Sight and Sound Ballot
Tried not to think too hard about this and still took too long. Sort of a combination of "games I think are important to the history of the medium", "games I think are the best of their category" and "games I just fucking love." And obviously I can't speak for games I haven't played. Submitting to this https://www.backloggd.com/u/Pangburn/list/sight--sound-master-list
10 Games
How often is the first entry in an entire genre still arguably the best?
1
Do you know that one video where the guy gets really mad that Tetris ends up on everyone's "best games of all time" list and starts saying shit like "You'd rather play Tetris than Team Fortress 2? You think Tetris is more fun than [some other game]??" Great stuff, that video. Anyway, here's Tetris.
2
Airtight, an incredible accomplishment, most of the mockery towards it only came after it had blown the minds of everyone who played it.
3
We're never gonna get anything like this again. You want good storytelling in gaming, here it fucking is.
4
Pure joy in both chaos and harmony. Has so much love for the world it ends up destroying it.
5
I can only imagine who genuinely rewarding and exciting this must have been for NES owners of the time, and even today it's still genuinely impressive in how freeing this game is compared to essentially every Zelda game after. Its presentation of discovery and exploration are still being sought after to this day (shout out to Tunic).
6
Legitimately the peak of the kart racing genre, perfecting the balance of items, speed, and skill required that so many entries in the genre fail to maintain. and it being done entirely as a collaborative effort between the dev team and the community, to the point where it's not always clear where one ends and the other begins, is beautiful.
7
The peak of the Genesis philosophy and Sega excess (at least for people who haven't played Alien Soldier, AKA me). This game is why Sonic fans are the way they are, and the highs of this game would go on to inspire countless fan game developers, creating the most vibrant fangame scene on the Internet.
8
This one kind of feels like cheating because it's like submitting an album to a list of greatest games of all time, but folks, it's an incredible album.
9
This one is here for me, but I do believe this is an accomplishment in the 3D platforming genre. The world it creates is so vivid despite what you see of it being so limited, and the way it's constantly moving forward and showing new things to the player, you really feel the excitement the team here had for creating and telling a narrative in a way that couldn't be done with older technology. And Rayman's cool, he has helicopter hair and a purple torso.
10