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Ocarina of Time — Best Game Ever?
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the best game yet made, according to a list compiled by readers and writers of the lauded British gaming magazine Edge. Their list of the hundred best games ever is top-heavy with Nintendo titles, a full five out of the top ten being released to a Nintendo platform. Obviously, this sort of thing can get contentious, and CNet's Crave blog spoke up quickly with a contrary opinion. "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is truly a masterpiece that should be thought of as one of the greatest games ever created. But to call it the greatest game of all time is a serious misstatement. Unlike Super Mario Bros., Ocarina of Time was released in an era where video games were booming and sales were on the rise. Simply put, everyone was playing video games, and the game was the best of its time. But no other game in history--Ocarina of Time included--was able to save an entire industry from almost guaranteed destruction the way Super Mario Bros. did, and it is for this reason that we should all give ol' Mario and Luigi credit where it's due." Let's hear it, then. What game deserves to top a list of the 100 best games ever made?
Is clearly the best game ever made. With billions of player mins per month and timeless gameplay, it seems that CS will never die. How many millions of people still play Mario bros?
Final Fantasy VII is the best game of all time :)
Psychonauts got in at 99? I would have pushed it into the top ten, but it's good to see that the game hasn't been completely ignored. I wonder how many people have actually played it.
Half-life goes at the top of my list.
By far the best game ever was Blazemonger. THousands of levels, nerve shattering graphics, nothing has even come close to matching its intensity.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Obviously...
*waits to get hit on head with keyboard*
Surly Diablo 2 is the best gamer ever.
Zelda games in general have a fairly short life span, the game is the same every time you play though it. In comparison (aside from the story) Diablo 2 was different every time (Different character, different choice of skills, different map layouts etc.).
WTF? The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the past, was even better than OOT.
^..^
Final Fantasy XII at number 8 = critical failure. Seriously, has anyone that voted on this list not played any of the other ones that were far superior? A vote for XII is a vote against nature.
You can't say something is the "best" without defining what you think those qualities are that make something best.
Storyline? Gameplay? Graphics? Sounds? Replayability? Uniqueness?
Duke Nukem Forever will most certainly be the best game of all time
This is so friggin' obvious that even though the game is not yet complete, it should still easily have made #1. I demand a recount!
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The answer is yes. Ocarina of Time has every element that makes video gaming such a rewarding and engaging pasttime. It was revolutionary, and it is still fun to this day.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the _only_ game that I had trouble leaving for hours at a time. In my humble opinion, it is by far the best that has been. I would include Psychonauts and Warcraft 3 to round out my top 3.
There are a lot of sequels on the list, often coupled with the omission of the original(s). They omit both Doom and Half-Life, while charting Doom II at 78 and Half-Life 2 at 4. Honestly, that just doesn't make much sense.
There seems to be an utter lack of PC titles from the 70s, 80, or most of the 90s.
Elite? Command and Conquer? Doom? Temple of Aphsai? Ultima IV? Zork?(anything by Infocom?)...
Or any other systems of note. Marathon? Tempest?(the original), Defender? Mortal Kombat? The list of things that they didn't even include is amazing. Almost as amazing as the just that made most of the top twenty.
Titles released by Nintendo usually do not have that super-duper-ultra virtual reality and graphics effects, like those for Playstation or X-Box, however, they are FUN. You don't need fancy and world-like effects with physics simulation to enjoy a title, you just need to be entertained by the plot and by the universe it immerses you. Nintendo is an odd company on that issue. I love their titles above all else.
I would not consider only Ocarina of Time as the masterpiece of Nintendo, but it is a hell of a game. Very fair list.
Best games of all time? E.T. and Custer's Revenge, of course!
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
3. Super Mario 64
1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina
9. Tetris
5. Super Mario World
2. Resident Evil 4
4. Half Life 2
6. Zelda: A Link to the Past
8. Final Fantasy XII
7. Halo: Combat Evolved
10. Super Metroid
Honorable mention to:
Pikmin
Katamari Damacy
//WR
Is it just me, or is the list HEAVILY slanted towards Nintendo games?
If this was really the case, then there wouldn't be a fight between Sony and Microsoft because Nintendo would have been crushing them since they first tried shoe-horning into the industry.
Not to mention the fact that hardly any of the games on the list are more than a few years old - Ocarina being about the oldest one there.
That's the problem with these lists - they're highly subjective to the participant's memory. If that person has only played 10 games, they're all "top 10 titles" in his mind.
ET for the Atari, hands down the best game ever made.
Go & Chess have each lasted for a thousand years or more. Still widey played, and there's no reason to believe they won't be widey played in another hundred years.
Besides these two there are countless other elegant and timeless board games games - backgammon, checkers, othello, etc. And quite a few great card games - poker, hearts, cribbge, etc. And some great dice games - such as farkle for instance. All of these games are in the public domain, can be had for pennies at a thrift store - or created yourself easily.
Compared to computer games that almost certainly won't exist in twenty years it seems difficult to see how these games wouldn't have made the top 10.
Wait, maybe someone meant Top *Computer* Games of the last 10 years?
Why couldn't they name the list "Most popular games of all time"?
Then nobody would be nitpicking about the choices of words. When asked, what was your favorite game of all time, the game that comes on top is pretty much the most popular game of all time.
Tough some might argue that it's not the most popular, only the "favoritest".
...that the South Korean Air Force has an official Starcraft team.
I'd say that getting your videogame elevated to the status of stadium-worthy spectator sport is a pretty huge achievement. Blizzard's Starcraft is surely up there.
(This is complicated only by the fact that it has so many worthy competitors from the same era: Age of Empires is the first that comes to mind.)
The sims series wins hands down as a series if you look at how many people play it. starcraft wins because you cant beat the sound of zerg being slaughtered in a poorly planned attack mario bros because of the fact that people still play it halo because of the fan following warcraft doesn't need an explanation spore is going to win if what they say about it is true
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
What criteria are you using to measure greatness?
The Edge piece is quite clear that it is looking for games which are still worth playing now.
The Crave posting misunderstands this point and brings in an entirely different criterion.
I don't actually agree with either article (I don't remember Mario mattering that much in Britain, and I didn't like Ocarina of Time much), but the Crave piece just seems like pointless disagreement with the basis of the Edge article.
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
Was Zelda OOT a great game for its time? yes. Is it a good game now? yes. Best game ever? NO!
OOT has far too many flaws in it that have not stood the test of time to be called the best game of all time. For example the lack of a target curser with ranged weapons making them painfull esp when you had to hit things with arrows on horseback. An inconsistant art style ware most of the main charicters looked normal and the extras looked like they were made by a 3 year old. A terible combat system ware the hardest enimay in the game was bats that were on fire followed by bats that could freeze then just normal bats.
Perhaps even more innovative and just as fun, but with wider appeal.
Metroid Prime and Mega Man 2 hit #2 and #3 on my personal list, respectively.
Deus Ex gets my vote.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I can think we can all agree that Snotty Ragsdale was the man.
It's 20 years old and still my favorite game... incredible level design, awesome music, gigeresque artwork and of course it's a blast to play.
Baldur's Gate II. One of the few games I _still_ replay.
See subject. That's right.
Kid: Mortal Kombat, on Sega Genesis, is the best video game ever.
Billy Madison: I disagree, it's a very good game, but i think Donkey Kong is the best game ever.
Kid: Donkey Kong sucks.
Billy Madison: You know something? YOU SUCK!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
World Of Warcraft, best for now.. best for ever.. the warcraft runs in ur blood stream.
Whew! With all the rain that's been dumping where I live I thought Summer would never get here. But finally, the game media has finally brought Summer to the masses with the yearly list of "Best Games List Evah!!!111" Now I can relax, read the entertaining flamewars of what should be number one, what game was left off and the messages of hatred that this game was ranked so low. Ahhh... I'm grabbing my beach blanket, suntan lotion and start tanning by the light generated from the flames.
Look at who it's compiled by.
ALWAYS look at the source of any 'list', 'survey', or stats.
This is Edge, it's by far a console heavy magazine, they only really have PC there to try and make 'everyone' buy it.
No, they're not an unbiased source for this sort of list.
I far more trust the opinions of sites like http://gamespot.com/ or the like, as they have true PC sections.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
- forza motorsports (xbox) - excellent realism, customization and prediction (drivatar)
- neverwinter nights - awesome concept and graphics, networking code could have been better. With more resources, could have been a WoW contender. User created worlds are great.
- an old school dnd such as Pool of Radiance - The graphics weren't great, but the stories were.
