Best made game ever?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Note the word order in the thread title.

No. There is no such thing as a "best game ever made" because it's completely subjective.

Thank you, erttheking, for this quote that inspired this thread.

The above quote I agree with 100%. There is no "best x ever made". However, with gaming relying so much on technical work (building a game engine, coding, rendering, playtesting, optimization, balancing, patching, sound mixing etc.) I thought it'd be a nice change to think about this from a purely technical perspective and think what could be the best made, as in technically most excellent, game ever.

Here's a list of things to consider:

Are there bugs or glitches with graphics, sound or the like? Were there those at launch and how well have they have been patched out? Is the game balanced well enough for all available playstyles? How well does the game meet or exceed the graphics standards of its time? How smoothly does the game run? Does the game introduce its mechanics properly? Is there variety to the locations in the game? Is the voice acting convincing? Does the game make you want to keep playing? How good is the AI (ie. can you exploit it in some way the game clearly didn't intend)?

There's a few. I could perhaps come up with more over time, but I think those are a good start. Some of those criteria are more subjective than others (like does the game keep you playing), and some can be confused a bit by game design (the Souls games for example), but IMO they're generally good for any game. Notice that we're leaving things like story, art direction, the music itself, atmosphere and other subjective things out of the equation. This time we're thinking like robots.

I guess Valve has a pretty stellar track record in terms of delivering these kinds of games. I was thinking of putting up Half-Life 2, but myself not having been there at launch kind of removes my argument. I can't also help but think that God of War III is one of the most technically excellent games ever made.

Your picks?

 

[Zontar]

Tetris definitely wins in my book. No bugs, ran smoothly right at release and managed to work for decades without the need for a single update.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I can't also help but think that God of War III is one of the most technically excellent games ever made.

I don't know. While it is still a very good looking game, the real-time lighting makes a lot of the character models in the cinematics look a bit rubbery.

OT: Resident Evil 4

That game still blows nearly every other action game out of the water with its sheer amount content. The enemy variety, the amount of guns you can acquire, the Boss fights, the set pieces, the multitude of different death animations, the level designs... It's just fucking staggering how much craft went into this product. And it still controls like a dream, with the best weapon sway in any game I've ever seen. And let's not forget it having (technically) the best A.I. partner ever conceived for a game.

RE4 is borderline perfect!

 

[Glongpre]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

No lag that I can remember.
Graphics that are absolutely amazing even now.
No pop in or tearing or anything.
It is silky smooth.

It is...
The best made game ever made.

Spoiler: Bam!

Spoiler: Omg, the polish!

 

[SoreWristed]

Okay, true, there is no best game ever made and the wording on that quote is near perfect. But...

I can't help but think that comparing every game to one an other isn't really doing anyone justice. I mean that 20+ hours of gameplay on a AAA title can't help but contain bugs. comparing that to an indy or some off-hand title doesn't do it justice.

I'd also have to mention i'd rate games on how far ahead of the time they were. So glitches can be overlooked imo if it was leagues better than any of the games from it's time.

The most polished game i've ever played was portal, with minor exception for very rare physics glitches, but considering it was developed as filler for the orange box i'd say it was as good as it'll get.

Then i'd have to mention Counterstrike Source for being the best engine for shooters of its time. Okay it's getting dated, but it was hands down the best.

 

[Evonisia]

Call me predictable but I will go with the first Portal game. No major issues, solid sound design, creative level design, solid "innovative" mechanic which never really needs to evolve. Well balanced.
Coherent difficulty curve. Graphics are serviceable and it doesn't suffer frame rate business on any kind of universal scale.
That's leaving atmosphere and story obviously. Yay Portal!

 

[Dizchu]

Doom (preferably with the GZDoom source port).

It's just so well-balanced compared to most other shooters, the community is thriving even to this day and making decent maps for it is very easy. Some may say that the game engine is limited but I think those limitations can lead to a lot of creativity.

Also there's nothing more cathartic than taking on a horde of a thousand demons by yourself and coming out victorious.

 

[laggyteabag]

Tetris definitely wins in my book. No bugs, ran smoothly right at release and managed to work for decades without the need for a single update.

Well, unless Ubisoft makes it and releases in on the PS4.

[small]No seriously. Google it. Ubisoft fucked up Tetris.

