10 Most Important Video Games Ever Made

Video Gaming has become a lucrative industry, over the years it has grown, it has evolved and revolutionized to what we see and play today. However do you remember what started this industry?

The years came and went with every passing moment the industry witnessed miracles, breakthroughs. Who would have thought that the video gaming industry would have survived after the big crash back in 1983, not just survive but to also blossom and create the wonderful masterpieces we see and play today.

Come join me and let’s take a look at some of the important games to have ever come out and revisit our childhood memories for some.

The cultural importance of the video game arcade

Once upon a time the arcade was the only place in which the video game could be encountered. Now that games are more often found in our homes and pockets, the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham hopes to give games a physical venue again.
Britain’s video game arcades, having been at last evicted from our cities, are now mostly found chirruping on piers in lonesome seaside towns. It’s been a lingering decline. Once upon a time the arcade was the only place in which the video game could be encountered (aside from, perhaps, a date with a squatter on one of the room-sized mainframe computers found on affluent university campuses in the 1970s).
This performative aspect to games has now moved to the stadium arena, where young, semi-professional cyber-athletes compete in video games on stages loaned from real world sport (for example, last year’s League of Legends final was held at the Sangam Stadium in Seoul, the cavernous location in which the 2002 FIFA World Cup final took place). But the local pitch has, in the arcade’s decline, almost entirely disappeared. We now have to face the wilds of Twitch or YouTube if we want to see similar acts of virtual genius.

Top 10 Video Games of All Time

#10: “Goldeneye 007” (1997)

Just scraping into the opening slot is the movie tie in game that brought FPS multiplayer to the living room. Yet despite only having one analog stick and no online play its still holds out better than a lot of shooters to have come out since. With a strong single player campaign that’ll keep you coming back as you try to unlock the prestige 007 mode, and a multiplayer section which was amazingly added as an afterthought, Goldeneye is that one cartridge that you’ll never give away. 

#9: “Resident Evil 4” (2005)

Ok so it’s actually the 6th game in the main series, but the beauty about this game is that you don’t need to have played the previous entries to know what’s going on. 

#8: “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” (2011)

If there was one word we’d use to describe Skyrim it was be “massive”. This game goes out of its way to make sure everything is vast, from its open world, to its diverse skill tree, loads of quests, and plenty of customization options for your character. Plus, there are dragons.

#7: “Mass Effect 2” (2010)

The Sci-fi epic that became the apex of what Western RPG’s could accomplish, The Mass Effect series drew inspiration from all the right places, with enough lore to rival Star Wars and Trek. 

#6: “Portal 2” (2011)

First of all: “Cake” … now that we’ve gotten that out of the way we can say that no other game last generation brought more creative innovation than the Portal series. Portal 2 was everything a great sequel should be by giving us the well written humorous dialogue of GLaDOS and Wheatly, while also giving us the well crafted puzzle rooms to take on solo, or share the thinking challenge with a friend. It’s also a game that we can safely predict will age very well.

#5: “Chrono Trigger” (1995)

Square are indeed the JRPG kings with their Final Fantasy series, but their best work came with this time travelling epic. A master class of storytelling, the game is still as emotionally hard hitting as ever, and just like Mass Effect it too contains an iconic cast of memorable party members. 

#4: Super Mario World (1991)

Mario had a lot of games in contention for best of all time, with Super Mario Bros 3, and Galaxy 2 also eligible. But as the apex of 2D Platforming, Super Mario World know no equal. The 16-bit spites still look amazing today, and with the inclusion of multiple routes, secrets galore to discover, and 96 different exits to find there’s plenty more to come back to once you’ve defeated Bowser and saved the princess.

#3: “Half Life 2” (2004)

There are few games in history that still feel brand new a decade after they’ve been released. Yet Half Life 2’s revolutionary emphasis on physics based combat and puzzles still puts it leaps and bounds across most FPS’s today. 

#2: “Tetris” (1984)

The game that’s over 30 years old yet is as addicting and challenging to play today as it was when it came out. There have been many variations throughout the years but its core gameplay remains the same as this Russian classic is still played by hundreds of thousands today.

Before we get to the most iconic spot of all, lets have a look at some honorable mentions;

#1: “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (1998)

We know this game is at the top of almost every other all time list out there, and believe me we tried to find a successor, but when comparing precise gameplay, revolutionary mechanics, well paced storylines, replay ability, fantastic level design, combat variety, and capturing the scope of an epic adventure, No other game has even come close to matching what Ocarina of Time has achieved. Weather you have your old N64 cartridge, digital version on the Virtual Console or taking it on the go with the 3DS remaster, this Nintendo masterpiece truly is the greatest game of all time.

The History of Video Games

Video games have been around since the early 1970s. The first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space by Nutting Associates, was introduced in 1971. In 1972, Atari introduced Pong to the arcades. An interesting item to note is that Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell, the man who developed Computer Space. He left Nutting Associates to found Atari, which then produced Pong, the first truly successful commercial arcade video game.

Pong was a great hit when it came out. Move your cursor to get the slides to bounce back the moving square -- it will speed up as you progress.

That same year, Magnavox offered the first home video game system. Dubbed the Odyssey, it did not even have a microprocessor! The core of the system was a board with about four-dozen transistors anddiodes. The Odyssey was very limited -- it could only produce very simple graphics, and required that custom plastic overlays be taped over the television screen. In 1975, Atari introduced a home version of its popular arcade game, Pong. The original home version of Pong was sold exclusively through Sears, and even carried the Sears logo. Pong was a phenomenal success, opening the door to the future of home video games.

Although the Fairchild Channel F, released in 1976, was the first true removable game system, Atari once again had the first such system to be a commercial success. Introduced in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), the 2600 used removable cartridges, allowing a multitude of games to be played using the same hardware.

The hardware in the 2600 was quite sophisticated at the time, although it seems incredibly simple now. It consisted of:

• MOS 6502 microprocessor
• Stella, a custom graphics chip that controlled the synchronization to the TV and all other video processing tasks
• 128 bytes of RAM
• 4-kilobyte ROM-based game cartridges