Game of the Year for all Years: Shadow of List Hoarders

King of Posters
1

The more I develop my image of what this list looks like, the more it resembles a pocket forum. There two main purposes are:

  1. Encourage conversation on what people find meaningful in the medium.

  2. Create a list of recommendations that reflects individuals’ tastes, so if you know a forum member well enough, you have of a feel of how their tastes line up with yours.

I considered pacing us through the years week by week, but since everyone has different interests, I figured it would be too limiting and arbitrarily linear. I’m not too worried about differentiating between what users consider the best and the other games they’ve taken the time to mention for their strengths; they’re all going to be put up here.

At the top of the thread, I will routinely add in users’ contributions and hopefully, add in the links to their thoughts within the thread. Since conversations work best when they go two ways, I want to avoid boosterism. To that end, I’ll also be including links to critical commentary that occurs in the thread.

Final note, try to write some details about what you thought was interesting about the games you mention. I know it’s really time consuming, but even a bottom-line review will do!

Pre-1980

Lunar Lander

80's
1980

Missile Command
Rogue
Berserk

1981

Donkey Kong
Wizardry
Tempest
Bosconian

1982

Time Pilot
Robotron 2084
Ms. Pac-Man
Moon Patrol
Joust
Zookeeper

1983

Phozon
Xevious
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
Blaster
Archon

1984

Tetris
Elite
Balloon Fight

1985

Super Mario Bros.
Space Harrier
Makaimura
I Robot
Ultima IV

1986

Metroid
Dragon Quest
The Legend of Zelda
Out Run
Bubble Bobble
International Karate+

1987

Contra
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
JJ & Jeff
Air Fortress
Maniac Mansion

1988

Super Mario Bros. 3
Mega Man 2
Gradius II
Dragon Quest III
Ninja Warriors

1989

Cameltry
Super Mario Land
Ducktales
Cameltry
Mother
SimCity

90's
1990

Super Mario World
Wing Commander
Skate or Die 2
Parodius Da!

1991

Scorched Earth
Lemmings
Final Fantasy IV
Civilization

1992

Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Mario Kart
Virtua Racing
Shining Force
Wolfenstein 3D
Star Control 2

1993

Doom
Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
Romancing Saga 2

1994

Earthbound
Super Metroid
UFO: Enemy Unknown
TIE FIghter

1995

Panzer Dragoon
Chrono Trigger
King’s Field II
Marathon 2: Durandal
Total Distortion
Elevator Action Returns
You Don’t Know Jack

1996

Nights into Dreams
Super Mario 64
Wave Race 64
Metal Slug
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Guardian Heroes

1997

The King of Fighters '97
GoldenEye 007
Blast Corps
Tekken 3
Final Fantasy VII
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
Total Annihilation
Riven
WCW vs. nWo: World Tour
Mega Man Legends
Tomba
Vampire Savior
Gran Turismo
Fallout

1998

Uo Poko
Metal Gear Solid
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Starsiege Tribes
Resident Evil 2
Xenogears
1080 Snowboarding
Suikoden 2
Parasite Eve
International Superstar Soccer 98
Shogo
Rush 2: Extreme Racing
Half Life
Shadow Tower
F-Zero X
Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram
Radiant Silvergun
Final Fantasy Tactics

1999

Shenmue
Change Air Blade
Soul Calibur
System Shock 2
Quake III: Arena
Unreal Tournament
Final Fnatasy VIII
The Longest Journey
Gran Turismo 2
Silent Bomber
Driver
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Dino Crisis
Jagged Alliance 2
Front Mission 3
Worms Armageddon
Silent Hill
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

00's
2000

Deus Ex
SSX
Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel
Chrono Cross
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Star Wars Episode I Racer
Nox
MDK 2
Mega Man Legends 2
Diablo 2
Vagrant Story
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Sin & Punishment

2001

Rez
Wario Land 4
Ico
Parappa the Rapper 2

2002

Way of the Samurai
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (GBA)
Anachronox
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Max Payne
Devil May Cry
Halo: Combat Evolved
Metal Gear Solid 2
Pochi to Nyaa

2003

Psyvariar 2
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne
F-Zero GX
Outrun 2

2004

Katamari Damacy
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Breakdown

2005

10,000 Bullets
Shadow of the Colossus
Killer7
Resident Evil 4
Under Defeat

2006

Gears of War
God Hand
Bullet Witch

2007

What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?
La Mulana
Lost Odyssey

2008

Mirror’s Edge
Mother 3
Space Invaders Extreme

2009

Canabalt
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
Demon’s Souls
Castlevania: The Adventure “Rebirth”

10's
2010

Mount and Blade Warband
VVVVvvvvVVVVV
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Nier

2011

Dark Souls
LA Noire
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange Mode (Ketsuipachi)
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Fight Night Champion
Bangai-O HD Missile Fury

2012

Waking Mars
English Country Tune
Ziggurat
Knytt Underground
Fly’n
Crusader Kings 2
Kokuga