Tetris.[/small]

OT: But yeah, I would kind of agree. Tetris is a timeless classic that is easy to pick up, can be played on pretty much anything under the sun, and it accomplishes the difficult task of making a game that is interesting and tense entirely through the game's mechanics, with barely a word, and I really do appreciate these traits of the game.

 

[SNCommand]

I would say Last of Us, it hit all the right buttons for me, performed flawlessly when I played it, the story and voice acting was engaging and always made me want to continue playing, and it had a multiplayer mode that was legitimately good

 

[Briantb]

Tetris definitely wins in my book. No bugs, ran smoothly right at release and managed to work for decades without the need for a single update.

Well, unless Ubisoft makes it and releases in on the PS4.

[small]No seriously. Google it. Ubisoft fucked up Tetris.

Tetris.[/small]

OT: But yeah, I would kind of agree. Tetris is a timeless classic that is easy to pick up, can be played on pretty much anything under the sun, and it accomplishes the difficult task of making a game that is interesting and tense entirely through the game's mechanics, with barely a word, and I really do appreciate these traits of the game.

Also have to agree Tetris was a great but I personally enjoyed both the Dr. Mario and Kirby themed Tetris a lot more then the original.

 

[stroopwafel]

Resident Evil 4

That game still blows nearly every other action game out of the water with its sheer amount content. The enemy variety, the amount of guns you can acquire, the Boss fights, the set pieces, the multitude of different death animations, the level designs... It's just fucking staggering how much craft went into this product. And it still controls like a dream, with the best weapon sway in any game I've ever seen. And let's not forget it having (technically) the best A.I. partner ever conceived for a game.

RE4 is borderline perfect!

Seconded. You basically already said all I wanted to say about the game. I was hyped as all hell 10 years ago when this game originally came out on Gamecube, and was there ever a game worth the hype and then some. I can't really think of any other game with such lasting appeal as Resident Evil 4. Even now each playthrough somehow still feels fresh. It is designed to perfection. I don't think publishing companies will now be accepting with game directors scrapping entire builds of earlier versions and starting from scratch 3 times over. That is incredible patience on the publisher's part and incredible dedication on the director's part.

 

[Fox12]

Dark Souls is certainly a contender. It's world and characters are very subtly constructed, and you have to piece together fragments of the story based on the evidence the game offers you, which is beyond minimal. The difficulty reinforces the hopeless nature of the game, and it's a rather intimidating title. It's also a refreshing new take on the fantasy genre, with its themes of entropy and the first flame, and humanism, with the slight conflict between humanity and the "gods." You have to work to get at the heart of the game, but it's a surprisingly deep experience. It reminds me of The Dark Tower by Browning.
At times, however, I think that the game can be too ambiguous. Silent Hill 2, however, straddles the line perfectly. Every action has symbolic value, and all of the environments are designed to deliver on the themes of the story. I've never seen a game built around the themes of the narrative. The bit where the flashlight illuminates a mannequin wearing your wife's clothes. The bit where your approaching the final bosses, and you hear Mary's voice talking shortly before her death. The endless stairwell you have to run down, symbolizing your descent into the underworld. The enigmatic dialogue and characters. It's like Watchmen, in that every aspect of its design is drenched in symbolism. Even its biggest fans rarely seem to understand why it's actually great, and every time you play it you discover something new.

The mechanics of a game are nice and all, but they're ultimately unimportant when it comes to whether or not a game is going to last. Is Half Life 2 a well constructed game? Sure. Are people going to remember it as the pinnacle of gaming in 50 years? No. Not even The Last of Us will likely survive the test of time, and I love that game. Silent Hill 2 may still be around, though. A game needs more then good mechanics to survive.

 

[Deathlok]

Ultimately it comes down to personal choice. It also depends on the platform too I think.

For me-
Console version: GTA: Vice City.
PC version: Fallout and Fallout 2.

I'm probably negating a lot of excellent games but if I were stranded on a desert island and had to choose just one... Lé sigh..

 

[Zontar]

Tetris definitely wins in my book. No bugs, ran smoothly right at release and managed to work for decades without the need for a single update.

Well, unless Ubisoft makes it and releases in on the PS4.

[small]No seriously. Google it. Ubisoft fucked up Tetris.

Tetris.[/small]

OT: But yeah, I would kind of agree. Tetris is a timeless classic that is easy to pick up, can be played on pretty much anything under the sun, and it accomplishes the difficult task of making a game that is interesting and tense entirely through the game's mechanics, with barely a word, and I really do appreciate these traits of the game.

