And it's missing what may be the greatest flying game of all time. Crimson Skies had the best physics ever and it was an xBox Gen 1 game at that. And it was criminally never updated.

They used the exact same point system I've used in all the tourneys I've ran on this board. Such as when we collectively decided Empire Strikes Back is this board's favorite movie of all time.

Well crap. I'm going to waste way too much time 1) compiling my list and 2) critiquing the published one.

On the other hand, I'm STILL regretting not doing this same thing for top 100 movies.

rhutton125 said:

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I think my main takeaway is how many great games there are. I don't see a Mega Man game on that list but I'm not getting my nuts in a twist over it either.

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You should. People on the internet are wrong. That kind of injustice can't be allowed to stand.

Mega Man 2 is a perfect game, better than Mario 3 or whatever other NES game they have as the highest ranked from that generation.

There are some bizarre picks on there. No way Ico or the Last Guardian are better than StarCraft.

boy09 said:

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jackie childs said:

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i read the preamble and didn't see anything, but they had to have excluded sports games, right? no madden, ncaa or tecmo bowl?

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I know these games are popular, but greatest games of all time?? Come on, man..

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without question

We may have a new #1 soon.

https://opencritic.com/browse/all

jackie childs said:

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boy09 said:

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jackie childs said:

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i read the preamble and didn't see anything, but they had to have excluded sports games, right? no madden, ncaa or tecmo bowl?

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I know these games are popular, but greatest games of all time?? Come on, man..

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without question

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Madden maybe, but no way should NCAA be on a greatest ever list. I love those games, but they are someone geared towards a smaller market.

I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, so most of my favorite games are from that era, but I also think games have gotten better over time. It's hard to compare a game like Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption 2 to the original Super Mario Bros because of the differences in technology. If the list is on entertainment value, most hard core gamers are going to have a list of more games from the last two decades. If the list is based on true greatness within its time period and importance, the list is going to be different. With the later, Super Mario Bros is a top 5 game because it likely saved the video game industry. Even if the game is dated now and is ridiculous easy for modern day gamers, within its time period, there are very few games that I would say is "greater". The one weird omission for me is Donkey Kong Country. That's probably my favorite pre 2000s game of all time it was massively popular when it was released.

I guess it's difficult to define criteria for the best. But you have to take into account the percentage of people playing that particular game to gauge popularity. Granted there wasn't a lot of options back in the 80s but the percentages of gamers playing mario vs the witcher 3 has to be drastically different. And what mario did for the industry was a whole lot more impactful than say Dark Souls. Now is Dark souls a better game? Easily of course, but if we're going to compare they should have taken into account sales, percentage of market etc. Hell, what games were getting the crowds at arcade? That should have been a factor as well. Where is NBA Jam, mortal kombat and TMNT? GQ should have got these people who voted some better criteria and told them to think a little harder.

Bruce Almighty said:

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I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, so most of my favorite games are from that era, but I also think games have gotten better over time. It's hard to compare a game like Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption 2 to the original Super Mario Bros because of the differences in technology. If the list is on entertainment value, most hard core gamers are going to have a list of more games from the last two decades. If the list is based on true greatness within its time period and importance, the list is going to be different. With the later, Super Mario Bros is a top 5 game because it likely saved the video game industry. Even if the game is dated now and is ridiculous easy for modern day gamers, within its time period, there are very few games that I would say is "greater". The one weird omission for me is Donkey Kong Country. That's probably my favorite pre 2000s game of all time it was massively popular when it was released.

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The bolded is true, to a point. I think that becomes less impactful once to you reach the 3D generations though. It's a lot easier to compare Breath of the Wild to Ocarina of Time than to Link to the Past, even though there was roughly the same amount of time between LttP and OoT as between BotW and now TotK. YKWIM?

I think its easier to say games like Metal Gear Solid or KOTOR hold up to today's games than a game like Super Mario Bros.

And then there is a game like Tetris.

Tetris can never really be upgraded, the surrounding background graphics have improved along with the sound, but the game itself has not and can not change.

It will be a top five game forever…

Funnily enough, this list had another iteration of Tetris (#79). Granted, I never played it, but the description is that it's Tetris an awesome soundtrack. I'm not sure that's something that belongs on a list that already has Tetris, and doesn't give enough credit to other games that have made more ground-breaking contributions.

Tetris with cool music should not get more recognition than Super Mario Bros.

BenTheGoodAg said:

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Funnily enough, this list had another iteration of Tetris (#79). Granted, I never played it, but the description is that it's Tetris an awesome soundtrack. I'm not sure that's something that belongs on a list that already has Tetris, and doesn't give enough credit to other games that have made more ground-breaking contributions.

