Just watched the last 20 of G4TV’s top 100 games of all time and I have to admit I was a little surprised that Missile Defense Command and Tron weren’t in the list of 100 at all, which seems to me to be a shocking oversight.
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srv
Only a gamer would page through a 100 times to see a ‘list’
Space Wars, only game I liked.
srv
Spacewar on a pdp11 that is
Warren Terra
I’m with srv, except that I’d substitute “idiot” for “gamer”. I was mildly interested in the list, enough to click through and enough to click the buttons that appeared to offer pages each containing 20 items (though I’d have preferred the full list of 100) – but if that website has a way to look at the list other than one-game-at-a-time, they’ve hidden it well. I suppose this approach would maximize their ad revenue, at least if the advertisers don’t mind pitching exclusively to idiots. Then again, maybe they don’t.
Litlebritdifrnt
The only game I liked recently was Tea Bag Zombies. I really enjoyed that one.
ABL 2.0
i almost stomped on both open threads. i set mine for an hour from now.
cathyx
I was able to help someone win a stupid insignificant competition and I feel so giddy right now. And all I can think is: Ahh, life’s simple pleasures.
MikeJ
@srv: That’s why I generally skip any link that has a number in the title. I love games, I’ve worked in the biz, and there ain’t no way they’re getting 100 clicks out of me to see if any of mine are on the list.
Just Some Fuckhead
Deer Hunter was overlooked too.
saxifrage
Missile Command you mean, surely.
Though to be fair I have trouble keeping my Reagan-era tech fantasies straight sometimes, too.
freelancer
Bioshock seemed shockingly high on the list of greatest games of all time. ALL TIME?! #3?! Really?
Just Some Fuckhead
Dungeon Keeper was curiously missing from the list. Prolly 101 or 102.
Ben Cisco
Wanted to say thanks to Ruckus and Yutsano for their kind words in the Father’s Day thread. Mrs. Cisco pulled me away from the keyboard before I saw the responses.
Finally got the MRI out of the way, will find out Tue or Wed what the verdict is.
PeterJ
@srv:
Here:
100. Pong
99. Words With Friends
98. Pitfall
97. NBA 2K11
96. Guitar Hero II
95. Burger Time
94. Braid
93. Star Wars: Tie Fighter
92. Galaga
91. The Sims
90. Baldur’s Gate II
89. Left 4 Dead
88. Double Dribble
87. Mass Effect 2
86. Out Run
85. Silent Hill 2
84. Wii Sports
83. Ninja Gaiden
82. Super Smash Bros. Melee
81. Resident Evil
80. Gears Of War 3
79. PsychoNauts
78. Spy Hunter
77. Excitebike
76. Blades Of Steel
75. Fallout 3
74. Starfox 64
73. Mega Man II
72. Mortal Kombat
71. Wing Commander II
70. Star Wars
69. Double Dragon
68. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
67. Minecraft
66. Assassin’s Creed II
65. Unreal Tournament
64. NBA Jam
63. Wolfenstein 3D
62. Civilization II
61. God Of War III
60. Contra
59. Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tenacle
58. Ultimata Online
57. Pokemon Red/Blue
56. Super Street Fighter IV
55. Kingdom Hearts
54. Gauntlet
53. Deus Ex
52. Rock Band 3
51. Ratchet & Clank Going Commando
50. Sonic The Hedgehog
49. Angry Birds
48. Tecmo Bowl
47. Must
46. Red Dead Redemption
45. Metal Gear Solid
44. Grand Theft Auto IV
43. Quake III: Arena
42. Ghosts ‘N Goblins
41. Super Mario 64
40. Space Invaders
39. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
38. Super Metroid
37. Halo
36. Batman: Arkham City
35. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
34. Counter Strike
33. Final Fantasy VII
32. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
31. Skyrim
30. Super Street Fighter II Turbo
29. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
28. Super Mario Kart
27. Chrono Trigger
26. Ico
25. Grand Theft Auto III
24. Madden 2005
23. Halo 3
22. Panzer Dragoon Saga
21. Resident Evil IV
20. Call of Duty 4
19. Diablo II
18. Ms. Pac-Man
17. StarCraft
16. Half-Life
15. Donkey Kong
14. Uncharted 2
13. Portal
12. Doom II
11. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
10. World of Warcraft
9. Shadow of the Colossus
8. Goldeneye
7. Super Mario Bros. 3
6. The Legend of Zelda
5. Tetris
4. Asteroids
3. Bioshock
2. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1. Super Mario Bros.
