The best video game of all time?

[Deleted]

What's up with all of these 'lol, one of my favorite games isn't in the poll, so the poll sucks' posts? I'm really sorry, but the 'best at something' and 'personal favorite' are two completely different things.

Some games I've come across in this thread that could never ever be one of the best games by any metric other than personal preference:
- Mount and Blade
- Ori and the Blind Forest
- Dark Cloud 2
- Ni No Kuni
- Grandia
- Shining Force
- Phantasy Star 4
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Age of Empires 2
- Street Fighter 2
- Civilization
- Kid Chameleon
- Ninja Gaiden
- Dragon Warrior III

This is just a small selection of the ones that just don't belong here. They might be great games and your personal favorites, but this is a discussion about an 'objectively best game ever'. Which means that opinion doesn't matter in this case.
I agree that the question might not even be answerable since games are so diverse and the metric isn't clear (Best possible for its time? Best overall, meaning it still holds up just as well today? Ratings? Sales?). Which of these metrics, if any, is the 'right' one - THAT is a matter of personal opinion. But you should know better than to post your favorite games in this thread without any kind of reasoning other than 'I loved the game'.
Being your favorite means nothing when discussing something like this. And you seriously can't bring up Kid Chameleon as the 'best game ever'. Really, come on. That's nothing more than 'I played it as a kid and loved it' for a medicore game at best. I've played many crappy games as a kid that I absolutely loved. Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure for example. I honestly thought the game was amazing. But it wasn't. Because I was a kid. And kids are stupid.

I find the question to be really fascinating to be honest, since there are so many facets to its answer. In my opinion the best metric would be a combination of:
- Aggregate score of reviews when the game was released
- Audience reception when the game was released
- Sales
- Innovation
- How well it holds up today

You would have to use some kind of arbitrary rating for some of these, but in the end it's pretty hard to determine something like this because so, so many people will just flock towards any kind of discussion with their '10/10 BEST GAME EVER' and 'OMG 0/10 SHIT OVERRATED GAME' crap that you can't possible hope to reach any conclusion.
You can't say that OoT is a bad game for example. It's just not true. It was groundbreaking in every way possible. You can't measure its quality by today's standards, but as far as I'm concerned most people don't know how to have any other opinion than '10/10' and '0/10'. They either think it's the best ever or they hate it. Both of which are complete bullshit.

I'd say that everything - be it games, movies or whatever - has a certain 'range' in which opinions are acceptable. Let's just take something most people love: Star Wars Episode 5. I'd say the range on a scale from 1 to 10 here is 6-10. Which of these it is is your personal opinion. I'd rate it 9/10. But you could also argue that it's 6/10 and I wouldn't say anything against that if your points are valid. But everything below that is just not justifiable. It's definitely above average, and especially for its time you need to consider where technology stood when it came out.

An acceptable measure for 'best thing ever' would be to take this range into account. Nothing that doesn't have 10 as the upper limit could be the best thing ever. Nothing that has anything lower than 5 could be the best thing ever.

I don't have an answer to which one is the best game ever. Based on the points I've made I'd argue that Mario 64, OoT, WoW, FF6/7, Pokemon, GTA and Half-Life might be possible contenders. To be honest only two of these are 'personal favorites' of mine. That's not what this is about. I don't even like Half-Life if I think about it. I was bored to tears from beginning to end, but I'd still rate it 8-9/10. Because I could see the kind of innovation they brought and because I can see why it's as highly acclaimed as it is. But I personally didn't like it. Which - again - doesn't matter when discussing something like this.

Since nobody reads this anyway I'll just stop writing now. Don't even know why I bothered to post this wall of text.

[meroko]

I voted Super Mario Series for Super Mario RPG, seriously, that game was so fun for its time.

[Kanadei]

What's up with all of these 'lol, one of my favorite games isn't in the poll, so the poll sucks' posts? I'm really sorry, but the 'best at something' and 'personal favorite' are two completely different things.

I think the point was that:

A. There are many successful and critically merit worthy games missing from this list which seems odd with some of the choices up there.
B. Some series combined, some not (and judging games a series is problematic as fuck because if you judge pokemon red and blue by looking at pokemon pinball then you aren't exactly giving it a fair go)

It's less "wah my favourite is missing" and more "where did this list come from anyway".

Since nobody reads this anyway I'll just stop writing now. Don't even know why I bothered to post this wall of text.

I'll admit I only skimmed it.

[bloodmoth13]

What do you judge a game on?
Story?
Mechanics?
Content?
Theme?
Replayability?
Time invested?
How good it looks?
How much of an impact it has made?
Popularity?

Alot of parameters there, cant say any game would be best at all of these, and it seems difficult to compare between categories. how would a game with an amazing plot and graphics but shit gameplay stack against a game with shit story and graphics but decent gameplay?

Personally, i consider mechanics, impact, replayability and content to be the most important factors, as those are most essential to gaming, graphics, theme and story dont reflect as much on a game.

Consider tekken 1, 3 and 5: 1 was one of the first forays into 3d animated fighting games, 3 refined that game and 5 just added more to what 3 already had. 5 had everything 3 had in terms of gameplay, but it had a larger roster and better graphics, should it be considered a better game though it didnt add anything significant to the genre?

id probably rate World of warcraft as the most important game of all time, well the most important of the modern era anywho, it has just had such a humungous impact on the industry as a whole, next perhaps warcraft III, which spawned the entire moba genre on accident, then probably counterstrike as THE competetive online shooter for many years.