Jade Empire was quite good too...PDS is an absolute masterpiece. Just watch the 20 minute game intro, and you'll know right off that it's an unforgettable gem.
5 7155334830&q=panzer+dragoon+saga&total=103&start=0 &num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-46893643
Not only was this one of the first (console) game to have more then 1 or 2 disks (7!). It was one of the longest non repedative games made in its time, as well as having some of the best graphics, cut scenes, audio and story line.
It was also one of the first games to have the ability to have characters off in various stages of the game with the ability to switch back and forth between them.
The fact that this game wasn't even in the top 10, let alone on the list at all and the fact that only 5 games in the top 30 were not nintendo games shows these people are bias or fanboys.
TruePunk | Games
Most "Top Anything" lists are silly and miss a number of obvious choices, but this list is downright idiotic. I give them points for including games like Gitaroo-Man and Tempest 2000, but some of the omissions and especially the ordering they chose are just obscene.
Virtua Tennis 3 better than Robotron? Nights Into Dreams better than Tomb Raider? Darwinia, Super Monkey Ball and R-Type Final making the list while classics like X-Com and Fallout are nowhere to be found? Don't even get me started on the timeframe and system bias evidenced here. What a joke...
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=6231&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=9
FFXII at #8? Before FFVII?
Obviously, this list was built on popularity, rather than any actual figures, or account of depth of story.
That being said, I would still have to put Phantasy Star Online up there, even with a horrid storyline. But come on.. Counterstrike isn't even on there.
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Ocarina of Time was simply amazing. But I honestly had more fun playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES. And I still play through it every now and then today.
I don't buy that argument for Mario Bros. that because it was revolutionary it was a good game. Sure it was fun at the time, but to me its like saying that the first book ever written is better than, say, Les Miserables. The fact is that the first "novel" written was probably in the style of epic poetry and is not that applicable to us today. Most of us would not enjoy reading it. However, Les Miserables spells out a story of the French Revolution and its ideals: things that impact us to this day- and it is relatively recent history. Most would find it a lot more engaging. Mario Bros. was cool at the time, but its lack of a deep story line and repetitive gameplay wears on the modern gamer.
...Ocarina of Time is one of only three games I have ever played in which a few hours of gaming turned into an all-nighter. The others are Megaman X and Final Fantasy X. Of those three, I can easily say that OoT is the best.
Pffft, what a crock. The Resident Evil series did more to destroy clean 3D movement in games than any other series. I can't forgive the series for that. Mario 64 and Metroid Prime both blow away RE4.
And SMB belongs in the top 10.
Ocarina of Time is right where it belongs, at #1. It's funny the reviewer says "to call it the greatest game of all time is a serious misstatement," because as we all know, video game ratings lists are Serious Business (R).
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
nt
Unreal Tournament 2004 (ONS) best FPS multiplayer
Keef the Thief for best adventure
Gemstone III for best MUD vote
Fallout and Fallout 2 defiantly deserve a place near the top of the list....
Save Sam and Max!
'Nuf said
A game so fun that people resort to using bots to play it for them. Grindfest FTW!
maybe its because elite has been updated to elite iii, command and conquer to C&C3, Doom, to Doom3,
I'm awfully sick of the nostalgia that seems to be running rampant nowadays.
No Magic Carpet.
No Dungeon Keeper.
No Theme Hospital.
No Syndicate.
No Populous.
Furthermore: No X-Com, No Ultima IV and No Fallout.
Almost all lists like this are complete pap, but you simply cannot omit 5 top-50 titles and 3 more that are easily top-10 contenders. Not when you're presenting a list like this with a straight face. I know we bag on gaming 'journalism' for being a joke, but this isn't even funny.
It's just kinda sad.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
A game that should've been on the list should be No One Lives Forever. Clever, fun game and extremely funny.
Daikatana!!!
Metal Frogs FTW!!!!
Seriously, I haven't liked a Zelda game since A Link To The Past. The 3d look isn't what made Zelda, Zelda.
I honestly don't know what I would put as the greatest game of all time, but it wouldn't be that one.
Best game seems too subjective to choose any single title, but I'm of the opinion that Shigeru Miyamoto is without compare in the industry, both for his artistic achievements, and how well he has advanced the grammar and cinematic language of interactive storytelling. For sure one of his titles deserves to be on the top of any list.
--
Franklin Brauner
I don't know what is the best game. But there was another game for the same platform as Ocarina that was better - GoldenEye.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
As someone who was a hardcore zelda fanboy (Yes I have one of the gold zelda carts) this game did my obsession in for me. I was almost screaming when I got the game, but I think I played it for like three or four hours, and never touched it again. It wasn't just bad, it was painfully bad. Other than the franchise it had little in common with the pervious zelda games, and a whole ton in common with the gobs of mediocre "collect them all" third person platformers the N64 was so fond of. I should go back and play a link to the past for the 5th time.
Rant done.
Seriously Zonk, are you TRYING to start a flame war?
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Photoshop
Soul Calibur.
Best *game*? Chess and/or Go (the latter is more "hip" these days since it's all organic and such, but the former still has its appeal)
Although Halflife 2 was great Halflife spawned the mega mod generation with cs, tfc, dod, etc. Plus it was a terrific game. FF12 is by no means fantastic other than in a graphical sence and should be replaced with snes ff3 or 6 which brought the traditional rpg to the americas and proved that we were caplable of being entertained by non platformer titles. Civilization 4 being good did not have that attention seizing grasp that Civilization 3 had and still has on me to this day. Being the peak of quality at the time and a balanced gameplay not to heavy on conflict or research it is a timeless game that should have mention.
Shufflepuck!
:q!
Here it is, for those who don't want to click all 10 pages :
01. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
02. Resident Evil 4
03. Super Mario 64
04. Half-Life 2
05. Super Mario World
06. The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past
07. Halo
08. Final Fantasy XII
09. Tetris
10. Super Metroid
I didn't found something funny to put here.
Why is this even news, anyway? Putting it up on /. is just a way to get trolls coming in saying "x is better" or "y is better". Just because more people like OoT more than they like, say, Half-Life 2 doesn't make it the best game ever. I honestly disliked Ocarina of Time. I enjoyed Link to the Past more. But my opinion shouldn't matter towards the "best game ever". Other people may agree that OoT is the best game ever, however, that's their opinion. There will never be unanimous agreement on what the best game ever is.
*clicks next article*
This list is one of the worst "Top 100" I've ever seen.
The flaws are many and frequent.
How could you have a top 100 list of games that completely excludes ANY Bioware or Black Isle Studios games? On top of that, there's no homage to some clear classics and pioneers of gaming, such as Zork, or Hero Quest. Only a brief mention is made for Monkey Island.
The fact that the vast majority of the games on the list were made after 2000 says a bit.
Tony Hawk should be in the top 10.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I much prefer the Macarena of Time.
I'm deaf you insensitive clod!
Hey, it was programmed by ONE GUY in FIVE WEEKS, which was a huge rush job by the standards of those days. Compare that to most of the other Atari games, and it's really not any worse than most.
It summed up everything to that point in the final fantasy world. FFXII is probably a great game, but I have never played it. I doubt it had half the sountrack and storyline as FFVI. Everything after FFVI was different. Even FFVII did not compare to FFVI to me. A truely great game that I still play once a year.
Was there nothing from Richard Garriott's Ulitma series in there?
Which other game has cranked out clones, sequels and spinoff's like Pong has. Heck this year Rockstar got into the game with Table Tennis and pong is an essential part of Wii Play. Sure its simple but its basically what started it all and its simplicity is still being borrowed from today.
Quake 3 and Starcraft should be in the top 10 at least. Quake for it's multiplayer and the sheer number of games spawned from its engine. It didn't include Katamari or Pirates Gold!! Those two games are top 10 for sure! I found FF7 to be a better game than Ocarina of Time Too many new titles that beat out time tested older games. (seriously, what about Legend of the Red Dragon or Nethack or Zork?)
Yes. It really deserves that title. Super-Mario Bros. was the best of it's time, and deserves an honourable mention. For me, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri makes #2, Majora's Mask #3.
I notice someone here mentioned MS & Sony not being that high-up. Why? IMHO, they don't deserve to be selling games. They don't follow the spirit of the industry. Nintendo is a games company. Microsoft is a software company. Sony is a home electronics company. Only Nintendo makes money on their consoles. IMHO, MS & Sony should let their games divisions go bankrupt and focus on their real cash.
Sony is planning to lose a few billion dollars this quarter because of their game division. What the fuck has happened to the industry?
It curiously goes unmentioned. It was an awesome game. Fallout also seems to not be there. /cry.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Awesome game! Does anyone else remember this one?
Um, dude. Solitaire. Win 3.11 edition. Before they ruined it with fancy graphics. Back when it was pure.
...of my list, if not at the top, are Looking Glass Technology's System Shock and Mythos' X-COM Apocalypse.
Best game ever. With commentary!.
What the fuck? There's no floor?!
no text
I don't know how popular this was outside the US but Elite will definitely get my vote for most game play ever per Kb of memory. The old BBC cassette version packed it all into less than 32Kb of memory via creative use of the built in random number generator. I've never yet seen a game that was so far ahead of the competition.
The game that spawned the online 3d FPS genre. The game that first popularized modding, CTF mode, teamfortress, and the other modes still in use in various quake descended games today. The grandfather of halo, counter-strike, and everything in the future. The game that defined a generation. Up untill today there is still Quake 1 servers online.
Learn to know, the dark side of the force, and you will achieve a power greater than any Jedi...the power to save your w
Lest anyone be confused by the AC here, "Hear hear!" is in fact the correct form of this expression. "Here here!", despite being used all over the Internet, is incorrect. Wikipedia has the facts.
doom2 at 55, WoW at 22... one of the worst lists ever. nothing like wow has been seen before, people have DIED from lack of sleep and food playing it. doom2 was similar wasting a good chunk of my childhood playing it multiplayer.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Ocarina of Time is not that good. You can stop rating it highly because it was A Link to the Past in 3D. (and this is from someone who has beaten it multiple times and watched speedruns of it - it's fun, but it's not timeless and it shouldn't be in the top 50, much less 10)
:/
Also, RE4 controlled like molasses and the laser sight was invisible. I couldn't be bothered to finish it.
Honestly, this whole thing was a popularity contest, but... this list... it makes me cry. I mean, come on. FFXII would drop 50 places if you gave it another year.
That egg hero from the UK still kicks ass almost 20 years later!
What game deserves to top a list of the 100 best games ever made?
My opinion is you can take all Top Whatever lists ever devised and shove 'em. It's pointless.
They get inside you.
Top 100 lists are something that are pretty open to criticism. Nobody's top 100 is the same, nor should they be. However, this particular list fails to mention an unsettlingly large number of the "obligatories" that all top 100 lists should have at least a few of. While this is evidence that the author didn't just troll other top 100 lists and cherry pick the titles he had played, it's also evidence that his gaming experience has some rather gaping holes.
:p I'll leave it to others to list off other "obligatories".
Obligatories from the RPG category:
- *Anything* from the Baldur's Gate series?
- Planescape: Torment?
- Knights of the Old Republic?
- Dragon Warrior?
From Strategy:
- Some of the Civ sequels show up, but where's the original?
- Master of Orion?
Other must-haves in any top 100:
- Tie Fighter
- Privateer, or at least *something* from the Wing Commander world?
- Grim Fandango? (The list is in dire need of more classic lucasarts adventure games)
There are plenty more, but this is the point at which I get lazy.
Isn't nitpicking top 100's fun on a slow news day?
Seriously, how could they forget Xenogears? Sure, it had a lot of cut scenes - but it was amazing. The 2nd disc was obviously abbreviated, but it was the highlight of my entire PSX collection. I am somewhat horrified it is not on the list.
I simply have not been able to play videogames since Xenogears, nothing has come close. RPGs, RTS, shooters, etc, nothing.
They correctly honored several classic arcade derivatives including Tempest, Robotron 2084 (twice) and Pac Man, but if they are going to include Dig Dug in that list (Mr Driller) than they should also include Defender, Galaga and Joust. There is no excuse. I would also argue for I Robot as a pioneer in 3D, even though they only sold like 500 of those.
As far games that are not classic arcade derivatives, I would also include Master of Orion and Crazy Taxi.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I think this thread proves the ultimate futility of trying to compile an authorative top 100 - nobody will ever be happy. The purpose of these things is to generate a bit of chat (which clearly it's doing), and to maybe introduce people to games they've not played before. Any criteria is going to be flawed; there's no way of empirically measuring the quality of a game. Look how divisive something like Killer 7 can be - some people think it's definite top 10, others wouldn't see it even near the list.
That said, it's a good list, I think. It's a mix of the obvious and the less obvious. The articles on the games (in the mag itself) are really well written, and they seem to have set out to avoid the predictable cliches that you're probably sick of reading about any of the Best Games In The World...Ever(TM). And actually, it's quite nice to read a modern take on the games I've played over the years.
I don't think it's meant as a dictatorial "if you think this isn't the best 100 games ever, you're wrong" read, more a collectors item and a conversation starter.
Sonic should have been in this list somewhere (near the top), being the defining character of the Sega Mega Drive(Genesis) the best selling console of the 16bit generation.
Blazing Spiders
It's still possible that the original was better than the sequel, maybe? C&C and Red Alert I still play to this day, Generals got boring after a few weeks and I'm slowly losing interest in C&C3 already. Worms 2 played better than Worms 3D and I even dug it out about six months ago to play against some friends on it. Deus Ex may have had an outdated engine and crap AI but it was and always will be miles better than the sequel.
The lasting appeal of a game is what makes it deserving of a spot in a top 100. In ten years time will people still play Doom 3? Would you go and dig out your copy of Doom 3 and give it a play with fond memories of the game? Doom got something right, mindless blasting of demons and monsters. Doom 3 did well too but didn't capture the same atmosphere as Doom did back in the day. Regardless, Doom 3 is a totally different game to the original anyway.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
When it comes to best game of all time,a value needs to be place on it. For me, my favourite and I must say best game,as far as enjoyment goes and longevity, would have to be Sky Kid and old arcade game... mid to late 1980's I believe. () Only because I'm sure I spent more quarters on that then my entire University tuition bill...
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
Best game evar!
Mario is definately one of the best. I'd have to go somewhat in order of my history of playing as to my list of best games.
Zork
Wishbringer
Dig Dug
Atari tanks game (name?)
Excite Bike
Super Mario Brothers
Commander Keen
Doom
Quake
Civilization
Final Fantasy 8 + 9
Parasite Eve
Sheep Raider
Chrono Cross
Grand Theft Auto
Toy Commander
Crazy Taxi
Skies of Arcadia
Unreal
Worms
Painkiller
I haven't seen any really recent games I've been horribly impressed by. A couple I played were okay but nothing really worthy of honorable mention.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
John Romero made you his beyoch!! and you just don't want to admit it!
Freed from the constraint of costing money, this game obviously floats to the top.
I'm not talking about Hindenburg-esque floating, either. I'm talking panzerfausts flying straight up until they explode at the edge of the universe. I'm talking cosmic panzerfaustage tearing space & time a new asshole. I'm talking about the best fucking shit you've ever turded out your bunghole after eating spicy food and then some. A veritable big bang of gaming ferocity and artillery raining down upon gibbing newbies.
Not even on the list? WTF? I could play that over and over.
Super Mario Bros 3 not on there? There wasn't a kid in school that wasn't dying to play this game when it came out, and it lived up to every expectation. It's still great.
Good to see a nice showing for RTS's, but leaving out the entire Age of Empires series is a mistake.
I might be alone here, but personally, Age of Mythology is the best RTS I've ever played, and would be near the very top of my all-time list.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Best game ever for me will always be UT, Unreal Tournament or UT99 for those that wish to call it that and it doesn't even make the list. UT in 'normal' mode with maybe the relics thrown is the best play. Not the BS low gravity, high firing rate sniper rifle only servers that seem to populate most of the UT servers that are still up on the net today. UT server has been running at work for the past 7 years or so and I don't see why it won't be running 7 years from now.
Resident Evil 4 at #2? I have heard the game was pretty good, but #2 best game ever? I or anyone I know has never played it. I didn't think it was that popular.
I don't see Halo in the top 10 either. Halo never impressed me. Single player mode on the PC to me was boring and there are other PC based games (UT) playing multiplayer that I enjoyed more. Where Halo gets all the fanboys is on the console. I have played it on the xbox and to me it was ok at best. The controls I just could not get use to. After using the keyboard and mouse for FPS, the console controller just sucked. Personally I think Halo was more of a marketing hype success then a truly great game success.
Why isn't Tank on the list?
go -- best game ever?? OMFG go is *the* *best* *game* EVAR >>>- - | | | |_________| | |_____________|
They have Katamari Damacy ranked lower than Shadow of the Colossus. No - just, no.
Quest For Glory 1: So You Want to be a Hero?
Have you all forgetten your roots??? Final Fantasy 7. Best game of all time clear cut winner. Now if you'll excuse me I have some work to do with my materia.