I’m just going point out one thing about their list.
One (1) adventure game.
Suffern ACE
I’ve only been good at Tapper and Tempest, so I am going to doubt any list that doesn’t have them listed.
ljdramone
Sheesh. Asteroids is #4, but nary a mention of the best coin-op vector graphics video game EVAR?!??
Ripoff, y’all. RIPOFF.
lacp
My sim took the national championship in Cyborg Wanking: Emperor Fellatius’ Revenge. Can I get a FP spot here?
Wil
Burgertime is on the list but Defender is not?
I guess the assignment was “name any 100 games you can think of, and we’ll call it a ‘best 100 of all time’ list and we’ll get ad clickage.
“Don’t spend more than five minutes putting the list together, either.
“And if you’re too young to know much about the classic games…well, don’t worry about it. Just leave ’em out.”
Wil
@ljdramone:
Yup….Ripoff was the shit. Best of the really early vector games, by far.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@ljdramone: Tempest?
JPL
Personally I am disappointed that you didn’t mention what you gave your dad for father’s day. I’m sure he would appreciate a big hug but anything else?
Keith
Words With Friends made the list? I guess the give a lot of weight to popularity, because the game is basically Scrabble With Cheating.
handy
How does Ms. Pac-Man make that list ahead of the superior original, which for its time was probably the most cultural significant video game in existence.
lacp
@handy: Rush told you a long, long time ago – feminazis, dude!
Dimmic Rat
How the hell did X-Com: UFO Defense not make the list?
handy
@Dimmic Rat:
Loderunner and M.U.L.E. are absent also. To hell with this list.
Bruce S
I got sidetracked in a booze thread. Which says all you need to know about me.
But I came here today to say something about President Obama – who retains my loyalty and admiration.
The President has been strengthened in the past 6-8 months by several things. One was the totally-out-of-left-field Occupy movement, which for all of it’s faults (and I’m from Oakland, so that’s a fraught conversation) brought the 99%/income inequality discussion to the forefront. President Obama has adopted a significant piece of this rhetoric in his campaign speeches. Second was the LGBTQ movement, which was tenacious in pushing the marriage equality issue – again, adopted by President Obama. And third was the “Dream” movement, which was open to lobbying Marco Rubio among other very tenacious activism on their issue – with President Obama making a major move to bring these young people into his fold, and all of the symbolism that signals to Latino voters.
Each one of these moves was good policy and great politics. It might piss off the FOX crowd, but who cares. President Obama has shown that the “bully pulpit” – derided by some of the more timid “Dems” and party hacks (you know who you are) – can have impact. (Look at the shift in polls on gay marriage among African Americans, among other things, once the President made his own views clear.)
The point of this is that the President has been better served by “outside” activism than “inside” sycophants who counsel weakness as a strategy.
I’ve been in enough forums here to “get” where a lot of folks are coming from, and frankly the “just support the President because he’s doing the best he can” crowd have been shown up in real time and real life by the “make me do it” elements among the President’s base. And, of course, the “Make me do it” folks are more true to the man who ran for office in 2008 than the shameless, weak-willed, scared-of-their-shadow sycophants whose only consistency has been deriding “the bully pulpit”, tenacious activism on issues or strategic criticism of a sitting administration from the left.
PS – Note to “Stuck” going in. Fuck you. That is all.
Mike W
Tron? I always preferred Discs of Tron myself (it helped that a local arcade had the stand-in surround-sound cabinet until at least the late 90s) :D
Keith
@handy: Yup, you cannot have a list of greatest games and leave M.U.L.E. off it. And sure as shit not when Gears of War *3* is on there. Hell, they’ve got *2* Halo’s on the list, and as much as I love Halo, WTF is H3 doing on the list?
Mike W
@handy: No Star Control II either, which is a pretty glaring omission in my book.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think I woulda put River Raid on the list. I modded my Wii and put an emulator on there and found the River Raid rom.
handy
@Bruce S:
Looks like Obama got a nice gift from Greece too. Evkharisto.
JPL
@handy: Initially MSNBC said it was good news but now are saying it might not be enough.. I’m so confused.
haha..the repubs called and they backed down with their initial headline.
lacp
@handy: Maybe. The Greek people sure didn’t.
