We hold these truths to be self-evident, that videogames are created awesome.

September 7, 2008 11:41 PM

The Actionbutton.net Manifesto: The 25 Best Games of All Time. An eclectic list of awesome, and sometimes obscure games, accompanied by impassioned, long-winded, often pretentious and sometimes insightful essays/reviews.

Bonus quasi-related link: 1UP chats(warning: 43mb mp3 file) with Rod Humble (The Sims/The Marriage), Jonathan Blow and David Hellman (Braid) about game design, post-modern literature and lots of other stuff. I linked those guys in a previous Braid post, but this is a really good interview that seems to sum up a lot of what's going on in the games industry, and they answer a lot of criticisms.

posted by empath (96 comments total)

No Baldur's Gate 2?! That is a terrible list.
posted by demon666 at 11:46 PM on September 7, 2008 [2 favorites]

Playthru of their #1.

Which I might agree with.
posted by troy at 11:59 PM on September 7, 2008 [3 favorites]

Hell yeah! Lost Vikings is, in fact, a great fucking game. Same goes for every game on this list that I've played, Doom, Winning Eleven and Super Mario 3.
posted by Kattullus at 12:05 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

Another World? WTF? I mean, it's interesting and all, and had a lot of novelty value, but a very weird choice for best game of all time.
posted by Artw at 12:16 AM on September 8, 2008

Artw: Another World? WTF?

BLASPHEMER!

(I sheepishly admit that I just realized that they had a #1 and didn't end with their takedown of MGS4)

Another World is a near perfect game. The French were doing amazing things with adventure games in the early nineties (Alone in the Dark, Relentless/Little Big Adventure are two other examples that spring to mind). Now, I'd understand that other people may not like it but it's a brilliant idea perfectly executed. It may not appeal but it does what it does flawlessly.
posted by Kattullus at 12:26 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

I think their choices are mostly excuses to rant about particular kinds of games in an entertaining and enlightening way. I think Another World is a fantastic example of an early game that delivers narrative within the gameplay, and nearly all the blockbuster games since then owe a debt to it. Compare it to Half Life, for example.
posted by empath at 12:27 AM on September 8, 2008

It's kinda interesting, but come on, it's a sideview flip-screen platformer with, IIRC, far too many trial and error insta-death moments.
posted by Artw at 12:36 AM on September 8, 2008

Compare it to Half Life, for example.

(Hugs beloved Half Life)
posted by Artw at 12:38 AM on September 8, 2008

You know what was awesome? Hunter. It was like an Amiga GTA, or some kind of Balkan war criminal simulator.
posted by Artw at 12:44 AM on September 8, 2008

Any list of top games which puts the oft-forgotten Chrono Trigger in the top ten makes me smile.
posted by TypographicalError at 12:48 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

Half-Life was just about the first game I ever played that actually scared me. Crawling through a vent with the lights off and surround sound and having a headcrab jump out at me... oh god. There were so many things done perfectly right in this game, from the pacing to the level design to the problem solving components to the environments and storyline. I love Valve even more today for TF2 & Portal, frankly. They continue to impress on all cylinders by putting out games they truly pour their heart and souls into and for that, they can have all of my money, every time.

Other games I have enjoyed an inordinate amount:

EarthBound (Seriously, I hate the fantasy genre, minus Chrono Trigger. So a "modern" RPG was infinitely appealing to me. And man, the music! And the VILE scratch-and-sniff cards in the player's guide. Seriously, name ONE other game that had something like that?)

Curse of Monkey Island (3) Good times with Guybrush. From "El pollo diablo" to "I don't want to lubricate that" to Murray, this was quality through and through with a cheeky sense of humor and an amazing sense of style. (Remember the volcano-fruit?)

Descent: Freespace. Putting me into true 3D space was fun enough with Descent. Freespace added open-space mission, a great campaign and kickass particle effects that made me want a Monster 3D VooDoo card or "that new NVidia TnT card" so badly. Plus, destroying a fleet carrier was just insanely awesome.

Starcraft: I still play this at the office with my coworkers. Well balanced, classic.

SimCity: Pick a version, I've played the hell out of it. I'm confident that it helped me develop my "big picture"/problem solving/engineering skills, since I first picked it up when I was 7 or 8, playing the SNES classic version. I was thrilled and confused when my father brought home SimCity 2000, the very earliest editions of which were completely vexing for me at 8 years old.