*hoists self onto black chocobo and slings masamune sword onto back.*
without question half-life. It was the first game to have mod tools for the fans that were freely available as well as an actual effort behind them to ENCOURAGE mod-making, it was the first to make such a business model succeed on a massive scale, and encouraged the proliferation of community involvement in games, eventually resulting in what some would call "Web 2.0".
Nothing in the history of gaming has impacted the WORLD in the way that it did, and for that reason I'll say that it was the best game ever.
You may claim that other games did it better, I might even yield to the idea that the BUILD engine with Duke 3D should have the title, or maybe even quake or quake 2, but those games didn't succeed in luring in the mod community and fostering its growth as well as Valve did with Half-Life. The mod community for Quake 2 seemed to be just a thing that popped up around the game, but Half-Life actually welcomed it in and put effort into it.
This truly was the beginning of the real internet we know today, and marked the point in history where the community surrounding a game became just as important as the game itself.
I cast my vote for Half-Life, not any Zelda game. While Ocarina of Time was exceptionally well made, and possibly flawless, it IS possible to do more. And many games have.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Best. Game. Ever.
Played it on a C64 often with up to three human opponents all on the same system.
It taught us supply and demand, collusion, artificial scarcity. And was damned entertaining at the same time.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
You can easily level from 1-70 without grinding. Just do every quest you come across (or use a guide like Joana/Mancow's) and you can 1-60 in 4 days 10 hours of /played with only questing (maybe 1-3 hours of grinding spread out over the 60 levels). 60-70 without much grinding.
Now, when talking about REP.. you have a point. But that's "Working As Intended" and bot users are permabanned.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Spacewar is all anyone needs. You kids today...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've played most of the other zeldas, and I've bought Link to the Past at least four times. I'm a huge Zelda fan, and I was playing Twilight Princess within 3 hours of its release...
But I can't get past the first area in Ocarina of Time. I've tried, many times. I've seen the game played through (My brother loves it + Speedruns), so I know how good it is and how great a game it is, but I cannot get over the framerate in the first scene.
I don't know how Nintendo dropped the ball on this one. A little slowdown is acceptable during a large boss battle where there's hundreds of explosions and enemies going every which way, but in THE FIRST ZONE? A zone with, let's count them, ZERO enemies? (One if you use the starfox cheat, but that's it)
It just tells me it's only going to get worse from there.
But all this "Best Game Ever!" publicity is great, really. Maybe it'll inspire Nintendo to remake the game, on the Wii...
I respond to your sigs
Carrier command http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Command on the Amiga 500 gets my vote.
10000 iphone stories coming up
And I'm not talking about 80's (although that one rocks). The Pandemic versions were out of this world and greatly under appreciated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_II:_Combat _Commander
http://notmranderson.ytmnd.com/
Though I've never played Ocarina of Time, only something like Zelda 2 (a gold NES cartridge?), Link's Awakening (SNES) and Seasons and Ages (GBA, and didn't really like 'em...
Personally I much prefer Final Fantasy 10.
If you haven't spent a lot of time getting to understand the world it is set in and the events in said world, you might be one to think it was a crappy game. However, if you actually spent time talking to Maechen (the scholar guy in-game studying the history of the game's world) just about every chance you get it'll really help you to understand just how good the story was (basically like every religion/war - win the war and rewrite history to make your side look like the good guys).
Also, it's rather fun to level up your magic users with their ultimate weapon (removes the 9,999 damage limit, bringing it up to 99,999) - suddenly that dinky little rod the girl has isn't so dinky when it does 65k per hit and her turns come fast enough you get 5 or 6 hits before even your next fastest character gets up, let alone the enemy... (in other words, fill up Yuna's sphere grid *entirely*)
NetHack, your day shall come!
My opinion, nethack is the greatest game ever.
This list does seem to have some Epic Fail, mostly in part to a good number of missing titles, as already mentioned by other posters. I do see though that there is a bit of method to their madness as the spectrum of games they had to go through were very broad. I seriously believe this list would be more accurate say, if people were asked to submit a list of their favorite games from 1 to 100. Each game would be awarded points based on location in the list and then the list would be updated regularly to reflect online opinion. Of course this could miss out on a vast number of people who would never see the list. Also it would probably be better for everyones list to be dynamic, able to change on a whim. So when they play a new game they could go back in and go, wow that beat my game 99 I'm going to move the list down and put that in there. Then the combined list gets updated.
Just an Idea.
I'm almost positive that the amount of hours played in World of Warcraft would easily blow away any console games.
The next most played console game in terms of hours would almost certainly be some kind of Pokemon game.
PONG!!!
This is the best!!!
Chess
That's it. End of game. End of story.
Don't disagree with you much but... Baldur's Gate? Now that was one of the worst games I ever played. It may have been beautiful and immersive or whatever if you played it 'for fun', but if you played it to beat the game, it wasnt hard to get hold of a magic sword spell that flew out to beat up your foes; from that point until the final battle, the solution was to stand behind a wooden box (which all the monsters were too stupid to break) while your magic sword does its thing. Mostly I played the game while watching TV, only briefly flicking back to move on to the next box.
Of course, I could just fight the monsters properly, but anytime things got remotely awkward there'd always be a box lying around, tempting you in...
For me... Ico? maybe. GTA? right up there. Crystal Castles - fab. But lets see, a game that keeps bringing you back for more...got it.
Money Puzzle Exchanger!
It's about time.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
hell yeah it is!
Dreamweb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamweb) on my Amiga 600 in 1992 was the best game ever!
but the story is about to... drop off for a while. After you get past the next three dungeons, it'll pick up again, so don't get too concerned.
Also, the items in the later dungeons seem a bit uninspired. At least they're different.
Oh, and get used to every boss dying after only three hits. Twilight Princess could really use an optional, more difficult setting, but that seems to be a pattern in all video games, not just the Zelda series.
All in all, it is a very good game for all of the reasons you listed, and then some. I just don't think it's better than Ocarina of Time or Oracle of Ages/Seasons.
"May evil beware, and may good dress warmly and eat plenty of fresh vegetables." -The Tick
KYATTOU NINDEN TEYANDEE FTW
It's also the best cartoon on earth, if not the best TV show, if not the best thing known to mankind.
I'm stunned that Pacman isn't in the top ten. While it's true that some classic arcade games (eg Pong) haven't dated well, the same cannot be said about Pacman. Simple, addictive and surprisingly deep gameplay, extremely accessible, and I'd argue that the yellow pie-with-a-slice-missing is at least as recognisable to the average Joe as Mario. Possibly even more so.
M.U.L.E. has got to be one of the best games ever created, and the foundation for all the RTS and Sim games to come. I've also got to give props to Archon. Another game from the same era that pretty much help found EA into the game company it is today.
I can't believe that the entire Ultima series (IV in particular), Sam & Max Hit the Road, and Tie Fighter did not make the list. Oh, and what about ZORK? They were each ground breaking in their own genre. Easily my favorite games of the era.
I think Mario games can be fun, but I don't think they all deserve the god-like praise that they get. Well, mabey Super Mario 64, but that's about the only one for me.
You just started a lame slashdot inside joke.
Who knows, it might actually get popular. I'm sure it would impress chicks.
1. Start some horsecock slashdot inside joke.
2. ???
3. Profit!
perception is reality
Personally, I've never seen a console game I'd consider compelling. Closed platforms, poor graphics etc.
:)
But hey, I'm not a console gaming person.
Anyway, my top 10:
1. Nethack. I ascended a wishless tourist and I am *never* going to stop bragging about it on Slashdot.
2. Ultima V (I had III and V but not IV, which is supposed to be better...)
3. Scorched Earth
4. Half Life (the first one. The one that doesn't need steam)
5. Planescape: Torment / Baldur's Gate 2
6. Stargate (the Defender clone)
7. System Shock 2
8. Alpha Centauri
9. Starflight
10. Syndicate
Honorable mentions:
Robot Odyssey, which I finished after only 11 years and some college-level classes in digital logic.
Mechwarrior 2
Star Control
Quake
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
How about, Ultima V (an Apple II port to IBM, but it took months to beat), and Ultima VI (one of the very first IBM VGA games).
I still can't believe I beat Ultima V. Meanwhile, Ultima VI, Savage Empire, and Martian Dreams were just a rush. Savage Empire had the first weapon recipes, iirc (combining ingredients to make gunpowder).
Mario64 is my perennial favorite. I don't think we've seen 3D like that before, or since.