The Dangerman
What, no Millipede? Higher levels were like some wild acid trip (many a quarter was spent).
ETA: Any Crystal Questers in the house? Great game, same as Millipede, upper levels were insane.
Baud
@JPL:
Explain, please. Sounds intriguing.
handy
@lacp:
Ain’t that the truth.
Bruce S
@handy:
Yeah – but if I were a Greek I would be livid. The Euro was a terrible move for Greece. Greeks aren’t “innocent” in this scenario, but they’re mostly just being fucked by the Germans at this stage of the game. The “Eurozone” is a prime example of “very Serious People” pushing radically flawed policies. Of course, I’m sure lots of folks made lots of money off of this disastrous policy. Now it’s up to “the little people” to pay the piper.
JPL
@Baud: I didn’t save the initial headline but on MSNBC.com .. it affirmed the backing of the euro now it says Greek vote only buys time.
I jumped to the accurate conclusion that someone called them and they made it more dire.
JPL
@Baud: I didn’t save the initial headline but on MSNBC.com .. it affirmed the backing of the euro now it says Greek vote only buys time.
I jumped to the accurate conclusion that someone called them and they made it more dire.
JPL
well ..crap ..i’m double posting again.. what’s up with that?
JPL
well ..crap ..i’m double posting again.. what’s up with that?
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S: I’m pretty sure I’d qualify as one of the people you’re calling out there, but, for what it’s worth, my “bully pulpit” argument has never been that it doesn’t change opinions in the populace — instead the point is that the bully pulpit even at its most successful is very unlikely to translate into votes by sitting politicians otherwise inclined to oppose the president. Criticism from the left can and should proliferate both inside and outside party politics, but we shouldn’t fall into thinking that doing what the critics want is better politics, just in nakedly utilitarian terms, than ignoring what they want. Sometimes good principle is bad politics.
mcd410x
Glad to see Doom 2 in the top 20. Still fun to play.
Baud
@JPL: I appreciate the double posts — I don’t always get it with the first read. :)
Old Dan and Little Ann
I was curious to click through #20-1. I haven’t played video games since the early 90’s so I missed the boat on all the recent good stuff. I did love me some Jumpman Jr., though. And #98 from the list above is Pitfall. I played that fucking game for hours. Was there even an ending to that game?
Chris from Arlington, VA
Putting any BioWare game higher than Baldur’s Gate II is an insult to RPG Gamers everywhere, as far as I’m concerned. Baldur’s Gate 2 was and always will be their great masterwork.
Also there are FAR too many games from the last 24 months on that list. You need several years to marinade on a game before you really know how good it is.
Joel
No mention of Missile Command shall pass without this:
Roy Awesome.
Bruce S
@FlipYrWhig: @FlipYrWhig:
It would be hard to argue, on the crucial issues Obama has embraced rhetorically, that any of them are “bad politics.”
You’re talking to someone who endorses the drone wars, by the way – not some left-wing purist from Kos or whatever. I also happen to think that ugly strategy is both “best among terrible choices” policy and better politics than extending ground wars for more mostly fruitless years. Lots of folks would disagree with me on that issue – I’d hate for there not to be disagreement (Glenn Greenwald!) on a policy that morally fraught, but I’m a Niebuhrian realist and have internalized the fact of sinfulness as best I can. I don’t see some way out of the war against al Qaeda that leaves me – and I acknowledge the personal responsibility – with clean hands. Large problem, but not one that succumbs or is resolved by simplistic demagogy from my perspective.
Joel
@lacp: Would the Greeks have been better off with the Trotskyites? I’m not so sure.
lacp
@Baud: That’s maybe the most gracious thing I’ve read on the Intertubes.
Squarely Rooted
How could I let this go without alerting the Balloon Juice communitas?
andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/in-search-of-edmund-burke.html
lacp
@Joel: The Greeks would be better off getting out of the the Eurozone. I’d rather that they did that with Trotskyites than Nazis, but it’s their choice. Staying in the austerity program is death.
Baud
@lacp:
Well thank you ma’am. (It is ma’am, right?)
Bruce S
@Squarely Rooted:
The truth is, all Sullivan lampooning aside, that the “actually existing” Edmund Burke is as much of a repudiation of contemporary GOPism as any political philosopher in history.
lacp
@Baud: ..uh, not last time I checked, no.
