Top 10 video games of all time..

[Fresh Kid]

discuss..

[rhythmic]

The Last Of Us
Uncharted 2
Uncharted 3
GTA: San Andreas
Max Payne
Super Mario Bros 3
Mario Kart
Red Dead Redemption
Modern Warfare 2
Goldeneye 007

I don't think any of those games are replaceable to me, they are the games I spent the most time playing during my lifetime. The only game I could think of replacing is MW2, and it would be with a game like Halo: Combat Evolved, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Half-Life 2, BioShock or Arkham City.

Also, Jak & Daxter (Precursor Legacy), GTA III & Ocarina Of Time has to be mentioned.

[miller-time]

It is actually hard to come up with a list. The problem is 2 fold.

1 It is hard to measure the future impact of current games - which makes older games seem more important.

2 Games can improve through a series while only adding minor tweaks. Do you give the ranking to the first game that added most of the content and concepts or do you give to a later game the improved on the first?

This is in a rough order from 1 to 10

Super Mario Brothers 3
Gran Turismo 2
Half Life
Battlefield 2
Age of Empires 2
Goldeneye
Metal Gear Solid
GTA: San Andreas
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
Mario Kart 64

I have to admit the list is a little bit last century.

Hon mentions would be Red Dead Redemption, Halo 3, Portal 2

[Hotbullets]

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (best open world game to date, lots to do, great, compelling story, awesome setting, just a damn near perfect game, although it was kinda fugly, even back then.)

Metal Gear Solid (although I kind of liked the fourth one the best, the first MGS takes the cake. Brilliant storyline, innovative gameplay, some of the most interesting characters ever and let's not forget the epic boss battles)

Zelda: The Wind Waker (don't judge, this was my first Zelda game and I've been in love ever since. Honestly I enjoyed Twilight Princess a little more, but this one made me believe Nintendo is the best first party developer there is. Loved the cartoony graphics, loved the dungeons, especially the one in the Deku Tree, just a brilliant overall game. Psyched for the HD remake)

Heavy Rain (although this game has loads of plotholes and flaws overall, I really liked the emphosis on emotion and storytelling. It's just something I've never seen before, can't wait for Beyond: Two Souls)

[glidedrxlr22]

My answer to this question would probably change on a week to week basis. For now quickly off the top of my head in no order:

Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 2
Uncharted 2
The Last of Us
Skies of Arcadia
Demon's Souls
Witcher 2
Killzone 2
Final Fantasy VI - snes
Mike Tyson's Punchout

[eriX]

[QUOTE=rhythmic

[miller-time]

MW2? :biggums:

Im sorry but anything after CoD4 is just garbage made to milk the market

MW2 was fine. An incremental sequel to a winning formula I don't have a problem with. It was everything after MW2 that was recycled trash.

[Kungfro]

It is actually hard to come up with a list. The problem is 2 fold.

1 It is hard to measure the future impact of current games - which makes older games seem more important.

2 Games can improve through a series while only adding minor tweaks. Do you give the ranking to the first game that added most of the content and concepts or do you give to a later game the improved on the first?

This is in a rough order from 1 to 10

Super Mario Brothers 3
Gran Turismo 2
Half Life
Battlefield 2
Age of Empires 2
Goldeneye
Metal Gear Solid
GTA: San Andreas
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
Mario Kart 64

I have to admit the list is a little bit last century.

Hon mentions would be Red Dead Redemption, Halo 3, Portal 2

I really like that list actually, though I never did get into Gran Turismo.

[Kungfro]

I think my personal list would go something like this;

Half-Life
Pokemon (not sure which one I would pick for this, as each sequel has made improvements over the previous game).
Super Mario World
San Andreas
Halo
Chrono Trigger
CoD4
Super Metroid
Ocarina of Time
Diablo 2

There are a ton of great games I've never played though. Final Fantasy specifically is a series I never really got into. There's probably a bunch I'm forgetting too.

