What game is your gold standard?

[Drakane]

MMO... WoW, ive played others.. it wins in my books.

FPS... GOLDENEYE, N64... if you played it you know it.

RPG... Xenosaga 1, I have never been so excited for round 2 (and subsequently let down) for a game in my life

sports... ESPN football, short lived, made maden see what it should be.

RTS... Warcraft, had good game play and story

over all, Gold Cartridge Zelda for the NES, its the one game I can think of that at any point in time if someone said... hey i have this game wanna play.. I would say yes in almost any circumstance.

Edit: I forgot fighter, Tekken... just my fighting game of choice

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Minecraft.

Don't think I had this much fun out of a 10 euro game before

I don't have 'one golden standard'. I've played a variety of games throughout the years and usually all games have things I like, but it's hard to compare games as none is perfect and thus picking the 'golden standard' is impossible for me.

 

[PurePareidolia]

I have a few for different genres, and often I have two games serving as counterpoints to one another when I compare one to them - "where does it fit on the scale?" etc

Half Life 2 is an obvious one for traditional FPSes along with Bioshock for more deep, nuanced FPSs (in terms of gameplay I mean) and Serious Sam/Painkiller/TF2 if I'm comparing creative weaponry and design. Doom, Borderlands and Left 4 Dead/2 serve as my respective counter standards for those. Doom is Half Life without the compelling story, characters, weapons, environments etc, while Borderlands is Bioshock without the environmental design, and mechanical depth (though I consider neither to be RPGs). Left 4 Dead 1 showed me how variety is important to keep a repetitive task (like shooting things) fun and interesting. Left 4 Dead 2 reminds me that remaking the same game with melee weapons isn't enough to justify a sequel no matter how much Valve wants me to believe that, and helped kill any interest I had in murdering zombies.

I tend to use the fallout series as my standard for RPGs with the Mass Effect series for character interaction and specifically Mass Effect 2 for things like combat in RPGs. A special mention goes to Deus Ex for epitomizing that kind of "here's a situation, tackle it however you want" gameplay. Mass Effect 2 does however write the book on how to fail at a main plot, making it railroady, insultingly stupid and canon-breakingly irrelevant to the series overall arc. Morrowind is the opposite of Fallout, serving as an example of a game that, no matter how how expansive it's world is, can still shut me out completely if it's gameplay is useless. Fable is similar in that it taught me a valuable lesson about how role playing can't be boiled down to 'good' and 'evil'.

Psychonauts is my gold standard for creative, funny dialogue and imaginative scenarios. and Mirror's edge is my pick for how first person games should function, even if it was a bit rough around the edges. I contrast that to any given gamebyro game which couldn't make me feel more like I was playing as a camera with a gun. Penumbra: Overture serves as my pick for both horror and physics integration to which I contrast Doom 3 and again, any gamebyro game. In terms of story however KOTOR and in particular KOTOR 2 serve as shining examples of how to deconstruct an otherwise simple and black and white universe in an interesting way. Warrior Within was not.

 

[Seriin]

I can't say that I have a one game that holds a supreme golden rule among all genres. Much of the time the standard comes solely from a genre itself. Take racing, for example. I love the genre, but I can't stand to play the ultra realistic ones that come out. I look at Grand Turismo and think "why should I bother?". Sure it looks pretty but ultimately you're recreating an experience that is able to be replicated outside of the game. Part of the problem is that I didn't bother to get my license when I was a teenager and therefore I cannot relate to driving a faster expensive version of what is reasonable. The bulk of the problem, however, is that I compare each racing experience into the ultra fast pace of futuristic racing (F-Zero), or the fun party experiences of the Mario Kart games. Anything that can offer an impossible-to-replicate experience will automatically trump the shiniest, ultra realistic driving sim.

This, I suppose, is what I could call my golden rule. Realism vs Impossible, because most of the time realism or pseudo-realism just will not compare to the impossible. Sometimes I take liberty with the line, as I consider games like Fallout that try and demonstrate a plausible future reality as "impossible".

But, this is off topic so I'll give one series as my 'Golden Rule' of gaming. That series is Pokemon, because in sheer numbers I have spent more hours on that collective series than likely everything else combined, minus the hours of the Final Fantasies. What's more is that I enjoy every bit of time I spend collecting battling trading and raising all those different monsters.

 

[Nazulu]

Your right, I compare everything to Ocarina of Time. It's a game that did almost everything right or very well at least. Possibly the most interesting adventure I've ever been on with characters that weren't that special but didn't give me the shits either (No, Navi didn't annoy me, the owl did though). Also, it was really special for it's time bringing in the lock-on system, context-sensitive buttons and using music to solve puzzles and what not.

Of course I don't expect every game to live up to that standard but to be at least be half as interesting.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Like Valve much?
Endless replayability? For HL2? How many masked human marines can you kill before you become utterly and hopelessly bored??

Well there are 20 other types of things to kill, but you are right HL2 is a story shooter, and unless you are at some severe stage of Alzheimers you can't claim endless replayability.