Best Game Ever Title is ICO on Playstation 2
System Shock 2 at #64? Apparently because it was a "commercial failure?" Everything that came out at the same time as Half-Life was a "commercial failure." And plenty of other slow-selling critic's darlings were rated in the top 20. So how does, hands down, the scariest video game of all time land that far down the list?
No Unreal Tournament 99? Still the best FPS IMHO.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Come on, not only was it the grand-daddy, great-grand-daddy, and multi-dimensional n-parent of everything from lunar lander to flight simulators, but it was the most popular videogame in the world for over a decade!
First smartarse who points out that it was the ONLY videogame in the world will just be proving my point.
(I've played OXO. OXO isn't even in the running)
You can't say something is the "best" without defining what you think those qualities are that make something best.
You also can't ask the question "what computer game is the best of all time?" and expect to get anything but arbitrary opinions, no matter what criteria you stipulate. It's like saying, "What's the best religion, on the basis of overall bliss, personal satisfaction, and possibility of eternal salvation?"
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And I'm deeply hurt by the realisation that I'm so damned old nobody else knows of this game.
Pus.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I am under the impression that Ultima V is not actually winnable.
I played the game to the point where I knew everything I had to do, but I couldn't get characters to the point where they could actually *do* them. Or survive doing them, anyway. Dragon summons Demon summons Demon summons Demon... arg. Either I'd run out of reagents to cast spells or I'd get eaten alive if I went too deep into the dungeons.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Although I must admit that playing Super Mario 64 in his 3-dimensional world was also pretty d@mn amazing up to the time before Zelda arrived.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thief 2: The Metal Age
or
System Shock.
I have more hours logged on those two games than in any other. They're both absolute masterpieces.
* Ocarina of Time
* Half-Life
* Trinity (Infocom)
* Sonic the Hedgehog
* R-Type
* Super Metroid
* Final Fantasy VI, VII
* Zonk (Infocom)
* Tetris
* Street Fighter 2
* Tekken 3
* Daytona Racing
* Super Mario Bros. 3
* Dragon Quest IV, VII
* Prince of Persia
* The Lurking Horror (Infocom)
* Battletoads
* Galaga
* Resident Evil 2
* Shadow of Colossus
* R.C. Pro A.M. 2
* Planetfall (Infocom)
* Doom 2
* Star Fox
* Yoshi's Island
* Kenseiden
* Deus Ex
I could go on...
I don't feel like it...
Good ideas. I also propose we add WarCraft: Orcs vs Humans OR WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition to strategy. And Thief: The Dark Project needs to be moved higher in the list. End of story.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Fight Night Round 2 (Innovative boxing), and Tetris Attack (Always seems overlooked). Everything else I could think of off the top of my head was on the list.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
Ultima V had six quests: kill 3 Shadowlords and find uh, 3 ankhs or something.
:( There was some entrance to the final quest that I never found.
During one weekend at my grandma's house (yes, my PC was portable...Panasonic Sr. Partner!), I killed 2 shadowlords and found one object. So, half the game beat in a few days.
Still not sure how I did it. It happened pretty quick.
Anyway, I never beat Martian Dreams
Heres one for the older crowd who lived in western Washington state in the early-mid 80's. A game called "Civil" run on a mainframe at T.E.S.C.. The game was entirely ASCII and played in real time. I never played it but I had a friend that was massively addicted to it. You built & acquired land and resources through politics and war etc. I can't find a thing about it on Google. 100's (or more?) of people were playing, (you had to have a TESC acct) I remember my friend connecting with a 300 baud modem (the old phone sitting on a "modem" cradle).
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Soul Calibur (Dreamcast
Mario Kart 64 (N64)
Sea Battle (Intellivision)
Battlefield 1942 - Desert Combat mod (PC)
Doom I & II(PC)
Quake I (PC)
Bard's Tale (C64)- Nefastmaster's will chew your ass!
PONG
Mordor was a great game the literally never ended, there was like 20 guilds and each had a 999 level cap game play for hours a hours, was bout the game play not the graphics . . . it had thumb nail pics as mobs . . . But still was a great game played the demo version for over a year the game is so long, only non-online game ive EVER played for longer than a few months. X-Com - UFO defense has got to be 1 of the best games of its time, unit based stat increase micro mange planetary defense time units in turned based system was awesome !!! Herzog Zwei - For the Genesis was WAY ahead of its time in RTS. 6 years before Command and Conquer was released had many of the same aspects that all RTS use to this day Genesis was able to keep up w/ 200+ units w/ each owns AI running around a very large map was a feet all in its own
Someone should change the title from "Best Game Ever?" to "Best Video Game Ever?" As a tabletop enthusiast I continue to be peeved that "Game"="Video Game" on lists where no tabletop gaming is represented.
And to say there is a best is like saying it is not a true art form, but a type of engineering. This is an opinion poll, which is again based purely on popularity, etc... For all we know, Kolibri could be the best game of all time...or some forum based RPG that died out years ago.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
the reviews say ocarina.
n gs.asp?rankings=y
http://gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplerati
Clearly, many other games, such as Final Fantasy III (VI) win over Ocarina. What other game had such an epic tale to tell, with twists, turns, and delights around every corner? Don't get me wrong. Ocarina was a good game, and quite enjoyable, but the gameplay hadn't changed - and still hasn't to this day. While Ocarina brought about the "Z target" and 3d realm, it was by no means revolutionary. That being said, who can resist Edgar's charming lines, Celes' striking beauty, Gau's innocence, or the wonderful musical score?
Ocarina didn't help define games: It changed them. They began focusing on "graphical styles" and environmental textures rather than developing characters and a story. Rather than having good dungeon design, it was what looked aesthetically pleasing. No, I contend the "best" is a myriad of others. I'll name at least two which are clearly superior in every way to Ocarina:
Secret of Mana
Final Fantasy III
Planescape: Torment.
Any of the Myst games (including Myst Online: Uru Live).
Any of the Quest for Glory games.
Any of the Space Quest games.
Soylens viridis homines es
Oh man... KOTOR. I can't believe they left that out. Of all the RPGs I have played, I have never enjoyed one as much as I did KOTOR. In fact... it's one of the very few single-player games I've finished. The dialogue and characters in that game blew away anything done before or since. Another ground-breaking game was Decent on the PC. That game was a blast and one of (if not the first) games of its kind. Others that I didn't see on there were Myst, Magic Carpet, 7th Guest, Natural Selection Mod for Half-Life, and EVE Online. All of them were break-throughs in gaming, and certainly deserve a mention in the top 100.
I spent a lot of time at college playing this
Is it just me or am I missing some real old school titles in this list? I still love the old C64 and even still own an operating Amiga 500. I also have a working XT machine. Games I used to play where: Digger (XT), Shadow Of The Beast (Amiga), Wizard of War (C65, and I still play it on an emulator now and then), Hero (C64), Nebulus (C64), Bruce Lee (C64), Speedball (Amiga), Turrican (Amiga), ....
I'm stopping here, as I type more and more titles I feel older and older...
is on 95th place? It is the best plataform/action game for the PS. It had simple commands, amazing graphics and more fun than a barrel of monkeys with its mini-games.
Yeah, but what about Call of Duty I and/or II? These games are excellent WW2 shooters, and there wasn't even a mention of them!
While we're on the subject of Commodore 64 goodness, what about Psi 5 Trading Company? I LOVED that one.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
We are not in a debate here about which game had the largest impact on the industry, or how many individuals play it. Each of these conditions is subjective to the time in which we study. Due to the fact that there are far more gamers in the world today as there were even when Ocarina of time was released, the number of players is irrelevant. The industry has evolved to such a degree that the impact Mario once had is also irrelevant to the current issue. What we are trying to figure out here is what game can be given the label of "Best Game Ever". This label is quite a powerful one and thus has many unique properties to it. First and foremost is pure entertainment value. Ocarina of Time was a game that kept players absolutely enthralled for as long as they played. Whether it was battling inside of the Great Deku tree as a young Link or fighting for your life, and Zelda's, against Ganon as an adult, this game kept people excited to the very end. There is also the factor of how engrossed in the game a player becomes. This is largely determined by the story. Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a twisting tale that is as appealing as a book as it is a game. The story puts gamers in the character's shoes, whether they be the De facto standard Kokiri boots or the troublesome on stairs Hover Boots, and keeps them there throughout the story. There are a great many parts that go in to making an effective game from sound and music to visual representation, but in order to garner the title "Best Game Ever" all of these segments must be handled with great care. If any game deserves this prestigious label I feel that it is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Then again it is merely a label, and each and everyone of us tends to apply our own labels to our environment. Thus, this issue will be debated until the end of time... or until we accept that we all have our own views.