[Heavincent]

1. The Last of Us
2. Red Dead Redemption

The rest in no particular order

Gears of War 3
Spyro 2
Halo 3
Crash Bandicoot
Assassin's Creed 2
Mass Effect
NBA 2K11
NBA Street Vol. 2

[Thorpesaurous]

I'm probably just enough older for my list to look a little weird, although it's pretty much a mash up between Rhthmic's and Glide's lists.

Zelda I - The game that changed everything for me as a kid. Prior to that games were a fun distraction. After that they were unread adventure books.


Metroid - Sort of like Zelda in that it just kind of invented this mazy sort of gameplay that made exploration part of gaming. And a spacey sci fi setting, and a mind blowing ending.


Resident Evil 1 - The tank play is archaic at this point, but this was the first thing that felt really 3D exploration to me, put in the horror genre that was spectacular at the time. And sort of is the precursor to the cinematic element that is so prevelant now, with the way the camera cut even from within a room, not just room to room. And just love the way the house opens up as you go.

Resident Evil 2 - just a huge upgrade from 1 to 2 in terms of graphics. I didn't like the layout as much as the house. Felt more tree branchy to me, where you kind of just went forward, found a gate or a key, then went back the other way. But expanding on the story, and not just sort of starting a new adventure, but how it felt like a real movie sequel, was awesome.

Resident Evil 4 - The reboot of the series. I didn't play it for a long time because I didn't like that it became another over the shoulder shooter, but after finally getting it, I was blown away.

GTA Vice City - I've liked all the GTAs, but this one is by far my favorite. I know it's small compared to SA, and there's isn't as much sandboxyness, but to me it was the cheekiest of the satire we've seen from Rockstar. The notable actors playing the characters, the way the era could be lampooned in terms of clothes and music. That's why I like Vice City the best.

Red Dead Redemption - The Western was a game genre that had been tried before, but I'm not sure anyone ever got anything so right. It's a perfect genre for an open world. All the little side add ons were great like the hunting and random missions and stranger missions, card games, bountys. Just everything. And they got the horse riding right, which was a huge element. Story is spectacular. Music is spot on. Great great game.

Uncharted 2 - I still prefer 2 to 3. Don't underestimate the jaw dropping element of it at the time of it's release, the jump from 1, which was a spectacular game, to 2, was just absurd. Again, this blew the doors off the cinematic experience of playing a game. The pacing was perfect. The gunplay and cover system was clean. The animations just in regular play just made it feel unlike anything I'd played up to that point. 3 is great too, but it didn't have the wow factor 2 did for me at the time, where I felt like I had to tell my friends about it, which is weird seeing as I was in my 30s and most of them had kids.

The Last of Us - This took the Uncharted cinematic layout, and just dropped an exquisite story on it, while changing the gameplay mechanism just enough, providing that survival feel of adrenaline and intensity, with the limited supplies and genuinely scary bad guys, to make it feel totally fresh. It's like a cross between Uncharted and Resident Evil, with the story being less hokey. How was I not gonna love it.

Those are the nine that just immediately jump out at me. You'll notice ... I'm not an XBox guy, which I know cost me some stuff I probably would've loved, like Mass Effect perhaps. I'm not a FPS guy. I like exploration. I pretty much skipped the 16 bit generation, which isn't true. I went Genesis then PS, not Super Nintendo or N64, so I'm missing the continuation of the Zelda series, which I genuinely regret, and Metroid to a degree. But I will say I was in middle school at that point, starting to get boners, becoming increasingly physical and competitive, and getting into trouble, so I was probably out chasing girls, playing basketball or football, and / or experimenting with drugs and alcohol. So gaming probably was gonna get away from me some anyway through those years. I believe RE1 was late HS for me, which sort of got me back in some, and there's a lot of time in college to get back into it, even with all the trouble there is to get into. Then I came back to it as I got older. So I have my fantasy years as a kid, then come back later.

