Greatest Games Ever - Period

Many of us have grown up playing video games. Over the last three decades, the industry has evolved enormously alongside the processing power of computers and consoles. Entire franchises worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been created over the years creating huge brands and an enormous following.

Here I would like to present the ten gaming jewels that in my opinion have changed the games industry. Most of these are extremely successful games (10/10 rating in my view) but also games that have been very original and have spawned many sequels.

1. Digger (PC, 1983) - this was one of the early video games developed by a Canadian company called Windmill Software and released in 1983 during the IBM PC era. With the genre resembling Pacman, the digger's goal was to consume gold and evade the bad guys. This game was extremely popular at the time with many Soviet era office workers playing the game and most people with a computer for that matter.¹

I loved this game. It was extremely addictive and though simplistic even now playing it after so many years just shows how extremely good game-play can "make" a great game. Digger also spawned a lot of rivalry to get the most points with subtle tricks to get as many points early on while the level of difficulty was still low. Surely one of the best early arcade games developed in the 1980s.

2. Tetris (multi-platform)

In fact in the 1980s there were many similar puzzle games of the Tetris-type produced for the PC but it was truly the launch of Tetris on Gamboy in 1989 that made Tetris the game that it is. I remember because I got this game as part of my first Gameboy at the time and Tetris was part of the standard pack. It was the game that every Gameboy owner played when they bought the legendary handheld console.

Tetris had better graphics, music and better game-play thanks to Alexey Pajitnov, the Russian programmer who was responsible for developing the game. Competitors lacked these qualities but were perhaps more sophisticated in some respects. I remember myself playing Pentix, a similar game but clearly that game was more complex with more difficult pieces to put together for one.

Tetris will always be the standard casual game whether you have a mobile phone, computer, Nintendo DS or an iPod. It is everywhere and its simplicity and logic element is what makes it so awesome and addictive as it is.

3. Super Mario Bros (Console) - the whole franchise but most notably Super Mario Bros I, II, Super Mario World, Super Mario Galaxy.

I first came across the Mario series on Gameboy. Mario is a nice game that keeps you playing and playing and then some more. The Mario world is such an original concept and it is exactly this that sets it apart from the other games of the sort. It is the Mario world that makes this game so popular and so successful commercially because early on it was this that made the difference between success and failure in the video game world. (the Warcraft world is another successful concept that has been transitioned into other projects)

Then I saw Mario on the Super Nintendo console (SNES). Compared to basically black and white display, this color version with increased detail made you immediately want to play it, it was a completely different feeling. You could sit by your television and play either on your own or in turns with a friend. The graphics and design were incredible for a game of this time but again of course the Mario world itself was what made it so cool. You immediately wanted to collect those gold pieces, kill bad guys by jumping on them and complete level after level.

The most successful franchise ever with more than 210 million units sold world-wide is not only alive, it is doing great even today when graphics have much improved and gaming has become so much more sophisticated.² Super Mario Galaxy launched in 2007 on the Nintendo Wii platform takes Mario gaming to a new dimension with the new innovative controls that have become available and much improved graphics that blow you away. Did Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario creator) change the world of video games forever? Definitely yes!

4. Blizzard Warcraft I, II and III (PC)

Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans was the first real time strategy game that I discovered. It was awesome. The game was released in 1994³ when this genre was only being discovered. The economics behind the army you could build was great and it was really original at the time when most people have never seen anything like this before.

Starcraft felt to me as kind of a sequel but it was different because I never really enjoyed the design although the game-play and some of the other features were perhaps even more sophisticated. Starcraft sold by far more copies but it was Warcraft that had you mining gold and cutting down the trees.

Warcraft III with far superior graphics was also an excellent sequel in my opinion. The introduction of "Heroes" into the game was smart as it took time to build up their strength and find all kinds of goodies lying around and after killing bad guys. It is a shame Blizzard seems to have discontinued the RTS genre for Warcraft despite its popularity. I believe in years to come they produce Warcraft IV because it is what the people want.

5. Pirates! Gold and Sid Meier's Pirates! (PC)

Pirates! Gold was a remake of the 1987 Sid Meier's Pirates! developed by MicroProse and released in 1993.⁴

Originally, this game was kind of an action-adventure game where you played a pirate who just became captain of a ship in the Caribbean and about to start his career. The different dimensions of the game including ship battles at sea, sword fights, sailing and strategic elements like taking on more crew, buying and selling provisions, negotiating with the town governor and choosing sides between the Spanish, Dutch, English and the French. All these elements and many others made the game extremely exciting to play. One day you met some pirates and sunk their ship. The next day you found a piece of map to lost treasure.

Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) was a continuation of this strategy/action-adventure genre. The game did not bring anything original to the theme but was simply better made, better quality version of the 1993 classic. Although the 1993 game did not get as good a review as the 2004 remake, both were clearly a great success. This rather creative genre has more potential in my opinion and so much more can be done here and will be done in the next few years.

6. Dungeon Keeper I and II (PC)

"Evil is Good" is the motto of the day. Real Time Strategy games have never really been as successful as franchises like FIFA, NFL or any big ones for that matter. They have really tended to come and go and perhaps this is due to the lack of creativity in the realm. Bullfrog Productions did a great job to prove everyone wrong and that you can really think outside the box here.

