The Essential 50 Archives

The Most Important Games Ever Made

[ Most recent entry: Halo (Part 50) / Afterword ]

Join 1UP's Essential 50 Club and weigh in with your own opinions!

In just four decades, video gaming has grown immensely as a medium. While games probably aren't really as popular as the movie industry, despite what some claim, there's no doubt that gaming is a remarkably popular form of entertainment -- especially considering how long it's been around. With each passing year, games grow more sophisticated: the graphics become more realistic, the sounds more convincing, and the interactivity feels more engrossing.

There's a downside to the rapid pace at which gaming has advanced, though. Amidst the industry's emphasis on technological improvement and deeper interaction, old games are sometimes forgotten. Because games are tied to hardware which typically becomes obsolete in five years' time, digging back through the medium's history can be far more challenging than looking back at classic novels or films. Even if you can find the old hardware you need, there's no guarantee it will work, and who has space for a dozen game consoles anyway?

But it's good to be mindful of the past -- just as a movie buff needs to understand what made Gone With the Wind so special, avid gamers should know why Donkey Kong was important.

Every week through the end of the year, classic.1UP.com will be presenting a look at a different video gaming landmark -- the fifty most important games to be created within the forty years that the medium has existed. The Essential 50 is not intended to be a comprehensive history of gaming. Nor is it a list of the best games of all time -- in fact, some of these games are the very worst ever created (which is why they're important). Rather, The Essential 50 is a look at the games which we feel have made gaming what it is today.

These are the innovators -- the creations which shaped entirely new genres. The revolutions that launched great designers to fame. The concepts that inspired countless other games. And of course the failures that brought mighty corporations to their knees.

We're working in a roughly chronological order rather than according to any sort of ranking. We can't guarantee you'll always agree with our selections, but we'll do our best to convince you. Check back each Friday for the latest entry.

Series edited by Jeremy Parish

Contributors:

Kevin Gifford | King's Quest | Dragon Warrior

Ravi Hiranand | Mario Kart

Sam Kennedy | Sonic the Hedgehog

Chris Kohler | The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Matt Leone | Virtua Fighter | Jet Grind Radio

Nich Maragos | Final Fantasy VII | Metal Gear Solid | Parappa the Rapper

Nadia Oxford | Madden NFL | Ultima Online | The Sims

Scott Sharkey | One-on-One | M.U.L.E. | Herzog Zwei | Mortal Kombat

The Games:

Essential 50 Club

1. Spacewar (1962: PDP-1)

2. Pong (1972: Arcade/Console)

3. Space Invaders (1978: Arcade)

4. Adventure (1979: Atari 2600)

5. Battlezone (1980: Arcade)

6. Pitfall! (1982: Atari 2600)

7. Zork (1977-79: DEC PDP-10)

8. Game & Watch (1980-88)

9. Star Wars (1983: Arcade)

10. Pac-Man (1980: Arcade)

11. Donkey Kong (1981: Arcade)

12. Rogue (1980: VAX/BSD UNIX)

13. E.T. (1982: Atari 2600)

14. Dragon's Lair (1983: Arcade)

15. King's Quest (1983: PC)

16. One-on-One (1983: C64)

17. Super Mario Bros. (1985: Arcade/NES)

18. Gauntlet (1985: Arcade)

19. M.U.L.E. (1983: C64)

20. Dragon Warrior (1986: NES)

21. Ultima IV (1985: Apple II/PC)

22. The Macintosh (1984)

23. Tetris (1986: PC/NES/GameBoy)

24. Prince of Persia (1989: PC)

25. FaceBall 2000 (1990: GameBoy)

26. Doom (1993: PC)

27. John Madden NFL Football (1990: Genesis)

28. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991: Genesis)

29. Super Mario Kart (1992: Super NES)

30. Populous (1989: Amiga/PC)

31. Herzog Zwei (1991: Genesis)

32. Street Fighter II (1991: Arcade)

33. Myst (1993: Mac/PC)

34. Mortal Kombat (1992: Arcade/SNES/Genesis)

35. Virtua Fighter (1993: Arcade/32X)

36. Super Mario 64 (1996: Nintendo 64)

37. Tomb Raider (1996: PS/Saturn/PC/Mac)

38. Final Fantasy VII (1997: PS/PC)

39. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (1999: PS)

40. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998: N64)

41. Metal Gear Solid (1998: PS)

42. Half-Life (1998: PC)

43. Gran Turismo (1998: PS)

44. Parappa the Rapper (1997: PS)

45. Ultima Online (1997: PC)

46. Pokémon (1998: GameBoy)

47. The Sims (2000: PC)

48. Jet Grind Radio (2000: Dreamcast)

49. Grand Theft Auto III (2001: PS2/Xbox/PC)

50. Halo (2001: Xbox/PC/Mac)

Afterword

Comments (4)

Agree with other posts
Posted: userComment.createdDate by wimpy1980

No hardware. And if your crediting the mouse then really give it to the real inventors Xerox. But also if you credit the mouse what about other peripharels that changed gaming? The trackball for instance or the Dpad, shoulder buttons, thumb stick, etc. I know a lot of that was Big N ;) The Mac getting mentioned reeks of Jeremy Parish. I like his articles but I also know he's a die hard true Mac fanboy (true as in pre iPod Apple fan). If you were a computer gamer however the Mac was not a gaming system. Commador was probably the best for a long time and then as many articles mentioned most any PC since pentration of DOS then Windows made them more appealing to capture large markets thus got the bulk of the games. Really this list should stick to games. The damn title even says 'The Most Important Games Ever Made'. But it should scrap ones like E.T. since it wasn't important at all and the crash could be covered (and is) in the Pacman write up. Others are headscratchers too but E.T. is definitly the most flagerant.

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E.T.?
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Xian042

Not sure what makes it important, an interesting history, but important?

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Strategy games
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Pyjamarama

Herzog Zwei is the single representitive of strategy gaming? Almost no one played that game and I dought that it add any influence in the genre is more of a thing people discovereed after the fact, saying look at that that game did some new stuff that no one noticed until it was used in more popular games. Civilization, Comand Conquer, Starcraft at least one should be on the list.
And Macintosh was a big deal in computing no dought about it, but I would actually disput its' influence on games was pretty minimal, but why the random inclusion of hardware?

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- Hardware should be excluded
  Posted: 05/28/2012 by knight_pjc
  
  I agree the Macintosh really should not be there, if your going to include hardware then you need to evaluate all the other hardware (e.g. home computers, consoles) and you would see they had vastly more influence on games than the Macintosh, which at the time (although impressive) was very expensive business hardware.
  
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