I just picked up this piece of light reading before the holiday break: 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. It’s quite thick:

Close to the origin of this blog, I learned of various efforts by dedicated (or bored) individuals to slog through all chapters in assorted long-running game franchises. These efforts included Dragon Quest series (blog is gone); Zelda series (he didn’t seem to get too far); and Ultima (hats off! this person made it through the series). Now I’m waiting to see if a new blog crops up to chronicle an effort to play through all 1001 of these games. I promise it won’t be this blog.

The games are listed chronologically, though there is an alphabetical index. Through this index, I was able to determine that I have played a paltry 12% of the video games I need to play before I die. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s still 120 games. It’s important when reading through this book — as it is with any random “Top X of something” list — to not assign too much cosmic significance to the data, and certainly not to construe the contents as an affront to your own personal tastes. That means you’ll stay sane if you can keep yourself from constantly wondering “How could they have not included [my all-time favorite game in some genre]!!”

The list was compiled based on the opinions of a bunch of game critics. A number of franchises are well-represented, among them: Every Halo game, most Final Fantasy games, most Zelda games, every Metal Gear Solid game; every Resident Evil game except for #3, and most every game that has ever begun with the words “Super Mario”.

It’s also curious to note that the preface of the book is written by famed game designer Peter Molyneux. I mention this because, cross referencing with his MobyGames rap sheet, it seems that most of his games made the list.

For my own reference, here are the 12% of these very important 1001 games I have had the privilege of experiencing: