31 Games Students Should Play

Gamasutra has an editorial piece on a list made by GameCareerGuide of 31 games a game development student absolutely should have played. Containing titles like Dungeons & Dragons (the pen and paper game, not one of the video game iterations), Puzzle Quest, Pacman, MUD (any), Daikatana, Psychonauts, and Beyond Good & Evil, my impression is that this is a combination of “heritage” classics that impact all games as well as fringe games that failed or succeeded critically in a noticeable way.

Gamasutra adds some games developers should play:

While there’s no way to make a truly canonical list of all games that all developers should have played in their lifetimes, I did want to pull together some suggestions from a few experts out there.

Games programming expert Lee Winder (technical manager at Blitz Arcade, part of Blitz Games Studio in the U.K., and unabashed Nintendo fan-boy) categorized his suggestions, not by genre, but by the reason one should play them. For example, he named Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Puzzle Quest as (games that show how solid and fun entire games can be.)

Final Fantasy VII topped his list for purposes of story and character development. Beyond Good and Evil and Mirror’s Edge are games that are under-rated but should be played, says Winder. And last but not least, a terrible game that students and aspiring developers should play to see why things just sometimes don’t work: Daikatana.

Puzzle Quest seems to be a popular pick. Justified or not?