… so you can see what a rollercoaster this list is. The rest of the top 10 is hilarious, but I’ll let you find that out yourselves. Notable others:
So, discuss (and by that I mean, RIP)
A lot of the ‘meh’ I expected, but wow: CoD4 at number 1? 
At any rate, I think we should each post up our individual “greatest” lists. I think that would be fun. I’m working on a Top 40 (40 because I feel 50 is giving me too much leeway, and I don’t even think I’ve finished 100 games), and I think it would be fun if we all compared lists.
I’ve been working on my top 10 for a while, specifically to post here =P I’m down to 30 so I’ve got a ways to go yet 
I could do a top 40, but I don’t think I could definitely say number 28 is better than number 29 in such a big list, y’know?
Hmm… no Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, or NiGHTS? Why do I get the feeling these guys didn’t like the Saturn?
It’s disgraceful that not a single Saturn game made it into that list.
Solo, I agree that those titles you mentioned should have made the list; they probably didn’t receive enough votes, if voted for at all.
I voted for Baldur’s Gate II, but that didn’t make the list either 
Did anyone else manage to vote?
The way these lists are done is silly. It would make more sense to have genre-specific lists to make it fairer e.g. best turn-based RPGs, 3D beat 'em ups, arcade racers etc.
To suggest that Wii Fit (29) outclasses Doom (30) is madness.
No Panzer Dragoon, no Myst, no Legacy of Kain… This lists sucks arse!
Poor mainstream…
Halo ain’t all that special. Final Fantasy VII is most DEFINITELY not all that special.
I have trouble coming up with 50, let alone 100.
Even by mainstream standards it’s a poor list. For a start, WoW should be higher than FF7, seeing as how it has been far more influential than FF7 ever was or could hope to be. That’s not the fanboy in me talking either! In terms of revenue WoW destroys it as well.
But whatever. These lists are always too subjective for their own good.
Well, anything based on an open online poll is always demolished by the most recent ‘instant classics’. So the “all time” part is really pointless and stupid. But it’s interesting information regardless, if nothing else it’s always oddly gratifying to get evidence of how twisted, manipulated, and generally arbitrary popular opinion is. It’s almost a perfectly predictable mix of usual suspects and new hotness.
EDIT: And Geoffrey, while I could maybe agree WoW is more deserving than most games on the basis of influence, that’s not a particularly happy thought for me. WoW and FF7 are similarly depressing precedents, games that represent such benchmarks in popularity that they irrevocably crystalize the criteria for how to be competitive as a serious contender from that point on.
In the case of FF7 it meant overwrought-cinema-overload, hackneyed tales of angst and melodrama, and an assumed ‘gameplay’ requirement for an arbitrary scope of epicness and false ‘variety’ of options.
And in the case of WoW, the MMO is now totally defined by how adeptly it panders to certain of the lowest of common denominators… Conformity; Avarice; Obsession; Elitism; Persecution…
Which is not to say WoW isn’t phenomenal and brilliant, it is… in many respects. And maybe FF7 was as well, and that’s the whole problem. Greatness of any sort casts it’s shadow over everything else, and the next thing you know, people have conditioned themselves into equating every detail with that general greatness. And not every detail is deserving. I would never have had such a direct perspective on the mechanisms by which people are trained to like things they’re told to like, and disdain the things they’re told to disdain… if not for watching this perticular microcosm (of videogames) evolve…
To put it another way, it is in part literally the devil you know phenomenon.
The gameplay of WoW keeps evolving to meet new demands whereas I can’t say the same for FF. I see where WoW is heading right now and it WILL grab even more than the 10 million subs it has now thanks to Blizz finally waking up to the game revolving around smaller communities of players with lives outside of the game.
For a business model, it’s the future. This isn’t even touching on the art direction, lore, character customization etc etc.
I really do believe FF7 is given too much credit. More than it deserves anyway. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand why. The story was neither profound in any way, nor truly thought provoking. It had more in common with a soap opera than anything else.
But again, to each their own. Maybe it’s just me.
Perhaps there’s recent changes in the administrative attitude for WoW that could modulate my opinion, I wouldn’t know. And again I would never disagree about the art and lore and general workmanship in the product, that’s all what kept me with it for even three months. Plus there’s certainly room for particular groups of people to make the experience into whatever they want (within reason). As always the community people make for themselves is the biggest draw, but in every case I seem to find that I’m more serious about playing than one representative dynamic, yet I can never take things as seriously as so many people have to pretend they are. This just from my own experience.
But the most primary reinforcements: grinding the same quests and raids - and that resist improvisation of any real significance - over and over; looking for gear, almost all of which is on a linear upgrade path for a given build, and again with no reward for individuality; mind numbing acquisition of crap for trade goods that can never have any stamp of creativity whatsoever; and all that BS being prerequisite to any possibility of advanced enjoyment of the experience… but as you say Geoffrey it’s a compelling business model for the future. And that’s what’s so depressing.
