Yeah pacman and pong were seminal but so was elite on the BBC, and Populous which I think was on the spectrum. Also unreal tournament, silent hill, vice city, homeworld, doom 2016, beam ng, I enjoyed em all but I can’t decide. Ppl here have done much more gaming than me, I’m wondering what you all think is the best game ever. Age, platform, genre, bla bla - what’s best ever?
Has to be Outer Wilds for me. I can’t think of any other game that would have left such an impact on me, in such a short amount of time.
I heard how great the Outer Wilds was, so when I saw The Outer Worlds on sale I thought “oh hey sure I’ll buy that for $15” and I was EXTREMELY confused at why people had said it was the best game you could only play once, because that game wasn’t even fun the first time. I later realized my mistake and got the real deal and oh my god I wish I could forget that game and play it again.
I think Deus Ex (2000). The gameplay is so open and full of possibilities, and the story is crazy but it works so well. It’s so replayable.
As someone who is not big into platformers or souls-likes, Hollow Knight.
If I go with unique experiences as a criteria just to mix it up a bit I have a few
Playing xwing with a f16 flight stick is really fun and one of my first gaming experiences outside of nes and arcades. Just really fun fast paced fighter combat. A close second would be everspace or Chorus on a controller.
Playing one of the big multiplayer arcade cabinets like Simpsons or X-Men was the original couch co-op with whoever was at the arcade not playing pinball or pool.
Beating your first boss in a dark souls or elden ring game feels like a big accomplishment, sometimes even more than the later ones when your character gets more powerful.
Going from small groups with friends to raids in an MMORPG feels like starting a whole new game, EverQuest and wow were big ones for me.
Edit: fix typo, add type to flight stick
Playing one of the big multiplayer arcade cabinets like Simpsons or X-Men was the original couch co-op with whoever was at the arcade not playing pinball or pool.
I bought the 4-Player co-op X-Men arcade cabinet from Arcade1up and it’s been a blast playing it all the way through with my son.
That sounds like an awesome experience, I have a friend with a mame cab in their basement that I would probably spend too much time on it if I had one. I went with the cheaper option for mame and arcade legacy using a raspberry pi running batocera, but for some games it’s just not the same without the arcade controls.
I’m going to split this in to two categories: 1) games that were the best for their time, but perhaps don’t hold up nowadays. 2) Games that are the best today.
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GoldenEye. This game was just so good both single and multiplayer. It was revolutionary, amazingly close to the film and a real challenge to complete. It was a huge game changer and entered in the modern era for such games.
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I just really like Just Cause 3. It’s such fun, great visual, even better game mechanics, cool soundtrack, a true open world and massive destruction, endless ways to approach every situation.
Thanks, I’ll try out just cause 3, looks fun!
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Its been almost 6 years since I first finished dark souls 1, and I still think of its endings and themes.
The age of light and dark. Prolonging the current status quo, or give up and accept the new one. The idea that alone, the chosen undead is weak, but as you get help from others, you can get better/stronger.
Best game ever is… difficult if not impossible to qualify. I’m gonna go with Shadow of War near the top though. Nobody else will, but I really appreciate that game’s ability to keep generating new experiences for you. Perfected the arkham combat, beautiful ragdolls, endless endgame to keep experiencing new orcs.
That’s easy, Bloodborne.
I’m not sure there can ever even be a “best game ever”, but in any case mine is Grand Theft Auto 3.
Picture the scene. You’ve got your shiny PlayStation 2. You’ve got a bunch of games, but honestly, a lot of it could have been done on the PS1 with worse graphics.
And this bad boy drops, and never stops surprising you with all the absolute chaos you can cause. Not much of a story to go on, but the sheer scale of it was amazing. A whole city of driving, slightly wonky shooting and even flying (a bit). It was a game that just felt like the hardware was designed specifically for that.
We were no longer just playing games. We were living in the future. And we’ve never gone back.
I felt much the same about vice city. Changed my understanding of what games could be.
I’m going to contradict myself a little, because Vice City is the better game. It’s got an actual story, a great voice cast, helicopter gunships, and the finest soundtrack of any game ever made.
But it was very much built on GTA3. The mind was already blown. It wasn’t going to happen again.
Yeah that’s fair, I never got to play GTA3 so vice city was my mind-blown moment.
When it dropped my folks were on a trip and I was staying with my grandma. Rolled into circuit city to get a copy and then dick behind the counter told me I wasn’t old enough (12) to play the game. My grandma had my back though and told him off. Good times.
I’ll probably get flamed for this, but no game has kept my interest/attention or had been as important to me as Old School RuneScape.
Well, my personal favorite game of all time is TES 4: Oblivion. The reasons I love that game are numerous but if I were to try to argue for it as being objectively the best game ever…
I guess I could say that the combination of older RPG mechanics with streamlined modern gameplay, mixed with a immensely beautiful fantasy world, flawless soundtrack, epic world-shattering plot, two of the best expansions ever made (KOTN and SI), absurdly legendary guild quests all come together to make it a true work of art.
I used to love TES4 too, but after playing Daggerfall and Morrowind, I started to look at Oblivion coldly. The old concept of Oblivion was great, but what was released… meh. But hey, quests in Oblivion are pretty good.
I began with Morrowind and I’ve played every TES game (other than those obscure “Travels” games in the early 2000s) but Oblivion remains for me. That said, Daggerfall’s sheer scope in both gameplay and world size is incredible, and Morrowind’s perfect blend of sandbox freedom with an awesome plot definitely do make them candidates as well. I just personally love the entire series and Oblivion was the one that converted me from “fan” to “megafan” so that’s why I go for that one.
Tetris and it isn’t even a contest. Pretty much everyone can learn and enjoy Tetris.
Portal and portal 2 those are the best ever, a story line everyone can get behind, likable characters. Good game loop. They are just masterclasses.
Portal 2 was way better than Portal, which felt like mostly a really extended tech demo or proof-of-concept. Portal 2 felt like an actual, full, fleshed-out game.
Been gaming since 1984 or some such.
By number of hours played: Factorio
By number of hours I can monologue about a game at you: also Factorio
By how much I think it affected gaming industry and culture: Doom
Speaking of which… Dev Turns Doom Into a Playable CAPTCHA Test - Game Rant
Either Witcher 3 or Baldurs Gate 3.