Violet
@lacp:
Seems like the Greeks are kind of screwed now matter how they voted.
Bruce S
@lacp:
But let’s not underplay the pain of getting out, as much as that’s the “logical” path over the long run. Personally I’d rather they get out with Social Democrats, but the Greek socialists have soiled themselves. Horrible choices…
Violet
@Squarely Rooted: I hear bells. Burkean bells.
Baud
@lacp: Sorry. :(
I try to associate screen names with sex based on my recollection of prior comments. I should take written notes.
lacp
@Bruce S: No kidding. Even the people pushing hardest for the exits have said this will be really bad. Greece just doesn’t have the advantages Argentina had. And – quelle surprise – the average Greek’s problems are largely due to the 1% taking the social contract and using it for toilet paper. Tax evasion? Unsupportable loans? Haw, haw – hey there lumpen, sux2bu!
Violet
@lacp: Oh, that’s interesting. I thought you were female too. Wonder why both Baud and I had that impression.
ericblair
@Chris from Arlington, VA:
Like any “Bestest Songs of the Last 500 Years” list has 90% of them from the last twelve months, because either we’re always in the zenith of artistic development, or the author is a lazy bastard writing for an audience that can’t remember what it had for breakfast. No Zork/Adventure? No Nethack? Um, ok.
@FlipYrWhig:
I agree with this, and that’s where the ACA arguments broke down. I believe that the President can sway parts of the electorate if the time is right, but expecting that to change a gooper vote in the House or especially the Senate, when it’s been obvious that the goopers have been well and truly bought by the wealthy, was wishful thinking. Are Obama’s speeches, however masterful and well received by the voters, going to move any Congressional votes on DOMA repeal or DREAM?
lacp
@Baud: WTF? You’re trying to be fucking polite on fucking Balloon Juice? Fuck you! Fuck you twice!
lacp
@Violet: I’d say it’s a gift, but perhaps that’s not quite right….
joel hanes
Quake 2 was not even available as a choice.
No Return to Castle Wolfenstein in the top 100 ?
Unreal didn’t make the list ? (no, I’m not talking about Unreal Tournament, I’m talking about Unreal and its sequel, Return to NaPali)
And I’m surprised that GTA IV beat out San Andreas.
I was interested to see indie wonder “Braid” at 94.
That’s one trippy game — allows you to go move backward in time at any point to “undo” mistakes.
Recommended.
I have a friend who has been consumed by Skyrim for almost a month — I’m afraid to start, ’cause I don’t have that kind of time right now.
Heliopause
There have been 100+ “video” games in history? There’s a TV network devoted to “video” games? As Yakov Smirnoff would say, what a country.
rikyrah
I had a long talk with a Sistafriend of mine. She’s not political, per se, but she always breaks it down for me. She’s my ‘ beat on the street’.
‘Rik, if these Kneegrows don’t know that they better crawl over ground glass to go pull that lever for Obama in November, then I don’t know what to say..’
LOL
told her that there wasn’t anything else to say.
Baud
@lacp:
I know, I know. But @ABL is supposed to put up a new post soon. That’s usually a good place to get back to being nasty to each other.
Violet
@rikyrah:
The other thing to say is to make sure their voters registration ducks are in a row well before its time to vote. It’s all well and good to crawl over ground glass to get to the polling station, but it might end up that all they’ll have is bleeding knees if they don’t quadruple check their voters registration and additional requirements before said crawl. They won’t actually have a vote.
Edit: This advice goes for everyone, no matter what color your skin or where you live.
ericblair
@lacp:
This is probably true, but how do you unbake the cake at this point without total destruction of the banking system. The Greeks are already worried that one day they’re going to wake up and their euros in the bank are going to turn into rapidly devaluing drachmas, so there’s a pretty good bank run going on right now. Give them any evidence and the entire depository value of the Greek banking system will be about twelve cents and a wad of chewed gum in about an hour. So then what? You can’t stop the euros from getting out of the country. Do you just start paying everyone in drachmas one day, meaning that anyone with euros is living large and anybody without is screwed for good? I dunno, and I get the sinking feeling that nobody really has a workable plan either.
