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Title Fight For Best All-Time Game Scheduled

Posted by simoniker on from the duke-em-out dept.

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Title Fight: The Ultimate Gaming Grudge -- a tournament in which gamers can vote to determine the greatest game of all time -- is underway at GameSpy. The rules for the tournament are simple: '64 games enter, one game leaves.' Polls are now open for the qualifying round, allowing gamers to choose titles from a wide range of genres that will eventually comprise approximately half of the 64-game final bracket. Qualifying will last until February 22, and first-round voting will begin on February 23." This is somewhat reminiscent of the GameFAQs Character Battle tournaments, but featuring entire games, not just videogame characters - predictions for the finalists and overall winner are welcome.

30 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Gamespy Voters Need Sanity by Mukaikubo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean really, just go look at the qualifying 'fights'. Among prominent losers:

    X-COM: UFO Defense Nethack The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past

    and so on.

    1. Re:Gamespy Voters Need Sanity by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      This is what happens when you're voting for "best from a category" - if they had done a 20-vote multiselect on the whole list rather than radio boxes on the categories, yes it would've come out different.

      OTOH, keep in mind that this is just for half the spots - I'd be surprised if none of the 2nd-runners-up made it into the final 64 in staff picks.

  2. First Post! by Dh2000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well? Isn't that the game all slashdotters are playing? :)

  3. Nethack != Interactive Fiction by OgdEnigmaX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whaaa? Nethack is lumped in with Infocom games and Adventure...

    1. Re:Nethack != Interactive Fiction by WWWWolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, a bit funny. Just about to vote for Suspended, in retrospect probably the most unusual game I've ever played, when my 3 AM brain notices Nethack at the bottom of the list. Good adventure... or the grand adventure. Tough choice. Had to be the grand adventure.

      And then I trudged on, puzzled by these odd categories (Best Tony Hawk Game? The one favored by barkeepers as a coaster... The Best GTA Game? "Minor Traffic Violation", bleah, who cares...), and got boundlessly frustrated when the noobs don't know anything about good games (Ultima Online probably going to win when Ultima VII would be around, and freaking Warcraft III taking the jackpot when Warcraft II was the one that really shined, dammit... And by the time Chrono Trigger or whatever the hell it was was trashing Star Control II, I was almost ready to scream "Get a life, you freaking japanophiles", but I restrained myself from doing so =)

  4. Well, since it's Gamespy by Snowspinner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And since Gamespy skews towards newer gamers against Nintendo, my guess is on a GTA3 victory.

    As for Nethack under text adventures, well, it doesn't have any graphics?

    That or Gamespy is stupid.

    Probably the latter.

    --
    Philip Sandifer's academic website
  5. This is impossible by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can you group fighting games, RPG, sports, action and everything else in between with one pool of good games.

    Not to mention the different age groups.

  6. Catagorization Issues? by Cebu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The initial qualifying polls seem to show a certain limiting view already. How this claim to be anywhere close to a good measure of "greatest videogame of all time"?

    Granted I do realize this isn't at all serious, but having such odd catagorizations for the initial polls seems odd. We have such wonderfully unrelated qualifying polls such as "8-bit / 16-bit platformers" versus "Mario series" and "Mario Kart series". They want to know which "Pokemon series" game we love the most (or possibly hate the most, or have even seen). Who said anything about "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series" games being some of the best games of all time?

    Strange....

  7. Elder Scrolls? by (trb001) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see a category that Morrowind would fall under. Granted, it's a new(er) game, but without a doubt one of the most open ended, longest, replayable and fun RPGs I've ever played.

    --trb

    1. Re:Elder Scrolls? by drewmca · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'll give you longest, replayable, and open-ended. It's all that. It's just not fun to actually play.

  8. The winner will be recent. by Jodiamonds · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because there are more and more gamers as each year goes by, the winner is extremely likely to be one of the more recent games to come out, just due to the population explosion.

    You can bet 8-bit games won't win this one, while something like Grand Theft Auto has a huge audience to vote for it (even if only a relatively small percent actually vote).

    --
    - Jodiamonds
  9. missing titles by an_mo · · Score: 4, Informative

    spacesims: missing freespace 2
    I also couldn't find descent, the best game ever

    1. Re:missing titles by Mukaikubo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If Freespace 2 isn't one of the staff picks (It got a Editor's Choice award IIRC), this poll instantly loses all meaning.

      "DIVE DIVE DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS, PILOT!"

  10. "best X of all time" contests are lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These kinds of contests are rediculous.

