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The Video Game Canon’s 2020 Update is Here
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
The latest update to the Video Game Canon, Version 4.0, has arrived!
The Video Game Canon now includes a total of 1,232 games, which were pulled from 59 “Best Video Games of All Time” lists published between 1995 and 2020. Each game was ranked against the rest of the field using the C-Score, a formula that takes into account a game’s “Average Ranking” and the complementary percentage of its “Appearance Frequency” across all lists.
Finally, games released after December 31, 2016 were excluded from the ranking because of their newness.
Three brand new lists were added to Version 4.0 of the Video Game Canon, including “The 100 Best Video Games in History” from GQ Spain, a “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” ranking from Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, and a massive look back at “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born” from Popular Mechanics. Alongside these new additions, updates to IGN‘s “Top 100 Video Games of All Time,” Popular Mechanics‘s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time,” and Slant Magazine‘s “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time” were also added to the calculation. Thanks to reader CriticalCid for providing research assistance with some of these new lists.
But even with all this new data, there was surprisingly very little movement near the top of the Video Game Canon, and the Top 3 was once again represented by Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris (#1), Valve’s Half-Life 2, and Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 (#3). There was some slight shuffling in the rest of the Top 10, but no new titles were able to crack the highest tier. Nintendo’s classic quartet of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (#4), Super Mario 64 (#5), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (#6), and Super Metroid (#10) all hung around, as did Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us (#7), Irrational’s BioShock (#8), and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (#9).
Things get more interesting as you move further down the Top 100, especially for the 2015 and 2016 releases that now qualify for inclusion in the Video Game Canon.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to learn more about this year’s update to the big list and to explore the rest of the Top 1000.
World Video Game Hall of Fame welcomes its Class of 2020: Minecraft, Bejeweled, Centipede, and King’s Quest
After selling more than 200 million copies over the last decade, it’s hard to remember a time when Minecraft wasn’t nearly synonymous with the entire medium of video games. And though it was only available in an unfinished form from 2009 to 2011, it seemed to emerge from Mojang’s offices as a fully-formed phenomenon even in its earliest days.
So as players continued to flock to its Lego-like world in droves, it was a bit of a shock when the game was denied entry into the World Video Game Hall of Fame three separate times. Shortlisted as a finalist in 2015, 2016, and 2018, the title was passed over again and again and again. But Minecraft’s creative sandbox become too big to ignore this year, and it has finally been enshrined among gaming’s greats.
In a stunning upset, three unlikely candidates also garnered enough support from the Hall of Fame’s Selection Advisory Committee to join the Class of 2020. A genre-defining match-3 puzzler from PopCap (Bejeweled), a classic coin-op from Atari (Centipede), and one of earliest adventure titles from Sierra (King’s Quest) won out over more popular titles such as NBA Jam, GoldenEye 007, and Guitar Hero.
While this year’s class might look a little surprising, historians working at the Hall of Fame’s parent organizations, the Strong Museum and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, helped put their importance into perspective. (more…)
Stan Lee, the legendary co-creator of many of Marvel’s superheroes, has died
Excelsior!
From behind his typewriter, Marvel’s Stan Lee used to answer fan mail with that authoritative declaration when he really wanted to drive home a point in his “Stan’s Soapbox” column. But there’s never enough that can be said about the man who helped define pop culture as we know it today.
Along with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Lee created many of Marvel’s most famous characters… The Spectacular Spider-Man… The Mighty Thor… The Incredible Hulk… The Fantastic Four… “Stan the Man” had a way with adjectives. Sadly, he passed away this morning at the age of 95.
After shepherding his comic creations towards the silver screen in the 80s and 90s, Lee lent his voice to more than a dozen video game adaptations starring Marvel’s mightiest heroes. Most often playing himself (starting with 2000’s Spider-Man), Lee closed the book on his voiceover career with an appearance in Insomniac’s Spider-Man earlier this year as a Short Order Cook.
Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008 for “his groundbreaking work as one of America’s most prolific storytellers.” The National Endowment for the Arts’s advisory committee also recognized Lee’s fight against injustice in his comics, adding, “His complex plots and humane super heroes celebrate courage, honesty, and the importance of helping the less fortunate, reflecting America’s inherent goodness.”
As Lee would say, “Nuff said!”
The Video Game Canon: 2018’s “Version 2.0” Update
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
The Video Game Canon has been upgraded to “Version 2.0” thanks to the addition of four new lists that were published throughout the last year. Edge Magazine’s “100 Greatest Videogames” issue, Jeux Video’s “Top 100 Best Games of All Time,” Polygon’s massive “500 Best Games of All Time,” and Stuff UK’s “50 Greatest Games of All Time” have reshuffled the ranking in a big way.
