Kotaku report that according the the Guinness Book of World Records Gamer Edition 2009, Super Mario Kart is the game that "has the longest legacy and the biggest impact on video games in history"
Personally, I can't really argue with that. It's a pretty influential game. It wouldn't be my personal number one, but there is so much left up to opinion in a list like this. This is the full list:
1. Super Mario Kart 2. Tetris 3. Grand Theft Auto 4. Super Mario World 5. Zelda Ocarina of Time 6. Halo 7. Resident Evil IV 8. Final Fantasy XII 9. Street Fighter II 10. GoldenEye 11. Super Mario 64 12. Tomb Raider 13. Metal Gear Solid 14. Call of Duty 4 15. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 16. GTA San Andreas 17. Super Mario Bros 18. Zelda: A Link to the Past 19. Gran Turismo 20. Final Fantasy VII 21. Pro Evolution Soccer 4 22. The Orange Box 23. Lego Star Wars Complete Saga 24. Tekken 2 25. Wii Sports 26. Pokemon Red/Blue 27. Guitar Hero 28. Project Gotham Racing 4 29. Super Mario Galaxy 30. Resident Evil 31. Ico 32. Chrono Trigger 33. Gunstar Heroes 34. Soul Calibur 35. Advance Wars 36. Ridge Racer 37. Super Metroid 38. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 39. GTA Vice City 40. BioShock 41. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 42. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening 43. God of War 44. Sega Rally Championship 45. Starfox 64 46. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 47. WarioWare Inc 48. Saturn Bomberman 49. Crash Bandicoot 50. Outrun 2
The most notable weird things on this is how low down the original Super Mario Bros. is, and the low number of PC games on it. The inclusion of Lego Star Wars is a weird decision too. Although the list could be a lot worse.
Lolist tbh, so many games of the past 5-10 years that brought nothing new to their genre. Or sequels that brought nothing new to their franchises. Wtf?
Ah, I saw mention of that in Pepsiman's status awhile ago. If I recall, she thought it was completely ridiculous. Sure it inspired a ton of shitty kart racing games, but that's about it. I'd say Super Mario Bros. should be in that position, or pretty damn close. But there it is at number 17. Seriously?
And The Orange Box is a collection of games. That's something that's been done before many times. Is that just their way of calling out all the games in that package or what?
This may be because I'm such a fan, but I don't see how Devil May Cry doesn't make it but God of War does. I'm pretty sure DMC was very influential to a lot of games, especially to God of War. MB said:
"I think lists like this are completely subjective, nonsense, and irrelevant."
There's a lot to disagree about this and it certainly is very subjective. I don't think Guinness should have such a list like this.
"Ah, I saw mention of that in Pepsiman's status awhile ago. If I recall, she thought it was completely ridiculous. Sure it inspired a ton of shitty kart racing games, but that's about it.I'd say Super Mario Bros. should be in that position, or pretty damn close. But there it is at number 17. Seriously? And The Orange Box is a collection of games. That's something that's been done before many times. Is that just their way of calling out all the games in that package or what?"
Yeah, you recalled my sentiments on Mario Kart's position on the list correctly. I like those games sure, as I've spent an excessive amount of time with the N64 version in particular, but I think calling those games the most influential (or really influential at all) is a bit of a stretch. They're fun, but I haven't seen them impact gameplay design philosophies in any other racer. I don't think you'll ever see the Forza or Gran Turismo developers listing Mario Kart as one of their main influences during development, for example. Different subsets of racing subgenres, I know, but if Mario Kart is the only kart racer that a lot of people give any semblance of legitimacy to, I think that speaks of its overall impact.
Some of the other games I do indeed agree with having on the list, but the distinct lack of especially old games irks me. This may be the historian in me talking, but a complete absence of Space War/Computer Space, Pong, Space Invaders, and a number of 2600 games surprises me, to say the least. They may be the great grandfathers of video games by now, but if I can still trace the roots of, say, Geometry Wars back to the 70s, then I think it might not hurt to acknowledge that connection.
Doom is absolutely #1. If that title hadn't come out and been as popular as it was, we wouldn't have a third as many FPS titles today as we do. Street Fighter 2 should be in the top 5. Influenced all the fighting games afterwards. Halo and Goldeneye should be in the top 40. There's a lot of titles up there like Super Mario series games that weren't as influential but were great
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