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Home / Features / Gadget Hall of Fame: Vote for the best game ever

Gadget Hall of Fame: Vote for the best game ever

Which of these classic games deserves to fill the cartridge slot on top of our Hall of Fame?

How do you pick just five games to consider for Stuff’s Gadget Hall of Fame? You don’t. We did.

So while you might be sitting there thinking: “Where’s Metal Gear Solid/Pong/Pokemon Go?” we’ve spilled blood and made enemies for life over the final makeup of this shortlist, so try not to pick too many holes in it, eh?

Either way, we’re going to induct one classic game into the Stuff Gadget Hall of Fame for a special issue of Stuff magazine, out on September 1, and we want you to choose which one it’ll be.

The contenders

Half-Life 2 (PC, 2004)

Half-Life 2 (PC, 2004)

There hasn’t really been another first-person shooter to compete with Half-Life 2‘s unparalleled combination of storytelling, action and gameplay – despite the main character never uttering a word.

Gordon Freeman’s one-man quest to take down the alien Combine is tense, scary, mind-bending and adrenaline-pumping in equal measure. And that’s just the opening hour.

Valve absolutely nailed the pacing, breaking up gun battles with some (for the time) ingenious physics puzzles, massive environments to traverse by hover boat and dune buggy, and some truly emotional plot twists.

The Last of Us (PS3, 2013)

The Last of Us (PS3, 2013)

There’s a moment near the end of The Last Of Us that’ll stay with you forever and confirm exactly what a special game this is. It’s not a frantic firefight against a horde of hungry zombies, or a tender exchange between the game’s two protagonists. In fact, we’re not going to tell you what it is.

If you’ve played it, you should know. If you haven’t, it’ll spoil it. Just know that if that moment doesn’t stop you in your tracks when you witness it, you’ve got the soul of a scalp-munching clicker.

GTA III (PS2, Xbox, PC, 2001)

GTA III (PS2, Xbox, PC, 2001)

It’s impossible to overstate the feeling of freedom you got the first time you played Grand Theft Auto III. Sure, the first two GTA games had allowed you to freely roam Liberty City, stealing cars and going on bullet-spraying rampages but the switch from top-down to third-person 3D made your first steps into its dog-eat-dog world unforgettable.

Can I go down here? Yes. Can I steal this car? If you want. Can I steal this car and drive it off there? Knock yourself out (probably). GTA III felt like a game that would never end. How could you possibly get bored when you could do, well, anything? In fact, it was just the beginning.

Super Mario World (SNES, 1990)

Super Mario World (SNES, 1990)

It’s not really a case of whether Mario should appear in this list; what’s hardest is deciding which of the popular plumber’s outings should be nominated. Would it be his star turn in the revolutionary 3D platformer Mario 64? Or when he first appeared as The Mario Formerly Known As Jumpman in Donkey Kong? Or even on the track in Mario Kart?

All potential Hall of Famers, but we’ve gone for the timeless Super Mario World on the SNES, if only for making Mario a genuine household name and introducing us to Yoshi.

Tetris (Nintendo Game Boy, 1989)

Tetris (Nintendo Game Boy, 1989)

Some retro games’ appeal exists purely in their nostalgia. Sit down to play them now and it often turns out that they’re about as much fun as a tax return with slightly better graphics. But there’s something about Tetris that means it’ll never age, something in the almost primal nature of its practically never-ending task that taps into some deep human desire for organisation and order. Or does it just have a really catchy theme tune?

Either way it’s one of the most recognisable games in history, first hitting Soviet home computers in 1984 but achieving immortality when it arrived on Game Boy in 1989, and playable by anyone old enough to operate their own thumbs. Did we mention it has a really banging theme tune?

Profile image of Tom Wiggins Tom Wiggins Contributor

About

Stuff's second Tom has been writing for the magazine and website since 2006, when smartphones were only for massive nerds and you could say “Alexa” out loud without a robot answering. Over the years he’s written about everything from MP3s to NFTs, played FIFA with Trent Alexander-Arnold, and amassed a really quite impressive collection of USB sticks.

Areas of expertise

A bit of everything but definitely not cameras.

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