Guinness Book of World Records - 50 Most Influential Games

[Segoris]

From: http://gamers.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/270209_top50.aspx

Emphasis mine:

Tasked with selecting the best console games of all time, contributors of this year's Gamer's Edition reviewed hundreds of releases to compile a list of the top 50 titles ranked on their initial impact and lasting legacy.

Also:

Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief, Craig Glenday, said of the selection process: "We knew this would be a complex task so we invited a crack team of industry experts to form a judging panel - and the result is a "top 50" list of games ranked both on their importance and on how fun they are to play."

I'd love to know who these people are on the "crack team of industry experts", that would be interesting to see. Anyways, here is the list, how well does everyone think they did based on the "initial impact and lasting legacy" criteria?

1. Super Mario Kart
2. Tetris
3. Grand Theft Auto
4. Super Mario World
5. Zelda Ocarina of Time
6. Halo
7. Resident Evil IV
8. Final Fantasy XII
9. Street Fighter II
10. GoldenEye
11. Super Mario 64
12. Tomb Raider
13. Metal Gear Solid
14. Call of Duty 4
15. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
16. GTA San Andreas
17. Super Mario Bros
18. Zelda: A Link to the Past
19. Gran Turismo
20. Final Fantasy VII
21. Pro Evolution Soccer 4
22. The Orange Box
23. Lego Star Wars Complete Saga
24. Tekken 2
25. Wii Sports
26. Pokemon Red/Blue
27. Guitar Hero
28. Project Gotham Racing 4
29. Super Mario Galaxy
30. Resident Evil
31. Ico
32. Chrono Trigger
33. Gunstar Heroes
34. Soul Calibur
35. Advance Wars
36. Ridge Racer
37. Super Metroid
38. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
39. GTA Vice City
40. BioShock
41. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
42. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
43. God of War
44. Sega Rally Championship
45. Starfox 64
46. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
47. WarioWare Inc
48. Saturn Bomberman
49. Crash Bandicoot
50. Outrun 2

[Nebu]

This list was made by someone in their late 20's that has no experience with classic gaming.

[Segoris]

This list was made by someone in their late 20's that has no experience with classic gaming.

That's why I'd love to see who that "crack team" are. A small handful I can see, but for the most part the list is shit.

[K9]

Retarded top 50 list is retarded.

These things are always bitterly subjective and wholly stupid.

I mean, what games have Final Fantasy 12, Pro Evo 4, and EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ZELDA game influenced, except sequels in the series? How can you list FPSes without listing Doom, or Quake? In fact how can you list more than one of a game in a series when the cumulative influence of the games is more or less equal to any single game in the series?

Any influential game list that manages to miss Doom and Civ is instantly discredited. There's some games in that list that are worthy, for defining new genres, or re-inventing exiting ones, or adding substantial new game play elements, or simply bringing an existing niche genre to a new and wider audience; but those games are few amongst the twaddle.

[Nebu]

Search this site.  I'm sure Schild has compiled much better and more comprehensive lists than that.  

Then again, we always talk about influential games... not sure we've limited it to console.

[Ironwood]

I think when they said Crack Team, they meant 'On Crack Team'.

That list is almost entirely fucking stupid.

[Merusk]

The only way it could be worse is if Halo were #1. 

[Segoris]

The only way it could be worse is if Halo were #1. 

Give it 5 years when the next "crack team" is compiled of dipshits who may just make that happen 

[NowhereMan]

I am impressed and convinced that Call of Duty 4 has had great lasting impact than Call of Duty. Same goes for Oblivion being in but no other Elder Scrolls games.

Fuck if you're going to include lasting impact as a criteria could you at least pretend to consider that these games are pretty much drawn straight from their predecessors? Also there's about 6 PC games in there and maybe one or two pre-32 graphics console games. I know other people have noticed that too but the point should surely be that if they want impact not bothering with anything pre-95 is going to lessen their credibility.

[Xurtan]

5. Zelda Ocarina of Time

Wut.   Did they even list -any- of the decent Zelda games?

GoldenEye at ten? Seriously, what were these people smoking, and where can I buy some?

[Yegolev]

Besides the Crack Team, I submit that there are not, in fact, 50 games that were Incredibly Influential.  My bar is a tad high, though.

I'd like to know what was so influential about CoD4.  Or how GTA and GTA:SA and GTA:VC can all be on this list.  Or who "The Orange Box" (really?!) influenced.  Oblivion influenced who?  People who did not play Daggerfall, I assume.

Advance Wars?  Maybe they are listing games that are the ones that introduced them to a genre.

God of War was a culmination of years of 3D platforming with innovation and the best fixed-camera ever.  I am not aware of it influencing any games that are worth a shit, though.

[Goreschach]

GoldenEye at ten? Seriously, what were these people smoking, and where can I buy some?

Goldeneye is actually a good choice for this list. Before that, FPS's on consoles were basically bastard children. The changes to the format that Goldeneye introduced are what paved the way for modern console shooters, which have become one of the largest console game segments.

[K9]

Goldeneye, Tomb Raider, Guitar Hero, GTA and Super Mario Brothers are really the only one's I'd probably keep off that list myself. They'd hardly be top-10 though.

