Complete Game Database

[almmiron]

I've been looked at some sites, searching for a complete list of all games for home consoles, arcade and pc. I don't have any interest on Browser and Cellphone games. I have find some.

http://www.mobygames.com/

https://spong.com

https://archive.org

Trough them, i've noticed some few games not properly cataloged in one, but done for another. Do you people know others sites/softwares (not wikipedia) that lists all games made in the space/time/dimension? Any recomendations? I want play (almost) all games made in the history, separated by year, and these sites would help me find all of them.

 

[FAST6191]

If you take it down to some of the subtle differences between arcade versions then you are still faced with an immense task. Though MAME/MESS maintains probably the better list of what went where for the arcade platforms it covers. Go into dip switches and some of the things old arcade owners used to do, to say nothing of arcade conversions of normal game systems, and you are going to be seriously troubled.

Console games if you only limit to those made for the well known consoles (so 8 bit and up) made by Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft would probably give you more than you could reasonably play if it was your full time gig. If you include things like the

PC... nope. There are no requirements for publishing a PC game and so there are loads of games for them. Look into mods, and you really have to look into mods, and it is never going to end.

My suggestion. Play examples of every type of gameplay style (genres are not great but there are worse starting points) and find some you like, go back to those you like and explore them further.

 

[almmiron]

If you take it down to some of the subtle differences between arcade versions then you are still faced with an immense task. Though MAME/MESS maintains probably the better list of what went where for the arcade platforms it covers. Go into dip switches and some of the things old arcade owners used to do, to say nothing of arcade conversions of normal game systems, and you are going to be seriously troubled.

Console games if you only limit to those made for the well known consoles (so 8 bit and up) made by Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft would probably give you more than you could reasonably play if it was your full time gig. If you include things like the

PC... nope. There are no requirements for publishing a PC game and so there are loads of games for them. Look into mods, and you really have to look into mods, and it is never going to end.

My suggestion. Play examples of every type of gameplay style (genres are not great but there are worse starting points) and find some you like, go back to those you like and explore them further.

I know it will never end... I have something in mind: Play (almost) all oficialy published games, comercially sold. I dont pretend finishing all the games anyway, just play some minutes of each or some stages (sufficient to see if the game have quality or dont) . I want to know how the industry have improved, and since I'm graduate in History, want make a sort of game History, in terms of Gameplay/Playability. With that, i will discover some hidden gems, and make a list off all the games still worth of playing nowadays for some reason. The best way is separate by year. Knowing that, you understand that mods dont concerns ME too much, cause, most of them, apart from improves visuals and gameplay, are not an original game, it's modification. It's like the clones that saturated the industry in early 80's: more of the same. My vision....

 

[FAST6191]

I would argue that many games, perhaps even a solid majority, need more than a few minutes to assess their worth. Not to mention the issues you might have staying objective as part of this -- many a reviewer has spoken of the trouble of doing one or two reviews a week for something, especially games, and remaining objective*.

*doing this may also change your opinions on games themselves as you will be forced to compare and contrast things you have already played. Or if you prefer see why many film critics eventually trend towards more arthouse/offbeat stuff.

"Original game", such a thing would be rather in line with viewing history as a "great man" history and ignoring the 10000 people that stood at their back, and all the forces that conspired to enable 10000 people to not be working in the fields to make enough food to survive. If you want to see progressions in game concepts then mods are absolutely where you want to look as well, especially if you care about multiplayer as part of this.

Officially published also means very little outside of the NES, SNES, master system, megadrive, playstation.... stuff -- the Amiga was floating around at the same time as those, indeed several games from said other consoles appeared on it and were the superior versions of a given game ( http://retro-sanctuary.com/Comparisons Main.html ), but had no official publishing policy as locked down consoles is not a concept that dates back to the dawn of them. To sell a PC game requires you to be able to take payment and send the game somehow, ID (they of doom and quake) also did things oddly*. Also what about things like http://nescollector.zamaman.com/?p=20

* all your history has a good intro to all


There is certainly scope to do something interesting here, historians of games in the sense you are heading for are few and far between, but for it to be exhaustive would be a near insurmountable task on a whole host of fronts. If I had to do something like I would find top ? games lists from that year, looking back at the end of a console's life, one from now, follow developers/publishers if you can (many games, even until the GBA era, went uncredited, to say nothing of things like http://www.destructoid.com/uncredited-l-a-noire-devs-speak-out-202757.phtml ), find interviews with devs and see what influenced them... basically all the things that music, written word and moving picture types do as they face a similar set of problems. By all means sprinkle a few random picks in there but exhaustive is never going to happen.