Best Video Games of all time Draft
07-26-2018
, 04:44 PM
07-26-2018
, 05:35 PM
07-26-2018
, 07:23 PM
With the Seventh overall pick in the Greatest Games of All Time draft, GGI selects:
HL2 had a lot to live up to after how successful and good HL1 was. This game will forever go down as one of the best games of all time. Given the time period it came out in, it literally had the best graphics of any game to that point in history.
The way the A.I in this game interacted with the player, was something that had not been done before.
Whats kinda crazy about this is I made a thread in 2013 about the greatest single level in a video game, and I believe this game has it.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/7...30/?highlight=
This game has one of the best weapons ever put in a game.
The game had everything else that one could want, great narrative design, well rounded and interesting characters that are well developed, great non-repetitive level design, incredible sound design.
And it still gets use today as a speed game.
This game is a masterpiece and deserves it's spot in the top 10.
GGI:
1. Half Life 2
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
HL2 had a lot to live up to after how successful and good HL1 was. This game will forever go down as one of the best games of all time. Given the time period it came out in, it literally had the best graphics of any game to that point in history.
Spoiler:
The way the A.I in this game interacted with the player, was something that had not been done before.
Spoiler:
Whats kinda crazy about this is I made a thread in 2013 about the greatest single level in a video game, and I believe this game has it.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/7...30/?highlight=
This game has one of the best weapons ever put in a game.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The game had everything else that one could want, great narrative design, well rounded and interesting characters that are well developed, great non-repetitive level design, incredible sound design.
And it still gets use today as a speed game.
Spoiler:
This game is a masterpiece and deserves it's spot in the top 10.
GGI:
1. Half Life 2
07-26-2018
, 07:55 PM
Quote:
The Year was 1996. Sony's PlayStation had brought the world 3-Dimensional Gaming for a full two years. Everybody was in anticipation of what Nintendo was going to do to usher in the 3-Dimensional Era.
Anticipation was high. Expectations were sky high. And they knocked it out of the ****ing park.
Sure there were things to improve upon. The camera was a bit wonky. Hit boxes weren't 100% perfect... But the controls were amazing. Inventions like cannons and the Wing Cap brought a whole new level of depth and excitement to 3D Platforming. There were secrets to find, rabbits to catch, and a wide and fun variety of levels to explore. And the music was top notch.
I think Super Mario 64 advanced gaming like no other game, on top of being incredibly fun to play. I'd argue that most of the 3D Platformers that have come since SM64 are basically just expansions to SM64. There are new physics wrinkles, there are new movements that Mario can make... But the basic controls of Mario running and jumping still feel similar 22 years later.
Zimmer's roster
1. Super Mario 64
Kafja is next.
Anticipation was high. Expectations were sky high. And they knocked it out of the ****ing park.
Sure there were things to improve upon. The camera was a bit wonky. Hit boxes weren't 100% perfect... But the controls were amazing. Inventions like cannons and the Wing Cap brought a whole new level of depth and excitement to 3D Platforming. There were secrets to find, rabbits to catch, and a wide and fun variety of levels to explore. And the music was top notch.
I think Super Mario 64 advanced gaming like no other game, on top of being incredibly fun to play. I'd argue that most of the 3D Platformers that have come since SM64 are basically just expansions to SM64. There are new physics wrinkles, there are new movements that Mario can make... But the basic controls of Mario running and jumping still feel similar 22 years later.
Zimmer's roster
1. Super Mario 64
Kafja is next.
Quote:
Tetris
part of why I thought it would be interesting to do this is because I wanted to talk a little bit about how 'games as art' discussion in the mainstream is almost always centred around characters and story, because gamers and gaming publications and so on want games to be associated with more high-class art forms like film, novels and prestige TV. I have always thought this is really stupid because (a) almost all video game stories suck complete ass, and (b) the art of video games is not about storytelling, it's about design.
Tetris is the best example of what a video game is and why they are fun. It's literally perfect – there have been about 40 different official Tetris games since the original Tetris, and none of them are as good because it's unimprovable. It has no enemies, no bosses, no characters, basically no graphics, and no goal, except to keep playing the game. It has a perfect balance of strategy, speed, luck and skill to burrow into your brain and smash your dopamine receptors so hard you can't quit and see tetris blocks in your dreams, while somehow making that experience still enjoyable. It can make you smarter, and helps with quitting drugs and managing PTSD flashbacks – presumably because now all your flashbacks are about Tetris and you can't stop playing for long enough to shoot up. Moms can play it, kids can play it, amazon tribespeople untouched by modernity could pick up and play it and they'd love it. Aliens could play it. It works on a fundamental level. Nothing is as simple as Tetris while also being as deep. It's exactly as great now as it was when it was released 34 years ago – which isn't going to be true of some of the nostalgia-fuelled picks I assume people (including me) will be making in this draft. Folks, Tetris is good as hell.