There's a number of things that could take that tenth spot. San Andreas. A Madden. Mike Tyson's Punch Out was a seminal experience as a kid. I had way more fun playing Onimusha than it probably deserved. An Assassin's Creed, probably 3. I can't remember the name of my favorite old Genesis game, which was really violent, but that's possible. There was an old Super Nintendo College Basketball game that I loved, it was 3D with no crowd, but the camera always stayed behind the ball, which is something I wondered why didn't take off, instead going to the universal isometric angle. Either of the first two Dead Space's could make the cut. Or I could go way outside the box with something like Tetris on the car rides as a kid on my gameboy. Or walking along the boardwalk on our summer vacations at Hampton beach and bouncing from arcade to arcade and waiting in line to play Mortal Combat, or sneaking into the last arcade that had a hidden Dragon's Lair in the back we could take turns on. Or even go with something like PixelJunk's Shooter, which was the game that made me start actively looking into Indy DL games, which led to Limbo and Journey and The Walking Dead Episodes, all of which I could make a case for.

I love video games. I'm just afraid they'll stop making them for people who like them how I like them someday. The games I like are expensive to produce, and have a limited audience because they don't exist for online shit talking. That'll be a sad day.

[eriX]

MW2 was fine. An incremental sequel to a winning formula I don't have a problem with. It was everything after MW2 that was recycled trash.

I dont know if you have played CoD2 or even COD4, but those 2 games defined CoD and the fps genre along with CS. Im talking strictly multiplayer, the design of the map, weapons and pace were what made these two games the top competitive fps along with CS. Not to mention modding capabilities in terms of competitive modes, theres a reason no pros has moved on to any COD series after 4.

[Lebowsky]

My own personal 10 in no order:

-Baldur's Gate
-Skyrim
-Ultima VII & VIII
-Half Life
-Warcraft II
-Starcraft
-Age of Empires
-Civilization II
-Then last of US
-GTA San Andreas

Honorable mentions: Diablo I, Hidden & Dangerous, Commandos, Day of the Tentacle, Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Okami and so many more...

[Qwyjibo]

My personal top 10. This is just my preference, not what I think were the most influential games or anything:

1. Planescape: Torment
- This is my absolute favourite. I go back to this game every couple years. In the 20+ years that I've been a gamer, I've never experience a story and writing in a game as good as this.

Half Life 2
Civilization series (any of Civ 2, 4 or 5 can be in this spot)
Bastion
Red Dead Redemption
Bioshock Infinite
No Ones Lives Forever 2
Baldur's Gate 2
Fallout 2
Super Mario World

The next few would be: Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, System Shock 2, Batman Arkham City, Freespace 2, Final Fantasy 6, Mass Effect 2

[nightprowler10]

I love video games. I'm just afraid they'll stop making them for people who like them how I like them someday. The games I like are expensive to produce, and have a limited audience because they don't exist for online shit talking. That'll be a sad day.
The success The Last of Us has seen recently should allay that fear somewhat.

[Bucket_Nakedz]

last of us and uncharted lol and no mass effect. naughty dog is cool, but i never understood why uncharted gets soo much hype. playstation fans really needed something to grasp on

1. majoras mask

2. mass effect

3. san andreas

4. mario kart

5. street fighter

6. castlevania

7. turtles in time

8. donkey kong country

9. heavy rain

10. mario 64

[miller-time]

I really like that list actually, though I never did get into Gran Turismo.

When GT1 came out it was so far ahead of any other racing game it was ridiculous. I think the series has taken a step back in the current generation - with Forza stepping up. Gran Turismo 5 still beats it as a simulator, but I found the game itself kind of awkward and half finished feeling - most of the cars are just models taken from Gran Turismo 4 on PS2.. Forza 3 and 4 are as slick a game as you can find.