Mnemosyne
Since this is a gamer thread, I’ll put in a plug for the Giant Evil Corporation’s upcoming animated film:
Wreck-It Ralph
Go see it so that I may continue to have a job! And also because it’s very good and a lot of talented people are working their asses off to make you gamer nerds squee.
Violet
@ericblair: Yeah, there never was an exit plan. And they didn’t design it with a central government, so the whole thing was a mess from the beginning. It’s not like they can just up and decide that Greek Euros aren’t worth anything. The day before that happens, everyone will change their Greek Euros for German or French Euros 1:1 and the whole Greek banking system will collapse.
lacp
@ericblair: There are no cupcakes and happy clowns in this one. Whatever Greek government finally bites the bullet, unless the whole country is put into receivership by German banks, will have to freeze bank accounts and do a whole lot of other really rough things that will hurt people. There are plans that look workable to me, but nobody (including me) likes them. We think we’re the only ones that the banksters have screwed, but basically they’ve eaten the world. I don’t think the human race has much of a future, certainly not short-term.
David Koch
@Bruce S: Darling, you may not have noticed, but for the past 3 years, the biggest detractors of the bully pulpit have been the usual suspects on the left.
The second Obama makes a statement, they run in and scream some variation of “who cares what he said, they’re just words”. So if it’s anyone who is undermining and discrediting the power of words and the bully pulpit, you have to look to your left.
Schlemizel
I have only ever gotten hooked on two computer run games – Q-bert (where I held high game in half a dozen pin-ball arcades) and Portals. The rest just bore my. But really for hours of playing time are any on that list close to Monopoly or chutes and ladders?
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@handy: lode runner and M.U.L.E. are generally unappreciated. But I am glad you mentioned them.
Shalimar
@Heliopause: You’re really going to be shocked to find out that the game industry has more revenue per year than the movie industry.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
I second this, because even in my suburban Los Angeles polling place, I saw at least two people have to file provisional ballots because of problems with their registration. Doublecheck that you’re registered in the right precinct (ie at your current address) and make sure you verify where your polling place is before election day in case they switch it up on you.
I went to my polling place at the end of the day, and one of the new poll workers who was tired and frazzled after her long day tried to tell me that I was a registered Republican because she misread the sign-in sheet. I have never in my life been registered as a Republican (though I was Decline to State until about 2002).
khead
No M.U.L.E? We used to play MULE on an Atari 800 before heading to happy hour on Friday in Blacksburg.
Someone should be shot.
See also, Seven Cities of Gold and Starflight.
fuckwit
Digby did a thing about what happened when WA repealed the individual mandate on its private HCA-type legislation:
digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/long-history-of-mandate-repeal.html
I think this could be progressives– and Obama’s– ace in the hole.
What if the SCOTUS strikes down the mandate and considers it severable from the rest of the act? It could be the utter destruction of private medical insurance in the USA.
WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ALL NEED. All those corporations go under. Medical insurance then becomes something States provide– or the Federal government– as a taxpayer-backed service i.e. expansion of Medicare to cover all. Problem solved.
Of course, this assumes that corporate whores in Congress don’t swoop in and bail out the medical insurance corps, considering them “too big to fail”. But if the unwinding of private for-profit insurance happens slowly, not as a catastrophic event for them, then maybe the gradual destruction of for-profit medical insurance is just the prescription here.
Trying to be optimistic.
PIGL
The greatest computer game ever?
rogue
That is all.
Vlad
For me, the biggest omissions are Planescape:Torment, the best RPG of all time, and Nethack/Rogue, which has simply amazing depth for a purely text-based game and is still a fucking blast to play.
Wouldn’t mind seeing an Infocom-style adventure or two on there, either. Maybe the Second Gabriel Knight game, or the second Monkey Island.
delphi_ote
“14. Uncharted 2”
What. The. Fuck?
Dream On
I want my Loderunner! And Dark Castle, for reasons known only to me. Maybe it’s all the bats my character had to hit with stones. Very low-tech, but I loved it all the same.
khead
LodeRunner? Really? Y’all like that one?
It’s no Miner2049er or even a Boulder Dash…..
delphi_ote
Also, where is SimCity, the Sims, Civ II, Wolfenstein in the top 20? X-com isn’t even on the list?! Entire cultures sprung up around the Street Fighter games! Centipede? Galaga? The original Final Fantasy inspired an entire genre that’s been around for decades!
