Eve Online but not Elite
Perhaps Elite is coming later.... or is putting Eve Online in there giving enough of a nod to Bell and Braben? I suspect they'll be console centric on things as usual though.
The prestigious Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has elevated the humble video game into its pantheon of art objects, and has named the first 14 of the 40 or so games that it will eventually add to its collection. "Are video games art?" MoMA curator Paola Antonelli asked rhetorically when announcing the collection, then …
I never thought I would see this, but I approve. Its nice to see these games be shown a bit more respect than being seen as mere time wasters. The list seems very well done, although I would prefer to see the legend of zelda being added at the start and not in a little while, but thats probably just the fanboy in me wanting that.
Street Fighter 2 on the list is nice to see, I spent many an hour on that, but I can't help but notice an absence of shooters such as the original Doom. It may not have been the first of the genre but it certainly allowed many of my friends any myself to cut our teeth on running around and blowing stuff to hell. Maybe when they expand the exhibit I guess....
So no space for the retrospective salon-noir* of Manic Mansion, the expressive Dadoism* of Day of the Tentacle, the socialist utopia* of Lemmings or minimalist Zeitgeist* of Colossal Cave?
And where's the serial surrealism* of Monkey Island?
It's the one with the "Dial a Pirate" disk in one pocket.
*I've read art reviews before.
... series is great. Surprised maybe an occasional text adventure didn't make it though - +1 for Colossal Cave, but I'd also pitch in Infocom classics like Zork, HHGTTG, LGOP, or even The Hobbit. As for other genres, what about non-linear stuff like Operation Flashpoint or GTA San Andreas?
Well, given that, in the original version, the big maze in one age was dependent on sound cues that were broken on anything other than a Mac Quadra 700, it's not surprising a number of people gave up. I made it through only because someone more obsessed than me mapped it out manually.
Oh, and then there was the puzzle that was broken altogether, and required just ticking through the different combinations until one worked.
Myst looked pretty, but had very little else to recommend it. The colourised HyperCard engine would have been more interesting as its own product, and in terms of playability it was pretty dire.
Elite was the game that really got me interested in computers and how they worked. Looking at the code I could not believe how much was crammed into so little. I still play it on emulators occasionally when I get bored of today's graphically amazing and audibly outstanding offerings. Seems you just can't beat the simplicity and playability of the old classics. Or am I just showing my age.
This.
Interesting that Dwarf Fortress is on there but Civilization isn't - other than that, barring a couple of games that I'd not actually heard of, it's a fairly comprehensive list. Can't really argue with the list of games they plan to add, either, although the original ADVENTURE would sit rather nicely with Zork.
To my mind, there are only a couple of omissions: I'd definitely have had Wolfenstein 3D or Doom on there, since they both pretty much defined the FPS as we know it today, and I'd have Elite (BBC version, naturally ;-) ) in favour of EVE Online if we're talking about space sims. I'd also add one of the Civilization II and possibly Age of Empires II as well, thus covering turn-based and real-time strategy games.
Also interesting that weapons-grade weirdness is more-than-adequately represented by Katamari Damacy :-)
... the Chrono series getting some love. Should have Cross in there, too, if you want my opinion. Doom definitely deserves to be in there, too, though, for making the FPS a viable genre (yes, Halo wouldn't exist were it not for Doom). I'd also like to see Gran Turismo have an entry as well.
They've chosen some early pioneers of the genre but what about games that have refined the formats and used them for storytelling? E.g. Grim Fandango is probably one of the most noir things published since the genre was invented. You could even argue something like Spec Ops: The Line belongs here.
That game kept billions entertained for decades.
I was especially fond of the after market / community games / wad files.....
The HUGE halls and vistas and the full on multi story buildings with rooms, passages and chambers inside them...
But it was like a drug habit that was hard to kick.....
I kind of really enjoyed all of that - and I'd like to gather up all the many hundreds or thousands of levels and games that were independently developed on the Doom Wad file system.....
But I'd like to "get over it" and stay over it for good, I think.
I am still really impressed with the size and dimensions of some of the scenes that were developed in it.
Brilliant stuff.
Adventure, Zork1, II, and III, and Trinity (I never cracked Trinity - getting the "Gnomon Conquest" did my head in for the weekend!)
Wonder if I can still get Trinity? Love to solve it!
(Alright, cheated at Adventure - on the PDP-11 I was playing it on, I found the bits in the core memory that would enable me to jump anywhere. Just change 'em. I remember one evening, I couldn't get Zork out of my head, so when my (then) girlfriend was asleep, I got dressed, silently closed the apartment door, and drove to work - I was sure I had an answer to a problem, which I did. Locked up, went back home about 5-ish. As I'm getting undressed, the Gorgon wakes. "Er, what are you doing??" "Big job today, honey, thought I'd have an early start--" as I pulled my trousers back on, went back to the office, and continued playing...
I understand that art is in the eye of the beholder (see Mark Rothko, something I could never agree as art - but clearly somebody does, the mad fools!) and so any list will be subjective and this isn't the complete list either but I do hope they include Limbo, that was incredibly beautiful given it's limited pallet. It takes artistic ability to achieve what was done with that game.
Some very strange choices on the list, but also some fairly obvious omissions. I wonder if this is down to 'the advice of scholars, digital conservation and legal experts, historians, and critics, all of whom helped us refine not only the criteria and the wish list'. Maybe none of them actually play games, and just thought they looked nice.
Still, it would have been nice to see some of the granddaddies of the strategy game genre included.
If you do remember Elite with fondness, then you might be interested in supporting the Kickstarter campaign to create a new version - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/