After the recent scandal wherein President Carter revealed that the classic WonderSwan game Knuckle Justice: Fist of Freedom, Face on Fire (KJFoFFoF) was not an actual video game but rather an elaborate ruse perpetrated by stock insiders to bolster their Bandai holdings, the game industry has been looking inward and has not liked what it has found. With a key pillar supporting the entire enterprise of gaming now left crumbling into the ocean of deception below, it is unclear even to game historians if any actual video games have ever been produced or developed. It is against this tumultuous backdrop that we present you with our intensive research on the Top 5 Most Likely Video Games of All Time.
5. Rival Turf
With its overt graphics and controller support it is hard to deny this is a game. Experts are still studying the specific signals of the alleged controller outputs because it has been suggested by skeptics the movement of what is undeniably graphics on screen is actually following a semi-random program routine. The video-games-exist faction has discovered a paper trail proving the two gentlemen on the Rival Turf box were paid by a company called Jaleco, supposed publisher and developer of some of the highest quality video games, but this is inconclusive evidence. If this Jaleco corporation were legitimate, it seems all potential game fans would be well acquainted with their name.
4. Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
We have documented proof that people designed and made this game, just not very many people. Naysayers point out that a 3D video game should have had a considerable development staff but perhaps this is not the smoking gun they believe it to be. The movie the game is supposedly based on also had very few people contribute to its creation, including a stunning 0 writers. There is an argument made about historical/legendary people and their existence being proven or disproven that can be applied here. Essentially, it is unnecessary to find particularly more evidence for the existence of a specific someone than you would expect for anyone else of that time period in a similar position in that society. This explains why many scholars believe in a historical Jesus despite never having found his anti-counterfeit equipped holographic drivers license.
All of this is to say that if very few people worked on the Silver Surfer movie we know historically exists, it is unfair to demand a more strict burden of proof for the video game. The paltry list of developers does not invalidate this game as a candidate for an actual existing video game.
3. Sega Ages: Columns Arcade Collection
Noted hacker g4m3sRr341 has reverse engineered this alleged game to discover that it is ultimately interpreted by machines as 1s and 0s. Now this doesn’t prove it’s a game but at least is evidence it is software.
A brief history lesson: In September of 2021, Jimmy Carter was making his usual rounds through the Tokyo otaku stops when he was approached by an unlicensed game trader while waiting in line for the bathroom at a maid cafe. The illicit trader flashed a number of rare games in his voluminous trench coat, and two caught Jimminald’s eye - the never released Socks the Cat Rock the Hill, and the well known if rarely owned Knuckle Justice: Fist of Freedom, Face on Fire (KJFoFFoF). In a now infamous tale that hardly needs further explanation, Mr. President accidentally discovered that Knuckle Justice: Fist of Freedom, Face on Fire (KJFoFFoF) was not an actual video game after gifting it to his son President Carter Jr. for Independence Day.
There has long been a push in the games-exist camp to use computer language data as proof of their assertions. At the risk of editorializing, we believe this is a slippery slope that is more likely to end up proving that Excel is a “video game” than actually demonstrating that some piece of software is an actual game. The semantic distinctions at play may ultimately underpin the debate, but it would be something of a pyrrhic victory to prove games exist by simply expanding the definition until software written in a specific manner or in a specific language defacto qualify as video games.
2. Roberta Williams Phantasmagoria
Three separate written accounts discovered in what some experts think are magazines all point to this being a legitimate video game. Contrarians will point to the obvious signs of the purported game, and even supposed development studio, being nothing more than soft-core pornography and its creators. Perhaps, as so often is the case, the truth lies somewhere in between both of these extreme positions.
One is left wondering, however, if some sort of interactable pornography were possible, either with real or cartoon depictions of humans, would the world not be simply overflowing with it? Surely such an important technological achievement would not remain hidden in the shadows, known only to the most degenerate and unlovable of our species.
1. Harley Pasternak’s Hollywood Workout
This disc was tried in a CD player, DVD drive, Blu Ray Drive, and HD DVD drive. It worked in none of these. Does this guarantee this is a video game? That’s not something we are comfortable saying on record. Perhaps a larger outlet with deeper pockets and legal representation on retainer would make such a bold claim, but alas we are a meager website with few resources in this litigious world. Or maybe if we had any idea who Harley Pasternak was and could conceive of a reason for him to star in one of if not the only video game, we would feel more comfortable declaring the long search over.
Are there other games out there? Some signs point to yes but experts warn us against getting our hopes up and are quick to remind us that even amongst this list of likely real McCoys, none have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a video game. As people in the unenviable position of writers at a video game site, we all believe that time will prove the medium is not only real, but is of acceptable quality.