Smash Bros. Melee: Never before have I played a game with so much replay value. My friends and I would play this constantly and still do. The battles were epic, the characters well matched (considering there were 30-ish of them) and the concept of a melee fighting system as dynamic as it was truly impressed.
posted by disillusioned at 12:52 AM on September 8, 2008 [4 favorites]

Now, there are a ton of games I love that don't get on the list (Civilization series, Ultima 7 parts 1 and 2, Portal, Smash Bros.) but that's not a bug of this list, it's a feature. This list is just as much a manifesto as it is a list of best games ever. The manifesto is most succinctly put in a single paragraph in the Another World review:

If anything, we arrive at the core of this analysis believing in the cold center of our hearts that the “design by subtraction” that Fumito Ueda speaks of is the only way to make an excellent videogame. We arrive at the conclusion of our list of the Best Games Ever awakened to the fact that Level Design is the most important part of any game, be it an epic cluster of entertainment purposely fashioned to be impenetrable to non-gamers or a sleek and simple rope-like experience. Game designers: think of a single, sharp, spear-like mechanic, stick with it, set it in stone, and then make awesome levels. If there’s a mood you want to go for, keep it in mind. In short: be cool, and you too can make a masterpiece. Even if your single mechanic is amazing, it doesn’t mean anything without great levels. However, even a bare-bones mechanic (like, say, “running and jumping”) can make for spectacular entertainment if the levels are great (Super Mario Bros. 3).

This doesn't cover all of my favorite games (for examples see above) but I can't help but agree that if more game designers operated on that principle videogames would be better. The only omission I can think of which satisfies their criteria perfectly is Syndicate.
posted by Kattullus at 1:07 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

Action button is most often the controversy button. Not that most, if not all, of the games on this list aren't awesome, but there are plenty of excellent games out there that aren't on it -- some arguably better, in fact. There's no roguelikes, no Starflights or Star Controls, no Falcom RPGs, no Grim Fandango, no Neverhood, no Rampart, etc. Yet there is Championship Pac-Man, which, while great, is not suppa-great. For finding those things, Hardcore Gaming 101 (which I posted some time back) is a much better place to look than action button.

And let me just say, while I found Tim Rogers' writing style entertaining some years or so ago, the shine has long since worn off.
posted by JHarris at 1:11 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I still think it's an odd choice but the essay and reasoning make for pretty good reading.
posted by Artw at 1:12 AM on September 8, 2008

Agreed JHarris, Tim Rogers needs an editor armed with a chainsaw. He can plunge into tangents at the drop of the hat. When the review of one of the games on the list Bangaio Spirits, takes a third of the review to talk about the actual game, something is wrong.

His review of Animal Crossing includes a half page interlude about a bill collector calling him about a debt.
posted by zabuni at 1:24 AM on September 8, 2008

Does not have Elite in the list. Can be safely ignored as being written by ignoramus.
posted by rodgerd at 1:26 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

I am so extremely happy that Mother 3 got the recognition that it deserves on this list.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 1:29 AM on September 8, 2008

I love Valve even more today for TF2

I hope you've already joined the 300-strong gang at Mefight Club. We're all about the TF2.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:30 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

For the uninitiated, Nintendo refuses to translate Mother 3, so the fans have taken it upon themselves to do so.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 1:31 AM on September 8, 2008

Heavily console oriented list, but I can in no way argue with Another World being selected as #1. Amazingly immersive world. My list would be centered around Looking Glass Studios with a lot of weird outliers like Dungeons of Daggorath. However, I don't play enough games to be a credible reviewer. I'd echo the props for Grim Fandango though.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:34 AM on September 8, 2008

Another World was amazing - incredibly well designed when you consider what else was around at the time (and doubly so when you find out it was basically done by a single guy.) Nothing even came close to the way it looked or played.
Year later playing Half Life I kept getting AW flashbacks - they both use the same kinds of storytelling techiques to get the point across.
Artw, I am glad someone else remembers Hunter. I have great memories of that game that are being totally destroyed while watching that YouTube video. Were the graphics really that bad?
posted by AndrewStephens at 3:51 AM on September 8, 2008

What, no Pogo Joe? I sniff haughtily.
posted by not_on_display at 4:18 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

The whole point is that most of the games on that list are crap, right?
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:22 AM on September 8, 2008

What? No Action 52!? It's hard out there for a Cheetahman.
posted by broken wheelchair at 5:20 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Another World is also impressive in that 17 years later it's still around, for Symbian smartphones and a new high-resolution pack.
posted by anthill at 5:44 AM on September 8, 2008

Pope Guilty, what the fuck are you talking about? Most games on that list are crap? I'll grant you one or two, but to say that more than half of the games are crap is pushing it. You might not like them, but that's hardly proof that something is objectively crap.