Battlezone II: Combat Commander (From pandemic Studios) Minus the bugs, Best realtime first person combat strategy game ever made, hands down. Its not being distributed anymore, but there is a huge fan base that keeps updating the engine and game.
:)
Deus Ex: Great music and game play, graphics and ai could have used some work
Vampire The masquerade, great gameplay
Half-Life 2
cant think of a 5th... dammit!
* Impossible Mission
Arguably the best C64 game ever. Anyone who ever completed it knows what I mean.
* Pole Position
More or less defined the driving genre... oh yes, there were driving games before, and plenty after, but this was probably the first that made any impact.
* Karate Champ
I don't recall a one-on-one fighter that came before this. Certainly none that had as much impact.
* Donkey Kong
Geez, need I say more?
* Frogger
Another no-brainer.
* Tron
There's been lots of movie tie-in games, but few that were any good. This one certainly was (and no, I don't mean the modern Tron 2.0 FPS, which ain't bad either, but it nothing special)
* Vanguard
Side-scrolling shooter to end all side-scrolling shooters.
* Pac Man
I know, they had one variation of it, but not the original?!?
* Galaga
I think it's safe to call this a genre-defining game.
* Punch-Out
You owe all modern boxing games to this one.
* Crossbow
We call it Silent Scope nowadays, but this started the "gunner"-type games.
* Pepper 2
Cult classics from the Colecovision days.
* Q-Bert
Again, this is one that just seems totally obvious to me.
* Ultima IV
You may argue about which Ultima game is truly the best ever, my vote goes to IV (with III a close second), but the point is how can you not have at least one of them on the list?
* Archon
Chess... err, sort of.
* Beach Head
Now we have a VR version of it with a 360-degree headset to get you immersed.... and you know what??? NOT AS GOOD!
* Journey To The Planets
This proved that you don't need anything remotely good-looking on the screen for a puzzler to be great.
* Bard's Tale
I'm talking the original 8-bit here.
* Missile Command
Pretty clearly the first of its kind.
* Defender
Another total original at the time. Come on, how many quarters did you burn on that thing?
* Earth Defense Force 2017
A modern game for ya... I put this here because it's the most fun you'll have mindlessly blowing aliens away on any current system. No, it's not especially challenging (some later stages are extremely frustrating, even on normal though), but that's part of the pleasure... big, bad alien bugs, lots of firepower at your disposal, relatively easy destruction. And they actually got the scale right, which is a trick many games screw up royally... big mother ships actually look big.
* Postal 2
Another relatively modern game... I don't know, there's just something about that game that's special... the dark humor absolutely, and actually, maybe that's really it... the violence is of course way over the top as compared to most other games, but it's the less violent stuff that really works (Gary Coleman, the weiner dude, the Dude's comments throughout, etc).
Some notable mentions (without explanations... you either know them or you don't): Realm Of Impossibility, Forbidden Forest, Spelunker, Alternate Reality, Pick Axe Pete, Miner 2049'er, Pepper 2, Gorf, Test Drive.
That list was obviously written by people who never played, or have no appreciation for, the classics. They have no understanding of what they meant, not just personally to many of us, but in defining the industry and genres we have today. Look, I'm not one of those people who think modern games suck and that only classics are any good, although I do happen to think there were more good games "back in the day" than there are today, the fact is we have some phenomenally great games today too, and many of them were on the list. I don't really have any problem with any particular game they chose to put on the list, but I do think they left of some incredibly good and important games, and that makes the list not worth a whole lot in my eyes. If you don't consider the *entire* history of gaming, then you can't say the list is the most important games ever, nor can you necessarily say they are the best games ever because you're only considering one small segment, namely modern games.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
The best game in all of history would have to be the one that's been played the most, which is "killing." Started with Cain (for the creationists) or with the first bacteria that ate another bacteria (for the Darwinists) and has been going strong throughout history.
The bloody poll was for the '100 best videogames' and not 'greatest ever' or 'of all time'. The BBC should spank the person(s) who wrote that news article.
The actual Edge article and poll: http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2007/07/the_ 100_best_vi.php
I know that Halo is as old as the hills, and I would not have mentioned it except as an example. It has one hellova trainer.
Their's nothing quite like freezing time, loading sarge's crotch with 20 stickys, and watching him fly/swim of into the sunset. (sniff)
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The two games that should top any such list is of course the two classics.
Ultima 7 "The Black Gate"
Ultima 7 "The Serpent Island"
Other games are games such as X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, Red Baron (the early one, 1991ish, I guess), Speedball 2, and loads of others.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I'm not entirely certain, but I think the "Horsecock" meme might have gotten started over on K5 ... at least, it seems to be more prevalent there, and I saw it there before I ever saw it on Slashdot. (In fact, there is a post on K5 asking people to up-mod the GP.)
/.; while the lack of trolling is undoubtedly a good thing overall, I have to admit that I got a fair bit of amusement out of the old GNAA/Hot Grits/Stephen King/priorities posts, at least initially. But then they all seemed to disappear, whether because of the moderation system working, or a mildew epidemic in basements somewhere, I'm not sure.
At any rate, it seems like it's been a while since I've seen a new troll on
Glad to see that the universe is back in balance.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It may not be my all time favorite game, but I think the first Super Mario Bros. game was probably the most important game in video gaming history. It is the catalyst for everything that has happened since. I grew up in that generation, born in the 80s. It seems like if there's one game EVERYONE has played, regardless of age, gender, etc, it's SMB -- I think that is a clear indicator of its deserving the top rank -- and the game ISN'T EVEN ON THE LIST! The first three aren't on the list at all. Unless I'm blind
On another note, I'm interested to see how people rate the "goodness" of the mario games. I like World, 3, 1, 64, 2, sunshine. What are other peoples thoughts?
Am I the only one who finds it funny that Duke Nukem Forever is abbreviated to 'DNF', which in racing terms means 'Did Not Finish'?
[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS
As for more recent gaming, I have been playing Battlefield 2142 since it came out and that is a really great game all around, I'd say (if you're in to shooters) it's the best thing to play right now, but Mega Man 3 (and all of the others on NES) really had that full video game impact only a true classic can bring.
This list kinda makes me wanna buy a Wii, they need to get Mega Man on virtual console.
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Re the CS argument.
If you are rating the best game ever on number of players and how long it has been around being played then it has to be Solitaire in Windows.
Their list of the hundred best games ever is top-heavy with Nintendo titles
Of course it is, the fact that for so many people Nintendo was their first console clouds their judgment. Nintendo's made some damn good games, but I don't think any of them should make the top 5. Maybe 1 or 2 in the top 10, but even that's debatable.
There are games that could be said to be better than OOT or SMB. But Counter Strike? A purely online multiplayer title? And on the basis that millions still play it? Huh.
I've rambled about this for a long time, so here's my random well-weighed opinion: Ocarina of Time isn't just the Best Game Ever. It's the reference Best Game Ever.
Before OoT, games could be just ordinarily BGEs. After OoT, you could easily compare your favourite BGE with something. Here, we finally got the BGE where just about everything was top notch and you can't really complain too much about any aspect of the game, be it aesthetic or design-related. Great graphics and music, great play mechanics, story appears to work well, there's nice original ideas, and foremost, it's fun to play, has a good atmosphere, takes a while to complete, and is worth replaying.
There will be better games, and what exactly is a "best game" will always be an opinion that changes daily for each of us. OoT is just something that tends to stay as the Best Game Ever, with appropriate qualifications.
That said, the list here doesn't include Ultima series at any point. Argh. Dropping Ultima VII from the list is just sad. Well, here's what you get when you try to make a list of best games ever, you always drop some that some people think obviously qualify for the list. At least they got the Reference Game in the right spot. =)
Starting from the top, it starts well enough. OoT deserves best game ever nods. At the time I was floored by how great it was and how perfectly it took the franchise into 3d, basically defining the 3d adventure game.
Same goes for Mario 64.
RE4, while I really liked, doesn't belong as the second best game ever. On the list, certainly, but not that high.
FF12 doesn't deserve that rank - it isn't even the best FF (FF6 and FF7, at least, are superior titles).
Vice City as the best GTA? I don't even particularly like the GTA franchise, but I felt Vice City was the weakest entry with very little to offer over GTA3.
Some of these games don't belong either - Manhunt, Crackdown, WoW stand out (re: WoW - just because it's very popular doesn't detract from the fact that really it's just another MMORPG - it's not particularly groundbreaking in any respect).
