ILX'S 100 GREATEST VIDEO GAMES EVER

Lemmings was from a neat era in computer games, where you could have special christmas editions that were pretty much glorified demos with holiday themes. Always liked them.

Not necessarily top-100 worthy, but etc is probably right to be surprised - normally you'd expect lots of nostalgia for things like Oregon Trail and Odell Lake. Especially if weird, really garish-looking platformers you've never even heard of ("Chuckie Egg"??? Bubble Bobble 2???) are getting in.

The absence of fighting games and RTSes *is* shocking though. Didn't realize ILX skewed so heavily towards geek games. I take no issue with that - I'm happy to be among my kind - it's just interesting.

Chuckie Egg and Rainbow Islands II were both massive in the UK. I think Rainbow Islands may have been the biggest selling C64 title ever.

(ps, lovers of Chuckie Egg etc may freely mock my vote for Commander Keen, representative of countless not-quite-as-good-as-Mario PC shareware platformers from the golden age of the BBS.)

Commander Keen has more in common with Metroid or Castlevania than Mario

How did Last Ninja do over there? I have no real sense of what the really popular games for C64 were in the States, and just played what my dad and brother bought. In hindsight, we really had a ton of games...how much did C64 games cost, typically? Was my family dealing drugs?

re: Keen, I could see that - bigger levels, gathering keys, etc. (An even closer Metroid clone: the impossibly difficult Captain Comic.)

The only nominated fighting games were pretty crappy but I still voted for SNK vs. Capcom 2 hoping it would make the list and rep for SFII, Darkstalkers et al

Aw NO EARTHBOUND. *96 taers*

^*co-signs this with a 97th tear*

Lack of any Ultima and Star Control II is highly disappointing, lost forever in the era of weird non-internet PC computing.

Did Simcity evn get nominated? Wait, did I nominate it? I know I did the Sims... gah I wish I'd voted, now :)

THIS JUST GOES TO SHOW

VOTERS OF THE WORLD

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Well I would have voted for the Sims and Oblivion anyway which won't have made much difference.

I've never played Civ. I suppose I really should, some time.

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dom what was my ballot? I sent it to you through ILX-mail and I don't appear to have saved a text copy

anyway classic, classic results, well done everyone.
I do wish more people would post to ILG for general discussion of stuff. Maybe I should move my RCR thread over there

people complaining should have been perhaps more fastidious during the nomination period, Diablo II being Blizzard's only contribution to these results is kind of ZUH

san andreas is not the best gta

yeah, I heard they made another one after that.

Is there an animated gif of John Saxon w/ gasmask doing a hearty double thumbs-up?

Wolfenstein over Doom? really?

i personally always preferred wolfenstein because you got to shoot actual human beings, said el tomboto

i hope that worked

great poll, Dom! thanks for your work!

yeah, I heard they made another one after that.

-- El Tomboto, Sunday, May 4, 2008 9:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

great game but so messy in terms of bugs + graphics, too ambitious for tech of the time

wut

san andreas is really sluggish. i could never get into it.

x-post to zs

i think deej thought tom meant san andreas

wait, i just confoozled myself

hahahaha

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(ps, lovers of Chuckie Egg etc may freely mock my vote for Commander Keen, representative of countless not-quite-as-good-as-Mario PC shareware platformers from the golden age of the BBS.)

I ended up playing lots of these kind've things - I've got very fond memories of Commander Keen IV ... not too many other games have replicated the, uh, Macauley Culkin-goes-scifi-goes-Bugs-Bunny feel of it, & the sounds effects from the original series (the ice-block cannon) sporadically haunt me. Keen instead of Mario, Wacky Wheels instead of Mario Kart, Jazz Jackrabbit instead of Sonic ... TS: Apogee vs Epic Megagames. My Dad REGISTERED Paganitzu! Crystal Caves, Tyrian, Raptor ...

Some more: this game was ridiculously fun in 1992! So long as you played it on your uncle's computer with the good sound card and the good processor - it was BLINDINGLY fast and the sounds just seemed MASSIVE - especially the chaingun. And the Nazi exclamations! Okay, banging around smacking spacebar and hoping to find secret doors got old fast, and the whole game looks basically the same, but compared to anything else I was playing at the time it was amazing. And yeah, the violence - cartoony though it seems now - was otherwise unavailable on my PC. The shock of the new!

Yeah, I voted for it largely on "seminal" terms and because its successor DOOM weren't available - but I really did play the hell out of Wolf/Spear.

OTM.

I'm kind've surprised JRPGs didn't do better - I figured they'd be the silent-majority equivalent of Radiohead on all those ILM polls.

I can't remember too much from Epic Megagames besides Jill of the Jungle and Jazz Jackrabbit - whereas Apogee had the Keen series, plus a host of lesser but still diverting shareware smashes - Cosmo, the one with the kid in the horror setting, Secret Agent, the original Duke Nukem, Major Stryker, etc. Oh, shit, Raptor! Now that actually had some sweet graphics.