Not enough Looking Glass Studios for me either but it's not the most outrageous Top game list I've seen.
posted by slimepuppy at 5:49 AM on September 8, 2008

The list lacks conceptual continuity. I mean, a list of games involving "action" is worthless without Robotron.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:03 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'd have had Opus Dei or one of the Thief series on there. Definitely Elite (on the BBC Micro, of course) and one of the Final Fantasies. Seven, probably, but four would be a contender too. (The one with the Spoony Bard in?)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:46 AM on September 8, 2008

Tim Rogers is the worst writer on the internet.
posted by Damn That Television at 7:06 AM on September 8, 2008

I'll grant you one or two, but to say that more than half of the games are crap is pushing it. You might not like them, but that's hardly proof that something is objectively crap.

Castlevania Bloodlines, Secret of Evermore, MGS 3, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter 3, Gears of War, and Out of This World: all crap. A bunch of the rest are obscure or sports titles.

And any list like this that doesn't include Deus Ex is objectively, unarguably flawed.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:13 AM on September 8, 2008

Another World is also impressive in that 17 years later it's still around, for Symbian smartphones and a new high-resolution pack.

Style-wise, they are still making games based upon it.
posted by P.o.B. at 7:15 AM on September 8, 2008

You really think so? I love the whole New Games Criticism thing. It's not writing about games, it's about life as someone who plays games. These guys are going to be the people that push games into being an artform, either as critics or designers.

Isn't it fuckloads better than the typical American videogame review?-- "Oh, the graphics are great, the sound effects are amazing, it took me 50 hours to finish half the quests and i score it a 3.14159 on a scale of 1-5"
posted by empath at 7:18 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Deus Ex is crap.
posted by P.o.B. at 7:18 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

No Star Control 2?!?!? No Star Craft or Diablo 1 or 2??? Yet Gears of War made it?? I'm surprised that Vikings was the only Blizzard title to make it.... All good games but obviously not a true top 25 list.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:31 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

20 years later, Hidden Agenda (by Jim Gasperini) is still not getting the fame it deserves :(

If it's action games only, i vote for everything Kenta Cho has made.
posted by dnial at 7:54 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

SF3, Chrono Trigger and Out of this World are crap? You are nuts, Pope Guilty.
posted by lyam at 8:00 AM on September 8, 2008

And any list like this that doesn't include Deus Ex is objectively, unarguably flawed.

Why? It's a list of the best games, not the most influential.

Deus Ex was obviously one of the latter. But it was also as you say, objectively, unarguably flawed - a cluttered, repetitive, hamfisted, and existentially confused game whose impressive reach far exceeded its grasp. AKA, crap. (To further my heresy, I feel the same way about System Shock 2, which I put away permanently after an hour and a half. Deus Ex at least got a couple of days out of me.)

It made valuable suggestions it couldn't follow through on. It discoverd new territory, but wasn't itself equipped to breathe the rarefied air. Those who came after were the real explorers.
posted by regicide is good for you at 8:17 AM on September 8, 2008

Okay people, I'm going to slap the next person this list sucks because you don't like the games on them, or because your favorite game isn't on it.

The point of this list isn't REALLY that they're greatest games ever made; that's a bit of hyperbole.

These are 25 games that this particular person loves, and he explains (in detail) why he loves them. It's an idiosyncratic and personal list, and should be taken that way. Feel free to share your own personal favorite games and why you love them, though. That would make this thread full of "awesome" instead of "nerd-rage".
posted by empath at 8:18 AM on September 8, 2008

Without Marathon, that list is dead to me.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:21 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

empath - that's what links to lists are for.

(Really it should have the No X But Y? tag to indicate it's fightyness.)
posted by Artw at 8:26 AM on September 8, 2008

Artw, I am glad someone else remembers Hunter. I have great memories of that game that are being totally destroyed while watching that YouTube video. Were the graphics really that bad?

Great games don't happen on the screen, they happen in your head. That's why 99% of games suck now that better graphics are possible.
posted by Artw at 8:27 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

No Civilization or Alpha Centauri? And no BG2 or Planescape?

