Poll: Favorite game out of best eight ever?

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Tekken 3 was heaps fun, I used to play that shit for hours, trying to get time attacks, Force, best on that list for me.

 

[Loviathan]

Ocarina of Time.

When LOZ: Ocarina of Time came out I could not believe how amazing it was as a game, there has yet to be a game that so thoroughly and completely exceeded my expectations the way OoT did. While technology moves on, and games become more and more complicated and engaging, it is natural for video games to become 'better' over time. However, for the activity that is video gaming, the entirety of the experience has to be taken into account, and for that reason I do not think that there will be another game that will change me as much.

If you missed out on playing it when it was new and cutting edge then I feel sorry for you - I feel you may have missed something historic.

 

[blackdwarf]

i don't pick one, because i disagree with the most of the list. sites who have a top 100 list with the best game ever, are usless for me, because i never disagree with them. gta is not one of my favorite games, neither are uncharted and the mario's games. i think it are good games, but a it aren't my favorite games. personally i find windwaker better then ocarnia of time. i fin d mario awesome, but it not a game that deserves a place in the list.

 

[StBishop]

It appears we all have bad taste in games...

I picked Tekken 3 as I enjoyed it quite alot when I was under 10.

As pretty much everyone said, it's a horrible list.

I must say I'm baffled by the enjoyment people seem to get from the Zelda series. I can't enjoy them.

 

[orangecharger]

...but god that list is terrible.

You said it!

Out of those games I liked GTAIV the best, and within it's genre it's a decent game, but it's not even the best GTA game.

 

[Burningsok]

Yeah, i would have to go with Morrowind being the best game ever. The only one i might consider is OoT.

 

[Vrach]

I never meant that Prototype is a bad game, it really isn't, I have it and it's quite fun. I actually agree with most of the things you just described, but are you really saying that Prototype is one of the best games of all time?

I mean, Prototype is fun as hell, but there are just glaring flaws in that game that I can't overlook.

The targeting system is horrible, the story in contrived, Alex's motivations are very unclear which makes a lot of the story difficult to care about, using a disguise that isn't military is completely pointless (and disguises become pointless in general about halfway through the game because of viral detectors anyway), there's a very small pool of different enemies, and there's tons of glitches. As fun as the game is, I had to restart it from the very beginning twice, both times in the same spot, because the game glitched, and the mission that I was supposed to be doing refused to start.

A fun game it definitely is, but it's hard to argue that the game is better than an 8 or an 8.5, whereas the best games ever should be 10s. Now I agree with you, I don't think any of the games on that list fit the "perfect game mold" either (except for Ocarina of Time), but Prototype really doesn't belong there either.

I completely know what you mean. Two things mate. First off, the games I named aren't my list of games for the best ever, they're just awesome top games off the top of my mind. They're also games that either did something new and/or did it amazingly well.

- Morrowind made the huge open 3D world with an amazing amount of story.
- Oblivion made milestone improvements in friendly AI trying to make every NPC have it's own "life" (yes, it sucks, but they were one of the first to even go there). It also introduced, I believe, an unprecedented amount of voice acting material in games. Again, yes, it sucked by today's standards, but they were the first to go there and at the time, it wasn't that bad.
- GTA San Andreas perfected the GTA model imo and I know a lot of people agree, it just did pretty much everything right and made for a very long, replayable and fun experience.
- Assassin's Creed introduced the "stealth in public" method and made for fantastic melee assassin atmosphere... I'd have named it, but the second part perfected the game a lot further and made for a much more enjoyable experience
- Mafia took the GTA model and introduced it to 1920's, showing it can do more than just modern day third person mayhem shooter. It had a brilliant story, atmosphere and at the time, an extraordinary, possibly unprecedented amount of realism that even managed to work without feeling too constrictive
- KOTOR well... do I even need to explain why I'd place what a large number of people refer to as the best RPG of all time here?
- Mass Effect 2 did an amazing amount of good and fully-voiced storytelling and introduced the cover-based third-person shooter system well. It also managed to do what games haven't done well for ages and that's use the character from the first game to keep playing. ME franchise in general (that is to say, the first game) also gave us some new and cool friendly aliens which weren't just copy-pastes from Star Wars/Trek and which actually worked well as races.

And finally, Prototype is there for it's immensely liberating gameplay and the way of introducing/describing the backstory. It's also the best example of the combo-system that I've seen so far, not sure why, but it just works, gives plenty of possibilities but isn't impossibly hard to remember how to do them all.

That's ofc all just my 2 cents and I might be wrong on some things... but just explaining the train of thought as to why I mentioned those games in particular

 

[MicrosoftPaysMe]

Well that list is entirely wrong. Except maybe Uncharted 2.

But that's the thing that shouldn't be there the most.

Were you by any chance paid by MS to say that?

lol no I just don't see why people loved that game so much. Brutal Legend was far better

 

[A Raging Emo]

Out of the list, I ahve to say that Grand Theft Auto 4 is my favorite.

 

[Mirrored Jigsaw]

You're arguing objectivity in a subjective list?

I argued that a game with no ability to weave a comprehensive story is not art, and therefore should not be considered as one of the greatest games ever. Perhaps I was using the word "objectively" too strongly, when what I should have said was logically. Reviewers don't give a 10/10 to a game that they enjoyed if they know it was bad. I was thoroughly entertained by Bioshock 2, and not so much by Ico. Ico is still a better game, logically, and the reason why will be discussed in the next section.

...video games are not movies, thus cannot be held to the same standards...Once again, story is irrelevant to being a great game. Tetris proves that.

