Portal: Still Alive Xbox Live

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• The greatest game ending ever, according to Guinness World Records, is...

  Call of Duty: Black Ops has been voted the game with the best ending ever, in a poll conducted by Guinness World Records. The beefy shooter topped a chart containing fifty blockbuster games, voted on by 13,000 gamers.

  CODBLOPS beat Halo: Reach into second place. Rockstar's epic western Red Dead Redemption, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, brain-bending puzzler Portal and arty killer thriller Heavy Rain also featured in the top ten.

  It wasn't such good news for games famous for their twists. Both Knights of the Old Republic and Bioshock, two games that have been widely praised for their last act plot twists, landed in the lower regions of the chart, at 49 and 35 respectively.

  "Everyone has an opinion on how to end a game whether it's an epic boss fight, a clever plot twist or a 90-minute movie," said Gaz Deaves, editor of the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition. "This list recognises some of the greatest endings and hopefully will get gamers talking about what are their favourites and why."

  So how about it? What's your favourite game ending and why?

• Time magazine picks the 100 best games ever

  Respected American journal, Time, has ventured into digital waters to list what it considers to be the top hundred video games ever made. The result is a suitably eclectic mix, presented in chronological order stretching from the 1970s all the way up to the 2010s.

  All the retro arcade classics you'd expect are in there - Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man and more - while Nintendo's core franchises dominate the 1980s as consoles made their way into US homes. Mario and Zelda are among the only games to appear in more than one guise. The original Super Mario Bros and Mario 64 both make the grade, as does the original Metroid and its 2002 first-person sequel Metroid Prime.

  Resident Evil and Tomb Raider join the list in the 1990s, and are still going strong today. Resident Evil 6 launched recently, while Lara Croft is being relaunched in 2013.

  More recognisable names also pop up as the list draws closer to 2012. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, Portal, Gears of War and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are all held up as examples of classic modern gaming.

  Just two games from the last few years have been deemed worthy of a place. Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City are the lucky pair. Notable by their absence are current big hitters such as Assassin's Creed, Borderlands and Uncharted.

  Is Time placing too much importance on the past? Would you pick any of these for your top 100?

  Published: 16/11/2012

• Portal, The Sims and Minecraft showcased by Museum of Modern Art

  New York's prestigious Museum of Modern Art has ended decades of debate by embracing video games as an artform worthy of permanent inclusion. Fourteen titles will be installed in the Philip Johnson Galleries from March next year, with the goal of expanding the collection to forty titles over time.

  Among the first games to be honoured are such classics as Pac-Man, Tetris and SimCity. More modern titles include SONY's bonkers roll-em-up Katamari Damacy, Valve's brilliant Portal and the wonderfully simple endless runner Canabalt. Nintendo's Animal Crossing and indie sensation Minecraft are among the games that will join the collection later.

  "Are video games art? They sure are," reads the museum press release. "The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design," the statement said. "Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects - from the elegance of the code to the design of the player's behaviour - that pertain to interaction design."
  

  Published: 30/11/2012

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