The basic premise of Revoking the Seal of Quality was to create something of a Top 50 list for a game console by using process of elimination. The first system we did this for was the Sega Genesis. We started by coming up with a list of every game ever released for the Genesis in the United States, and every day we eliminated at least one game from the list, except on Wednesdays when we’d take out 10 games in rapid-fire succession. After completing that project, we moved on to the Super Nintendo, which we are currently working on, though we have adopted a slightly less frantic pace.
Stryker, my main partner in this project, is an avid collector and ran his own used game store for a couple of years, during which time he managed to get his hands on about 95% of the Genesis library, and about 75% of the SNES’. If Stryker doesn’t have the game, we can usually track one down by other means, and in one case we did eliminate a game sight unseen, on the premise that it doesn’t really exist. And even if it did, it was Bible Adventures, so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a Top 50-worthy game anyway.
Our main objective in doing this was humor, not journalism, so some of the reasons we give may not always seem like really valid ones. However, I do assure all of you that we are looking at these games honestly, and whichever games end up on our Top 50 are indeed our personal favorite 50 games for the system. If your favorite game got eliminated, and our reasons for doing so seem unfair, and you’re getting ready to write a scorching rebuttal comment or send us an angry email, just remember that you’re basically trying to reason with two guys who are just sitting around making fun of old games. Just try to have some fun with it, and don’t worry – nobody’s actually going to revoke Earthworm Jim‘s Seal of Quality just because we said they ought to.
Also keep in mind that outside of the Top 50, none of these games are ranked. So just because we eliminated one game before another doesn’t necessarily mean that it was worse. It was probably just easier to write about.