Better get on your slappin' gloves, empath, because this list is crap.
posted by JaredSeth at 8:52 AM on September 8, 2008

I personally think that Actionbutton.net are the hipsters of game review. virtually everything they say is directly motivated by whether or not someone is going to think it's either a) the gimme choice or b) the obvious anti-gimme choice. The idea that they think Metal Gear Solid 3 is the number 10 best game of all time, but metal gear solid 1 isn't even on the list is exemplary of this. Anyone and Everyone loved MGS1. It's a gimme. No one liked MGS2, it's the anti-gimme. MGS3, which was better than 2, at least, involved regularly eating wild animals for no other reason than kojima wanting to be known as a revolutionary video game realist. You had to change your clothing every time you moved from one type of ground to the next in order to maintain your camouflage. the old style hiding behind things and sneaking around patrols gameplay was almost entirely eradicated in favor of dress-me-up Snakey style costume and makeup changes. There is a point in the game where you they make you climb a ladder (you have to hold the up button, it is not automated) for several minutes while nothing happens. it gets so boring that they actually have the theme song to the game (a james bond parody that is actually one of the awesome parts of the game) slowly fade in to break up the monotony. You start the game off with a silencer, which breaks early in the game and cannot be replaced. Despite the so called realism of having to change your clothes to camouflage into your environment better and having to eat periodically to keep from suffering from total fatigue, they didn't think realism was sufficient reason to restrict the number and size of items you can carry so stealthy snake spends the entire game carrying several dozen items on him ranging from binoculars to several large cages of live animals you're hanging onto so you can eat them later. If you kill an animal and carry it's carcass on you, the meat eventually goes bad, in another tip of the hat to realism, but they fail to explain why this happens after at most an hour's time in a game that only takes place over a day or two. During the game, I probably ate 40 different animals. In a day. 40 animals in a day. I had to, or else I would scream and pass out on the ground from exhaustion, to say nothing of being totally unable to steady my shooting hand when I even manage to stay awake.

This is the number 10 game of all time, for them. Sure.

Out Of This World is another example. The truly old school know and love it, so it has the hipster bonus points that saying something like "I like their first album, but I think they sold out after that" has. They could have gone with the more commonly known and better selling Flashback for the genesis, which had virtually identical gameplay, but that's like saying you think Nirvana's Nevermind was better than Bleach. Everyone thinks that and you're not cool if you go with what everyone thinks. They could have gone with the even older originator of the gameplay style and chosen the original Prince of Persia, but that's a gimme. So Out Of This World it is, because then you get to sound like you must really know your shit to so confidently declare something so unpredictable as your number 1.

Of course, they also adopt the hipster pose of only half-assedly making these declarations. "well, if we HAVE to pick a number one..." It's such a bald-faced affectation for them to have adopted this pose in a list of their own choosing that no one asked them to make. Oh, we don't WANT to make a number one choice, but we'll do it if you INSIST. But no one insisted. It's a plea for attention by using some milquetoast half-assed controversy. They've been pimping this idea that Gears of War is one of the best games of all time (notably while slamming Bioshock at the height of its media frenzy) specifically to generate demand for this nonsense list of theirs because, although Gears of War is a fine game, the idea that it's the 6th best of all time is almost laughable. Even among 3rd or 1st Person shooters, the gameplay's fun factor and claim to fame is entirely it's excellent cover system. The story is generic and the characters are unoriginal to the point of comedy (holy shit! beefy and grim space marines! the only black character speaks like samuel l jackson!). That's the number 6 game. Of all time. This is the equivalent to all the hipsters who say they love Brittany Spears.

It's just so obviously all based on posturing. They're trying to make a name for themselves by being the Pitchfork Media of Video Games criticism. Blech. I'll be interested when this list includes Beyond Good and Evil, Day of the Tentacle and Fallout.

nice choice with Super Mario Bros 3, though. that game really is a lifelong obsession. also, kudos on chrono trigger.
posted by shmegegge at 9:18 AM on September 8, 2008 [11 favorites]

SMB3 at number 2?

I think that SMB3 or the original SMB should be at the top, but that's, just, like my opinion, man.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:27 AM on September 8, 2008

As an old-school gamer, I played hours & hours of PoP and only minutes of OoTW.

IMO PoP was the better game but OoTW was the better game design creation.

Its filled-polygon technology presented animated scenes before computers were supposed to be able to do that.

The atmospheric art design was utterly first-rate; it took the genre to a higher plane of existence.

Carrier Command might be my other #1 choice but it suffers from unbalanced game dynamics.
posted by troy at 9:37 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Without Marathon, that list is dead to me.

This. This this this this this.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:39 AM on September 8, 2008

Marathon is the aces. Halo just seems rather characterless by comparison.