Even then, warcraft III was incredibly important for the moba genre which is currently the most popular gaming genre atm (last i checked), but im certain that FPS players couldnt give half a shit about that

[Poppincaps]

It was a hard choice between Fallout and Mass Effect. Fallout won.
I don't think the younger generation will understand, but Black Isle and Fallout are just legendary.
A lot of games in the poll are a joke though. Especially that Pokemon shit. Something more meaningfull should taken its place.
And WoW cannot compare to the greatest games out there. But it's WoW forums, so of course it will be biased.

Pokemon has a perfect gameplay loop. You may not understand it, but it easily deserves to be on this list. And unlike Fallout, Pokemon Red and Blue have aged pretty well.

[Halicia]

Sales don't equal quality. If we were really being "objective" then the best game would be Ocarina of Time since it has the highest ratings on the most sites.

ratings are the antithesis for "objective", since they are a sum total of subjective opinions.

There is no objective measurement for game quality. Only sales.

[tehealadin]

Shadow of the Colossus. Never played anything like it. Technically brilliant, artistically marvelous, there is nothing else like it, a unique gem.

[Zethras]

CAN’T... PICK... ONLY... ONE...!

*head explodes*

[Tackhisis]

Never heard about Mario, Zelda and Smash anything. Who votes for that?

[Pence]

It's difficult to compare a game like Wow to Ocarina of Time, but I understand it's done to keep things simple. Nintendo didn't have the luxury of hot-fixing or patching. They didn't have the convenience of forums where their playerbase could provide feeback and insight into what the user needed. So they released a game in a final form and OoT has arguably become a top-5 game of all time. This is an RPG so far ahead of its time, laying foundation for many of the games we play today.

Patching and the ability to evolve obviously don't guarantee success. If "best" means "most played", I don't believe you could objectively state that a game has stood the test of time better than WoW. Popularity doesn't always correlate to quality, but a gaming company keeping 5 million+ active players (up to 12 million at one point) for over 11 years is unfathomable.

[Wewlad]

The problem with OoT was the precedent it set for future games. As a result, we got quite a lot of repetition with boss battles which became a matter of "wait until its weak spot is exposed" compared with before. I'm quite looking forward to the new Zelda game as it eschews the stale pattern set for almost twenty years.

This video explains what I stated in depth.

[Deleted]

Unpopular opinion time: The best video game of all time is no older than 10 years old because of technical improvements made. Only nostalgia makes people look at an N64 game and go "Wow, that game blows even 2016's GOTY away!"

That moment when Wind waker is better to look at than most AAA games released today.. and its a tad bit older than 10 years that game..

On topic of greatest game of all time

Smash bros melee.

[Valeron]

Plenty of other games that I would vote for that isn't on this list. Even if we are just using this list, why have some as a series and some just single games?

Anyway, out of the games or series listed, I'd choose the Mass Effect series.

[Xcruiser]

Hard to take this thread seriously with no Mega Man or Ninja Gaiden. >_>

[Poppincaps]

ratings are the antithesis for "objective", since they are a sum total of subjective opinions.

There is no objective measurement for game quality. Only sales.

You're the one who brought up objectivity into the mix. I'm just saying that the highest rated game of all time is Ocarina of Time which is a more accurate way to determine the best game than just looking at sales or profits. This entire thread is subjective.

[McNeil]

Its hard to name a single best video game as I'm into most genres, so its hard to compare them. If I had to pick one its probably Warcraft 3, its the game where I had the most fun and played it the longest alongside WoW. Witcher 3 and Red Alert 2 are definately in my top 5 aswell.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

When I looked over the list all I could say to myself was damn.. those are all some really good games.. and it reminded me that I need to go back and play some of them again. So thanks for that. But I picked WoW. No other game has really held my attention for as many years and brought me so many new friendships. Of course it has been a bit of an expensive one though, but hey, thats just how it goes.

[Deleted]

Wow what a fool you are. Who are you to say that WoW can't be #1, but only in MMO's? WoW is for me personally my best game ever, and probably will ever be. I think it's that way for a lot of people. But in a way generally, probably not no. But who are you to say that games like Journey are better than WoW? Seriously?

As much a fool as you dont agree with my opinion lol. I dont like the voice acting in the game. Its always the same man doing them it sounds like and its not even good anyway.

I dont like the story, story & lore have been weirder and weirder the longer it goes. I mean the good thing it has it the MMO PvP and MMO PvE. The combat isnt really fun though in PvE IMO.

So no, IMO its not the best game ever. And yes I think Journey is better than WoW, triggered?

[Kathandira]

I've frequently talked with some people about what is the objectively best video game of all time, there is a lot of potential games that could be based on certain criteria but I'm just making this poll to get some more results of what people think. My personal opinion is down below. Keep in mind that if your game might be missing then it's because there can only be 20 options









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I feel like Ocarina of Time is the number#1 game ever made on most lists for a good reason. The first time I played it as a child I was absolutely blown away. I would spent months.... no... more like 2 years without managing to complete the game yet slowly progress trough it. Everything about it was awesome and flawless. The game is just well made in every aspect and blows away practically every supposed triple A title that releases nowdays with ease.

It had an amazing combat system, good graphics for the time, a huge amount of content, more than single player games have that come out today. A lot of things to collect. A lot of things to discover. A good story. Amazing music. There is so much about it.

For me, the best game ever made is Final Fantasy Tactics. Endless replay value.

[Malacrass]

I consider Donkey Kong Country 2 a perfect game.

Not the best game of all time, not possible to name one in my opinion, but it's a perfect side-scrolling jump & run.