Did anyone watch this? I just finished and it was a really serious look at videogames. I'm spoilerizing #1 cause it came as a complete surprise. I'm still trying to wrap my head around #1. Here's the list:

25: Pong
No, not the first video game (1962's Spacewar! holds the title for that, though a computer capable of playing noughts and crosses allegedly existed a couple of years earlier) but certainly the first one to achieve any kind of breakout success (pun unintended).

24: Space Invaders
Fair enough: the first game to move out of arcades and into traditional non-specialist areas like fast food restaurants. Also a masterclass of pacing and tension for the time.

23: Pac-Man
So far, so expected. A game noted for its cross-gender appeal (my mum got to Level 75 on Snapper, a Pac-Man clone for the BBC Micro, aweing my 5-year-old self who could barely scrape Level 11) and cartoony graphics. Also, as one of the pundits noted, one of the first games with cut scenes (if the little graphics of the ghosts and Pac Man chasing one another back and forth on the loading screens counts).

22: Manic Miner
Excruciating title music aside, a hugely important game for the 8-bit era as it put the Spectrum on the map and was the first major UK gaming success.

21: Elite
Undeniable. Gaming's first and still-biggest paradigm shift. The first proper open world game, the first proper 3D game (no, fucking Maze does not count because it didn't have spaceships and lasers in it) and basically something so far ahead of its time that gaming is still struggling to take the next step in the world it pioneered. Gaming's Jazz Singer (in technical terms, anyway).

20: Super Mario Bros.
Basically in for the sublimity of gameplay, the idea of 'cute, accessible graphics masking muderously punishing difficulty' and astonishingly addictive. Also apparently the direct inspiration for Salman Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of Life, for added cultural relevance.

19: Tetris
Cue lots of 1980s games designers regretfully saying, "Why the fuck didn't I think of that?"

18: The Secret of Monkey Island
Gaming as a narrative and story-telling device comes of age. Arguably lots of adventure games came before this that were critical (each game entry also notes forebears and antecedents, and Monkey Island got some discussion of both the Zork series and The Hobbit before it) but Monkey Island was where it took off and became a massive crossover success. Also cue Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert looking mildly irritated at plot similarities between the games and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which Brooker helpfully lists in detail.

17: Street Fighter 2
Cue discussion of how important it is to get your best friend and beat him to a pulp in a violent beat 'em up. Also, discussion of graphic violence in games such as Mortal Kombat, and Brooker suggesting that whilst MK1's graphics make the discussion look ludicrous now there is something to be said for unpleasant content in games backed up by much more realistic graphics, illustrated by a graphic scene from Mortal Kombat 9 which I found to be outright nauseating.

16: Doom

Some interesting stuff here I hadn't heard before, like how Doom was supposed to be a 3rd-person game but they discovered they could dramatically increase frame rates by removing the on-screen character. Also, creation (okay, mass-popularisation, and yes, they mention Castle Wolfenstein as well) of the entire FPS genre.

15: Night Trap
WTF? Okay, included because it marks the arrival of the CD-ROM 'interactive movie' era and also because it directly inspired the creation of the American age classification system. Still, probably the game whose inclusion I disagree with the most.

14: Tomb Raider
This was a good piece, highlighting the transformation of narrative, character design and gender depiction in games in 17 years, with a lot of discussion of both the original 1996 game and the most recent 2013 version, with an interview with Rhianna Pratchett. A surprisingly good discussion of some under-explored areas of game discussion. Also used to illustrate the arrival of PlayStation and the movement of games away from nerd niches into mainstream popularity.

13: Parappa the Rapper
I wasn't entirely sold on this one either, but they used it to illustrate the arrival of party games, extending down to the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises.

12: StarCraft
They had to go with an RTS, so they went with the biggest. They used StarCraft to also cover e-sports and the clash between media perception that gaming doesn't get TV time because people don't want to watch others playing video games, and the reality that millions of people around the world do watch them on a regular basis. This also means that Blizzard are the only company to get two games on the list, which I'm sure they loved.