Certain types of games are always considered for these types of 'best games ever' discussions – single player shooters, platformers, RPGs – but many never get a look in or are undervalued – simulation games, sports games, competitive online FPS's, strategy games, and puzzle games like tetris. But if you're a long time game player, think about the games you've sunk the most hours into in your life – it's more likely to be these latter type of games than something like [example], that has a 95 on metacritic, gorgeous graphics and contains 5 hours of generic shooting and 5 hours of daytime TV level ****ty cut scenes. A game you play once and then forget about because once you've seen the 'content' there's very little actual game worth going back to. That is not a good game.
Tetris is a good game. It's a perfect game. So it's my #1 pick
Tetris
part of why I thought it would be interesting to do this is because I wanted to talk a little bit about how 'games as art' discussion in the mainstream is almost always centred around characters and story, because gamers and gaming publications and so on want games to be associated with more high-class art forms like film, novels and prestige TV. I have always thought this is really stupid because (a) almost all video game stories suck complete ass, and (b) the art of video games is not about storytelling, it's about design.
Tetris is the best example of what a video game is and why they are fun. It's literally perfect – there have been about 40 different official Tetris games since the original Tetris, and none of them are as good because it's unimprovable. It has no enemies, no bosses, no characters, basically no graphics, and no goal, except to keep playing the game. It has a perfect balance of strategy, speed, luck and skill to burrow into your brain and smash your dopamine receptors so hard you can't quit and see tetris blocks in your dreams, while somehow making that experience still enjoyable. It can make you smarter, and helps with quitting drugs and managing PTSD flashbacks – presumably because now all your flashbacks are about Tetris and you can't stop playing for long enough to shoot up. Moms can play it, kids can play it, amazon tribespeople untouched by modernity could pick up and play it and they'd love it. Aliens could play it. It works on a fundamental level. Nothing is as simple as Tetris while also being as deep. It's exactly as great now as it was when it was released 34 years ago – which isn't going to be true of some of the nostalgia-fuelled picks I assume people (including me) will be making in this draft. Folks, Tetris is good as hell.
Certain types of games are always considered for these types of 'best games ever' discussions – single player shooters, platformers, RPGs – but many never get a look in or are undervalued – simulation games, sports games, competitive online FPS's, strategy games, and puzzle games like tetris. But if you're a long time game player, think about the games you've sunk the most hours into in your life – it's more likely to be these latter type of games than something like [example], that has a 95 on metacritic, gorgeous graphics and contains 5 hours of generic shooting and 5 hours of daytime TV level ****ty cut scenes. A game you play once and then forget about because once you've seen the 'content' there's very little actual game worth going back to. That is not a good game.
Tetris is a good game. It's a perfect game. So it's my #1 pick
That said I think there are a lot of ways to define art, and something like Tetris definitely fits that definition - as an experience, as the ultimate game for accessibility, the modern day achievement of nirvana, however you want to define it. And in that sense, Tetris seems pretty hard to beat for impact and staying power. I'm not sure I personally would take it this early, but I think you make a really interesting argument for it - and it's not something I would have thought about much.
07-26-2018
, 09:06 PM
Back in high school, my friends and I used to play a particular multiplayer game (I won’t mention it by name because it will likely go in the next couple of rounds and if not I might take it next time). I was the only one who owned the game so I had a massive advantage over everyone else and sure enough, I won nearly every time we played. When I moved to college, the guys across the hall invited me to play said game, and I took their challenge, confident that they would be helpless against me. Instead I was unceremoniously destroyed, with techniques I hadn’t even considered in my wildest fantasies. The point of this first meander is, I may be up for a similar experience in this thread despite having been a gamer for 30 years.
