The Top 10 Most Influential Games of the '80s

[burningdoom]

http://games.yahoo.com/photos/the-10-most-influential-games-of-the-1980s-1395078784-slideshow/

Agree? Disagree.

Hard to argue some of these.

[exonerator]

Yeah, I really have to agree with just about all of these. Except for Elite. Battlezone is a much better choice for a revolutionary 3D game. It was much more popular (arcade instead of UK exclusive BBC Micro), it came out 4 years earlier, it was vector instead of raster, and it impacted the gaming world far more. The point the article is making was that this revolutionized first-person gaming, not space simulation gaming. That honor goes to Battlezone.

[turf]

http://games.yahoo.com/photos/the-10-most-influential-games-of-the-1980s-1395078784-slideshow/

Agree? Disagree.

Hard to argue some of these.

I'll argue a few of them. 

Just because you made the game first doesn't mean someone else didn't come up with their own idea.  Sure Utopia may have been before Civilization, doesn't mean it influenced the game at all.  Civilization could have been made without even knowing Utopia existed. 

I'm giving not Elite (a space game no one's heard of) the credit for inspiring all the open world games.  You mean to tell me that no one would have figured out that people like a massive open world with out this obscure turd of a space game? I'm doubting it.

What was the first sport?  I'm going to guess fighting.  It might have been boxing.  It might have been wrestling.  It may have been "See who can stay consious longer".  People love fighting.  It's in our DNA.  It was just a matter of time before someone made a game out of it.  Karate Champ was first, but it didn't influence shit.   

I got kind of angry on that last one.  My bad.

[soera]

Not sure how the hell Zelda would be #9 on that list. Tetris, SMB, Pac-Man are all pretty much in the right spot. I hate John Madden but the series has proven itself. Ultima is a good choice for open RPGs and even MMOs. Simcity is what it is. But the rest are blah. Asteroids would own the fuck out of Elite.

[argyle]

What was the first sport?  I'm going to guess fighting.  It might have been boxing.  It might have been wrestling.  It may have been "See who can stay consious longer".  People love fighting.  It's in our DNA.  It was just a matter of time before someone made a game out of it.  Karate Champ was first, but it didn't influence shit.   

I got kind of angry on that last one.  My bad.

I was actually going to argue against the same one.  I've always thought the idea that Karate Champ was the influence of Street Fighter was laughable at best.  I question whether someone making that claim ever played Karate Champ, or if they just saw a screenshot of 2 kung-fu guys facing off and said "Oooo, early Street Fighter!"  I can tell you as someone who played KC in the arcade and then was around when SF II hit, we had never seen anything like it.  Even the original SF pales in comparison, but at least you can see some of the early ideas in that game. 

[sin2beta]

Not sure how the hell Zelda would be #9 on that list. Tetris, SMB, Pac-Man are all pretty much in the right spot. I hate John Madden but the series has proven itself. Ultima is a good choice for open RPGs and even MMOs. Simcity is what it is. But the rest are blah. Asteroids would own the fuck out of Elite.

Asteroids was 79 though. And one could argue on the influence side that it is a modified form of Combat, which is a modified form of Computer Space, and so on.

Influence is a tough one to argue. But it's hard to argue Mario. Hell, in a way it "inspired" Commander Keen, which led to Doom, which led to... well... modern gaming.

[dreama1]

Pretty crap no phantasy star, castlevania, final fantasy, space harrier, or golden axe.

[jellysauce]

Not sure how the hell Zelda would be #9 on that list. Tetris, SMB, Pac-Man are all pretty much in the right spot. I hate John Madden but the series has proven itself. Ultima is a good choice for open RPGs and even MMOs. Simcity is what it is. But the rest are blah. Asteroids would own the fuck out of Elite.

they should switch LOZ with madden on the list and it would be perfect

[burningdoom]

Pretty crap no phantasy star, castlevania, final fantasy, space harrier, or golden axe.

If they were going to name an RPG, I think it should go to Dragon Warrior, anyways. It did a lot of what Final Fantasy did, before Final Fantasy.

[dreama1]

Pretty crap no phantasy star, castlevania, final fantasy, space harrier, or golden axe.

If they were going to name an RPG, I think it should go to Dragon Warrior, anyways. It did a lot of what Final Fantasy did, before Final Fantasy.

Yeah but dragon warrior didn't do as well as final fantasy internationally. When people talk jrpgs they will always mention final fantasy unless they live in japan.

[burningdoom]

Pretty crap no phantasy star, castlevania, final fantasy, space harrier, or golden axe.

If they were going to name an RPG, I think it should go to Dragon Warrior, anyways. It did a lot of what Final Fantasy did, before Final Fantasy.

Yeah but dragon warrior didn't do as well as final fantasy internationally. When people talk jrpgs they will always mention final fantasy unless they live in japan.

No doubt Final Fantasy was popular. But you can't still can't take the innovation of modern JRPGs from Dragon Warrior.

[ffxik]

I will agree with the Dragon Quest bit, sort of. It still had to draw inspiration from somewhere.  The creator of Dragon Quest drew his inspiration from Ultima and Wizardry which drew from Ultima.  Ultima is on the list rightfully so.

It's just that the author of that list doesn't quite understand it's importance in RPGs

[soera]

I wanted to put Dragon Warrior on there too but Ultima was first and it really was what modern day console RPGs are based off of so I do agree it should be up there instead. But yeah, that list is pretty sad on some of them.

[sin2beta]

Pretty crap no phantasy star, castlevania, final fantasy, space harrier, or golden axe.

Great points.

Also, Turbo or Zaxxon technologically would make a LOT of sense for the sprite scaling and isometric viewpoints. Although, the argument could be made for these two that it is just their technology that is influential and not the games.

[90snostalga]

Being born in '87, I can't truly provide an accurate opinion; however, I would say from what I know, I would sincerely disagree with most of the games on the link list.  Obviously, Pac Man and Super Mario Bros. should be on there somewhere but not sure about all the others.