It's available on the XBOX arcade thingy now I beleive.
[doesn't have X BOX]
posted by Artw at 9:47 AM on September 8, 2008

Marathon 2: Durandal is on Xbox Live Arcade. I've heard people say it doesn't age well, but they are wrong. That game is still the maddening delight it always was.
posted by shmegegge at 9:51 AM on September 8, 2008

Out of This World is a great game, and a definite top ten, but not first, for a few simple reasons:

a. you die too often, and only learn from your deaths.
b. although there is a lot of problem solving, to succeed in the game requires a high level of rote memorisation.
c. The level of skill involved is only slightly higher than Dragon's Lair, and mostly involves the same repeated feat of charging a force field, taking one step forward, blowing down the enemy's force field, and then shooting the enemy, rinse, repeat.

I don't know what I'd put in first place, perhaps a puzzle game such a Tetris. I'd definitely have a kart game in there, although perhaps that is covered by Outrun 2.
posted by furtive at 9:52 AM on September 8, 2008

Arrgh, I just read the whole thing. Every single review.

I don't agree with all of them; I haven't played a lot of the games on their list - but damn, I want to play a few of them now. Especially Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Mother 3. Maybe I'll even have another go at trying to see what all you people who had an NES when they were ten see in the Mario games - all Nintendo's beloved properties leave me cold.

And Another World was one of the most fucking awesome things I ever played on my Amiga. Looking back, I suspect memories of its stark, fully-animated cinematics ended up being one of the things that fed into the way I would end up using Illustrator, years later.
posted by egypturnash at 9:53 AM on September 8, 2008

I'm torn - on one hand they've given much love to Cave Story, but on the other... no Zelda. No Zelda.
posted by Rinku at 10:08 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Tim Rogers says in a comment:

To be 100% honest, me and Brendan played through Out of This World while about 75% drunk and 23% wasted one night in early 2007, and we were like, Duuuuude this is the best game evvvvvvvvvvvvvvver mannnnnnn. And eventually we were like, why don’t we make a big list on Action Button and [put] Out of this World on the top, dudddddde.

This list does make a lot more sense once you know that it started from the premise that Another World is the best game ever. I don't think that's a worse way of going about things than the usual get-a-bunch-of-people-to-vote-and-tally-the-result approach.
posted by Kattullus at 10:10 AM on September 8, 2008

I've no idea what i'd calll the top game of all time, but heres my number one rule for picking such a thing: The words "Dragon's Lair" should not be applicable in any description of it whatsoever, except possibly in the sentence "nothing whatsoever like Dragon's Lair".
posted by Artw at 10:12 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

(fondly remembers Nuclear War on the Amiga.)

(Yes, it was based on the card game.)
posted by Samizdata at 10:37 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Nuclear War

Good times...

Also awesome:
Cannon Fodder
Dungeon master
Mercenary
Speedball
posted by Artw at 10:45 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

From the SMB3 article:

There’s precisely one stage where the Angry Sun swoops out of the sky to attack Mario

Um, no. There's totally a stage in World 8 where the sun comes back and tries to attack you again. And this guy gets paid to write this?

mostly kidding
posted by shakespeherian at 10:48 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

empath, thank you for pointing out the only actual value a "Best Game Ever" list ever has.

The list shows us what actionbutton's reviewers consider excellent qualities in games. Obviously, people disagree- shmegegge clearly didn't like MGS3, but the sequence he hated- the long ladder climb- is one of my favorite videogame memories (and I've been playing since the Commodore 64). Since we disagree we can:

1) Yell at each other all day about how the other guy is a poopyhead
2) Wave our hands vaguely and say "man, it's all okay man, all games are like cool man"
3) Actually talk about the good/bad of the game

When sensible people agree to avoid situation #1, the discussion almost always degrades into #2. The first major paragraph of the article makes it clear that the point of the list is to avoid that. However, this is the internet- so most people end up circling back to #1 because it's so much easier. For example, we can shift the discussion entirely and argue about the validity of using a list like this. We will all sound very intelligent while doing so, and leave feeling righteously indignant. Unfortunately, we will never actually get to #3, and our mutual interest in videogames will never be explored.

How about we avoid that? The list is an excellent springboard for discussion.
posted by Maxson at 10:48 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

Sounds like I'd hate MGS3 even more than MGS2. Weird thing is, at the time everyone but me seemed to love MGS2.
posted by Artw at 10:51 AM on September 8, 2008

*slowly deletes the word "poopyhead" from comment entry field.*
posted by shmegegge at 10:51 AM on September 8, 2008

funny note: I actually loved MGS3. No shit. I just thought it was so flawed that in the end I wish they'd stuck with MGS1's simple reduced frills gameplay and kept the amazing story. I think MGS3's story is probably the best the series ever had. At the end I was completely thrilled to have gone through it.
posted by shmegegge at 10:52 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

I liked MGS2 a lot, but the level design is repetitive as FUCK. And Raiden is a crappy character. And Rose is an awful save deterrent.

