From the site that brought you the 50 Essential Games, 1up is now doing the 50 Crucial Classics – “50 Games You Must Play”. I’m still not sure I get the difference between “essential” and “crucial”, but it seems that the latter has more to do with quality and landmark status. In other words, “crucial” seems to mean “important”.

So far they’ve done nine games and I have no problems with the list so far. SimCity is getting its due, but their justification for why it is crucial but not essential seems to be the height of lameness.

“SimCity’s slow rise to success made it somewhat less impressive in scale than its progeny The Sims. And while it was a groundbreaking concept in gaming, SimCity was in many ways simply a testing ground for Wright’s more impressive projects such as SimEarth and the upcoming Spore.”

So, even though SimCity is what made The Sims possible and was a “testing ground” for these concepts, it wasn’t the big hit that the latter game was?

So why is that Starcraft is deemed crucial but not essential because it didn’t pioneer ideas but was derived from concepts taken from other games?

SimCity – innovative but not a breakout hit ergo not essential
Starcraft – huge hit but not innovative ergo not essential

I like the “crucial” list better because it, to me, seems more like a list of games that every gamer should be familiar with.

Lists are made to be argued over, so post your opinions here or there.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of 1up, I finally got around to creating a profile there. I use my real name. (I’m too old for pseudonyms or wacky nicknames. I have one on a couple of forums, and that will do fine.) Feel free to look me up.