11: The Sims
Interesting reflections on The Sims as the first social games, another franchise that appealed to female gamers and games that tapped into the Big Brother voyeurist streak. One talking head also argued that The Sims is now redundant, with social media replacing it, but I'm not sure about.

10: Grand Theft Auto III
Have to agree on this one, with the bringing of open world games and 'create your own narrative' ideas to the masses. Another side-discussion on video game violence and some discussion of GTA5 as well.

9: Shadow of the Colossus
Interesting discussion of gaming characters so huge they become landscapes, and also of narrative sleight-of-hand in gaming (the notion that you may be the bad guy invading the world on a mission of destruction).

8: World of WarCraft
Obviously, the standard-bearer for MMOs and cooperative gameplay. Jonathan Ross points out the incongruity of how the game brought his wife (Jane Goldman, the writer of numerous movies including Kick-Ass and Stardust) and son closer together as they'd team up for raids.

7: Wii Sports
One of the biggest-selling individual titles ever (80 million!) and also the game that brought in motion control. Noted as a game that grandparents play; my 92-year-old grandfather plays this in lieu of real tennis, which is pretty mindblowing given his lack of interest in gaming otherwise.

6: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Okay, this was interesting. Not only was it listed because of its ludicrous popularity, but also as an example of a game where the fanbase can get rather unpleasant, quite quickly.

5: Braid
Signalling the arrival of the revived indie movement.

4: Angry Birds
Signalling the arrival en masse of mobile gaming, one of the biggest paradigm shifts of the last few years (even though, as every contributor seems keen to mention, it's actually a bit shit).

3: Minecraft
All the contributors get a bit emotional over this one, with tales of dozens of players collaborating to build beautiful constructs, of teachers using Minecraft to teach spatial awareness and architecture and so on. One contributor even thanks Minecraft's creator for giving his autistic child a tool with which he can relate to the world more easily. Brooker points out that the game has sold almost 35 million copies, which for an individual title is staggering; he missed a trick by not pointing out to the general audience that this non-violent (well, not very), cooperative Lego 'em up has sold more than any individual CoD or GTA title (though GTA5 is actually not far off from overtaking it, startlingly).

2: The Last of Us
Games as narrative tools to induce emotional reponses from the player, and the 'game as DVD box set' idea. I get the impression that this supersceded The Walking Dead in their list (which does the same thing, only with less graphics and shooting).


http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php...ged-the-world/

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Video games changed the world?

Sure, video games have changed pop culture, but that's not remotely close to changing the world.

I'll look into this because I like slickly produced countdown shows. But going by the list, it seems like they've fallen a bit into the prisoner of the moment trap. It seems odd to have Tetris, a game that has had a very lasting tangible impact on gaming, so low on the list, but have the top 10 littered with mostly stuff from the last 6 years.

But that doesn't really matter. The show looks good, order of the list aside, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

The Last of Us only belongs on the list as an example of cinematic gaming taking the place of actual entertaining gameplay.

Would that title actually belong to Heavy Rain and/or Beyond: Two Souls (both games I enjoyed regardless of the fact that they were barely games)?

Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls were straight up adventure games which have always been that way (albeit, both contain fewer puzzle elements than most old school adventure games, ie: no stealing a rubber ducky to get something so you can open a portal with your lesbian roommate to a parallel world). The Last of Us never struck me as trying to be an adventure game, as the pacing slacked up and there were actual gameplay sections which were just dull. Isn't the first time, won't be the last, just notable I suppose.

List is fail because Twitter is not a video game and there is no Madden. Also SMB should be in the top five easily.

That would go to Metal Gear Solid. MGS pioneered the whole "cinematics over gameplay" thing.

MGS literally has two hours of gameplay with about eight hours of cutscenes.

I remember MGS (and maybe MGS2 but I can't quite recall that one) had secrets that were unlocked by beating it in two hours or less, which was only possible by skipping all the cutscenes/codecs.

So yeah, MGS literally was two hours of gameplay with eight hours of cutscenes/codecs.

