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GameFAQs' Own 'Best. Game. Ever.' Contest Launched
XtremeLeader writes "Just days after GameSpy releases its Best All-Time Game competition, GameFAQs answers with a much more interactive Spring 2004 Contest to vote for the best games (you need a GameFAQs account to view the page). Unlike the GameSpy awards, however, this is completely gamer controlled. It begins by a registered user submitting their choices for favorite games (one per system, with more than a few systems), of which any game you want can be nominated. Voting ends at the beginning of March, and the polls are slated to begin late March/early April. The top 64 nominations will be accepted and placed into a series of polls that we get to vote on. Hopefully, this one doesn't have great games like Chrono Trigger thrown into the potpourri category."
As I browsed through the Gamespy game nomations, I kept wondering to myself "Where is Chrono Trigger" only to be offended when it made the misc. category. I was similarly offended that they would list all quake games, but not Half Life.
This is a much better idea than GameSpy's somewhat elitist approach. This just uses raw numbers to determine the best games instead of some wishy-washy "I think my friends liked this one a lot" kind of thing.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Goldeneye definitely stood the test of time with me, for nearly a year that was the only game I played.
Also listed on that GameSpy page are Star Control II and X-COM, surely two of my favorite games of all time. SC2 doesn't have a ton of replay value (though I've played through it at least 3 times), but I still play X-COM every once in a while.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
I hate stuff like this. It makes the false assumption that the most popular games are the best games. Look at any other medium of entertainment and you can see how plainly false this is. Movies, Star Wars is probably one of the most popular, yet Citizen Kane is "the best" whether you like it or not.
With a poll on gamefaqs there are sure to be a zillion 12 year olds voting for GTA 3 and a million dumbasses voting for FF7. Heck, I'm almost 22 years old. Some of the 18 year olds who are coming into college now never owned an NES and were all about the Playstation. Playstation! Not even SNES! Just as if you've never seen Citizen Kane you can't be a movie critic you can't be a video game critic if you haven't played Zelda 1. Well, I guess you could be a critic, but you wouldn't have any credibility.
Zelda 1 is probably the Citizen Kane of video games. Although Mega Man 2 is #1 in my personal book. PC games? TIE Fighter or Civ2. I mean, it is so plainly obvious which games are the best to anyone who knows their shit.
Really I just wish they would rename the contest to "most popular video game as of right now". As opposed to "best game ever".
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Anyone who reads and pays attention to the site will know that it's very biased towards Sony and Nintendo. PC games and the XBox won't get a fair representation on Gamefaqs. All you have to do is read the discussion forums on Gamefaq's for a while and you'll come to realize this. The site itself may cater to all systems, but the userbase is definately Sony and Nintendo fanboys.
(GameFAQs's user base is primarily RPG-oriented, which makes sense considering that RPGs are the games you usually go to FAQs for, and console-oriented, which is largely arbitrary.)
two 3DO games stand out... Plumbers Don't Wear Ties... and Shadow. No fighting game can come close to Shadow. And PDWT is the best RPG ever.
Best RPG Evar: Legacy of the Ancients -- on a Commodore 64, no less; it's amazing what they could pack in there!
:)
Other than that, and in no particular order, Masters of Magic, Star Control II, Super Mario Bros. 3, Leisure Suit Larry 4*, Final Fantasy V, and Ultima VI...
* Yes, I realize that this game does not exist...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
There is not much you can do to change the mentality of the GameFAQs userbase. They are not going to understand the real games that made an impact on the industry as we know it. I will also agree that they gear more towards RPGs characters than anything else.
That being said, yes, it does boil down to a popularity contest. But I do have some faith in the people who are willing to show what real games were about. We will have to remind them about the times of the SNES, NES, and maybe even the Atari days.
Mainstream marketing is what is driving a lot of the younger crowd that is buying games. That is why the FF series is flying off the shelves, but games like Zelda and SMB are being turned into EB and not being brought again.
The Galatic Freedom Force marches on! Defend!
Let's look at this objectively...
On IMDB, Star Wars gets an 8.8, with Citizen Kane getting 8.7.
So, at least on IMDB, Star Wars is clearly considered to be of slightly higher quality than Citizen Kane.
nt
Be sure to pick Grow Can you make everything GROW! and get 20,000 points?
I live in England and I voted for UFO: Enemy Unknown in the Amiga category. I think America called the game X-Com (after the organisation you are part of).
I'm also annoyed by the fact that a lot of older games tend to get shafted in these things, simply because the majority of gamers are too young to remember the early 80s games.
Where's Lode Runner in any of these polls? Archon? I was even going to add Lemmings (which is almost universally ignored), until I looked at the gamespy potpourri category and flipped when I noticed they had included it.
my personal favorite *old* game was for the Atari 800, Dandy. Kinda like a gauntlet type game; you played the smiley face walking through the dungeon shooting arrows at the monsters and monster spawner points. Loads of fun plus it came with a level editor.
How bout the original Castle Wolfenstein? The top down room to room game? Break out of jail, steal a uniform, a gun, and the plans and escape the SS.
Will be the one with the biggest amount of fanboys.
My predictions are:
Crono Trigger.
Final Fantasy.
Halo.
Seriously, most of their character contests they ran usally ended up with some square soft character winning.
So count on some over rated game to win. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some way to automate the process to get them lots of votes.
Naaa, some of us knew that their polls were a joke, and knew that they wouldn't possibly win.
I voted for Guybrush, as well as some other PC game characters, but expected that some FF7/Square Soft character would win. It isn't that surprising, most of the people there console gamers.