The graphics, design, game play, originality, everything was top notch and really enjoyable. You are a "Dungeon Keeper", you build rooms and attract creatures from the local portals to live in your dungeon. The types of creatures that join your dungeon depend on the types of rooms you build. You can build a lair, a prison, a torture chamber or a training room and many other types of rooms. There are a couple dozen types of rooms in fact to select from. Moreover you can train you creatures to make them stronger so that they can fight for you but the rest is as usual. You need to feed them, make sure they sleep and make them happy. It is a great game and an awesome adventure too where you want to go after to complete level by level.

Dungeon Keeper II was also good but really did not live up to its predecessor. The third installment was discontinued and it seems the fans will not have anything to look forward to now. A big disappointment and a bad decision by Electronic Arts. The genre will live on I believe as something as original as DK always lives on. Great games are not always commercial successes. That is a fact in many creative projects and happens to be the case not only in games but movies for one.

7. Civilization 2 and 4plus expansion packs (PC)

Civilization 2 was the first game of the turn-based genre that took me completely by surprise. This strategy game allows you to play out infinite scenarios both historical and custom. Create your empire and build it from the 4000 BC into the modern age of atomic warfare and stock exchanges. This franchise is legendary and made me spend ours and days playing the game, building new maps and focusing on different strengths.

There are several ways to win and of course this is part of the fun. Starting from despotism you change your government to democracy. You grow out of slavery and discover freedom of speech. You can win through conquest by military means, you can send you people to another planet, you can defeat by diplomatic or cultural means or you can focus on economic power and buy your opponent's armies.

Despite being a turn-based game which puts people off at first, Civilization blows your mind away in originality. It allows your imagination to take over and take you where you want to go.

Civilization 4 and its expansion packs take the story further, increasing detail and what you can do with the game taking it to a new level. I just can't imagine what Civilization 6 will look like, a must-buy for any PC owner.

8. Golden Eye 007 (Nintendo 64)

Nintendo 64 was a revolutionary console of its time but really what made people buy it was Golden Eye 007. Golden Eye 007 was developed by Rare based on the movie and released 1997. The first person shooter displayed impressive graphics and more importantly game-play and is no doubt today considered as an important step in developing the genre with such innovations such as "auto-aim". The game sold an impressive 8 million copies, a feat accomplished by few.

While its single player mode was impressive with well-designed levels that made you want to complete them over and over again, the multiplayer was just sick. I was at school at the time and literally we spent hours on multiplayer whether it was "License to Kill Pistols" or "Automatic Machine Guns". The multiplayer mode gave the game a completely new dimension with 4-players fighting to get the most kills. By the time you got reasonably good at it, you knew the special way to run faster and did not need the radar any more because you knew automatically where each of your three enemies were by the color of the walls. The game was just revolutionary. We changed and learnt a different control style just to maximize accuracy of shots; that is how far you had to go to be the best.

Perfect dark was a sequel that received good reception but unfortunately, at least for me, did not approach the greatness of the original game. Perhaps in time there will be another like it.

9. Rainbow Six Vegas (X-box 360)

Tactical shooters were not really my thing until Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas was released in 2006. I had a Rainbow Six game before, but while it had the planning elements to it, it really lacked the game-play and design that you would really look for in a game.

This is when I realized that Ubisoft makes amazing games. Xbox 360 blows you away when you play this game but it is the cooperative game-play mode that makes this game so good. It is team work that counts and tactics. There are endless ways of approaching missions and tactics you can use and while the multiplayer mode is not that fun, the "Terrorist Hunt" setting essentially doubles the number of missions you get by giving you a dozen levels with randomly scattered bad guys to take out.

Although Rainbow Six Vegas 2 did not contribute anything new to the genre, the game was still well made and a sound addition to the first game. Joy!

10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (X-box 360)

Call of Duty 2 really didn't do anything for me and this is not the only shooter I played. Gears of War to some was amazing, but for me it was nothing special at all. The experience was so bad actually that I was not even sure where I would even buy another shooter for my X-box 360, but then I saw the cinema advert for Call of Duty 4 and I was immediately blown away. No more of the old guns which didn't have an aim. No more crappy graphics which kind of reminded me of Doom. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a very cool game, and I'm not talking about the single player mode because if you want to play single player, get something else. If you want to buy Call of Duty 4, then you should be buying it for its genius multiplayer mode.

I have honestly until then never imagined such a well-designed game with such an awesome multiplayer mode and with such enjoyable controls and game-play. This is by far the best multiplayer shooter game since Golden Eye N64. I mean 16 players over the Internet in teams of 8 in a battle for a city that makes you think that you are in Iraq. What could be better? If you ever enjoyed multiplayer shooters, get this together with a good Internet connection because you really need it.

Honourable mention: Imperialism (PC, 1997) and Resident Evil IV (GameCube and Wii, 2005)

^{1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_(video_game)
2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Top_PC_sellers_by_genre
3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=67461
4 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates!_Gold}