Yup. And it got worse with each subsequent game.

Heck, MGS3 has almost a whole hour of cutscenes and radio conversations before you're alowed to play the game. And no, that cocktease of "get your backbpack" does not count since it's 5 seconds of gameplay before it goes back to the long as hell radio conversations.

Yeah but the gameplay portions in MGS and MGS2 were actually fun and fairly notable. It was uneven gameplay:video ratio, but the gameplay that was there was quality. In otherwords, I'm just trolling Last of Us with my own negative opinion of the game

I always wondered why guards never caught Snake as he spent hours talking on the codec. I mean Snake is just begging to be caught since he spends so much time talking on the freaking thing.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if the stuff was actually entertaining and/or necessary for the plot, but the majority of it is boring as hell and completely unnecessary. Like for example, Otacon talking about being an anime fan and being in love with Sniper Wolf in MGS1 or Raiden spending half the damn game in MGS2 talking to his stupid girlfriend. Okay, Raiden is on a top secret mission to stop terrorists, but he has to stop and talk to his girlfriend for an hour every five minutes. WTF. Why is his girlfriend even part of this top secret mission? 80% of that shit can be cut out and the player wouldn't miss a thing.

I think MGS4 has literally 3 hours or so of actual gameplay and 10 hours of cinematics. I will agree that MGS was a very good game (and was one of the reasons I wanted a PlayStation), but I never understood all the undying love the sequels received. MGS2 I liked at the time, but was never 100% onboard, MGS3 always seemed pointless to me from a narrative standpoint (it was almost like it was made just so Kojima could make a Cold War game), and MGS4 could've been a lot better if there was more than 3 hours of gameplay. I think all the sequels suffered from being bloated with unnecessary exposition and, from a narrative standpoint, a story that made absolutely no sense.

And I agree that #1 makes absolutely no sense, although

I also never liked the sequels outside of MGS2, which I played before MGS1 so the drop in quality wasn't noticeable.

MGS1 suffered from a lot of unnecessary exposition as well. See Otacon talking for 15 minutes about anime or Otacon being in love with Sniper Wolf.

Would totally support MGS taking the place of Last of Us. I haven't played The Last of Us, but I wonder if it is the type of title that people will even be talking about in 10 years time.

Last of Us will be remembered for story features (even if just for having a particular concept - humans infected by something similar to cordyceps, technically not a spoiler real life version. Some solid characters.) beyond all else. The graphics will age, the gameplay certainly isn't great, but it does have some good plot points.

But like most games, if I were a 13 year old playing Last of Us today, I'd probably remember it forever.

So what was this on exactly?

Channel 4 in the UK

The last of us is #2? Yes, that game totally changed the lives of millions...no BILLIONS...around the world, from Inuit fishermen to African bushpeople.

Minecraft replaced fatherly advice on how to construct and build, Angry Birds unleashed my need to destroy!

I don't remember MGS having as much exposition as the sequels, although I haven't played it in well over a decade, so there's not much I do remember from it. I do remember Otacon whining a lot about Sniper Wolf and anime.


Didn't The Last of Us come out just a couple months ago?

Or Meryl's "war is ugly" speech. I actually wanted Meryl dead by the end of the game. Heck, during subsequent playthroughs I actively chose to fail the torture sequence just so she would die. Funny enough, it actually made Snake a better character. Up to that point he was completley full of himself. His giving in torture (I would choose to fail the second go around rather than the first to ratchet uo the narrative tension) actually smacked him in the face with his humanity. It also added weight to the "Naomi, help take my mind off the pain" conversation instead of simply being a silly gag with the rumble function of the dualshock controller.

That's one case where fridging the love interest is the right way to go. Now if only I could have gotten Otacon killed as well. Heck, I wanted to stab him repeatedly during his pathetic whinefest in MGS2 over how his father drowned himself because he caught Otacon fucking his stepmother.

Honestly I don't think people would be talking about MGS today either if not for the fact that it's one of Konami's only three game franchises.

In which case we wouldn't be talking about Konami.