Let’s take a look…
Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Staff of Polygon name their “500 Best Games of All Time”
Polygon recently celebrated its fifth birthday with a weeklong countdown of their choices for the “500 Best Games of All Time.”
Along with a high-profile roster of special guests (including Jeremy Parish, Susan Arendt, Jon-Paul Dyson, and Benj Edwards), the site’s staff put together this massive ranking of games that includes titles from nearly every platform and stretching back to the very beginning of the medium. They even set some ground rules:
We asked everyone to vote based on innovation, polish and durability, rather than simply personal taste. We cut games released in 2017 to eliminate recency bias. And we left out sequels that we deemed too similar to the games that came before them.
Collecting all those votes together, we then combed through the data for anomalies and came up with the final order you see here.
Polygon’s final tally looks very similar to our own “Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time,” and this includes their selection of Tetris as the #1 game of all time.
Griffin, Durant, Rose score a spot on the NBA 2K13 cover
With the lockout a thing of the past, 2K Sports has decided to not go with a retired legend for the cover of NBA 2K13.
Instead, the publisher has tapped three of the best players currently playing the game: Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls. All three were suitably humbled to be selected for the cover. And why not, they were preteens when NBA 2K was released!
“Being crowned as one of the NBA 2K13 cover athletes is a huge honor and something I always dreamt about,” said Durant. “It’s definitely humbling to grace the cover after the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.”
“There’s so much young talent around the NBA, so it’s very exciting to be chosen for NBA 2K’s ‘New Dynasty’ alongside Kevin and Derrick,” added Griffin. “The NBA 2K series has always been my first choice when I want to get a game in.”
“It’s a dream come true to be one of the cover athletes for NBA 2K13,” commented Rose. “I’ve worked closely with 2K Sports since NBA 2K10, and I’m honored to follow in the footsteps of Michael Jordan as the latest Chicago Bull to be featured on the cover.”
NBA 2K13 will be released for the PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360 on October 2. A Wii U version will also be available before the end of the year.
Diablo III named best-selling game of May 2012 after collecting a ton of loot
Can you guess the best-selling game of May 2012 according to The NPD Group’s monthly calculations? Go on, guess, it’s not really a mystery… The best-selling game of May 2012 was Blizzard’s Diablo III.
Diablo III’s loot frenzy was the lone bright spot for the game industry this month as total sales were down 28% from May 2011 with console hardware taking the biggest hit (a 39% drop).
But that’s not for lack of trying. A ton of new releases broke into the top ten this month including Max Payne 3 (#2), Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (#3), Sniper Elite V2 (#7), and Dragon’s Dogma (#9). But I guess they didn’t put up the sales numbers to compete with last May’s biggest game, L.A. Noire.
The complete top ten can be found after the break. (more…)
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Tagged Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Diablo III, Dragon's Dogma, Just Dance 3, Max Payne 3, NBA 2K12, NPD, PC, Prototype 2, PS2, PS3, PSP, Sniper Elite V2, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Wii, Xbox 360
NBA 2K13 slams it home on October 2; tips off at Wii U launch too
It’s bad luck to change anything in the middle of a hot streak. Your favorite headband, your driving route to the court, even your underwear. It all has to stay the same. Every athlete knows this.
It looks like the people at 2K Sports are a superstitious bunch as well. Just as they’ve done every year since 2007, the publisher plans to release NBA 2K13 for the PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360 during the first week of October (October 2 to be exact). A Wii U version is also in development and will ship during the “holiday season.”
NBA 2K13 is, as always, in development at Visual Concepts. This year, the developer plans to include a new downloadable NBA All-Star content package with every pre-order of the game. Buying early on the PS3 and Xbox 360 will net fans a trio of star-studded bonuses:
[The NBA All-Star] add-on content will be set in Houston, the site of the 2013 NBA All-Star Game and will allow fans to stage their own NBA All-Star Game, including three NBA All-Star events – the Foot Locker Three Point Shootout, BBVA Rising Stars Challenge, and the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest featuring all-new intuitive, pick-up-and-play controls.
Gamers can pit the NBA’s current superstars against classic players in both the Foot Locker Three Point Shootout and Sprite Slam Dunk Contest. Rosters for both the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge and 2013 NBA All-Star Game will feature the 2012 All-Stars, with dynamic updates to the 2013 rosters once the participants are announced.
“The NBA All-Star package is our way saying ‘thank you’ to fans for their ongoing love of the NBA 2K series,” said Jason Argent, Vice President of Marketing for 2K Sports. “This content provides a ton of depth and value to our fans, and it’s just the beginning of a lot of big news about NBA 2K13.”