ironSoap

So I sorta stumbled across a site I’ve seen previously which catalogs various top ten video game lists from different publications. I got to reading the site and then noted that the author summarized the results based on how many lists a game appeared on. This is obviously not a perfect summarization because it doesn’t take into account positioning. The author does link to a couple of other people who applied point systems or various other formulas but even there I wasn’t happy with the results because they were based around simple number crunching and not the application of logic.

What got me the most was that a couple of the publications (IGN.com and Electronic Gaming Monthly specifically) were included in the tallies more than once simply because they had released more than one top ten list in the last few years. This seemed wrong to me because while they weren’t necessarily that similar from year to year, they did represent one source basically stuffing the ballot box. Also there weren’t any ratings-based lists on there (most top ten lists are subjectively compiled by an editorial staff—there’s nothing wrong with that it just doesn’t represent the other means of collecting best-of data).

So what I did was take the list, cut off any duplicate source entries using only the most recent one available, added a couple of new sources in, including Metacritic’s top meta-rated games, gave each game a point rank from 10 to 1 based on position (a game ranked as #1 would get 10 points, games ranked #2 got 9 points, etc) and then removed any games from the list that came up with less than ten points total. Here is the result:

1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (101 points) – I still haven’t played this game. I guess I should.
2. Super Mario 64 (80 points) – I played this some when I lived in Texas and bought myself a Nintendo 64 to aleviate some of the occasional boredom from not knowing hardly anyone in the place. You know, it was interesting at the time, but not hardly what I’d consider to be #2 game all time.
3. Tetris (64 points) – I suppose I can understand why this game is here, although I’m not sure I’d equate ubiquity with quality.
4. Goldeneye 007 (42 points) – The first really viable FPS on a console? Yeah, I’d say that works as #4.
5. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (42 points) – I remember this game being fun but not stellar in the way that the first Legend of Zelda was. It certainly beat the pants off the weirdly incongruent Zelda II, but it didn’t strike me as being among the best games ever. Very good, sure, but tied for #4 overall seems excessive. Maybe I’ll pick up the GBA version and see if I’m just misremembering how good it was.
6. Final Fantasy VII (42 points) – I grudgingly admit this game is very, very good. Fanboys seem to forget that it certainly had it’s share of issues and there hasn’t been a Final Fantasy worth playing through since, but it certainly deserves to be somewhere on this list.
7. Super Mario Bros. 3 (35 points) – As the only game I’ve ever been so excited about to bother playing an import version from Japan, I’d say I have to agree with this one.
8. Super Mario Bros. (34 points) – As with Tetris I don’t know that ubiquity should be confused with quality, but I grant that as far as platformers go it was pretty good in its time.
9. Doom (34 points) – I never actually played through this game on the PC. I played a weird Doom/Doom II hybrid on the original Playstation. It was just OK.
10. Half-Life (31 points) – This would be much higher on my list.
11. Legend of Zelda (29 points) – I would have swapped this with A Link to the Past since my memory says that this game was basically the same as the original only with better, 16-bit graphics. Nice, but not 13 points superior.
12. Street Fighter II (28 points) – I spent a lot of money on this game and played quite a bit of it. I’m really not sure why, though. I never really cared all that much for fighting games and I sucked really horribly at SFII. I guess I can see where it deserves a spot on the list, but it wouldn’t be anywhere close to my own list.
13. Metal Gear Solid (27 points) – There were so many memorable experiences to be had playing this game. A gem that deserves a better ranking in my opinion.
14. StarCraft (21 points) – Let’s see, a game that came out almost ten years ago and is still the most popular game in some countries and has a continuing, active community worldwide? Yep, that sounds like top 30 fodder to me. I enjoyed it for the story as much as the gameplay.
15. Resident Evil 4 (19 points) – One of the best games ever. I’d have this higher.
16. Final Fantasy VI (19 points) – Another one of my top games. Words cannot express how much I’m anticipating the GBA port of this game. Move it higher!
17. Super Mario World (17 points) – It was an okay game, but I could never quite get the hang of the cape and I spent the whole game wishing they’d just bring the Raccoon Suit back. Wouldn’t crack my top 50.
18. Chrono Trigger (17 points) – I played this game so long ago that all I can remember about it are that I really, really liked it and that I couldn’t play it enough because it seemed like our whole neighborhood had saved games on our cartidge.
19. Tony Hawk 2 (17 points) – I absolutely loved this game for the Dreamcast. Later versions had more and better features, but this one had some kind of X factor that the others lacked that made it utterly addictive. I think I even called in sick one day to play this game. But time hasn’t been so kind to it and while I might recognize what it was to me then, I think it being fairly low on this list is appropriate. Tony Hawk games seem to be the kind that make a stellar first impression but whose quality doesn’t linger.
20. Super Metroid (16 points) – Even though I’m loving the Prime series, this is (and may forever be) the definitive Metroid game.
21. Quake (15 points) – I barely played more than 30 minutes of the original Quake. It seemed about as boring as Doom was. I got some mileage out of Quake III, but only because of the multiplayer.
22. Civilization (14 points) – I played some FreeCiv on Linux, but never actually messed with the original PC game. It’s hard sometimes to play these classics that you missed the first time around because you spend the whole time thinking that it could be done so much better using modern technology.
23. Super Mario Kart (13 points) – As much Mario Kart as I’ve played, I don’t think I ever played the original SNES version other than at in-store demo kiosks.
24. Civilization II (13 points) – See the Civilization comment above.
25. The Sims (12 points) – I can honestly say that despite some ringing endorsements from people I actually trust, I have never played nor really had any interest in playing the Sims.
26. Grand Theft Auto 3 (12 points) – For all the controversy, the sandbox style gameplay in GTA3 is still pretty impressive. I wish someone (or even Rockstar themselves) would come up with a similar game with similar quality and attention to detail where you had something more noble to do. I’m thinking along the lines of a truly open-ended role-playing game or a Zelda-type adventure game with a massive world and more or less total freedom. Virtual sociopathy is quasi-amusing for a while, but it’s hard to relate to a thug, you know?
27. Quake II (11 points) – I played a little bit of Quake II around the time I was messing with Half-Life and Unreal (the original story based game, not Tournament), but I wasn’t all that impressed.
28. Pac Man (10 points) – Some of my earliest memories involve this game, Chuck E. Cheese and being too blasted short to reach the controls and see the screen without the aid of a chair.
29. The Sims 2 (10 points) – If you thought I had no interest in the original Sims, apply that double for the sequel.
30. Elite (10 points) – I had never even heard of Elite until this little exercise. I had to look it up.

Sources: Nintendo Power 2006, Metacritic 2006, EGM 2005, GamePro 2005, GameFAQs 2005, IGN 2005, The Age 2005, Edge 2004, Retrogamer 2004, Entertainment Weekly 2003, Dorkclub 2003, GameSpy 2001, Game Informer 2001, GameSpot 2001, Computer and Video Games 2001, GamesRadar 2000, Nintendorks 2000, Next Generation 1999, CNET (?).