I'll keep the second meander brief. I still remember the first time I saw a console video game: I was five or six years old, at the house of a friend who had recently gotten an NES. I was immediately smitten and knew that I had to have one for myself; other than meeting my wife, this may have been the seminal experience of my life. While I considered some of the games that I saw that day for this pick, I decided to go with what I consider the pinnacle of that early gaming experience, which would have a massive influence on games that came after it:
I'll keep the second meander brief. I still remember the first time I saw a console video game: I was five or six years old, at the house of a friend who had recently gotten an NES. I was immediately smitten and knew that I had to have one for myself; other than meeting my wife, this may have been the seminal experience of my life. While I considered some of the games that I saw that day for this pick, I decided to go with what I consider the pinnacle of that early gaming experience, which would have a massive influence on games that came after it:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Last edited by Jiggymike; 07-26-2018 at 09:18 PM.
07-26-2018
, 10:30 PM
Yours and the one above you
To be fair I never played the multiplayer in TLOU but have been told it’s fantastic.Anyway I guess I’ll move on to my next pick since I have the time. There were several games I considered for this spot, and a few which I may regret passing when this thing is all over because they surely won’t last until my next picks. However I couldn’t resist a little synergy between my back-to-back selections; if my previous pick was the platformer that set the bar for the earlier generation of games, it seemed appropriate to make my next pick the platformer that modern gaming should aspire to:
Spoiler:
[SPOIL] The first time you play Spelunky, you probably die pretty quickly after a spider falls on your head but think “Oh, that was pretty neat, let’s do another run.” Now you know that spiders fall on you but that doesn’t always make them easy to avoid. On your next run time you come across a woman screaming for help, stuck behind some bricks. A well placed bomb should free her...but you put it one pixel-length too close. Oh well, maybe you’ll see her again. Hey look a golden idol, that looks important...SPLAT! Every run is a chance to learn something new to help you advance further in this perfect, procedurally generated cavern. And seriously, the level of precision in the jumping and climbing are incredible; I can’t imagine being able to play another platform game on my keyboard the way I do with Spelunky.
Across two devices, I’ve probably done at least 500 runs of Spelunky, and I still haven’t found every secret or even unlocked all the special rooms. Heck I’m pretty sure I’ve only beaten it once, maybe twice if I was lucky. I started playing it in 2013 and probably did a run every day for years; I haven’t played it much lately only because there were other games to experience. Just writing about it makes me want to load it up right now though...”
07-27-2018
, 07:20 AM
Quote:
Imo it's also worth pointing out the fact it's still one of the most popular games to speedrun, and they're still finding things (the no jump challenge, the half A press, etc.) - it's testament to how well-made the game is.
Really interesting write-up. I'm not sure I completely agree with the premise re: video games are about design over storytelling - my thinking is more that it's about storytelling through design, and the avenues that gaming as a medium opens up compared to books/film/tv/etc. While I've definitely spent more time on some games that have no real story to them, I may have still overall spent more time thinking and processing "artistic" games.
That said I think there are a lot of ways to define art, and something like Tetris definitely fits that definition - as an experience, as the ultimate game for accessibility, the modern day achievement of nirvana, however you want to define it. And in that sense, Tetris seems pretty hard to beat for impact and staying power. I'm not sure I personally would take it this early, but I think you make a really interesting argument for it - and it's not something I would have thought about much.
Really interesting write-up. I'm not sure I completely agree with the premise re: video games are about design over storytelling - my thinking is more that it's about storytelling through design, and the avenues that gaming as a medium opens up compared to books/film/tv/etc. While I've definitely spent more time on some games that have no real story to them, I may have still overall spent more time thinking and processing "artistic" games.
That said I think there are a lot of ways to define art, and something like Tetris definitely fits that definition - as an experience, as the ultimate game for accessibility, the modern day achievement of nirvana, however you want to define it. And in that sense, Tetris seems pretty hard to beat for impact and staying power. I'm not sure I personally would take it this early, but I think you make a really interesting argument for it - and it's not something I would have thought about much.
i probably overstated my opposition to narrative games a bit - there are definitely exceptions ITT that I love, like TLOU - even though the zombie shooting part of the game was only okay, the story and world building was so great that i still class it as an amazing game, which kind of undermines my own points.
i do wonder about extreme examples like Telltale games and David Cage games - are these good video games? can you have a good video game that has essentially zero gameplay? i would say no, and yet I've enjoyed several Telltale games (Cage games......not so much). but they're kind of in a different class of 'interactive story type thing'. but the more that line gets blurred the more complicated it is.
anyway...I've never played Spelunky but I'm glad to see someone go so left field
07-27-2018
, 08:14 AM