Those people can go straight to hell and burn forever. Obviously, G4 has no sense of proportion or history.
Mnemosyne
@fuckwit:
How does that solve the problem when half the hospitals in the United States are for profit?
Anthony
@delphi_ote: That’s ridiculous. Original Street Fighter over Street Fighter 2? Final Fantasy over Final Fantasy 7? You don’t put the original up just because it came first you put the best game up period.
Valdivia
@Squarely Rooted:
as soon as I saw that I thought the same thing. That is a call out to DougJ if I ever saw one.
Bubba
No original Civ?
No Morrowind?
No Warcraft or Command and Conquer?
No Everquest??
I saw Tempest and Defender above and the original Pac Man, but I don’t know how you couldn’t include Centipede and Frogger as well. Or Dragon’s Lair! Or Adventure for the 2600 for that matter. And why include the Sims and not Sim City?
Zork was a great call, too- there was no more popular game for about a year. Same could be said for Doom the year it came out- it changed the use of shareware as well as multiplayer capabilities.
Somehow I’d have to find a place for Plants vs. Zombies and SWOTR on this list.
pragmatism
Galaga at #92 is just wrong. I voted with my quarters on that.
Tron is a great game.
No NHL games on there? The one (94ish) where you could do one timers, fight and make people bleed on the ice was great.
Silver
How about Ultima Underworld?
Wil
@khead: Amaze the natives
Geoduck
You KNOW NetHack/Rogue was never gonna make it on the list, because no one makes money off it, but yeah, but Zork and MULE are two that I liked that should have made the cut.
Fluke bucket
Drunk fan makes us open trophy presentation one of the best ever. God bless america on father’s day
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
What? No BattleZone? My favorite wireframe game, in which I could never advance more than a level or two?
And what’s with The Sims, but not Sim City, which started the whole thing.
NobodySpecial
Ultima Online and Skyrim but no Ultima? Someone’s been bogarting…
Bruce S
@David Koch:
Bullshit straw-man comment, gliding past reality.
But that’s what I expect, rather than substantive response to my point.
Origuy
@Mnemosyne: In Santa Clara County, there’s a website where you can check if you are registered. LA County has one too, I just found. Of course California isn’t one of those places where the right to vote is under attack like Florida.
GR
Wow, that’s the worst top 20 games of all time list I’ve ever seen compiled. Way too heavy on FPS and platformers. I guess the authors can’t wrap their feeble brains around strategy and puzzle games. No Civ? Pirates? SimCity? Zork? Hell, I think Myst is overrated, but it’s more deserving than most of the essentially interchangeable FPS games on there.
That’s not even the worst of it, though. ANY top 20 games list that doesn’t include Star Control II is clearly the work of a bunch of under-30 feebsters who think finding a bigger BFG than the last FPS they played makes for the ultimate gaming experience.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S: Ok, but I’m losing track of whether your point is chiefly that Obama should use the bully pulpit more or that activists should continue to push him hard. IMHO the most useful role for activists to play is to frame issues and discussions — that way we can continue to talk about “should” and “ought” without getting bogged down in counting the votes and why the current crop of politicians isn’t going to go as far as we would prefer.
Villago Delenda Est
Only one Civ. No SMAC.
No Jedi Outcast.
No Warcraft save the MMO.
No Battle Zone, no Missile Command.
No SimCity at all. The Sims? Really?
No Europa Universalis.
No M.U.L.E. or Empire.
Yeah, pretty lame list.
Mike
Empire! That takes me back! The precursor to the great civilization series. Empire was quite a game at the time–very addictive.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Profit needs to be taken out of the medical care system. Completely.
It is not fucking pins. Market mechanisms fail in it. One does not go shopping though Craig’s List for a fucking emergency room in the middle of a fucking heart attack.
bago
@Chris from Arlington, VA: Did you miss the bit in Mass Effect 2 where Tali deploys a drone and she says “Go for the Optics!”?
RadioOne
Yeah they didn’t think Centipede, Joust, Defender,Robotron 2084, Dig Dug, or even Pac Man made the cut. Screw G4TV.
Bethanyanne
Its prolly dead thread, but still… I don’t know that I could do a top 100, but I know I could do like a top 5 or 10 games that have just grabbed me, and not let go.
