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The Video Game Canon’s 2020 Update is Here
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
The latest update to the Video Game Canon, Version 4.0, has arrived!
The Video Game Canon now includes a total of 1,232 games, which were pulled from 59 “Best Video Games of All Time” lists published between 1995 and 2020. Each game was ranked against the rest of the field using the C-Score, a formula that takes into account a game’s “Average Ranking” and the complementary percentage of its “Appearance Frequency” across all lists.
Finally, games released after December 31, 2016 were excluded from the ranking because of their newness.
Three brand new lists were added to Version 4.0 of the Video Game Canon, including “The 100 Best Video Games in History” from GQ Spain, a “Top 100 Video Games of All Time” ranking from Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, and a massive look back at “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born” from Popular Mechanics. Alongside these new additions, updates to IGN‘s “Top 100 Video Games of All Time,” Popular Mechanics‘s “The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time,” and Slant Magazine‘s “The 100 Best Video Games of All Time” were also added to the calculation. Thanks to reader CriticalCid for providing research assistance with some of these new lists.
But even with all this new data, there was surprisingly very little movement near the top of the Video Game Canon, and the Top 3 was once again represented by Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris (#1), Valve’s Half-Life 2, and Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 (#3). There was some slight shuffling in the rest of the Top 10, but no new titles were able to crack the highest tier. Nintendo’s classic quartet of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (#4), Super Mario 64 (#5), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (#6), and Super Metroid (#10) all hung around, as did Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us (#7), Irrational’s BioShock (#8), and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (#9).
Things get more interesting as you move further down the Top 100, especially for the 2015 and 2016 releases that now qualify for inclusion in the Video Game Canon.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to learn more about this year’s update to the big list and to explore the rest of the Top 1000.
See the first trailer for Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part One
Gas up your chainsaw and sharpen your Doomblade, Bethesda and id Software have announced that Doom Eternal‘s first expansion will arrive on October 20.
Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part One will bring players back to Urdak to fight “fierce new demons” as the Doom Slayer travels through a variety of “never-before-seen locations in the Doom universe”:
Your war is not over… slaying the Khan Maykr left an imbalance of power that threatens all of creation. With the aid of an old ally, battle your way back to Urdak and decide the fate of the cosmos. Your mission is now your own.
The Ancient Gods Part One will be released as one half of Doom Eternal’s Year One Pass, and the story will conclude in The Ancient Gods Part Two, which is expected to follow sometime in late 2020 or early 2021, though no official announcement about its launch has been made.
And in a surprising twist, Bethesda also announced that players interested in the expansion won’t need to own Doom Eternal to play it. In addition to its inclusion in the Year One Pass, The Ancient Gods will also launch as a standalone game.
But for now, the first trailer for Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part One has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Tagged Doom Eternal
Twin-stick shooter Funtime launches today from Quantum Astrophysicists Guild and One Guy Games
Publisher Quantum Astrophysicists Guild and developer One Guy Games have announced that Funtime (officially rendered #Funtime with a hashtag symbol, but we’re not doing that) will launch sometime today for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. Fusing the neon-drenched color palette of Geometry Wars with the color-swapping mechanics of Ikaruga, Funtime looks to be a… well… a fun time.
Here’s what the developer had to say about their debut game:
Bright lights and space fights! Blast your way through grids of multicolored madness while changing color to adapt to your environment and overcome the digital hordes. Persistent ship upgrades will keep you going further and longer into the great unknown. Can you survive the full spectrum of challenges, claim the high score, and show your dominance on the leaderboard?
A Launch Trailer for Funtime has been embedded above and it’s filled to the brim with geometric explosions and bright colors (and and even a few jokes about that hashtag in the title).
Netflix shares a short look at The Cuphead Show!
It was about a year ago that Studio MDHR announced they were working with Netflix to bring The Cuphead Show! to our streaming screens. The animated adaptation would expand the world of Inkwell Isles, and feature visuals inspired by the same Fleischer Studios cartoons that the brothers used when creating the game.
Since that initial announcement, Netflix would go to say that The Cuphead Show! was “Coming Soon,” and while “Soon” still appears to be at some indeterminate point in the future, the streaming service did recently share a short look at the show on Twitter:
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers‘s Tru Valentino will voice Cuphead, while Frank Todaro (who was most recently credited as “Creature Sounds” in Dolittle) will voice Mugman. A quick montage of beautifully-animated scenes also introduces us to a handful of new characters, as well as King Dice, The Devil, and Elder Kettle.
The Cuphead Show! is still “Coming Soon,” and hopefully Netflix means it this time.
And don’t forget that The Delicious Last Course, an expansion for Cuphead, is still on track to launch for the PC, Switch, and Xbox One before the end of the year.
Knight Squad 2 will bring its brand of medieval mayhem back to PC, Xbox One this Fall
Chainsawesome Games is heading back into the multiplayer arena later this year, as they’ve announced plans to launch Knight Squad 2 this Fall for the PC and Xbox One (it’ll also be playable on the Xbox Series X via backwards compatibility).
