at least.

[Slothy]

Them listing Counter-Strike in the 2000's irks me more than it probably should. Yeah, I realize that's the year it got it's retail release, but it was out and people were playing it (in various forms) well before that happened.

Other thoughts as they occurred to me:
- Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and Okami are on here? The list structure doesn't force meaningless and subjective ratings? Maybe the people who made this aren't complete morons.

*Sees Oblivion is the only TES game listed. Titles like Fallout and Super Mario Bros. 3 are nowhere to be found*

- Okay, maybe I gave them a bit too much credit.

[Freya]

WOO katamari damacy made it!

[krissy]

this seems more like a list of 'culturally important' games, or games that broke barriers and introduced nerdom to mainstream and reinitiated the games as art dialogue
anyway i lik eit

[maybee]

Replace Final Fantasy VII with VI and then it's all good. And Sonic 1 with Sonic 2.

[The Man]

There's a lot of good stuff missing.

• FFVI
• Earthbound
• Super Metroid
• Super Mario World (I would actually choose Yoshi's Island over this, but it's probably too obscure for most people)
• Zelda: A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time
• Anything from the Fallout series
• Anything from the Dragon Quest series

I could go on. And who in their right smurfing mind picks the original SMB over SMB3? Everyone knows SMB3 was the pinnacle of the NES-era Mario games. The fact that they included Angry Birds and smurfing Solitaire makes me suspect they may be at least partially trolling us.

At least they included NetHack and Marathon. Those were nice surprises.

[VeloZer0]

It looks to me like they picked the list not on the individual games merits but more on what they brought to the genre in terms of popularity, art, media attention etc...

Also I don't know why you would consider Earthbound important. Though a select few people love it to death I don't see how it had any meaningful impact.

[The Man]

If we're discussing popularity then no, obviously Earthbound doesn't belong. If we're talking artistic achievement and influence then yes, it does. It's not a game that a lot of people played, but large numbers of the people who played it loved it to the extent that it frequently appears on readers' choice polls of the best games ever made both in North America and in Japan.

[Bolivar]

Yeah I think krissy/VeloZer0 are right in what the list was trying to go for and I think for the most part it actually succeeded.

[Laddy]

-No Final Fantasy VI
-No Baldur's Gate II

:I