    Game experiences are so relative to the gamer, and there are so many conflicting genres, you can't possibly chose any "best game of all time".

    You might get away with a genre based "best of all time" contest at least, but even then you're really not going to find one pinnacle title because so many others do different things well.

    1. Re:"best X of all time" contests are lame by Alkaiser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Did you expect anything less of Gamespy? Especially AFTER they merged with IGN? The Best X of All Time articles makes up 95% of the stuff that comes out of Gamespy.

      --
      Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
  11. My prediction by Cecil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I predict the final to be a bitter, violent battle to the death between the Final Fantasy 7 Fanbois, and the Diablo 2 Drones. I don't think that any other two genres have a strong enough support foundation to make it. And those two specific games are the ones handily leading those genres at the moment.

    And I don't think it really needs to be said, but this poll, along with anything coming out of GameSpy makes Slashdot polls look scientific.

    Approval voting is such an underutilized concept. It makes sense in most cases in my opinion, but at the very least, it makes sense to narrow down large fields into smaller ones for more targetted voting. What a waste. X-COM should really get at least into the semi-finals, but I suspect it won't even make the qualifiers.

    --
    Random and weird software I've written.
    1. Re:My prediction by Mukaikubo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It was extremely disappointing to see FF7 beating FF6 so handily. Kids these days and their "3-D characters". Bah, I say.

    2. Re:My prediction by BTWR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, to the kiddies today, 1999's Final Fantasy 7 is "nostalgia."

      I used to babysit a kid and I asked him if he ever played the original Super Mario Bros. He said "Yeah! I own it!" and he put it in the machine. Sure enough, on the screen comes "It's-a-me... Mahhhhhrio!" - he thought Super Mario 64 was the original Super Mario game!

  12. Incredible by Snowspinner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just went through all 34 categories, and never once did I pick the winning game.

    (Note: In some categories, I didn't vote because I hadn't played enough of the games.)

    Mega Man 2 beat by Mega Man X?
    Civ2 beat by Civ3?
    Quake 3 beat by Quake 2?

    Gabriel Knight outperforming Kings Quest's IV-VI combined?
    Ultima Online as the best Ultima?

    I knew Gamespy readers were dumb, but wow.

    --
    Philip Sandifer's academic website
    1. Re:Incredible by Maserati · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Civ 3 is far more involved strategically than Civ 2 was. Just the addition of the Culture rating makes it a significantly deeper game. And with Luxuries and Resources, Civ3 becomes a very different game - trade with the AI is much richer. The strategic thinking required for Civ3 is closely akin to Go in how you have to plan out your expansion. You have to cast your net widely, but not leave gaps where an AI could snag a luxury or resource from you.

      I played a lot of Civ2. For Civ3...

      "Hi, my name is Maserati and I play Civ3"

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
  13. Statistical fun by OgdEnigmaX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good point. Now, if Gamespy could record and make the age breakdown of the voting block publicly available, there'd be a lot of fun statisticking to be done.

    "Looking at the data here, it's no surprise at all that so few voted for Missile Command, only such-and-such percent of the voters were even *alive*, let alone of gaming age, when that was in popular circulation!"

  14. Even for a "Best Game" poll, this is retarded by Mirkon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, it would have been difficult to do a worse job on the qualifying crap. How can you take a single Final Fantasy on one hand, then use the other to decide between Diablo and its own sequel? How is it that only one among the Marios or Zeldas will progress, while an Age of Empires or GTA3/VC is guaranteed qualification? How can you put Chrono Trigger, River City Ransom, and Perfect Dark in the "potpurri" category?

    And considering it was mentioned on the front article page, where the hell is Starcraft?

    --
    Glog!
  15. Popularity Contest by cgenman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I bet if you took a poll of the best movies of all time of the moviegoers in the United States today, you would find very few instances of films released before 1990. You would find very few art-house releases. You would find very few releases without a lot of blood and / or action. In fact, you would probably find that if you did that movie poll on GameSpy, The Matrix would come out #1.

    Why? Because it was popular.

    No gamer who has played the genius that was Gunstar Heroes walked away without being impressed, yet the game sold relatively poorly. Now look where it is... losing to duck tales. Castlevania IV was revolutionary for its time, yet it is losing badly to Opera of Tragedy, a clear Super Metroid clone. Dracula X hardly registers on the scale, despite being a truly superior game overall, yet never having had a proper US release.

    Pitting Perfect Dark against River City Ransom is like putting Bettie Davis as she is today on a stage and having her mocked by the Star Search talent of the moment for her wrinkles and her frail old body. Clearly River City Ransom didn't hold up very well to the rigors of aging, but in its day it could walk off with any player it introduced itself to. And it deserved to, too.