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that Ubisoft defied logic and brought shame to my city (their biggest office is here) by somehow screwing up Tetris, but I did say "decades without the need for a single update". Who knew that update would screw it up though?

 

[Darren716]

I'd say Bioshock 1, I don't recall any bugs the multiple times I played through it and the presentation was top notch in terms of graphics and sounds. The game also allowed for a good variety of play styles and I never had any issues with preformance.

 

[baddude1337]

Doom (preferably with the GZDoom source port).

It's just so well-balanced compared to most other shooters, the community is thriving even to this day and making decent maps for it is very easy. Some may say that the game engine is limited but I think those limitations can lead to a lot of creativity.

Also there's nothing more cathartic than taking on a horde of a thousand demons by yourself and coming out victorious.

Mods are the primary reason OG Doom is still playable and can go toe-to-toe with shooters these days. I have a bunch myself:

As for OP, I think even judging a game be technical perfection can be difficult for the PC platform, as the varying hardware means a smooth experience for one person is unplayable for another.

I personally don't have a single best game, but I do have a general top 10. After all, peoples interests and wants change all the time.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

I would say Last of Us, it hit all the right buttons for me, performed flawlessly when I played it, the story and voice acting was engaging and always made me want to continue playing, and it had a multiplayer mode that was legitimately good

Amen, good Sir or Madam. For the longest time, Resident Evil 2 was what I considered the best game ever made until RE4 came along - then it was a tie. But The Last of Us... Dear God, that game is perfect. There is not a single digit of code on that disk that I wouldn't marry if given the chance. I honestly can't think of a single thing I don't like about it, and while I've always been neutral when it comes to console war fanboy bullshit, TLoU more than makes the PS3 (or PS4) worth owning.

 

[Jingle Fett]

I'm going to go with the old-fashioned answer of Ocarina of Time. It's not my favorite game of all time, and I actually like Majora's Mask better, but Ocarina of Time is the bigger achievement. It might have bugs but without looking them up I've never actually encountered them in-game, heck it comes from a time when patching console games simply didn't exist so when you play it you're pretty much playing it the way it was at launch.

OoT pretty much set the standard for cinematic games, it told a great, subtle, epic, and mature story. It's gameplay is fairly unique and hasn't quite ever been matched, it had many locations, lots of enemy types, it had a great sense of wonder and mystery to it. It had so many game mechanics in it, ranging from sword fighting, horse riding, early FPS with the bow/hookshot, fishing, lots of minigames, sidequests, puzzles, day/night system, weather effects, the unique ocarina/music system, the list goes one and on to the point where many games even today have trouble matching it. Its pacing is great even by today's standards. It was even one of the first games to have a full cinematic score if I remember correctly.

But the thing that makes all of that impressive is the fact that that it managed to do all this while also being the first 3d Zelda game and came at the time when 3d was still new and not as fully understood as it is now. That they managed to fit all that in just 32mb (which was the largest Nintendo had ever gone at the time). The fact that it was able to do all that and also actually be fun (some games get sidetracked with the tech and forget to be fun to play). Purely in terms of technical achievement for its time, Ocarina of Time is a masterpiece.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The mechanics of a game are nice and all, but they're ultimately unimportant when it comes to whether or not a game is going to last. Is Half Life 2 a well constructed game? Sure. Are people going to remember it as the pinnacle of gaming in 50 years? No. Not even The Last of Us will likely survive the test of time, and I love that game. Silent Hill 2 may still be around, though. A game needs more then good mechanics to survive.

I really think that depends from person to person. I mean, when Silent Hill 2 first came out it was my bro. I was crazy about that game. I could speedrun the motherloving shit out of it, I played it so much. But now, I can't remember the last time I played through it all the way, and I likely never will again. I adored the time I spent with it, but it's just kind of faded away now.

And there's other, older games I still play now, like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Metal Gear Solid. And then there's games I was never too into back in the day, but that I replay now and I'm surprised how much I enjoy it, like Onimusha 2.

Right now I'm still pretty crazy about The Last of Us and Resident Evil 4. Will that last for the next 10 years, who knows. But if it doesn't it has less to do with the game's "longevity" and more with me having just changed and moved on to other things, while others might still be crazy about it.