MGS3's main problem was the level of micromanagement it brought to the game. The story was fantastic, and some of the boss fights were awesome, but the self-surgery and constant eating/changing camouflage got old fast.
posted by graventy at 11:00 AM on September 8, 2008

Artw: I think it depended on how you approached MGS. IMO, from a gameplay perspective, the MGS series has always placed gameplay second to movielike depictions. No one's going to praise MGS1, 2, or 3 for their terrible control scheme. However, gamers usually only accept that for RPGs; it feels strange seeing that choice in an "action game".

On preview: I think Kojima gets too fond of his interesting ideas sometimes. The whole "eat everything" bit had interesting ramifications when Snake walks through the "river of death"; the ladder climb contrasts the intense boss fight the player just experienced. Yet the camo changing got really annoying and the food could get painful (the joke among my friends was that Snake was "The Hunger"). As a straight-up game, the MGS series always fell short, but I think what Kojima was aiming for wasn't straight-up gameplay. I liked the series for that (and like MGS4 for giving us an actually decent gameplay engine).
posted by Maxson at 11:04 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

My nebulous list of 'best' games is based on one criteria: immersion. And atmosphere. Two criteria: immersion and atmosphere. And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.

System Shock 2, as regicide mentions, is a horribly flawed game but it's still my favorite. As is Thief, the first three Monkey Island games, Fallout 1&2, Diablo and even Doom etc. I'm aware of the faults of all of them but love them regardless. I don't think that I'll find that many people that agree with me either.
posted by slimepuppy at 11:09 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

What's missing from most of these discussions is an acknowledgment of the enormous diversity of kinds of entertainment that gets lumped under video/computer games.

How do you even compare Robotron vs. Rollercoaster Tycoon? Tony Hawk vs. Grim Fandago? World of Warcraft vs. SimCity? GTA: San Andreas vs. Yoshi's Island? Street Fighter vs. NetHack? Guardian Heroes vs. Guitar Hero?

These games aren't aiming at anything like the same goals. Some of them aren't even enjoyed by the same hemisphere of the brain as the others.

What do we do with the fact that, even among "hardcore gamers," there are entire genres that some gamers love and others find tedious?

Can we really even talk about the Greatest Games Ever if I say that "Yeah, I believe that StarCraft and Soul Calibur are fantastic games, but I don't enjoy either one of them at all."
posted by straight at 11:13 AM on September 8, 2008 [4 favorites]

There’s plenty of fine games that basically herd you from spectacle to spectacle, but if I actually feel like I’m being herded from point to point I start feeling a little pissed off with it. If it feels like a memorization exercise (AW), or an order taking exercise (MSG2) then it just gets very annoying, I don’t care how cool the cut scenes are. Also, though narrative has a place in gaming, if I feel like I’m playing actor to facilitate Mr. Gamedesigners frustrated wannabe movie-director ambitions, then fuck that shit. It’s a game, not a movie.
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2008

How do you even compare Robotron vs. Rollercoaster Tycoon? Tony Hawk vs. Grim Fandago? World of Warcraft vs. SimCity? GTA: San Andreas vs. Yoshi's Island? Street Fighter vs. NetHack? Guardian Heroes vs. Guitar Hero?

from his GTA 4 review:

At the end of the day, however — and I’m pretty sure this is obvious to everyone by now — “more stuff” doesn’t mean “better game”. Actually, maybe it’s not obvious. Someone on an internet forum I read was once listing his favorite games of all time, and said Space Harrier was number one and Shenmue was number two — then, minutes later, he realized that you can play Space Harrier inside Shenmue, so Shenmue was bumped up to number one. I saw that, and thought about how to respond for a second, and that second turned into a minute, and then I decided to go get a cup of coffee

Games can contain all other art forms, including other games. It's the final art. No matter what you can do with any other media, from architecture to mime, you can do it in a game.
posted by empath at 11:35 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites]

Also, it's not easy to get quotes from this guy's reviews. Not a singe sentence in those reviews has a self-contained thought. They're almost fractal.
posted by empath at 11:38 AM on September 8, 2008

System Shock 2, as regicide mentions, is a horribly flawed game but it's still my favorite.