Once again featuring a style very similar to Bomberman, Knight Squad 2 will embrace the wackiness of its premise with a medieval arsenal that includes swords and crossbows, as well as bazookas, laser pistols, and ghosts. The final package will feautre more than 13 competitive modes, including a few returning favorites (“Capture the Flag” and “Soccer”) and several new experiences (“Payload” and “Minion Master”):
Join the fray with up to eight players and duke it out across more than 13 competitive modes. Fight to become the last one standing in free-for-all events such as Battle Royale or squad up to take on all comers in old favorites like Capture the Flag and new game types including Payload, which sees teams clash in an explosive tug of war to deliver powder kegs to the enemy base, and Minion Master, where rivals raise armies to besiege and topple opposing fortresses.
No matter the arena, the knights always wield a wild arsenal of weapons and powerups, ranging from traditional medieval arms to more absurd ones like ghosts, land mines, and laser guns. Knight Squad 2’s over-the-top action brings a signature element to the table, transforming even the likes of Soccer into a full
contactcombat sport and emblazoning an element of turbulent fun onto an accessible, simple-to-understand experience that brings people together.
The first trailer for Knight Squad 2 has been embedded above.
World Video Game Hall of Fame welcomes its Class of 2020: Minecraft, Bejeweled, Centipede, and King’s Quest
After selling more than 200 million copies over the last decade, it’s hard to remember a time when Minecraft wasn’t nearly synonymous with the entire medium of video games. And though it was only available in an unfinished form from 2009 to 2011, it seemed to emerge from Mojang’s offices as a fully-formed phenomenon even in its earliest days.
So as players continued to flock to its Lego-like world in droves, it was a bit of a shock when the game was denied entry into the World Video Game Hall of Fame three separate times. Shortlisted as a finalist in 2015, 2016, and 2018, the title was passed over again and again and again. But Minecraft’s creative sandbox become too big to ignore this year, and it has finally been enshrined among gaming’s greats.
In a stunning upset, three unlikely candidates also garnered enough support from the Hall of Fame’s Selection Advisory Committee to join the Class of 2020. A genre-defining match-3 puzzler from PopCap (Bejeweled), a classic coin-op from Atari (Centipede), and one of earliest adventure titles from Sierra (King’s Quest) won out over more popular titles such as NBA Jam, GoldenEye 007, and Guitar Hero.
While this year’s class might look a little surprising, historians working at the Hall of Fame’s parent organizations, the Strong Museum and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, helped put their importance into perspective. (more…)
Final Fantasy VII Remake is unsurprisingly the best-selling game of April 2020
The public has been anxiously awaiting the launch of Final Fantasy VII Remake ever since it was first announced all the way back in 2015. Well, it finally arrived on store shelves last month, and fans eagerly emptied their wallets to return to the world of Midgar.
According to The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella (via Twitter), Final Fantasy VII Remake was far and away the best-selling game in April 2020. The game’s exceptional sales also pushed it to become the biggest launch in Final Fantasy franchise history.
Strong sales across the board for software ($662 million), hardware ($420 million), and accessories ($384 million) were recorded by The NPD Group. Added together, the video game industry racked up revenues of $1.467 billion last month, a whopping 73% increase over April 2019. The total also surpassed April 2008’s previous record of $1.2 billion.
An expanded list of April 2020’s best-selling games (featuring Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Resident Evil 3, and many others) can be found after the break. (more…)
PGA Tour 2K21 tees off this August from 2K Games and HB Studios
2K Games and HB Studios are continuing their partnership with the PGA Tour this Summer as the next game in The Golf Club franchise has morphed into PGA Tour 2K21.
Referred to as an “evolution” of the franchise by 2K and HB, PGA Tour 2K21 will feature pro golfer Justin Thomas on the cover, as well as 15 licensed PGA Tour courses, and a Course Designer mode to expand that number when you need a new challenge:
Thomas will be joined by 11 additional PGA Tour pros, each of whom will present a challenge to players in PGA Tour Career Mode as they compete to become a FedEx Cup Champion. Players can also create and personalize their MyPlayer with equipment and apparel from licensed brands including adidas, Polo Ralph Lauren, Malbon Golf, Callaway Golf, Bridgestone Golf, TaylorMade Golf, and more.
Capping off the simulation experience, PGA Tour 2K21 will feature a broadcast-style presentation with state-of-the-art graphics, dynamic cutscenes and a seamless replay system, all anchored by the play-by-play commentary of renowned broadcaster Luke Elvy and analyst Rich Beem.
In addition to its many single-player options, PGA Tour 2K21 will also include local and online multiplayer modes, including Alt-Shot, Stroke Play, Skins, and 4-Player Scramble.
PGA Tour 2K21 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Stadia on August 21. A very unexpected Announcement Trailer for the game has been embedded above.