[Koyasha]

Final Fantasy VII is appropriate since it seems to be the RPG that 'mainstreamed' RPG's, although I consider it to be an inferior game to FFVI.  Other than that and a couple others, this list makes no sense to me either, though.

People like lists.  I think that's all we can come up with to explain these things.

[schild]

I'm not going to insult this list because it's too stupid for insults.

[Jain Zar]

That list is horrible.  For every 1 game that is influential, there are 5 that aren't.

Call of Duty 4 influential?  ON WHAT?  Its also what, 1 year old now?  It doesn't even have time for games to have been influenced by it fer chrissakes!
And its mostly just really popular online.  Whoo.  So is fucking Scrabble ripoffs on Facebook.  Whoop dee shit.

Saturn Bomberman?  Who fucking played it outside of a few Saturn import owners with REALLY big TVs and multicontroller adaptors?

[Mrbloodworth]

Was there a date range for this or something?

[K9]

People like lists.  I think that's all we can come up with to explain these things.

We should make a list of reasons why people like lists.

[Azazel]

Call of Duty 4 influential?  ON WHAT?

Fuck you guys are incredibly stupid sometimes. Call of Duty 4 was influential on Call of Duty 5.

FFS.

 

[Strazos]

NO PC games on there. I don't mean games that got a PC port, I mean there are no games on there that were only on the PC. No Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate, or even Gold Box (Never was a fan of them, didn't get into PC until after their time, but they have their place).

Was this crack-team made up of upperclassmen from fucking Full Sail or something?

[Koyasha]

Tasked with selecting the best console games of all time, contributors of this year's Gamer's Edition reviewed hundreds of releases to compile a list of the top 50 titles ranked on their initial impact and lasting legacy.

disclosed the all-time top 50 console games from Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition

Not having PC games might be cause it's a list of console games.

[schild]

For nearly all of these games I can ramble off the top of my head at least three games that directly led to their creation. That is, flat out, why this list is shit. And Mario kart being number 1 has to be a total punking. Where the hell is Ashton Kutcher?

[WindupAtheist]

list

Jesus.

Edit:  We need to make our own list. The top twenty stupidest game ranking lists of all time.

[rk47]

8. Final Fantasy XII

 

[Big Gulp]

Any influential game list that manages to miss Doom and Civ is instantly discredited. There's some games in that list that are worthy, for defining new genres, or re-inventing exiting ones, or adding substantial new game play elements, or simply bringing an existing niche genre to a new and wider audience; but those games are few amongst the twaddle.

For that matter, where's Everquest?  I hate to praise it, but without EQ we don't have WoW, which has most definitely changed the PC gaming space.

[apocrypha]

Tasked with selecting the best console games of all time, contributors of this year's Gamer's Edition reviewed hundreds of releases to compile a list of the top 50 titles ranked on their initial impact and lasting legacy.

disclosed the all-time top 50 console games from Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition

Not having PC games might be cause it's a list of console games.

Quoting for emphasis and the hard-of-reading 

[Venkman]

Yea but what about UO?

 

If this is just a console list, does all the arcade stuff that migrated to Atari 2600 count? Oh, and to clarify, I don't mean the Guiness list, I mean a good console list. For which I'd have nothing at all to contribute, except to ask if stuff that started in arcades count 

[Strazos]

If it's a console list, than having Orange Box on there is a total farce, since it's a PC game and weird port to console. Same with Tomb Raider and Oblivion.

[Trippy]

If it's a console list, than having Orange Box on there is a total farce, since it's a PC game and weird port to console. Same with Tomb Raider and Oblivion.

Tomb Raider was a multiple platform game from the very beginning. And given that it was released when hardware accelerated 3D GPUs were still rare on the PC the PlayStation was really it's primary platform.

[rk47]

Look man, this list is about being 'influential' but what are the influence some games like FF12 have done to the genre? They're not even around for more than 5 years. Morrowind was a first true exploration on console but didn't make the list but oblivion did? wtf? If FF7 is already there, why must they even add in FF12. The hell do they do differently? Adding a macro bot option on single rpg is one of those wtf features people praised? Hell can you put this shit in FF8 where people just macro draw magic from mobs?

[NowhereMan]

The only thing I can think of is when they say influential they mean it in terms of the games impact on popular culture and society rather than in terms of game design. That is stupid but it is the only reason I can understand them making a list that is basically "here's some random games that sold really well".

[schild]

The hell do they do differently?

FF7 and XII are totally different. Unfortunately the people making this list or too dumb to realize FF12 was like playing an MMORPG with a shitload of macros. Hell, FFXII felt like Tele Arena to me after I had all my macros set up. Or SW:G.

[Merusk]

People still played FF12 after they had their macros set up?  when I reached the point I could just run around from cutscene to cutscene and the game played itself, I stopped.

[Azazel]

Hell, you may as well have FFXI or EQOA on there, even though the true MMO-on-console hasn't hit ...yet.

[Venkman]

FFXI was true on console. It was merely ported to the PC to bring it to the West and PC cafes in other countries.

EQOA maybe slightly less so, but only because I assume you have some mysterious qualifier being applied that I don't know about ;-)