[Scholar]

It's hard for me to make a definite list. All I'll say is The Last of Us will likely (and hopefully) turn out to be influential in future video games. The cinematic feel is beyond what any other game has offered & the storytelling is superb.

I think the most influential game honor should go to GTA III. It opened Pandora's box & showed the gaming industry just how big and bad ass a game can be. Open world? Check. Action packed? Check. Play-at-your-own-pace experience? Check. Side missions/hidden objects? Check. I can't even count how many hours I spent playing that game.

[Burgz V2]

my number one is chrono trigger. I don't really play RPG's either, but this game was just such a classic.

[rhythmic]

last of us and uncharted lol and no mass effect. naughty dog is cool, but i never understood why uncharted gets soo much hype. playstation fans really needed something to grasp on

1. majoras mask

2. mass effect

3. san andreas

4. mario kart

5. street fighter

6. castlevania

7. turtles in time

8. donkey kong country

9. heavy rain

10. mario 64

:rolleyes: Yeah lets diss TLoU & Uncharted yet rank Heavy Rain as the 9th best game ever. A game that is far more interactive then either of those games you dismissed.

I love Heavy Rain, and I'm surprised you have it on your list considering you can't stand Uncharted or TLoU. The two best games I have ever played in my life.

[CeltsGarlic]

heroes 3

[Goliath Uterus]

My favorites in no order...


Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3
Red Dead Redemption
GTA: San Andreas
GTA IV
Uncharted 2
Dishonored
Hitman: Blood Money
NBA 2k13
Max Payne 3

[code green]

1. Ninja Gaiden (NES) - I've yet to find another game that gives me the adrenaline rush and utter NEED to beat the game the way Ninja Gaiden did. And when I finally beat it, I kept playing it over and over until I could beat it without getting one game over. The music, the story, the action...epic.

2. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) - I'm a huge Zelda fan, and this one is my favorite out of all the titles in the series. I really enjoy the 3D versions, and two of them show up further down on my list, but they don't have the same gameplay and ease of use the way LttP did.

3. Super Mario Bros 3 (NES) - Probably the first game I've ever beaten, it's still my favorite Mario game of all time. Great powerups, great difficulty curve and fun levels made this my favorite game as a kid.

4. Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker (GCN) - Lots of people hated on the cell shaded graphics for Wind Waker, but I loved it. It gave us the chance to really get some "emotion" out of Link, as opposed to the stonefaced, boring hero we had before. The music was great (I use the music when you're sailing as my alarm every morning), puzzles even greater, and it had a nice satisfying ending where you stab Gannon in the face and end his shit.

5. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) - My first 16 bit game, and probably among the first 5 games I've ever beaten. I've played this game many times I've beaten it without getting hit once. Ended up with something like 46 lives and a bunch of continues. Sonic 2 also has damn good music...love the Chemical Plant Zone theme the most.

6. Pokemon Yellow (GBC) - I hated Pokemon when it was in its heyday...I was probably 13 or 14 and thought it was too kiddy for my liking, especially with the TV shows and everything. I picked it up at 17 and instantly changed my mind about it. I tapped out after 496 Pokemon, but I've played so many of them and studied types/weaknesses/movesets/teams to the point where it's pretty sad.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - Three Zelda games and no Ocarina of Time? Yeah, well....I really liked this entry in the series because I felt the biggest connection to Link out of any other Zelda game I've played. I hated the fact that Skyloft replaced Hyrule at first, but the characters made it a lot more intimate. We finally got a relationship between Link and Zelda that was much more dynamic than "Go save the princess." Plus the controls (and the stamina bar) where fantastic on the Wii Motion Plus Remote.

8. Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door (GCN) - The 2nd entry to the Paper Mario series, and the third console RPG that starred Mario. The gameplay was addictive, although it could get repetitive (but what RPG doesn't?). It had some legit LOL moments, and I remember being really disappointed after beating the game because I wanted more. If that's not a sign of a great game, I don't know what is.