Every time someone says this, I immediately think "flawed?! how?!" then I calm myself down and acknowledge that it's entirely possible that someone out there finds legitimate problems with the game. I just happen to think it's concentrated awesome.

for some reason the thief games never keep my attention. I remember playing the first one and thinking it was cool at first, and around the time you have to shoot zombies in a cave I just gave up, thinking those first couple levels had to be a fluke. the third one was cool, too, but for some reason I just got bored.
posted by shmegegge at 11:40 AM on September 8, 2008

Artw: One of the reasons I like MGS over, say, Phantasmagoria is because I felt I really was "playing a movie". Most of the designers who try to make a "movielike game" just glue a whole bunch of in-game movies into a shoddy engine and claim they fulfilled their goal- that was shit in the nineties, and it still is.

I think the MGS series did a much better job because Kojima never believed that was the way to make a movielike game. For example, playing Snake's dream in MGS3 was a nice touch- the initial confusion upon loading the save, the way the player inevitably ends up going with the flow... it was all very dreamlike. Haven't seen something like that before or since.

This is why I'm kinda disappointed in MGS4. It really is a movie glued into the game; some interesting stuff is there, but most of it is nostalgia. At least we got a good game engine out of it.
posted by Maxson at 11:44 AM on September 8, 2008

No Gorillas? I kid, but my university housemates and I played the hell out of that game.

Personally, my vote for #1 goes to Robotron. It's still one of the most intense games ever.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:47 AM on September 8, 2008

Marathon is certainly unarguably better than Doom. Better graphics, better plot, more interesting 3D environment, smarter baddies.
posted by rodgerd at 11:54 AM on September 8, 2008

At the end of the day, however — and I’m pretty sure this is obvious to everyone by now — “more stuff” doesn’t mean “better game”.

Yes...but...

GTA:San Andreas. Considered as a whole, it's definitely flawed. No matter who you are, at some point you're going to run into something tedious, something lame, something you don't enjoy. But does it even make sense to consider it as a whole in the same way you'd judge a game like Tetris or Ikaruga?

There is a certain awesomeness to a huge, sprawling, throw-everything-in game like GTA or Oblivion or Legend of Zelda, that is it's own particular kind of enjoyment. You can't really compare it to games that aren't even trying to achieve that.

Sure there were parts of GTA that were not fun. But zipping around, exploring San Andreas in a sports car or helicopter or on a motorbike is the sort of fun you just couldn't have if they hadn't been willing to throw heaps of everything into that game.
posted by straight at 12:31 PM on September 8, 2008

empath:These guys are going to be the people that push games into being an artform, either as critics or designers.

Wrong. Games are already an art form regardless of what anyone, including Roger Ebert, other than the designer thinks. But if you want proof, the recent boom in awesome indie development more than handily does so. There have been some great New Games Journalists, but I hate to say, Tim Rogers doesn't seem to be one of them.

It is better than a traditional American game review, though.

The point of this list isn't REALLY that they're greatest games ever made; that's a bit of hyperbole.

Unfortunately, a "list of 25 games some guy who happens to have a website thinks are the best" doesn't have the same ring, and would be less likely to make Metafilter. (Anyway, not having read all the reviews, I don't think they're all by Tim Rogers...? I know action button's reviews are a tremendously mixed bag, and often they can be quite insightful. But not always.)

Games can contain all other art forms, including other games. It's the final art. No matter what you can do with any other media, from architecture to mime, you can do it in a game.

This is because games are a collage art, as part of their construction, they use pieces of other forms of art. But so are movies. And note that games have this ability due to being computer programs, which have potential to be even greater works of art than games, since they are not constrained by having gameplay.

maxson:We will all sound very intelligent while doing so, and leave feeling righteously indignant. Unfortunately, we will never actually get to #3, and our mutual interest in videogames will never be explored. [...] How about we avoid that? The list is an excellent springboard for discussion.

There's better ways to do it than this list. Like a message board or something. I think the list real purpose is to promote all these excellent games, while containing just as many nods to already-popular games so people won't reject it out of hand. But I also think shemegegge is on to something.

YOU ARE GREAT
SHEMEGEGGE - 4
YOU HAVE AN AMAZING WISDOM AND POWER

posted by JHarris at 12:41 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

No Manic Miner FAIL.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:48 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hey, the winner was a flip screen platformer, just like Jet Set Willie.
posted by Artw at 12:51 PM on September 8, 2008

What, no Nethack?

That's ok. Nethack isn't for little kids with brightly colored plastic joysticks and console machines attached to TV sets - or pockets full of quarters. Nethack is an exercise in masochism and self abuse.

However, I also note that Yoshi's Island is missing. So is the original Metroid.
posted by loquacious at 1:18 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

JHarris: Well, we're discussing games now (sort of). I think the list succeeded at that. And we're doing it on MeFi, which is more generic than NeoGAF and might provide different perspectives.
posted by Maxson at 1:33 PM on September 8, 2008

Wrong. Games are already an art form regardless of what anyone, including Roger Ebert, other than the designer thinks.

