Author | General Editor: Tony Mott Preface by Peter Molyneux |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Reference work |
Published | 2010 (Universe Publishing) [1] |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Pages | 960 p. |
ISBN | 978-0-7893-2090-2 [1] |
1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die is a video game reference book first published in October 2010. [2] It consists of a list of video games released between 1970 and 2013, arranged chronologically by release date. [3] Each entry in the list is accompanied by a short essay written by a video game critic, with some entries accompanied by screen shots. [4] It was edited by Tony Mott, long-time editor of Edge magazine. [2] The book's preface was written by video game designer Peter Molyneux. [1]
It is written in a similar manner to 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die , also published by Universe Publishing. [4] [5]
Platform | Games |
---|---|
3DO | 1 |
Commodore Amiga | 4 |
Apple II | 1 |
Arcade | 124 |
Commodore 64/ZX Spectrum | 1 |
PDP-10 | 1 |
Dreamcast | 8 |
Nintendo DS | 42 |
Flash | 1 |
Game Boy | 3 |
Game Boy Advance | 20 |
Game Boy Color | 1 |
GameCube | 28 |
Intellivision | 1 |
Internet | 10 |
iPad | 1 |
iPhone | 14 |
Atari Jaguar | 1 |
Macintosh | 5 |
Master System | 2 |
Mega Drive | 9 |
Mobile | 3 |
Neo Geo | 2 |
Neo Geo Pocket | 1 |
Neo Geo Pocket Color | 1 |
NES | 11 |
Nintendo 64 | 23 |
PC | 149 |
PlayStation | 21 |
PlayStation 2 | 53 |
PlayStation 3 | 44 |
PlayStation Portable | 16 |
Sega Saturn | 7 |
Super NES | 26 |
ZX Spectrum/CPC | 1 |
Atari ST/Mac | 1 |
TurboGrafx-16 | 1 |
Unix | 1 |
VCS | 3 |
Wii | 35 |
Xbox | 8 |
Xbox 360 | 37 |
Reception for the book has been generally positive, with critics praising the wealth of knowledge, but criticizing some particular entries. Rick Dakan of PopMatters stated, "Most of the choices seem great to me, and I like that the authors include a lot of smaller, experimental games and some flawed but important titles as well", but disagreed with some entries, such as Army of Two: The 40th Day . [3]
While The Austin Chronicle praised the history that the book presented, it criticized the book for its repetitiveness in listing several sequels in certain long-running series, such as the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil series. [4] [6] [7]
In his review for Starburst , Callum Shephard said that it was "a good guide" with the proviso that "It's distinctly weaker when it comes to covering handheld gaming and some titles are definitely under-represented." [8]
Gorf is an arcade video game released in 1981 by Midway Manufacturing, whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force". It is a fixed shooter with five distinct levels, the first of which is based on Space Invaders and another on Galaxian. The game makes heavy use of synthesized speech for the Gorfian robot which taunts the player, powered by the Votrax speech chip. Gorf allows the player to buy two additional lives per quarter before starting the game, for a maximum of seven lives.
Trinity is an interactive fiction video game written by Brian Moriarty and published in 1986 by Infocom. It is widely regarded as one of the company's best works.
Skool Daze is an open world action-adventure game released by Microsphere in 1984 for the ZX Spectrum and ported to the Commodore 64 the following year. It was written by David Reidy, with graphics designed by Keith Warrington. The game was commercially and critically successful, and praised for its original concept. It has since been regarded as one of the pioneers of the sandbox game genre.
Super Tennis is a 1991 tennis video game for the Super NES. It was an early release for the Super Nintendo and uses mode 7.
Death Tank is a 1996 competitive multiplayer, 2D artillery game developed by Ezra Dreisbach of Lobotomy Software. Influenced by Scorched Earth, the gameplay is real-time instead of turn-based. It supports two to seven players, represented by differently-colored tanks, with a range of weapons. The terrain on which this occurs is heavily deformed during play.
Monster Max is a 1994 action-adventure puzzle video game developed by Rare and published by Titus France in Europe for the Game Boy. The player is the titular aspiring rock star, who, in an attempt to fight King Krond who bans all music, traverses nine floors of the Mega Hero Academy. Floors consist of diversely-designed rooms of puzzles to solve, the player having to figure out the order of actions to take.
Viva Piñata is a 2006 life simulation game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. The game revolves around the player tending to a neglected garden in Piñata Island, in which different variations of piñatas based on animals must be bred whilst fending off disruptive interlopers. The project was headed by Gregg Mayles and the team behind the Banjo-Kazooie series, based on an idea from Rare co-founder Tim Stamper. Microsoft wanted the game to become a key franchise for the platform, and developed a tie-in television show to accompany the series.
Flow is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally released as a free Flash game in 2006 to accompany Chen's master's thesis, it was reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany, with assistance from Santa Monica Studio. SuperVillain Studios developed a PlayStation Portable version of the game in 2008, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions in 2013. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional (2D) planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.
Super Monkey Ball is a series of arcade platform video games initially developed by Amusement Vision and published by Sega. The series debuted in 2001 with the arcade game Monkey Ball, which was ported to GameCube as Super Monkey Ball later that year. Several sequels and ports have been released.
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book first published in 2005 by Universe Publishing. Part of the 1001 Before You Die series, it compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics to be the most important, influential, and best in popular music between the 1950s and the 2010s. The book is edited by Robert Dimery, an English writer and editor who had previously worked for magazines such as Time Out and Vogue.
Mario Kart Wii is a 2008 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the sixth installment in the Mario Kart series, and was released in April 2008. Like its previous installments, Mario Kart Wii incorporates playable characters from the Mario series, who participate in races on 32 different race tracks using specialized items to hinder opponents or gain advantages. The game features multiple single-player and multiplayer game modes including two- to four-person split screen. Online multiplayer was supported until the discontinuation of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection in May 2014. Mario Kart Wii uses the Wii Remote's motion-controls to provide intuitive and conventional steering controls. Each copy of the game was bundled with the Wii Wheel accessory to augment this feature and mimic a steering wheel.
Oids is a multidirectional shooter developed and self-published by FTL Games in 1987. The game was originally released on the Atari ST, followed by a B&W version for the classic 68k Macintosh in 1990. The Atari ST version, written by Dan Hewitt, was a cult favourite in the UK, where it received rave reviews.
Gemini Wing is a vertically scrolling shooter created by Tecmo and released in arcades in 1987. One or two players control a futuristic aircraft flying over terrain and shooting enemies of an animalistic or insectoid design.
Demolition Derby is a racing game developed by Bally Midway and released as an arcade video game in 1985.
Final Furlong is a horse racing video game developed by Namco and released in arcades in 1997. The game is one of only two known games to run on Namco System 22.5 Gorgon hardware, an early revision of the Namco System 23 hardware.
Neptune's Pride is a 2010 browser-based 4X video game, created by Australian studio Iron Helmet Games.
Naked War is a 2006 turn-based strategy video game for two players, developed by Ste and John Pickford.
Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball is a 2003 pinball video game for the PlayStation 2, developed by Sony Computer Entertainment.
Starship Patrol is a strategy video game of the tower defence type developed by the Japanese company Q Games and released by Nintendo for the DSiWare/Nintendo DSi platform.
Cursor*10 is a web-based browser game developed by the Japanese company Nekogames and designed by Yoshio Ishii. The game is Flash-based.