The only reason TW is in such a high regard is its underdogs status. It is a very bad designed game. Bad writing, atrocious pacing and boring design. From what I heard, TW 2 is the all out better game. If anything the sequel will be remembered, not TW 1.

As for the list:

Fallout 3.

Even though F:NV is the better game. The wasteland presentation and exploration this game offers will be remembered for a very long time. Especially the depiction of Washington DC is great.

If I rated games on basis of underdog status, I would be playing a ton of unknown indies, which I'm ... Well, not :-P I rate games on their own merit, whatever that may be. Guess that's why I'm not all that much into idie games.


I do think that The Witcher will get more 'acceptable' as the time passes by - just as games that used to be criticized for crappy graphics or dated gameplay back when they came out are deemed classics now, people will mostly learn to overlook disadvantages of The Witcher and look at it's strong points. The fact that you happen to dislike those strong points is unfortunate, but it doesn't actually make them bad.

Zelda, OOT. Kinda has everything in it.
PS:T Books will never go out of style, neither will this game.

It already feels ancient and cumbersome, actually. It will stick around for story reasons but not gameplay.

Well, naturally. They keep working on it, so the version that "lasts" will always be the latest one available.
Yes, I have a theory about that.

When you make a new game, you can't help but make some less than optimal design decisions. Other things may end up in a less than satisfactory state due to time or budget constraints.

Then, when you make a sequel, you have something to build on. You now have a clear idea of what worked and what didn't the first time around, and can address those issues. You may also have a working code base to build upon, which means that you can go further with the same time and budget constraints you had the first time around. The result can be that the second game in a series is essentially the game that the first one should have been, and often with somewhat better tech as well.

After that, it can go several ways.

1. You keep churning out essentially the same game over an over again with minor tech updates.

2. In order to avoid churning out essentially the same game over and over again, you decide that you have to do something new with it. Since you are now operating outside the original design parameters, this will frequently make the game worse, because you are making changes just for the sake of making changes, rather than changing something that needs to be changed. Sometimes it works though.

3. You make substantial changes to the game, taking it in an entirely new direction, or even moving it into a different genre. This will frequently alienate your existing fanbase, but may attract a new one.

I suppose I didn't clarify that. What game do you think will still be played in ten years time? How likely is it to still be making new fans then?