9. Mortal Kombat (2011) (PS3) - I've owned every Mortal Kombat game since they started coming out. MK's my favorite fighting series and MK2001 is my favorite out of all of them. The kharacter list is impressive (would've liked Shinnok to make an appearance though), and the fighting mechanic is smooth and fluid. I loved the addition of the challenge tower, and how the story mode doesn't feel like a tacked-on afterthought like every other fighting game I've played in my life. Oh, how can i forget the fatalities? Lots and lots of gems here....Quan Chi's Leg Beatdown and Kung Lao's Buzzsaw are my favorites.

10. NBA 2k13 (PS3) - I've owned copies of NBA Live/2k every year since 1997, and this is my favorite. I think it's the best basketball simulation I've seen in a video game, and fell in love with the MyCareer mode as soon as I started playing it.

HMs: Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii), Mega Man 2 (NES), Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing (PS3), Turtles in Time (SNES), Castlevania (NES)

[riseagainst]

Halo 2 needs to be on here. It was basically the catalyst for the modern day competitive online/multiplayer gaming.

[talkingconch]

some of you guys seem very young. No Zelda Ocarina of time?

[outbreak]

Off the top of my head for me I'd have

baldurs gate 2
knights of the old republic 1
counter strike 1.6 and source
mortal kombat 2
elder scrolls oblivion
age of empires
simcity
resident evil 1 and 2
some of the fifa's from the psone
the first bioshock
the first assassins creed
time crisis
house of the dead 1 and 2
diablo

Listed games more current, I'm big into emulation and arcade machines there's way too many older games I like too, metroid, alex kid (one of my favourites of all time), wonderboy (play the shit out of the first one and monster world still), gun fight, metal slug, tmnt, x-men arcade, gauntlet, golden axe etc

most of these old ones hold more replay value for me though because you don't need to invest as much time to get a quick fix.

[Suguru101]

some of you guys seem very young. No Zelda Ocarina of time?

This, i find it disturbing that there have been this many responses and no OoT yet.

Anyways, this is my personal list.

1- The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. (won't really get into it, but the feeling you get when playing through this game is unlike any other i've experienced)

2- Final Fantasy X. (the story is just on another level)

3- Kingdom Hearts 1. (Story, enjoyment factor, characters.. it all clicked)

4- Resident Evil 4. (replay factor is extremely high because of the amazing pace of the game.. first playthrough was just magical)

5- Metroid Prime. (Atmosphere was top notch. Setting, story.. just awesome)

6- Dragon Quest VIII. (This is the most enjoyable RPG i've played.. i have beaten it countless times because of how enjoying the game is. The world is extremely immersive, and the monster sidequest is one of the best ever)

7- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. (winning)

8- God of War 1. (must-play, the first one was the best and the story/setting was excellent)

9- Final Fantasy XII. (Game-play is extremelly well done, two amazing characters, but story is keeping it from being historic)

10- Dark Souls. (Play it, be amazed)

Now, i haven't beaten The Last of Us, so i can't include it.

Other games that missed the cut were:

Final Fantasy 5.

Resident Evil. (game cube remake)

Uncharted 2.

The Last of Us. (At friends, didn't finish it.. probably would have been included)

[fsvr54]

Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox is the greatest game of all time for me. Most fluid combat system ever and perfect difficulty.

[Rojogaqu11]

Games I've spent the most time playing, in no order:

Super Metroid
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Ninja Gaiden Black
Final Fantasy X
Mass Effect 1-2
Killer Instinct
Skyrim
DOTA
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Halo 2

Super Mario Bros 3
World of Warcraft
Megaman X
Biker Mice from Mars
Contra
Chrono Trigger
Secret of Evermore
Super Mario Kart


I logged in so many hours playing video games that after skyrim I just decided to not have video games as a main pastime. I might play here an there once every month maybe. Fun memories though.