Tetris with cool music should not get more recognition than Super Mario Bros.

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Tetris was awesome because we were playing a mobile cartridge game and thankful to even have one. I'd never pick up tetris again but can appreciate what it did for the industry. I whistle the jingle when putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

They essentially put Tetris on the list twice, because it's the same game. And the music sound quality may be better, but the original game had freakin' Tchaikovsky

Saxsoon said:

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Breath of the Wild isn't even the best game in its series

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And yet is still a top 5 all time game. That series is easily the most consistently high quality in that entire list. Been doing it for 37 years.

It's really hard to judge some of those games (specifically from the PS1/Dreamcast era) that were great for their time, but absolute beatings to play now. I've found that some things should be left in my memory, or if I missed it the first time around, it's too late to go back. The era of early voice acting, or attempts at 3D and cutscenes are now super clunky and dated.

For example, I tried Mega Man X4 (PS1) for the first time the other day. I gave up pretty quickly. Somehow it looked, played and sounded way worse than X3 (SNES) despite the jump in hardware. It's like the awkward teenage years of gaming. I'd put some N64 in that category as well.

And then there's your philosophy on learning curve or barriers to entry (so to speak). I love Baldur's Gate 2, but I've beaten it once and bailed within the first 10 hours about five times. If BG3 comes along and is less archaic, has a quicker and more gripping story and doesn't require an FAQ to make it out of the first city... doesn't that make BG3 a better game? Or does BG2 get all the credit because it was groundbreaking?

I guess the TL;DR is that arbitrary lists are arbitrary.

That list is full of games I've never heard of, and there's multiple Pokemon games? What?

So Super Mario Kart is at spot 90...where's Mario Kart 64 or Mario Kart 8? Both of those are so much better.
Horizon Zero Dawn didn't make the list?
Spider-Man?
Gran-Turismo?
Myst?
Mortal Kombat?

garbage top 10

Max Power said:

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That list is full of games I've never heard of, and there's multiple Pokemon games? What?

So Super Mario Kart is at spot 90...where's Mario Kart 64 or Mario Kart 8? Both of those are so much better.
Horizon Zero Dawn didn't make the list?
Spider-Man?
Gran-Turismo?
Myst?
Mortal Kombat?

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You don't play video games much if this is a list full of games you've never heard of. Out of the 100, I've never heard of 3. I've played at least 90% of the games on this list.

Ocarina and Goldeneye were the landscape changers! They should be top 5.

I am going to get some disagreement, even from my own self because I hate the game...however, Pac Man should be #1. Pac Man is what really got the gaming scene moving!

The original Zelda should be top 5 also. Again, landscape changer!

The only Mario game I would consider...the original Mario Kart. While we are on it...the best sports game...Tyson? NCCA Football 2010ish? Big Show? Forza?

Alright, it's been a long time since we've done a Texags survey and there are a ton of different opinions here, so let's do a top video games one: https://forms.gle/Pz6iQrmBDfrw15816

Form is open until Sunday night, then I'll compile and make us a full list (max 100).

Metroid Prime at 75 seems low.

Here's a question...would you rate Prime > Super Metroid?

This is a toughy!

Any list that doesn't have Robotron 2084 in the top 100 is a non-starter.

I'm not a modern gamer by any stretch but I almost got divorced due to Civilization and NHL 94. j/k

And I loved the original Tropico.

The only fairly recent game I've played is The Long Dark, which was awesome in sandbox mode.

Tropico!

I think I remember that one...What I remember most is that there was some boat or spaceship that had a computer you had to put a secret code into. The code was 3 digits and the code was found either on the inside of the box or the instruction manual. I somehow lost the code and had no way to input so I did what any young boy with plenty of time would do...I tried all 1000 numbers. None of them worked! I was ticked!!!

Edit - I just looked it up and totally had the wrong game. I was thinking of Star Tropics. :/

bluefire579 said:

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So if y'all look at the actual methodology, it's literally just weighted based on asking a bunch of prominent folks in the games industry and adjacent (designers, journalists, streamers) what their top 10 games are. There's no other qualifier, so a lot of y'all are raging against an aggregate of top 10 lists that would be just as different as if we ran the same exercise with people on this site (given the responses here, I think we'd see similar wackiness if we tried to aggregate our own lists).

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None of these Experts played sports.

No Team sports games at all.

The only two halfway sportish on the list were Street Fighter II and Tony Hawk