Author’s Note: This is one entry in a series highlighting the “greatest” games of all-time.  This is not a “best” games list. “Quality” is only part of the story.  This list exists to recognize the impact and legacy of selected video games. It is written from the perspective of a North American gamer who has witnessed the North American reception to the business of video games.  Thus, Pro Evolution Soccer will not make the list because soccer is just football without cage fighting.  Mother 3 will not be featured because in the States, Mother 3 is a porno.  And despite the injustice in a medium where Charlie’s Angels and Big Rigs were sold in the name of the dollar, Cave Story and Counter-Strike are disqualified because they weren’t intended as commercial releases.  For that reason. I do not care if Game X was totally better than Game Y.  I do not care if your friends jerked to Game Z until four in the morning.  Don’t like a selection?  Argue it on the criteria I’ve established.  We good?  Good.

Author’s Note, Part 2: This was originally intended to be a sliver of a year-end “Games of the Decade” entry.  But given my criteria, it proved impossible.  Go ahead: Argue that the three-month-old Uncharted 2: Among Thieves belongs on a list designed to highlight video games that changed the industry for years down the road.

Halo: Combat Evolved
X-Box (Later Ported to PC)
Developed: Bungie Studios
Published: Microsoft Game Studios
Released: November 15, 2001

It’s a dose of polarization: Halo is gaming’s modern-day, love-hate affair.  If Doom or Unreal Tournament is your fancy, you hate it.  You hate it because it’s driving the most shooter-capable platform to irrelevance.  You hate it because it ripped Starsiege: Tribes’ blueprint and turned the dial to half-speed.  You hate it because college campuses are now colonies for half-gamer-half-drunk adults who think they’re the baddest men in competitive gaming.

That hate is your concession: Halo: Combat Evolved is one of the most important video games in the medium’s history and one of the all-time greats. It was the perfect game for the right system and the right audience at the right time.  And whether you think the industry is better or worse off, it changed a whole lot.

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