1. Warcrack. Why the hell am I still playing this so many years later?
2. Minecraft. Legos on a screen!
3. Galaga. The quarters I wasted…
4. Pitfall.
5. Zork
6. Skyrim. I’m prolly a 3rd of the way through the content, despite finishing it a few times.
7. Half life. I played all the expansions – I loved seeing the story with different toons.
8. Ratchet and Clank. Prolly #2, as that’s when I joined the series.
9. Katamari Damancy. Trippy Japanese snowball rolling.
10 would be a toss up between Tomb Raide and Halo. Both the first in the series. Wasted too much time in both of those.
Or should Bioshock replace Pitfall, hmmm
That’s my listishness
Schlemizel
@Squarely Rooted:
I like that L’ll Andy starts off with a “both sides do it” telling me that the left luvs them some Burke too. Can someone please point me to any serial supplications at the burkean alter from the left?
There is simply nothing that overly verbose, poor imitation of an intellectual can write that he does not weave some weapons grade bullshit into in service of his masters.
Bruce S
@FlipYrWhig: @FlipYrWhig:
I thought my comment was pretty clear as being about the critical importance of social movements on the progressive side of key issues pushing the President – “making him do it” in effect, as he asked prior to election – and helping give him the political space to take stronger stands, be it via legislative initiatives, executive initiatives – or simply “bully pulpit” propositions such as marriage equality. It’s become increasingly clear to me that the President has been better served by serious issues activism to his left than he is by sychophants whose impluse is to protect the administration from criticism or plead “political realism.”
If Obama were running on Simpson-Bowles as the solution to the country’s central problems or the “genius” of his Treasury Secretary in placating Wall Street, as an example, he would be dead meat. One of his biggest political weaknesses right now, frankly, is how ineffectual the administration has been in dealing with the housing collapse and foreclosures. Had they acted more courageously on this – and at best in response to a strong grassroots movement against mass foreclosures and confronting the critical issue of loan servicers who are not only screwing distressed homeowners but largely acting against the interests of investors in mortgage backed securities, no less – they would be in better shape in key states.
I’ve argued this for a long, long time – the folks who took “make me do it” seriously are better allies of the President and strengthen his hand more than the fainting couch crowd who explain how whatever the administration has achieved to date is the best of all possible worlds.
“The bully pulpit” is secondary to this question – just one of the tools the President might take up (as he has with his talk about income inequality and tax fairness) if there are social movements pushing him on issues and creating political space.
Splitting Image
I was also seriously underwhelmed by the list. Notable omissions for me were Pirates!, Ultima IV, Zork, and Dungeon Master.
I think you could make arguments for Tomb Raider, Bejewelled, Railroad Tycoon, Tempest and a bunch of others as well.
In fairness, these lists are hard to do. It’s particularly hard to rate a series of games like Civilization or Final Fantasy where several of them may deserve to be on the list but including them all will result in an entire genre being excluded completely.
Having said that, it doesn’t take more than a minute to realize there are too many shootemups on the list, and recent ones at that. They might have done better to define the list more narrowly, but generally a “best of all time” list does better when it is heavily weighted towards older material. It’s easier to explain the durability of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong relative to the competition of their time than it is to defend the inclusion of Skyrim over Daggerfall.
drew42
Pong is only #100, which immediately invalidates this list. Pong changed everything.
Babe Ruth would be terrible if he played against today’s athletes, but would you place him at #100 of all-time baseball players?
low-tech cyclist
There’s only about 7 games on that list that came out before 1990, as best as I can tell: Pong, Space Invaders, Ms. Pac Man, Asteroids, Tetris, Donkey Kong, and Super Mario Bros. And Pong is clearly on the list simply as a historical artifact, as in “In the beginning, there was Pong.”
For us oldsters, a list of the 50 best games of the arcade era would be interesting. Tron and Missile Command would both make that list.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S: I don’t think “activists” vs. “sycophants” is all that useful a distinction, though, because IMHO most of the people you’re tagging as sycophants believe in the same things the activists do, they’re just more concerned with the question of implementation. It’s not so much “Here’s why Obama is always right” as “Here’s why I think Obama did what he did.” And a lot of the activists, in contrast, get preoccupied with how not doing things their way is a sign of betrayal or corruption, which is why the tenor becomes “Obama screws the pooch again” rather than “Obama needs to go farther.”