Edge magazine is purposefully broad to keep sales high. It covers almost every mainstream platform, so inevitably it will attract voters whose gaming experience is limited to the popular titles on their limited platform (Nintendo DS/PSP/Dreamcast/whatever). I've read the UK edition of PC Gamer for a decade now, and they have ranked Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Medieval: Total War, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and if I recall correctly, Quake 3, on top of their hundred best. I'm biased, but I think these games are ten times better than the clichéd mess Nintendo throw out every year.
Wikipedia had a useful article "Video games that have been considered the greatest ever" that collected and contrasted numerous BEST EVAR! lists, but after a vote they deleted it. Here's a copy, http://web.archive.org/web/20060829040010/http://e n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_video_games_that _have_been_considered_the_greatest_ever
=S
Elite has been a spin off for 3d Gaming science fiction based trading pirating and hunting.
It had a loosly timeline / story line, so partly adventure too.
Anyway the whole list is a bit terrible, todays games are far better and they are not on the list, then how can it be a top 100 of all times ??
If they liked to make an old list why isnt there pingpong listed ? (the first TV computer game)
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WTF !!! Halo is in top ten ?? Final Fantasy XII ??????? WHERE IS MY FUCKING SOLID SNAKE MAN !!! Metal Gear Solid is at a fucking 35th place ... Not admissible !
They never played a videogame of their life or what ??
I'm still playing Elite, and also its latest incarnation "Oblivion". My Cobra MK III is now an elf, my Military Laser is a dwarven bow, but I'm still chasing pirates, trading legal and illegal stuff, avoiding the vipers/guards and doing missions from time to time.
If the only reason Super Mario Bros should've been #1 because it saved an industry, then how do you know none of the games released after it couldn't have done the same thing?
Tetris might have saved the console industry, so could Pokemon or perhaps Doom or maybe just any random, modern, "above average"-quality game.
Just because Super Mario Bros was a very important game in the history of consoles, doesn't necessarily make it the "best game ever" by today's standards.
It's good, and it's a classic, but saying it's the "best ever" because of reasons that have nothing to do with the gameplay, is false.
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Have you played Ocarina of Time recently? I have. I had never played it before but acquired the Anniversary Disc for Zelda games and played it on my Wii. The graphics are really bad. SMB and the original Zelda have clean crisp graphics. Ocarina of Time have untold amounts of problems with aliasing and stuff like that. It's almost unplayable now that the standard has been raised so far by modern games and consoles.
For a game to be truly classic it must be possible to pick up again, even after all this time. SMB and Zelda qualify. Ocarina of time does not.
Also, no FPS game sold only on a console can ever be a "best game ever" since FPS must be played with a mouse. I guess that could change now that some of the recent consoles have USB and perhaps soon there will actually be FPS games for consoles that use a mouse (or a similar device). And no, the Wiimote is not enough. You can point, it helps, but you still can't make a 180 degree turn-around like you can with a mouse.
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Tetris is one of the oldest and mostly played games in that list. It existed even in crappy Soviet PCs with monochrome displays, loaded from a noisy tape recorder, when I had no idea what a game console is and that there are color displays. Add up the hundreds of variations of this game.
Zork and Wumpus, obviously. Doh! Tetris, okay that is on their top 10 and that makes sense. Nobody has mentioned f'ing Breakout or Pong even. Since we're talking about GAMES people wouldn't the best game be NOT the one that requires hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be spent, but rather something that can be played on the most platforms, is available for free, had a major effect on culture, has been around the longest, has been a basis for whole genres of game design, etc. Maybe Donkey Kong ought to be there but surely Pacman and a bunch of others too. It's one thing to sell a lot of FPS games to people who have splurged on the latest console, but what about games that get people to feed quarters in them for decades? Why don't they mention space invaders or Galaxian/Galaga? I haven't seen much interesting in a lot of the recent games and none of the games on their list except tetris makes me say darn I wish I had that. Even when I had no money once I was torn and wanted to buy a Saturn just for Nights. There have been totally groundbreaking, incredible games back into the text era and for many platforms since, but despite their ability to put tetris on the list and say Mario should be it, they really do not spend any meaningful time talking about how they judge and why not others that are better known. Heck Wizardry ][ and Ultima ][ for the Apple ][ were far more interesting at the time than games on the list are these days. And all the Infocom games (especially the versions of Zork that allowed full text parsing) were incredible. No mention of Sim City or even Spore which in its conceptual stage is still also interesting.
I agree about the age of the titles. Older stuff is missing, as well as PC-only games. But the fact that the list is slanted towards Nintendo is no surprise. They quite simple churn out the most innovative, balanced and awesome games. No other publisher can compare with Nintendo. This sounds fanboy-ish, but frankly, in my opinion, Nintendo alone has about 30 titles that would deserve a place in a top-10 videogames list. Where's SMB3, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Metroid Prime, Goldeneye?
Nintendo deserves every spot they got in this list.
The issue is probably that you can't really do an ordered top-10 videogames list. There's too much subjectivity involved. You may personally not like even one single Nintendo game, but then, I think that Halo has no place in any videogames top-10 list other than "top 10 games that kept a console from tanking completely."
Resi 4 in the top spots, I would not agree here, the best survival horror game still is the original System Shock, this is unsurpassed. Resi4 was just an incremental update with good graphics and better story, but it still is pale to the horror Shodan gave you. The top 10 list probably would be (no order) Ultima Underworld Civilization Mule, System Shock Occarina of Time Ultima 7 A Mind Forever Voyaging Wing Commander Pac Man Donkey Kong Prince of Persia Sands of Time (or Prince of Persia 1 depending on Taste) This list is defintely less biased than the usual lets pick a number of decent console games of the last years and make them a top list
They seem to be talking about the most important game ever. SMB might well be just that, for the reasons they gave, but that doesn't make it the best game ever (althoughit is indeed an excellent one).
Most of the games mentioned in the so-called top 100 have 0 replayability value. I finished Ocarina of Time, but I did not ever get back to it.
But I play Ms PacMan from time to time, 25 years after its release, on MAME. And I still haven't found all its secrets.
Ms PacMan may not have the flashiest graphics around, but it has the most hectic gameplay, and the sound is so immersive that after a while it's you and the ghosts, and the rest of the world does not exist...
FF3 - Overworld
FF4 - Underworld
FF4 - Tower of Babel
FF4 - Giant of Babel
FF5 - World 2 overworld / Unknown Lands
FF6 - World of Balance / Tina's theme
FF6 - World of Ruin after airship / Searching for friends
FF6 - Cayenne's theme
FF7 - Boss music
FF7 - Cid's theme
FF7 - Pre-Meteor overworld
FF7 - Wutai
FF9 - Nova Dragon (FMV at beginning of disk 4)
I never liked FF5's music much. FF6 was by far the best for music; too many to list above. I never played FF8 or FF10 because I didn't like them; never got around to 1 or 2. His Chrono Trigger songs weren't any among the memorable ones.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Some perspective is in order - at the time the graphics in Elite were jaw-dropping; writing the manual "in character" may not have been 100% original but was still fresh - and alluding to "generation ships" and other mysteries which might have been out there (but weren't) was a masterstroke.
I take it that everybody knows about Oolite - which is a nice half-way-house between the classic wireframe game and glossy commercial "re-imaginings".
I've been re-playing "Freelancer" which was one of the better 21st century Elitealikes - sumptuous graphics, but its let down by the tiny universe (Elite used pseudo-random techniques to give the impression of hundreds of systems on a 32K computer) and really, really lame and repetetive fake dialogue and "radio chatter" with traders. Its interesting that the genre persists despite nothing since Elite really hitting the big time.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Half-Life 2 > Zelda:Ocarina of Time, nuff said............
Everyone on
3... 2... 1...
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Star Control II : The Ur-Quan Masters
It's perfection.
Most of the flaws of the list have been mentioned, so I'm not going to repeat them. But I was amazed that not a single game from the C&C series made it to the list. They are not the best games ever, but certainly the orginal Red Alert should be in top 100. The absence of Diablo is also strange, but then again the list consist mainly of console games.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
There's only one Amiga/Atari ST generation game (sensible soccer) unless you count lemmings which came out absolutely everything, and, unless I'm not looking hard enough, not a single C64, Sinclair, or BBC Micro game in there.
Last ninja, carrier command, UFO.. oh forget it.. it's been said a hundred times.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
go see what is it about here www.star-control.com . but dont read too much so you wont spoil it when you play the game.
Read radical news here
One game I frequently go back to is Star Control II. In an industry of sequels and copycats, SC2 keeps me coming back because there's nothing else even remotely like it.