Since art is a vague term, the definition I've always upheld for it is that it passes the third requirement of the Miller test, recently discussed in the Extra Credits video, "Free Speech." It reads, "Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." A game with nothing more than mindless entertainment value does not possess the potential to overcome that obstacle. It lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value. This is comparable to works in every other media industry. Pornography is my favorite comparison, not only because of the weight it holds, but because of its truth. They are both entertaining, but nothing more.

Tetris is not art. It changed the medium in significant ways, and therefore I might overlook that fact, but it is not art.

Though Blazblue: Continuum Shift does have a robust story mode, defeating your argument.

Then I shall revise my argument; Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur fail the third requirement of the Miller test, therefore are not art, and therefore should not represent the medium as a whole by being considered on an objective list to be of the greatest games of all time.

Trying to hold a fighting game to the same standard as an RPG or an FPS is silly. It's like saying FPS can't be good because they don't present the player in a third person perspective. Your argument is nonsensical.

You don't play FPS for the story [sub]oh, by the way, yes I do[/sub], as it is secondary to the action. You don't play Fighting games for the story, as it is secondary to the action. You might play RPGs for the story as it is often at the forefront.

You should expect some artistic merit out of any genre if you plan on considering it among the greatest the medium has to offer.

Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur present some of the best versions of games within their particular genre, and in such, are some of the best video games ever made.

No puzzle game, nor sports game, nor RTS, nor MMO, etc are included on this list. By your logic, a top eight of the greatest games of all time would be impossible, because there are more than eight genres.

But to deny that game X cannot be a great game because it falls in genre Y is both arrogant and obnoxious.

If Movie Bob here on The Escapist referred to any pornographic film as the greatest movie ever made, would his credibility not be suspect? Regardless, I have admitted that you may be right. I have not played every fighting game, nor have I played all that many, so to judge the genre as a whole is senseless. Refer to the bolded statement above.

Last time I checked, "Art" does not need to present a "story" to be considered an artform.
Please remember: "The medium is the message".

You and I interpret Marshall McLuhan differently. He stated that the medium in which something exists defines its meaning. A book telling one story and a game telling the same story would have completely different merits simply due to their medium.

I argued that Tekken and Soul Calibur lacked meaning in that they lacked a serious story and characterization. Those are not the only things they lack. Look at a painting by Jackson Pollock. The laymen would just see a mess of paint, but in that mess exists something more. Tekken and Soul Calibur are nothing but a shallow mess of paint.

Like many around here, I am well versed in the world of art (Art school in High School {yes, I had to audition to get into my school}, Fine Arts & Animation in college. Work as a Graphic Designer. How about you, seeing as how you're 17 years old?

Someone needs to be knocked off their pretentious high-horse.

Since you would like to argue based on personal background who is a better judge of what qualifies as artful in qualities ranging past the aesthetic, I see your graphic design history and raise you with an education in all arts, via a collection of video games that I actually have the free time to experience ranging from the genres of fighting games to JRPG to RTS to Killer 7, a personal collection of movies that far precedes the year of my birth, post-college level literary analysis classes and being a Grand National Finalist in the annual Bands of America marching band competition held on Lucas Oil Field, amongst other things.

None of that matters anyway though. If you want to be an elitist dick, maybe you should read some Walt Whitman, who argues that the author of a work is meaningless when judging the quality of the work itself.

In short, fuck you. I'm done responding on this forum. We've taken enough room up as it is. If you want to continue to argue, private message.

 

[Aratus]

None

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

On that list, I would be hard pressed to choose as I didn't exactly love any game on it. Were I forced to choose, I'd probably opt for GTA IV even though I don't care for it much. Simply put, it is the game on that list that I hate the least.

 

[Nazulu]

I can already tell before even selecting one that the winner will be OoT. It's like this forum has some kind of insane cult that likes to suck its dick non stop. I will never understand it, it wasn't anything amazing. It was simply more of the exact same Zelda we already knew.

Actually, it was an amazing experience. Even after all this time evolving passed blocky graphics and what not, a lot of people young & old can still remember it as a highlight in their gaming lives. Hate to point out the obvious, but there is no such game that will ever exist where everyone can agree to be one of the best 8, but as long as it has good reasoning behind it then it will become a popular choice.

Ocarina of Time is a perfect example to me since not only did I have a lot of fun playing it, it was also one of the very few games that was way above my expectations. OoT introduced a couple of new interesting game play elements that became a standard like the targeting system and context-sensitive buttons, a big jump in the right direction.

Another thing that got me was the design and many types of challenges, it was all thrown together so well with lots of different scenery throughout the levels, and I haven't played any other game that has challenged me in so many unique ways. Usually it was some big puzzle you had to solve, so you had to use a bit of your brain while avoiding traps and weird enemy's.

Also, the many different bosses (there is a lot of them in this game). They were all intimidating in their own way and were pretty difficult the first time since they weren't that predictable.

Something else that makes this game great is the sound and music, very memorable stuff. Helped immerse me in no time.

So yeah, it's more than just your average game. I'm not part of a cult that praises Nintendo games for nothing (in fact, I hate the Wii and most of it's titles). And it's not like the previous Zelda games, it did use a lot of the same elements (like 99% of every game out there) but the change to 3D and new game play mechanics was a very big change.

 

[Frankster]

That's the list? Big meh from me.

It's a tie between Soul Calibur and Tekken 3 of those choices, in the end opted for soul calibur as I liked the freedom of the control scheme.

 

[EatPieYes]

Ocarina of Time, out of these.

 

[Kinguendo]

Wow, I dont agree with that list at all. Especially not LOZ: OoT, hate Legend of Zelda games. It is just the exact same thing over and over and people buy it every time... T_T

But anyway, I voted for Tekken 3 seen as that is the one I spent the most time playing as a child.