The types I play:
- pure fun shooter: Painkiller ( it's just extreme fun madness )
- story shooter: Half-Life 2 ( got polish up the wazu, I wish others would do their sh*t this well )
- pure RPG: Baldur's Gate ( everything an RPG should really be, compared to this all the new stuff is barely touching the RPG aspects )
- strategy: Homeworld ( it's like space chess, every unit has a weak/strong point, and it doesn't seem to suffer from the StarCraft mad-clicker syndrome )
- platformer: most Mario games ( it's just done right )
- story/FPS/RPG: Deus Ex ( ya it's a mixed type, but I just had to mention this gem of a game )

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Mass Effect (ONE, not two, mind you). Extremely Immersive world; Epic story; Relatable and genuinely interesting Characters; the ability to lift people into the air and send em flying. What more could you possibly ask for in a game?

 

[Mr.Amakir]

Deus Ex

 

[bluefish]

It really depends on Genre, but I suppose I could say... out of all the RPG's I've played, the best of the best has been Persona 4.

I agree. First RPG in years that got me emotionally invested.

Portal is the game that I turn to when I don't want to play RPGs. Even if I've already beat it a couple of times.

 

[kurtzy23]

Ratchet and Clank 1 to Ratchet Galdiator they were all pesonally my favorite games they are what got me into gaming in the first place

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Tetris, anything better than tetris gets my vote, what can I say I'am an easy man to please, so please me, please I'am so desperate for some pleasing right now....

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

It's different for every genre. I'd say my favorite games ever are jak 2 and 3 on the ps2, but I don't COMPARE them to anything (mainly because there aren't any other games like them except maybe Ratchet and Clank if you stretch it.) If a game is similar to another game that's vastly more popular, that's what I'll compare it to, regardless of which one is better.

 

[Rayansaki]

God of War is an obvious choice

Like God of War but.

 

[C-45]

Oh, that is a good question ... now that I really think about it I'd say on a conscious level I'm thinking of Mass Effect, Darwinia, and Dear Esther. However I feel like I really compare everything to Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and Battlefront. It's totally irrational, but those games were my childhood.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I'd say Half-Life 2 because OP did and I like to feel like I'm fitting in, but, as much as I hate to say it... Crysis is.

It still needs top-of-the-range hardware to run on full at a decent framerate and it still has more buttons to memorize than an RTS but it all has such astounding gameplay depth to go with the sort of over-complicated PC-ery, that no game has matched since 2007. Honestly! I expected by the end of 2008 we'd all have graphics approaching Crysis-level and games with unseen depth as we squeezed every last drop from the hardware, but now in 2010 the only things that're even close to Crysis are Assassins Creed sequels and the occasional RPG. Why aren't our action-games and first-person shooters getting Crysis-flavoured injections? I mean, obviously with a much better stories... but the sort of technological depth that pushes gaming as a medium forward.

So yeah, Crysis, if only because it shone as a glimpse of the future and three years later that future is yet to catch up with us.

 

[thiosk]

Super metroid is a masterpiece of the metrovania.

Evil Genius is nearly a masterpiece of Management Simulations; including a game on top the management was silly; I suggest you cheat up tons of money and tons of loot and just go nuts on base design.

 

[thiosk]

- strategy: Homeworld ( it's like space chess, every unit has a weak/strong point, and it doesn't seem to suffer from the StarCraft mad-clicker syndrome )

You know, I just never could get into Homeworld. I'm not sure why. I played through the original game once; I struggle to remember which mechanic it was that turned me off, but the interface really didn't click with me.

I always played Master of Orion 2. A lot.

Now I'm playing A. I. War: Fleet Command and it might just be the best tower defense\rts game I've ever played.

One that has a lot of potential is Distant Worlds; we'll see about them after the expansion.

edit: oops edit fail

 

[Kiju]

Hm...a high-standard game; something we hold up to all other similar games in order to compare them.

I wouldn't know which one to pick out of the lot of them. I have a list, however, of some that would definitely be my shining examples:

Over-all: Okami - PS2
Flight Simulator: Ace Combat IV, V, & Zero - PS2
FPS: Battlefield Bad Company - XBox 360
Franchise Games: Reign of Fire - PS2
RPG: Breath of Fire IV - PSX
Spacefighter Combat: Freespace II - PC
3rd Person Shooter: Robotech Battlecry - PS2
MMORPG: World Of Warcraft & City of Heroes/Villains - PC

 

[The Hero Killer]

I would say for..

JRPG's a toss up between Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy IX

Gears of War/Resident Evil 4 for 3rd person shooters and the whole Call of Duty franchise for 1st person

Guild Wars for MMO's even though its technically not classified as one.

Bioware's whole catalog for western RPG's.

And I'm pretty open with fighting games and action games as long as the graphics are up to date and the characters look pretty cool.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Jak 2. I started comparing it to Mass Effect. Jak 2 won