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Super Mario Kart: Most Influential Videogame, Ever?
Posted on Thursday, February 26 2009 @ 12:14:26 Eastern





According to Kotaku, Super Mario Kart is the most influential game in history, as decided by the Guinness Book of World Records. At first, I considered agreeing with this decision. I had spent many years of my youth owning my friends and family at the racer on the SNES, and back then it played a considerable part in my life, helping to not only build gaming skills, but social ones too.

Then I thought more about it and realised that the judges must have been either drunk or high when deciding that Super Mario Kart was the most long-lasting console gaming legacy around. Surely Super Mario World, or Super Mario, should have come further up the chart than their successor? This seems to be a reoccurring theme on the list itself, and I'd love to see your thoughts:

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

Orange Box is more 'influential' than Wii Sports. I'd say this was wrong, considering the amount of shovelware that the latter has inspired. The Orange Box is renown for its greatness and originality, but not a lot of people play it compared to the masses that buy the **** Wii game creators churn out, especially considering this is a list focused specifically on console releases.

No Pac Man. Not only has the franchise basically been released in some form or another on every major console since its inception (Ms. Pac Man springs to mind) but it also helped an entire generation of millions of arcade-dwellers get into videogaming. Thousands of people still opt to play the many free, Flash variations of this classic on the Internet, despite having bigger and more modern titles at their fingertips. People keep returning to Pac Man, but apparently it doesn't make the list.

Final Fantasy XII as the eighth most influential game of all time? If anything, it is the end result of a long list of influential games that came before it. However, I only know one person who has ever completed XII and enjoyed it (I got about halfway through before getting bored). We all have our favourite Final Fantasy (mine is either 8 or 10, personally) but only as a refined collective they are able to stand out in gaming's history. They could have least gone along with the popular vote and slammed 7 in pretty high.

Listing Grand Theft Auto "as a series" and then putting Vice City later on makes zero sense. Yes, the transition from top-down view to third person was pretty big, but then why isn't III present? Vice City was a stunning game, but was it really that influential?

Star Fox 64. I really loved Lylat Wars, but aside from some great voice acting and force-feedback, does it really need to be there? The same applies for about 35 other games on that list, but I've only picked SF out because its actually good.

Let's see your thoughts. Does anyone buy the gaming edition of World Records?

Sorry for the lack of images this time. Although I'm sure you're all sick of my blogs being full of broken pictures anyway, heh.