As far as Keen goes, IV and VI are where it's at, for sure. IV for the music, and VI for the name "Fribbulus Xax."

We never registered a god damn thing. :(

When we do this again the top 20 should just be C64 games with digitized speech.

New ILX motto: "AHH. ANOTHER VISITOR. STAY AWHILE. STAYYYY FOREVER!"

That David Kushner book Masters of Doom has a, uh, dramatic re-telling of how the smooth scrolling of Commander Keen was stumbled upon, if you haven't read it - really punchy narrative.

the one with the kid in the horror setting
Monster Bash! Creepiest thing about that game was the kid's jumpsuit or whatever; the look of the thing wasn't as crisp/clean as Crystal Caves/Secret Agent (though that wasn't as much of a problem for Jill Of The Jungle - the grainyness worked for the setting) ... Hocus Pocus & Mystic Towers were entertaining, Rise Of The Triad was really WEIRD 3d shooter coming after Doom (all those hallucinogenic/environment altering "powerups"!) ... I kind've forgive Epic everything for One Must Fall: 2097, the only successful attempt at a PC fighting game - console/arcade fighters couldn't pull off the upgrading-yr-robot/pilot system that made it so fun. Has TOMBOT played it?
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No Arkanoid/Breakout (or PONG!) games in the list!

oh fuck yeah I played the hell out of some OMF. The boss mech was such a fucking cheater. best bot was the FLAIL by a long shot

"That David Kushner book Masters of Doom"

great book! really entertaining

Damn, I read like 3 pages of it and gave it back to my ex. He'd said "if you ever want to understand me and what I do, this book will do that".

I feel bad for not reading it now.

Fucking Rygar People!!!!

I forgot to cast my ballot in time, though, so I can't really complain. I'm also sorry to see that Ninja Gaiden didn't make the cut either, but then my gaming salad days span from about 1988 to 1993. Great work Dom!

Civ II is kind of weird in that I've played it the most of any Civ and it's obviously terrific, but it also has bad parts (caravan trading, micromanagement) that the later games fixed. And yet it's still my favorite.

OTM

Phil if you want to play a championship manager and don't know about football, start with CM2, it's way easier to get into and you won't notice the players are old.

Phil if you want to play a championship manager and don't know about football, start with CM2, it's way easier to get into and you won't notice the players are old.

maybe i'll just stick to romance of the three kingdoms 8. they cant be that much different anyway?

No Arkanoid/Breakout (or PONG!) games in the list!

Arkanoid is on the list. It shouldn't be.

Best breakout = the one free w/the ZX Spectrum.

Oops, my bad re: Arkanoid; eyes glazed over around then. I think what I meant was (it is the nineties and is time for) KLAX! My favourite Breakout clone was Ghox, which had, uh, monsters & spells.
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also:
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There are few games in the marketplace that Chris has not mastered. He has extensive experience at playing video games and diciphering (sic) their patterns and techniques of play. His analytical mind automatically envisions patterns and virtual line drawings of the games. He currently logs more than 8 hours of play per day and has been coined by his peers and friends as the 'Human Video Game'.

I missed all yesterday so I need to sit down and read this when my eyes are uncrossed and I'm marginally less pukey but as a quick observation TETRIS IS NOT THE NUMBER 2 GAME EVER YOU CLUELESS ASPIE RUBES FUCK YOU FUCK YOU ALL DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE

Ahem.

My votes, which I'm wondering if Dom got cos I voted highest for some of this shit and never got no credit at all WHY DID YOU HAVE TO EQUALISE WATFORD YOU JAMMY TOSSBAGS?

1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
2. Morrowind
3. Tomb Raider
4. Sid Meier's Civilization II
5. Half-Life
6. Grand Theft Auto III
7. Championship Manager/Football Manager series (Sports Interactive)
8. The Secret of Monkey Island II: Le Chuck's Revenge
9. Lords of Midnight
10. Dragontorc
11. We Love Katamari
12. Eye of the Beholder II
13. Treasure Island Dizzy
14. Super Mario World
15. Super Mario Brothers 3
16. Sonic the Hedgehog
17. Rainbow Islands
18. Lemmings
19. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
20. Monkey Island
21. Sid Meier's Pirates!
22. Super Mario Brothers 2
23. Nethack
24. Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past
25. Worms
26. Q-Bert
27. Cannon Fodder
28. Head Over Heels
29. Football Manager series (Kevin Tom)
30. Defender

ONE MUST FALL, OMG

people complaining should have been perhaps more fastidious during the nomination period, Diablo II being Blizzard's only contribution to these results is kind of ZUH

-- El Tomboto, Monday, 5 May 2008 02:41 (10 hours ago) Link

i would've if i even KNEW ABOUT IT YOU SIMPERING LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY FAGBABY

you people. YOUUUU PEOPLE