As for Shemue, the game did have some fighting, some adventure like elements, and I thought it was fun. But as an adventure game it wasn't that great. Besides, I think he just got the votes out of name recognition. I doubt much of the gamers there even know the classics or would play a real adventure game.
By the way, the old slashdot story only links to the qualifying of the games, the actual bracket is here.
... a million 12 year olds voting for Halo, a trillion "RPG gamers" voting for Crono Trigger, and a zillion dumbasses voting for FF7.
Really it should be named "the game with the biggest number of fanboys."
An even better name would be "the most overhyped game with the biggest number of fanboys," since the game usally is over rated.
Let's face it, there's no such thing as a greatest game ever. Super Mario Bros 3 was maybe the standard for its time, and before that, I dunno, Pong, but a lot of games nowadays have depth that isn't pinned down by that 16k of memory you could use. Arguably they're better but then they're still not necessarily as enjoyable.
Maybe you could put up a list of games that have the greatest historical significance, but history is written by the victors, ie. the Nintendos of the era and not the Ataris. Whose to say that some games on the TurboGrafix 16 or NeoGeo weren't the best for their time? And how do you even approach this with numbers and different age groups?
Back in the day, there could be some sort of consensus, maybe, because the demographic was similar. But now you have 50-yr olds who play, you have teenagers whose minds have been captivated (I would almost say brainwashed) by Anime and Pokemon. Different people define greatness differently in a game. It's like defining the greatest movies - a futile exercise created by basic greed - the AFI wants you to buy their newest AFI100 DVD or VHS, just as Lucas wants to sell you his newest 6-movie Super Humungo Collector's Director's Extended Limited Edition Star Wars set. Nevermind that Citizen Kane bored me, it had historical significance. People will no doubt continue to do these lists, as companies like GameSpy release Top10 after Top10 so they can keep people interested in going to their site so they can sell ads and subscription and generate new debate. Now granted, I think these current debates are fun, and you might even find a game you hadn't heard of sorting through them. But raw numbers aren't going to tell you what game is best.
Here are some examples!
Just get it over with and use this poll:
FF7.
Halo.
Chrono Trigger.
Here is one that will make it even simpler since it will turn out this way:
FF7.
FF7.
FF7.
Yes, In the US it was published as X-Com: UFO Enemy Unknown followed up by X-Com: Terror from the deep.
I agree with most of those, but I also think Final Fantasy V will get totally passed up in about all of these game contests, being as it never made it to the SNES in the United States, where it would've had a lot more of an impact. It DID come out later with one of those anthology collections, but never had the impact in the US like Final Fantasy 2(4) or 3(6) did.
Who on earth chose that list of platforms?
I see I can nominate games from popular platforms like the Virtual Boy, but there's no option for the BBC, which only brought us games like Elite and Exile (as mentioned here not two days ago). Ah well, "Computer Misc" here we come.
I wouldn't mind the arbitrary list so much if it was even in alphabetical order...
The odds of any FPS other than *maybe* Halo getting past the second round is slim. I suppose it's because FPS gamers don't need online strategy guides (which is what GameFAQs is all about) in the first place, hence there aren't many FPS gamers on GameFAQs.
In the US it was published as X-Com: UFO Enemy Unknown followed up by X-Com: Terror from the deep.
The first X-COM game in the US was "X-COM: UFO Defense", followed by "X-COM: Terror From the Deep".
According to the announcement on the front page of GameFAQs, the contest starts in the beginning of April. For those of you not aware of this, CJayC occasionally does something really off-the-wall to GameFAQs on April 1. Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
Best. Game. Ever. == Best. April. Fools. Day. Scam. Ever.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
Many awesome Saturn games, such as NiGHTS: into dreams, Radiant Silvergun, and the Panzer Dragoon series, have little chance, because most people don't know them - back in the day, they were playing turds like Trash Bandipoop on their PlayStinkys...
Circumcision is child abuse.
Have a slashdot poll on the subject. there can be no debate to /. authority!
civ
That's really all I have to say, but the lameness filter might block the post unless I add some useless drivel like this line.
did I mention civ?
Actually, it doesn't. I lied.
Apart from that, the site's a fanboy infested pile of shit(hell, you can't even say shit, or you lose 10 karma for censor fucking bypass)
It's full of socially dysfunctional acne ridden 15 year olds who began playing games with Final Fantasy 7, but consider themselves retro experts because they downloaded a few SNES Roms.
If you want real fucking idiocy, go to the RPGs-Squaresoft board, and watch the little fucks whining because no one recognises their shitty Jap piles of arse as "art".
Already, before this contest has even started, I can predict the winners
1.FF7
2.Chrono Trigger
3.FF6
I want to see the games of MY youth make into the category. Everyone either played old console games or new computer or console games. The category missing that everyone seems to forget is the old computer games, the Apogee and Sierra games. Sure, a few of them get mentioned, but I never EVER see Whacky Wheels or Spear of Destiny on the list. Or the Quest for Glory Series, except QFG II being put on the Gamespy list, even though it was arguably the worst one of them all. There are a select few exceptions to this rule, but more often than not classics like these are replaced with shitty "classics" like Duck Hunt or the stale and repetitive drug of choice for todays gamer who doesn't play games: team sports games. They haven't changed anything except the graphics and the players. I mean, even the Tony Hawk games at least add new tricks. Madden 8043 or whatever is guaranteed to be Madden 2002 with minor cosmetic differences should the franchise, god forbid, ever survive that long. Screw Zelda and the Mario Brothers, I WANT COMMANDER KEEN!!
But everyone knows Gamefaqs "sucks" and has a forum with some of the worst postings ever known to man, what with kids with 3 yr old grammar posting garbage and breaking rules.