I think a top 100 list based on per unit sales would be more accurate. As it has been stated, popular opinion changes all the time.
I guess I’ll make a few comments.
Call of Duty 4 was a great game, but wow, best game of all time? I mean, it was fun and looked amazing, but there wasn’t anything revolutionary about it.
Ocarina of Time I agree with. That game deserves to be near the top of any best of list. Truly one of the best games ever made.
There’s not a lot I can say about FF7 that hasn’t already been said. Suffice to say, I actually thought it was a pretty good game, overbloated by marketing, fanboys, and spin-offs that are doing nothing but cheapening the original game.
I also think that Super Mario Bros. 3, Half-Life, Starcraft, Super Metroid, and Shadow of the Colossus should be higher on the list.
Having not gone past the first two lines of text in Shadow’s post nor having so much as glanced at the meat of the link I’m just going to say
CoD4 at 1???
I am surprised that any Sonic game besides Sonic 1 was on the list, since all “top games” lists only have Sonic 1. And yes, Sonic 2 does deserve to be up there; it is that awesome.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]Perhaps there’s recent changes in the administrative attitude for WoW that could modulate my opinion, I wouldn’t know. And again I would never disagree about the art and lore and general workmanship in the product, that’s all what kept me with it for even three months. Plus there’s certainly room for particular groups of people to make the experience into whatever they want (within reason). As always the community people make for themselves is the biggest draw, but in every case I seem to find that I’m more serious about playing than one representative dynamic, yet I can never take things as seriously as so many people have to pretend they are. This just from my own experience.
But the most primary reinforcements: grinding the same quests and raids - and that resist improvisation of any real significance - over and over; looking for gear, almost all of which is on a linear upgrade path for a given build, and again with no reward for individuality; mind numbing acquisition of crap for trade goods that can never have any stamp of creativity whatsoever; and all that BS being prerequisite to any possibility of advanced enjoyment of the experience… but as you say Geoffrey it’s a compelling business model for the future. And that’s what’s so depressing.[/quote]
Certainly building around the majority has its up and downs. I really think Blizz can attain a perfect balance between that and not selling out or selling the game’s soul. I mean I am a gamer who loves WoW but feel that I shouldn’t have to spend every waking moment inside the game. Blizz are now finally addressing that with all the raids being 10 mannable.
The biggest disappointment for me in WoW though has always been the people themselves. It’s depressing to really see how they are motivated in life and how that translates into gaming. One thing I do not like is how Blizz plan to turn all the 5 man dungeons into and I quote “hourly sessions” essentially by trapping them in a narrow linear structure as opposed to a labyrinth begging to be explored like some of the oldschool dungeons. But at the same time, they will not budge on the challenges raid bosses provide. After all, it’s in their interests to keep players locked into a time sink with hurdles to jump.
I play for the people as much as I do for the game itself as riddled with imperfection as they are. The sense of adventure is pretty much second to none.
As for the grind, as long as it’s enjoyable, I don’t see the problem. The sense of character progression in itself is a part of the fun: knowing you are becoming more and more powerful.
As a guild leader I’ve made friends and lost them in this game. A game. The mere potential alone for the creation of communities is the real driving force behind all of this. Blizz certainly now know they can make a lot of money from it.
It’s the Playstation of MMOs and no one has the budget to match it so far. It deserves way more credit.
I think Eve is more important even if far less popular… I look forward to the future advancements its developers bring to the genre much more than Blizzard who are simply polishing and polishing the concepts introduced with Diablo… They sure do a fine job with it, but only thanks to their limitless budget, which becomes increasingly so thanks to their games’ popularity. I played WoW for about a year but the end game and expansion mindset put me off it.
I think it’ll all eventually be diluted by trying to mold around the majority, like all games.
If WoW hadn’t been so successful, the devs would have suffered a lot for some of their design approaches. Despite being too hardcore at its core, it sucked in a lot of regular average Joes for a diverse range of reasons.
The only real way you can measure a game’s true worth, however, is through the money it makes sadly. But at the same time, something is popular for a reason.
I mean, I generally loathe FF for marginalizing other more meaningful role playing games, but that’s not a fault with the games themselves, but with the mindless idiots who play them.
This is more or less my thoughts on the MMORPG genre. I’m enjoying playing TLOTRO at the moment, not for the combat side of the gameplay, but for being able to explore the rich game world.
These sorts of games really need to start introducing some more interesting quests. In every MMORPG that I’ve tried, it feels like your an errand boy to every villager in the game. Kill 10 wolves, collect 15 flat stones, etc… I’d be much more drawn into the game if the quests were story and character driven, or focused on exploration.