Half-Life 2 > Zelda:Ocarina of Time, wrong said............
I'm not aware of any game that's had the playing that Mario Kart had in student halls up and down the country and around the world.. My brother bought a SNES the summer before he went to university and his house played it for 3 years solid. I then went to university and kept playing it with my house for the next 3 years. Ghost Valley 1 timetrial was the ultimate check of you abilities - no-one ever beat my time..
Best racing game of all time and up there in the top 5 multi-player games.
Of course, Mario Kart 64 was rubbish..
--- Band: Joey Ultra
Elite? Command and Conquer? Doom? Temple of Aphsai? Ultima IV? Zork?(anything by Infocom?)...
Forget those titles. I'll bet there are more games of Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Freecell being played at any moment than any other game on the planet.
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- Half-Life, Half-Life2 (plus episode 1) (PC)
-Resident Evil 4 (GC)
-Duke Nukem 3D (PC)
-Beyond Good and Evil (GC)
(And the rest in no particular order:)
-Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)
-Eternal Darkness (GC)
-Goldeneye 007 (GC)
-Rise of the Triad (PC)
-Dark Reign (PC)
-Commander Keen 4 (PC)
-Ocarina of Time (GC)
I'm surprised not to see my fav shooter on the list: Mafia. Great storyline, fantastic soundtrack, immersive environment. It truly was a masterpiece.
They were looking for games that still have playability, not just games great in their time, and Tetris is it. Tetris was amazing at the time and is still just plain fun. You might claim that they Tetris variants that people play now aren't really the same game, but the fact that Tetris spawned an entire genre of gaming and is still about the best of that sort puts it at #1.
[offtopic] Seriously, it's been years and you must have some genius coders on hand that could fix that. Either make it render right or make a filter that can remove the &mdash altogether from the headline. [/offtopic]
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
IMO Final Fantasy VII should be at the top of the list. I must have wasted a thousand hours of my life playing this game. I think OoT definitely deserved to be in the top 3.
We already have a list of the top 100 games. (We pretty much have a top 100 list for top 100 games lists at this point.) Here are the top 100 games as voted by players at Gamerankings.com. Most of the titles on this list show up on the one in TFA.
Top 100 games by user vote @ Gamerankings.com
(Caveats: there is some duplication across platforms; the list only shows titles with at least 50 votes.)
"Best" is a somewhat subjective word. To a child, the best book ever written is no doubt a Dr. Seuss book.
My point is that those participating in such a poll likely have limited gaming experience. I can think of 3 or 4 adventure games that top Zelda, but I've experienced adventure games for the past 20 years and have quite a few on different platforms to reference. If all you know is rice, then rice is the best food ever.
Tetris is never at the top of these lists, but it's the only game that deserves to be. Universally liked, extremely addictive, and never gets old even after 20+ years. Still the top selling game for cell phones, still the game you want on your graphics calculator. But it never gets any love from the gaming press.
Don't you people hate those questions asking you for your #1 favorite band? I can never really pin it down to just one, without being completely unfair to others that maybe play in a different genre of music.
... what do you say? Led Zeppelin is probably a safe answer, but is that fair to Rush, or The Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, or The Who, or maybe The Doors or The Eagles??
Even if you limit it to "only rock music"
Games are the same way. If I had to name even the "best simulation" of all time, I'd have a really rough time. In a sense, maybe Microsoft Flight Simulator should get the award, since it was out back in the days of the first Mac, AND was considered the "benchmark" for years to test the "PC compatibility" of PC clones. And yet, it still comes out every year with new versions, to this day.
On the other hand, Sim City deserves props too. It may have been the first game that really crossed the "gender gap" and got females playing computer games.
If you're talking basic 2D arcade classics, I'd think Pac-Man might be a good bet. Again, it had really wide appeal and spawned loads of knock-offs and revisions. It probably sold more Atari 2600 systems than any other title, except maybe Pitfall. But you could obviously make a strong case for anything from Space Invaders to Donkey Kong to Asteroids, right? Who do you give the "award" to and how many do you shun?
Crackdown made the list? Was that a joke? Counter-Strike at only 55? I know a lot of people don't like the game, but a -lot- of people really do. System Shock 2 and Deus Ex beaten by Halo? It all makes me a little sick to my stomach.
I can't believe none of the "Quest" games created by Sierra in the late 80s and early 90s were on the list, classics like King's Quest, Space Quest, and (my personal favorite) Hero's Quest. Didn't these games essentially invent a genre? Man, to think of all the hours I spent throwing rocks at trees trying to build up my statistics and trying to see how many times I could swear at the other characters before I realized they were never going to say anything interesting back, and now the game doesn't even make the top 100 ....
I have to say, I agree with that assessment of Zelda. We don't judge whether something is a masterpiece based on whatever era it was made it. We judge whether it's a masterpiece by whether it still amazes us, and challenges us to make anything even close to that good.
For example: Gutenberg's printing press was a marvel of technology, for its time. But no one even uses the same class of technology anymore, and no one travels from around the world to see it. Macchu Picchu, on the other hand, is impressive enough that even if we have the technology to do something similar now -- and I'm not convinced of that -- the artwork and the mathematics is still impressive, and really unmatched anywhere else.
Ocarina of Time was such a game. Mario Bros, at least to me, was not.
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I'm disappointed at the lack of adventure games in there - although the original Monkey Island is at number 79, I do think that it should be significantly higher. A few other classic games should also be in there, such as Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, etc. They may be old, but they're still the best adventure games out there.
There's another two things it did right considering the times. One was the models. character and set. The other was the voice sync. A lot of games do the last poorly.
The tech-demo games eventually sell their tech and it gets used for much better games. Doom 3 sucked but it brought us the significantly less awful Prey and Quake IV. Deus Ex was made using the Unreal Engine, and both the Half-Life games were based on heavily modified versions of the Quake Engine. It is really easy to dismiss these tech demos but they come back and do cool things to the games that come after them and license their technology allowing games that come after to have equally impressive, albeit slightly more dated tech demo graphics.
On a barely related note: I think Crysis will actually be a good game and not just graphics whoring. It just won't run on most people's computers unless they turn off every graphic whoring option. This will, in itself, be quite interesting.
There was a game that stayed on the top 10 list for well over a year, came with no instructions, but still could suck you in for HOURS. It didn't reward "twitch", didn't depend on the latest hardware, but still made a great time.
Of course, there are some debates as to whether it was really a "game", but I'm not sure if that really matters.
From the wiki: "The Millers began working on Myst in 1991 and released it for the Macintosh computer on September 24, 1993. It was the bestselling video game until The Sims was released." Pretty impressive.
> But no other game in history--Ocarina of Time included--was able to save an
> entire industry from almost guaranteed destruction the way Super Mario Bros.
> did, and it is for this reason that we should all give ol' Mario and Luigi credit where it's due."
Holy crap! The video games industry was gonna collapse and it might be decades, if ever, before some other corporation created another video game console?
Shit! That was a way closer call than I thought!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I am actually playing through Ocarina right now (Gerudo Valley) on my Wii and I think its a great game. I know a lot of people love games because of nostalgia factors but I never owned an N64 in the 90s. I do admit that the game is great but I would probably have it in at least my top 10.
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It was so HUGE, looked better than anything at the time, had such diverse, tight gameplay, and I can still sit down and play it for hours, to this day. I've played all the other Mario games, and none compare to this, in the end. Who remembers seeing it in The Wizard, and their eyes lit up when he found the warp zone? Who else remembers when they saw this on TV?
The Sims didn't make that top 100 list in spite of being one of the best selling games of all time. Nevertheless Ocarina of Time is a good pick for number 1.
please read fan reviews on GameRankings.com. You'll understand why it's also GameRankings' #1 game of all-time. You literally [i]live[/i] in this game. Listen to me: the reason why your body was born is that your soul could live in this game. I hate Super Mario. IGN made a Top 100 Games of All-Time list and Super Mario Bros. was No. 1. I'm not pissed because IGN sucks anyway.
How is it that the ultimate video game isn't on the list? Where else can you have Light Yagami write your opponent's names in the Death Note while Monkey D. Luffy pummels them senseless? (Well, besides Jump Super Stars.)Seriously..
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
... punctuation uses you.
... Oh crud. Well, I have an unidentified wand. Time to find out what it does. Oh, genocide human.
&'&
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
No, it's Ween.
demi
If it was done in one day by a malnourished monkey, does that make the game itself any better?
demi
Just in case anyone else wants to find out what the heck this thread is about...
v iew
http://www.blazemonger.com/BM/Articles/60_BLAZERe