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Just to avoid repeating the other suggestions here, Pathologic, less for historical significance or enjoyability and more for artistic significance for the time it was created. (note: I have not played it and probably never will)
Crash Bandicoot (the game) for technical achievements.
And I'm just going to mention Marble Marcher (play the community edition), a game with fractal-based physics (as opposed to basically every game ever).
'Disco elysium' for just pure beauty
'Spec ops: the line', for the precise opposite.
Reminder that there are video games in the MoMA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_in_the_Museum_of_Modern_Art
The collection includes games like SimCity 2000, Dwarf Fortress, EVE online, and Minecraft.
There are also game archives, which aren't curated as a museum typically is but I think it's worth considering the Flashpoint Archive for web games to be somewhere in-between. I unlocked one of the games which I believe ended up in there.
If I had to identify a game that radically changed the public perception of videogames, that would probably be The Legend of Zelda.
It was one of the earliest examples of modern gaming, changing the game design from an "arcade" standard to something that was more suited for home consoles.
A few come to mind
That's all of my favorite games! I would never leave the museum!
We got another one girls, get em in the hug pit!
Disco Elysium. I don't think that I need to explain why.
I could actually use an explanation. I'm not familiar, what makes it so good?
It's so deep abd so complicated, and blurs the line between literary and mechanical so expertly, that i cannot explain it without spoiling it.
Its very good, very literary, and about solving a murder. Your skills are your character's inner monologue, and they're all useful, but ypure kind of choosing what clues and what sort of language you get them in, how you interact with and literally read the world.
So play it, play it without reading anything else about it, and when picking skills, go with what you respond to or what character you want your detective to be. 'Phillip marlowe' 'sherlock holmes' and 'dirk gently' are pretty close to the three pre-sets.
It's the only visual novel I've ever played, but it excels so much at it. The writing, worldbuilding, characters, narrator, and overall "vibe" are fantastically superb. It's also another one of those games that I can't help but play for ~5 hours nearly every day until I finish it. I'm no video game connoisseur, so you can find more sophisticated reviews elsewhere. You can pick it up on GOG for like €10 half of the time.
Hate to break it to you, but you still haven't played any visual novel because Disco Elysium is a CRPG.
A visual novel would be VA-11 HALL-A or Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk.
You're right, but I thought that it was one of those visual novels because I had to have a dictionary at hand to understand half of the words.
Pong, it was the first Videogame ever, also Pacman and Space Invaders as the base of almost all other games (Shooter, RPG, Racing games, Flight simulators, etc). Tetrix, the Snake game, inspiration of the Tron movie. These certainly belongs in a Museum of gaming history..
All of Metal Gear Solid.
The story of the whole series spans decades and decades, and even watching a video laying out an abridged version of that story takes like 6 hours to watch.
Something as long running as that and with lore that goes that deep should definitely be preserved at all costs.
Stardew Valley
Portal
Tetris
Hell yes on portal
And you will be cake
Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It's the Lord of the Rings equivalent of RPGs.
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
100% this. My favorite retro games to revisit.
Creatures.
Another World
Half Life
Bioshock
Elder Scrolls Oblivion
Dragons Age Origins
Baldurs Gate 3
Deltarune, it's a generational event. they'll talk about this game the way they talk about Mother 3
Same list (except front mission, thats brand new to me)
Want to add Phantasy Star Online - first online console game. Nearly gave it to Chu Chu Rocket before Google told me no.
Added
All my picks are in your list, except Quake 3 (purest PvP)
Dwarf Fortress
Halo or doom or half life. All of these games pioneered different game styles in the fps medium.
Deus ex human revolution: explores a meta narrative of how you use power in computer games. Your character has incredible capability. You could obliterate every enemy with ease. It's a completely different game if you try to avoid killing those who are just getting by (sure a security guard will shoot you, but they are expecting lethal terrorists). You use the power you have to avoid killing, not to make it easy.
Metal Gear Solid
Tempest, especially if the museum lets us play it on a genuine arcade machine; and Shadow of the Colossus.
Shadow of the Colossus was such a landmark game. The few little changes to the standard video game formula combined together just made for an absolute masterpiece.
Far Cry 2 and far cry 3.
3 for a legendary compelling villain (Vaas)
2 for genuinely immersive in-game UI design and challenging enemy AI.
Vaas is such a mid-tier villain for a seriously mid/problematic game.
Certain parts of the game haven’t aged well, but there’s no denying that Vaas was a wonderfully done villain. He’s a great test case for the “a good villain can’t be absent and mysterious” argument. Most of the memorable villains in gaming have been nearly omnipresent; Vaas, GladOS, Andrew Ryan, Handsome Jack, etc…
All of them are good villains because they are consistently present. They have enough screen time to actually develop into full fledged characters. They’re not just some dark and mysterious overlord, patiently waiting in the bottom of a dungeon for you to come fight them. They’re persistently in your face, interacting with you. Even if they’re not actively hindering your progress, the fact that they have a continued presence means their eventual downfall is that much more satisfying.
I mean, if that's all you want in a villain, I guess, yeah - Vaas was constantly pestering the player. His dialogue and mannerisms were just awful though. Philosophy 101 freshman tweets level awful. I feel like putting him on the same level as GLaDOS should be criminal.
Hell, if philosophy is the driving factor for a good villain, then GladOS wouldn’t even be on your list. A villain doesn’t need to be morally grey to be a good villain. Plenty of good villains are evil just for the sake of being evil. Even GladOS would fall into that box.
The point was simply that players need an end goal to keep them focused, and having a consistently present villain acts as a moving end goal. The player is driven to chase that goal until the conclusion, because the villain is always just out of reach. If you see a goal waiting on the horizon, the march there feels like a slog. But if the goal is consistently at your fingertips as you chase it, you’ll chase it all the way to the horizon without even realizing.
Hell, if philosophy is the driving factor for a good villain
...I didn't say it was? That's just Vaas' whole schtick - poorly understood philosophical quips that everyone eats up for some reason. Again, if all you need is a bad guy constantly needling you, then I suppose I see why you like Vaas. I just don't think that's enough to make him "museum worthy".
If we wanna get into what I think makes a top tier video game villain, I'd say the critical characteristics would be menace, intelligence, and capability. In short, they need to be an obvious threat that know what they're doing and are a challenge to best, both mentally and physically. To be honest, I can't think of all that many villains in video games that I would consider that good. GLaDOS fits for sure. I think the Kingslayer in The Witcher 2 is also quite good. Fumbled ending aside, Mass Effect had a good run of baddies as well - Saren, The Illusive Man/The Collectors, The Reapers. There might be more, but that's all I can think of atm.
Sid Meiers Alpha Centuri, it’s the best 4x game of its era and is a perfect example of how well games from the 90s can play, in many ways it feels like a modern game made with severe technical limitations. Today the graphics are outright bad (they weren’t exactly jaw dropping at the time either), and the UI lacks a couple of modern sensibilities and QOL features but everything else is top notch.
Ratchet and Clank Trilogy, of course!