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]As for the grind, as long as it’s enjoyable, I don’t see the problem. The sense of character progression in itself is a part of the fun: knowing you are becoming more and more powerful.
It’s the Playstation of MMOs and no one has the budget to match it so far. It deserves way more credit.
If WoW hadn’t been so successful, the devs would have suffered a lot for some of their design approaches. Despite being too hardcore at its core, it sucked in a lot of regular average Joes for a diverse range of reasons.[/quote]
Calling it the Playstation of MMO’s almost conveys anything that could be said about it, and indeed it’s getting all the credit in the world as it is. The fact that it didn’t dominate this stupid list is indicative of how mainstream the appeal of WoW truly is, half the subscribers aren’t even gamers in the larger sense, and so would never traffic a site like that. And the game is really only hard-core within it’s own limited criteria, as it’s clear “real gamers” are the most likely to criticize it for these same issues; and to put a finer point on things I’ve already said…
I feel that WoW was “diluted by trying to mold around the majority” from the get go. It’s the very definition of pulp gameplay, as Al3x said they’re trying to “polish the concepts introduced with Diablo [2]”, but to me they actually did an extremely bad job with it in some key concerns. D2 is a much better game, within it’s limitations, than WoW; because gear is that game. It makes perfect sense, it’s essentially the exact same structure as a great scrolling SHMUP: you build up weapons in order to see the levels you know by heart get demolished more impressively.
But, after the expansion at least, D2 also has a lot of nuance and convolution in the gear. Enough depth to plumb and agonizing decisions about personal priorities to be made, that though the suit indeed makes the player, at least that suit feels a lot more tailored by the end. And yes I know, the uber-build clones are every bit as much a part of D2 as anything else, but the game still has a chaotic charm… whereas WoW shamelessly attempts to distill that formula into an intravenous feed of ‘gameplay’. So not only do we end up with the unique adventure side of the experience being dismantled by these other competing, overpowering reinforcements; but they’ve also significantly stripped out the otherwise redeeming qualities of those reinforcements?!
I had a lvl 40 Nightelf Druid and a lvl 30 Gnome Warlock when I quit, there’s a lot I hadn’t seen obviously, but I’d seen enough. In what sense is the game really hard-core? What you’re talking about is the investment required to be powerful, right? So in essence, most everything that’s truly wondrous and admirable about WoW has nothing to do with the rewards of that investment; what’s hard-core about is at one and the same time what’s completely base, mindless, and in another sense even casual about it. It’s almost like the new version of insert quarter, press continue, get further
Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m trashing WoW… but I truly have a kind of despair when I think about these things. Being conscious of the dynamic in realtime may be pointless, but whatever. Consider the state of RPG’s in general: in the west at this point the jury seems to be in on the overall superiority of dynamic battles rather than completely traditional turn based systems. Even Japanese RPG’s have evolved a lot, few high profile titles are totally old-school anymore. But there’ve been great examples of evolutionary gameplay all along, and yet the wheels of progress still turned excruciatingly slow. The tyranny of tradition effect is inescapable, and inarguable. It’s going to be that much harder for any games that fall under the same umbrella as WoW to escape the furmula now, and in say twenty years, I can guarantee it will be possible to look back and count examples of games that did something which is then accepted as ‘better’, which yet floundered compared to other games that stick to the formula.
I understand you’re protective of WoW Geoffrey, and it’s deserving of every champion it has. But c’mon… it does NOT deserve any more recognition. I’m similarly protective of Halo, and actually that game helps me illustrate everything I’ve been rambling and raving on about a little more directly…
I will argue that Halo is a relatively subtle archetype, it stood out for the sum of it’s parts more than anything else. It was always amusing to me that so many of the most flogged criticisms of it were were actually positives for the people who love it: not enough weapons… but they all meant something; feels slow… yeah, it actually has character; regenerating health is lame… uh-huh, so why’s it been emulated so much since then; repeating scenery… umm, NO, the scenery that repeated just stood out more because, in aggregate, the game was less tiled than anything else around at the time!
The original Halo had a good story, and it was told competently, at worst it was well above average in videogame terms, regardless whether ‘you’ liked it or not. And the gameplay had a completely novel flavor, and again while it wasn’t to many people’s taste, claims that it’s generic cannot be backed up. So one thing I’m trying to get across is that I don’t think there’s much to object to about it as an archetype, not from it’s structure, pieces of it have been quite organically disseminated into FPS culture, and gaming is only the richer for it… however:
Look at what Halo has done to current gaming culture by it’s theme. The invasion of the Space Marines is directly tied to it’s popularity, and Halo almost deserves to go to hell on that basis alone. Which brings the lesson to it’s ultimate conclusion: when these breakout hits redefine what’s popular, it’s primarily the wrong lessons that get carried away and replicated the most from them.