2013

868 Hack
The Yawhg
Papers, Please
Dragon Quest VII (Remake)
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Labryinth of Touhou 2
Ridiculous Fishing

2014

Hadean Lands
Nidhogg
Luftrausers
Invisible Parties
Divinity: Original Sin
Kero Blaster

2015

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Oh Deer!
Crypt of the Necrodancer
Rainbow Six Siege
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

2016

Quern
Videoball
Devil Daggers
OneShot
Titanfall 2

2017

Cinco Paus
Gorogoa
Hollow Knight
Resident Evil 7

2018

Six Ages
Wandersong
Sprint Vector
Infernium
Celeste
Kenshi
Planetoid Pioneers
Mirror Drop

2019

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Nowhere Prohpet
Outer Wilds

Original Post:

I didn’t join SB until 2.0 but I lurked in the wiki of yore and I learned about a lot of good stuff from those recommended pages.

I was wondering if you all would be interested in revisiting this topic because I’d love to know how the waves of time have shifted opinions or uncovered new treasures. It’s been nine years since it was created. Nine years is a long time! If that thread were a school going child, she’d be entering the fourth grade! I learned about exponents that year!

Listmaking can be boring when it’s done by Polygon made for adclicks but I really love it when you see everyone’s personal taste come through.

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2

I’m in

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3

Felix is in.

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4

That means it’s on.

5

yeah i hate them in basically every scene
this won’t stop anyone

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Lists can be really bad. When we get end-of-the-year exercises in accounting, lists can feel especially reductive, most heinously when the value ascribed to a game is measured by “influence,” what is essentially a product’s profitability. In this way, lists are an arm of consumerism and cast objects of art as mere commodities.

At their best, lists act as a short hand of a more in-depth conversation. That’s how I envision the exercise I would like to conduct here. The list is a secondary result, more of an index of what is discussed than a canon of regurgitated consensus. In the end, that might be the way I’d like it composed: one week for discussing a particular year, followed by an index of anything mentioned.

I suppose two things motivated me to suggest this. One being that I really value the diversity and depth of this community’s opinions on the medium. The other being that I find the deliberate chronological framing to be illuminating. I compulsively create lists for myself and I’d enjoy it more if I could share that experience.

Sorry for the meandering sentences! I wrote this on my :phone:

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ranked lists give me great anxiety but i also love disagreeing with people so why not

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8

sb top 10 would be a top 20 with the first 10 removed

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9

i love list

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i dunno if i wanna do a ranked list but i love doing lists of things i like and why i like them so. sure.

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yeah that should be fun. i’d help out (whatever that entaills)

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Whatever list you make it has to be a short list to be actually interesting. Yesterday I saw a youtube playlist of “The Best Songs from Marilyn Manson” or something like that it was over 200 videos and I was like at this point I think hearing about which ones you left out of your “best of” list would be more interesting.

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I wouldn’t want it to be ranked since I often find the least mentioned works to be invitingly mysterious (still need to try Dr. Chaos, Shadow Tower, and Mastaba Snoopy). In order to avoid making something that resembles a list of releases, I would want to introduce the constraint that people have to say something about the games they mention.

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I want a list of the games that are only on one poster’s list. The game they stan against the tide.

We had a thread like this before, I think, but small reviews like the wiki would be neat.

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What if I forgot most of the games I’ve played

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Don’t look anything up. Describe them in detail, with absolute certainty.

In Sonic 2, there’s a special room in that mountain zone with the lava where you can find Tails eating spaghetti. It’s his house. I’ve seen it myself.

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Is this the time to list? Or should we do more list flirting first?

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List flirting! Should it remain in the Axe?

19

shadow tower is really good

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hi

it’s me

the person who ran this last time

i have some Thoughts

my original idea for the topic was lifted wholesale from a thread on the some other forum. in that thread they just had everyone list 1 game from every year they cared about. it was an interesting thread, but the format lead to the discussion being slight. i decided to make the thread here with a different format, focusing on one year at a time.

the thread here was good but was a pain to manage and i have several regrets with how i ran it:

  • the pace was too fast. switching years every 1 or 2 days was just Too Much, especially for folks with irl obligations. focusing on at most 2 years per week would be my suggested limit right now.
  • the voting system was dumb in that it very tedious to tabulate. an unranked list of mentions per year is probably how i’d go if i was gonna be the showrunner again.
  • the voting system was also dumb because it distracted from the matter of actually discussing the games (the discussions were the best part of the thread)

this is all to say that i think all of @MintyJuffowup’s suggestions are good and correlate well with how i would redo the thread.

one other suggestion i have is to have a rule were everybody needs to include the #hashtag of the year being discussed in their posts, for easy searchability (though i need to check if discourse’s even has an option to filter posts in threads by hashtags and not just users (EDIT: it looks like there isn’t an option that does that (also it looks like discourse apparently doesn’t even use hashtags, so lolol at this suggestion)))

3 Likes