    Many great games aren't on this list at all, yet were truly worthy contenders for their time. Gargoyle's Quest? Strider? Smash TV? Sega's Heavyweight Boxing? Teleroboxer? Einhander? Herizogs Wei? Rocket Knight Adventures? EWJ? Lunar? 7th Guest? Out of this World? Little Nemo? Skate or Die? Puzzlefighter? Tetris MUST be on there somewhere, but I have yet to find it. Castlevania 2 is obviously only under consideration because of Nepotism, but where then is Castlevania 64?

    Obviously this poll is an unofficial popularity contest, and an unfortunately limited one at that. Why not just take every game in their index that got higher than a 7.5, and weed them out over the weeks to a true victor using a random distribution system rather than fixed competitors, with players given the option of "never played that." Only the games with the highest percentage of choices would advance, and the cycle would repeat.

    That would be fair. This? This is going to be a popularity contest, with the prom queen coming out on top.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  16. Re:Not fair by Tom7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Pokemon games were really good. I'd place Pokemon red/blue under as my third or fourth favorite RPG of all time, and I didn't play it until I was 21.

  17. Rediculous... by bluemeep · · Score: 4, Funny
    I wonder... What would it be like if IMDB did a poll like this...?

    *wavy dream sequence lines*

    Tim: "Hey, Bob, would you think Casablanca would be better under Romance or Drama?"
    Bob: "Casawhatta? Why're you wasting poll space with that?"
    Tim: "It's a good movie, Bob."
    Bob: "But it doesn't have any special effects or hot babes."
    Tim: "Ingrid Bergman has her charms."
    Bob: "But she ain't got DD ya-yas, does she?"
    Tim: "...I hate you, Bob."
    Bob: "Shut up and get back to work on the Best Evil Dead Movie category."

  18. Show poll results before voting = brilliant. by Teddy+Beartuzzi · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I mean really, what fool shows the prior results while you're voting? All it does is skew the voting. Hell, I passed over numerous categories because I could see my choice had 12 votes, and some recent crap thing I never heard of had 3400 votes.

    And as mentioned here already, it's obvious most of the voters weren't even alive when the real quality games were popular.

  19. and what's wrong with that? by mrpuffypants · · Score: 4, Insightful

    GTA3 and Vice city were Really Good games. Just because you may think that an 8-bit game is better back in the day doesn't mean that nothing will ever supercede it.

    I can see this same logic applied to FPS games back when Half-Life came out: "Well, just because half-life came out this year it's going to get all the awards while Wolf3D is really a good game as well." Yeah! No shit newer games may get awards...could it be possible that they are...better?!?!

    1. Re:and what's wrong with that? by OgdEnigmaX · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe the point is that the playing field is skewed by the age of the readership and thus what they've been exposed to. It is certainly *possible*, and in many cases true, that many newer games are better than their older counterparts...but you can't trust someone without working familiarity with (or even awareness of) all games in a given category to be able to choose the best of them. If I say that The Maltese Falcon is a far superior film to Casablanca, it's a totally meaningless claim because I haven't seen either of them.

  20. Apples, oranges, and idiots. by seraph93 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Quick, everybody, which was a better game, River City Ransom or Civilization? Fallout or Quake? Castlevania or Dance Dance Revolution? Apparently the people at GameSpy don't agree with me, but I don't really think that a meaningful comparison can be made between many of the games.

    GameSpy readers seem to be no brighter than the editors. For example, in the text adventure category (which Nethack does not belong in, btw), Adventure is miles ahead of Planetfall right now. A plotless game with a verb-noun parser outshining one of the best stories in all of video gaming. Nice.

    And there are so many missing games! Where's Wasteland? What about Master of Orion? Rampage? Metal Slug? What about that little-known series from Nintendo, Metroid? How can anyone hold a "Best Game Ever" contest that's missing so many games, and still keep a straight face? By being GameSpy, I guess.

    I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise to me: GameSpy sucks. Maybe it'll be good for a laugh when it's all done with. I can't wait to read the inevitable Penny Arcade strip that mocks this travesty.

    --
    Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
  21. more idiocy by Goldsmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did they even notice that they started off the GTA series with GTA III?

    How hard is it to think to yourself: "gee, I wonder if there was a GTA one or two?"

    Given all the other games you can vote for, I would like to see GTA one and two in the catagory devoted to the GTA SERIES! Personally (though I realize I'm in the minority) I would have voted for GTA 1.