Guinness Releases Top 50 Video Games

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Guinness Releases Top 50 Video Games

Submitted by Mike Koss on February 26, 2009 – 5:49 pm11 Comments

gwr-ge-2009

No, not that Guinness, although they are somewhat related like cousins, or illegitimate children. Guinness World Records has released the 2009 Gamer’s Edition of their famed flagship. This time around they have compiled a top 50 list of console games. Rounding out the top five spots are:

1) Super Mario Kart
2) Tetris
3) Grand Theft Auto
4) Super Mario World
5) Zelda Ocarina of Time

The list was created by a panel of “industry experts” where the games were “ranked both on their importance and on how fun they are to play”. If “fun to play” is supposed to weigh in on the list, then how did Grand Theft Auto make it at #3? I own it and liked it, but compared to other titles in the series (especially GTA3), the ‘fun’ portion of that game quickly wore off. And how does a game like Halo make the top ten but Quake is not seen anywhere? Quake created the 3D FPS, started the real modding scene (Rocket Arena, CTF, Quakeworld, etc) and even re-modeled the multiplayer experience when they released the third iteration of the series. I think some of these experts forgot their roots. I think this notion is repeated multiple times throughout the list. Hit the jump for the rest and let me know your feelings.

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

Tags: Guinness, guinness world records, lists, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Top 50 console games

Harshy

Crash Bandicoot? Saturn Bomberman? Wario Ware? This is sad.

I didn't know Quake was a console game…

Where are 6-9?
Jordan_Snyder

When I saw “Grand Theft Auto” I was thinking it meant the series in general, but then I realized they were talking about the first game. I agree that that game is totally out of place. The top down play style stagnated quickly.

As for some other odd Top 100 placeholders:
Crash Bandicoot
Sega Rally Championship
Lego Star Wars Complete Saga
Pro Evolution Soccer 4

Industry experts my a$$.
Jordan_Snyder

“Wario Ware?”
Hey, man, WarioWare is fun. Okay, it might not be Top 50 worthy, but it's a darn fun game.

“Where are 6-9?”
Haha, a good observation. I would like to know as well.
morphiend

Sorry about that, I dropped some in the re-formatting of the list for the post.
morphiend

Depends on what you consider a “console” game, but Quake 1 was released for the Nintendo64 as well as the Sega Saturn. Quake 2 was on the Nintendo 64, and the Playstation. Quake 3 had some face time on the PS2, Dreamcast, and “very soon” on XBLA.

Grand Theft Auto originally released on the PC as well, to be followed by console ports: Playstation and Game Boy Color.
Harshy

Fair enough, but those games made their impact on the PC, not on the consoles. Just saw another huge problem with the updated list: Final Fantasy XII. Are they kidding? They don't have any Phantasy Star games, they don't have Final Fantasy VI, and they have Final Fantasy VII behind XII. Super Metroid seems pretty low to me as well…
http://www.aeropause.com mclazyj

And herein lies the problem to so called “Top 10″ lists. No one is every going to agree. I look at that list and wonder where all the Bioware titles are at, because to me a lot of those are top 50 titles. Someone says Final Fantasy VII should be in there, but I would say it has no relevance as a top 50 game.
Jordan_Snyder

At least they got KotOR. I do, however, believe Mass Effect is much more worthy than Crash Bandicoot and even Tomb Raider.
ersatz

“Most fun to play”?? Guiness should stay out of subjective “records” and just stick to the facts, like financial/physics/user/hardware-based records, most gibs produced by a weapon, largest sandbox world, most polygons per character, fastest speedruns, most levels passed etc

Haven't picked up one for years, so don't know if they do graphs like NPC/m^2 so you can make your decision on what the “best” game might be.
Drew C

This list is a pretty big joke. I don't know too many top xx lists that wouldn't include Mega Man 2 or 3 let alone a single game in the Mega Man franchise.
Drew C

This list is a pretty big joke. I don't know too many top xx lists that wouldn't include Mega Man 2 or 3 let alone a single game in the Mega Man franchise.