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Entertainment Weekly Ranks the Top 50 Games of the Past 25 Years
Posted 3 months, 1 weeks ago by Sean

Entertainment Weekly has long been known as a magazine catering to all of those midwestern wanna-be film magnates who are, for some reason, as interested in the weekend box office numbers as they are in the local county fair pie-eating contest. Whereas most industry insiders are more likely to read Daily Variety or the Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly caters to the more pedestrian entertainment junkie. Think of it as the USA Today of show-biz magazines.

Anyway, in a recent article, EW published a list of their top 50 "movies, TV shows, albums, books, and more of the past 25 years". And one of those "more" categories was, naturally, video games. 

Now bear in mind, Entertainment Weekly didn't exactly make it easy to figure out how they picked this list. That is, I couldn't find who they polled, what criteria was used, nor who ultimately compiled the list.

Still though, who doesn't love a good list? It gives you something to argue about, right? So without further ado, here is Entertainment Weekly's top 25 games of the past 25 years. Click here to see the full 50.

1. Tetris
PC (1985)

2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
N64 (1998)

3. Doom
PC (1993)

4. Super Mario World
SNES (1991)

5. Guitar Hero
PS2 (2005)

6. Street Fighter II
SNES (1991)

7. Super Mario Kart
SNES (1992)

8. GoldenEye 007
N64 (1997)

9. Grand Theft Auto IV
PS3 and Xbox 360 (2008)

10. Metal Gear Solid
PlayStation (1998)

11. Halo: Combat Evolved
Xbox 360 (2001)

12. Super Mario Galaxy
Wii (2007)

13. Final Fantasy VII
PlayStation (1997)

14. Resident Evil 4
GameCube (2005)

15. Chrono Trigger
SNES (1995)

16. Gran Turismo
PlayStation (1998)

17. Sim City
Macintosh and Amiga (1989)

18. Half-Life
PC (1998)

19. Sid Meier's Civilization II
PC (1996)

20. Gears of War
Xbox 360 (2006)

21. StarCraft
PC (1997)

22. Super Metroid
SNES (1994)

23. Deus Ex
PC (2000)

24. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
PlayStation (2000)

25. Shadow of the Colossus
PS2 (2005)

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Comments

Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 CommentsPage 1 of 1 Previous Next
FemJesse
Jul 07, 2008 10:11AM

I was wondering if the list was trying to credit games as firsts, but its not, so how the heck are they picking these games? Deus Ex should not be on there....

who the heck is paying them off?

FemJesse
Jul 07, 2008 10:09AM

If starcraft made the list, Diablo II should be on it as well.
That's blasphemy right there.

What about Pokemon!??

I'm not going to Vouch for Earthbound or DDR being profound in any way but Pokemon was a major phenomenon...

Johpin
Jul 01, 2008 04:13PM

lol oops, didn't see the link for the full list. Castlevania SOTN is number 32 =P

Dominic
Jul 01, 2008 02:58PM

This list is fail. Castlevania SOTN is one of the best games ever made. Of course this discussion is a matter of opinion but it's a shame the little intern never played it, otherwise it'd be on here.

QMarc80
Jul 01, 2008 12:26PM

I agree with Bauer about this one.

I feel sorry for the intern that they asked at the last minute on this one! Poor gamer.

JackBauer936
Jul 01, 2008 11:42AM

This reads like someone at the magazine asked an intern to write down the name of 50 video games 5 minutes before they went to press. This is why the mainstream press is dying. According to this list the past 25 years consists of Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Has Sega fallen that far from grace?!

Johpin
Jul 01, 2008 11:34AM

No Castlevania SOTN? Loved that game. THPS 2 was a great game, but I'm not sure it belongs on this list.

Sarah
Jul 01, 2008 11:07AM

Good, someone else recognizes that Super Mario World is the best of all Mario games.

Still, I hate it when mainstream press attempts to cover video games. This list is just so generic, I don't know if there was any kind of polling/criteria process at all. Probably more like "we pick what we feel like and put them in order as we think of them."