Guiness Book of World Records 2009 Gamers Edition

[Kohan]

One of the best lists I've ever seen, and I normally detest "Top Anything" lists more than any other sort of article. They clearly used various verifiable means of justifying their decisions, and that in of itself is more impressive than other, strictly opinion-based lists out there.

Also, FFVII isn't an amazing RPG. It's credited with dramatically popularizing the Japanese RPG in the United States, but it had poor translation, already tired plot points, a mostly conventional battle system, and plain polygonal graphics. The character designer specifically made everyone as simplistic as possible, lead female death was already done by SEGA in "Phantasy Star II," et cetera, et cetera.

Sorry for crushing your fond childhood memories.

[Charismatic]

While what you say is true, I don't know anyone IRL who played Phantasy Star II aside from the guy who let me borrow it.
Hardly influential.

[Kiarax]

Sped up the evolution of console shooters 'vs.' added health regeneration

Mid 90's compared to early 00's. There won't ever be such a significant jump in quality like GoldenEye was because that kind of shit just isn't possible now. The controls were far more fluid than any other console FPS at the time, first ever vehicles in a console shooter that didn't control like absolute shit, decent AI, full story co-op, etc, etc. It may not seem significant compared to what GoldenEye did for the genre but it was still a big jump and with the exclusion of GoldenEye no other game has impacted the genre as much as it has.

[Kuya]

God i love these kinds of lists. Always assured to troll.

[Correction]

One of the best lists I've ever seen, blah blah blah.

I could crush the majority of that list with 'that other game did it before, blah blah blah' arguments as well. Pointing out FFVII's weaknesses isn't a particularly specific insight into that game's position on the list.

[Charismatic]

The controls were far more fluid than any other console FPS at the time, first ever vehicles in a console shooter that didn't control like absolute shit

No.

[Kohan]

I could crush the majority of that list with 'that other game did it before, blah blah blah' arguments as well. Pointing out FFVII's weaknesses isn't a particularly specific insight into that game's position on the list.

I would disagree, mostly for the aforementioned reasons. Many of these additions have verifiable justification for their placement. As the article itself mentions, there's the massive sales of the Mario Kart franchise across multiple platforms, its universal appeal across the age brackets, and so on. "Tetris" is undeniably one of the most popular games of all time, as many off-brand versions of it couldn't possibly be tallied in its total sales, and said variations are countless; it's on everything, from consoles, to PCs, to cell phones, and so on.

Taking some of the other games that are higher up on the list, there's "Halo," which has already been touched on herein. I'm not a fan of the series myself, but I do recognize that it heavily popularized FPS on consoles much in the same way the aforementioned FFVII did it for JRPGs. There were already well-known releases, such as "Goldeneye" (which was also mentioned already), but did they become successful franchises? Were they used in widely-advertised tournaments? Did they create the same kind of ridiculous release day sales phenomenon? And so on.

This list isn't strictly based on game quality, though there isn't anything on there which I'd call shitty; it's based on a multitude of factors, including social impact, overall sales (and RPG players are by far not the majority of the purchasing userbase), longevity of appeal, genre renewal, advancement, or popularization, and so on. I can glean all of that just from reading the article and looking at the list itself. That's what makes it good.

[Kiarax]

No.

Which console FPS had actual decent vehicle controls? I won't get into fluid controls, in the end that's preference, you just happen to be in the minority apparently.

[Charismatic]

Red. Faction.

The fact that I can even name one means that there are probably plenty of others out there because as I said I was never into shooters, as time went on I became less and less interested too.

[Kiarax]

Never actually played the first, the ones in 2 weren't too bad so I'll take your word for it. Though single player vehicle-action sections (all I'm seeing on YouTube) are a little different to the kind of vehicles in Halo. Was there vehicles in multiplayer?

[Nadrojj]

Pokemon R/B So far down the list? That game was like crack when it came out, the very first versions had people who never even picked up a gameboy playing that shit. Also Mario 64 was far too amazing to be ranked at 11th.

[Correction]

That's what makes it good.

I reckon the fact that the 'panel of experts' who assembled the list tried all the while to amalgamate concrete factors like sales, review numbers and dollars spent marketing into a discretely ranked list framed by an abstract concept like 'influence' or 'memorability' make the list auto-fail. There's no way you can place weights on how important sales were in relation to how much reviewer scores weigh, add them together and come up with okay game A is > game B.

[OzzofAsura]

I reckon the fact that the 'panel of experts' who assembled the list tried all the while to amalgamate concrete factors like sales, review numbers and dollars spent marketing into a discretely ranked list framed by an abstract concept like 'influence' or 'memorability' make the list auto-fail. There's no way you can place weights on how important sales were in relation to how much reviewer scores weigh, add them together and come up with okay game A is > game B.

^this.

Also, it's easy to say FFVII wasn't awesome over a decade later. When that game came out, there was NOTHING like it. The graphics were awesome, the story was great and the depth was really good. I played Phantasy Star II, it was good, but it did not compete with FFVII.

[Kiarax]

I'm pretty sure that's not what Kohan said.

[Charismatic]

It almost exactly is.
Except that maybe she might not have liked it overly much even when it first came out (although I seriously doubt that)

[thestalkmore]

ITT: Nerd rage

[Okan]

Pokemon R/B So far down the list? That game was like crack when it came out, the very first versions had people who never even picked up a gameboy playing that shit. Also Mario 64 was far too amazing to be ranked at 11th.

Again, the list isn't based on how good, great, awesome, 11/10 stars, any scale it was.. It's based on how it influenced our culture, our lives, and more importantly, the games that followed it.

[Correction]

Actually Pokemon is probably extremely influential, given that I don't think the contemporary meta-game of 'achievements' would even exist without that 'gotta catch 'em all' JRPG grindfest, and at the minimum wouldn't have made it to American shores without it.

[Kohan]

It almost exactly is.
Except that maybe she might not have liked it overly much even when it first came out (although I seriously doubt that)

Why would you doubt it? Is it impossible for someone who enjoys RPGs to not like FFVII?

I am not a Square fan, and I've mentioned this countless times. The only reason I played FFXI was because my friends asked me to. Going in, the only two things I was familiar with were "gil" and "Chocobo." A FF game never held my interest for long enough previously for me to learn any more.

However, I will admit up front that I never played the entries which fans consider truly classic (e.g., FFIII). For what they're worth, I respect those titles and wouldn't talk trash on them. I have, however, played the vast majority of more modern entries, and did not find them to be all that remarkable.

For example, in its time, FFVII was beaten by the original "Grandia" and "Panzer Dragoon Saga." FFVIII doesn't need to be discussed. FFX is a technicolor mess of poppy Japanese culture and dreadfully dull storytelling, and so on.

[Charismatic]

Beaten by Grandia and Panzer Dragoon Saga in what way? Honest question.
Both were interesting games but I can't think of any reason to call them superior games.

You had better not say the storytelling.