Obviously right. I should have said 'mature artform'.
posted by empath at 1:40 PM on September 8, 2008

Halloween Jack : Without Marathon, that list is dead to me.

I know lists like this are always contentious, because everyone has their dog that they want to see in the fight, but I honestly don't understand Marathons omission. Not only was it better in terms of first person shooter game play than any of it's contemporaries, but it also did something with more skill than many games which came out for years later: it had an incredibly complicated and rich plot.

Marathon was way ahead of it's time, and anyone who enjoyed Halo should know that the plot elements were directly inspired from the original Marathon trilogy (multiple races, beginning with one enemy, ending with a worse one, ancient technology, being directed around by slightly insane Artificial Intelligences, hell even the weapons share names, like the SPNKR for example.)

Oh, and before there was rocket hopping, there was grenade jumping. Marathon got that first too.
posted by quin at 1:41 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

"What, no (whatever)? FAIL" I think those comments don't add anything to this discussion. The goal of a list like this, and this is leagues better than the gawker linkbait lists with one sassy paragraph per item, is to show you what games do the best job at what the editorial staff thinks is important in games. I don't think it's a bullshit list because they did not include Rez, because the lack of Rez on there doesn't detract from the insight I can mine from the reviews of the games they did pick (though some of the reviews really require a lot of mining).

I discovered insertcredit and Tim and his cronies a few years ago as my first brush with New Games Journalism. He is truly long-winded to his detriment, but as someone said above, the best part about reading these pieces is that they are not really about games, but about the life of someone who cares about games. It probably helps that my taste intersects with theirs somewhat, though more in the 'lots of atmosphere, few buttons' category than the 'impenetrable and sold 100 copies' category. I found this list and the articles linked therein satisfying to read in the way that I find anything written by someone with a real passion for their subject satsifying.

Right now I am resisting the urge to turn this into a parody of NGJ with a rambling personal story. I'll just leave you with this: in my opinion, the battle with The End in MGS3 is the filmgame's finest moment. We can still be friends if you didn't like it, but I think that anyone nitpicking game mechanics as a way to discount the game as a whole really needs to get as far as that fight before they write it off.
posted by thedaniel at 1:47 PM on September 8, 2008

in case that's directed at me, I'd just like to reiterate that I did like the game quite a lot.
posted by shmegegge at 1:52 PM on September 8, 2008

I'd guess marathon isn't on the list because he didn't have much to say about Marathon that he didn't already say about Doom.
posted by empath at 1:57 PM on September 8, 2008

Maxson: Well, we're discussing games now (sort of). I think the list succeeded at that. And we're doing it on MeFi, which is more generic than NeoGAF and might provide different perspectives.

We discuss games here whenever there's a new game post. In that event, it doesn't matter if the conversation spark is a hipster-posing list of mostly semi-obscure games posed as the best ever or a series of articles attempting to render, oh say, 20 games of different genres down to some kind of essential design nucleus.

Not that I could tell you where to find such a thing. Because of self-linking rules.
posted by JHarris at 2:04 PM on September 8, 2008

One game I kinda wish made the list, though I can understand reasons why it didn't, was the original Silent Hill. No game has ever creeped me out like they did with the ephemeral knife babies.
posted by klangklangston at 2:57 PM on September 8, 2008

"What, no (whatever)? FAIL" I think those comments don't add anything to this discussion.

They add snark
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:59 PM on September 8, 2008

To be 100% honest, me and Brendan played through Out of This World while about 75% drunk and 23% wasted one night in early 2007, and we were like, Duuuuude this is the best game evvvvvvvvvvvvvvver mannnnnnn.

See, this list doesn't even cut it when you accept its premises. Were this the list of top DUDE I'M WASTED games ever, Super Mario 2 would have kicked 3's ass.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:12 PM on September 8, 2008

The thing is, you either worship at the temple of Tim Rogers or you think he's full of hot air. His acolytes seem to only care for games that are a) console games, b) from Japan, or c) both. And there has to be lots of navel-gazing because, you know, the only way to legitimize the embarassment of playing videogames is to proclaim them ART and write rambling gonzo-style "experiences."

The list, like everything else the guy writes, is pandering to his audience. Like the first guy said, no Baldur's Gate 2, no list.
posted by softsantear at 3:32 PM on September 8, 2008

I'd guess marathon isn't on the list because he didn't have much to say about Marathon that he didn't already say about Doom.

Except Doom is vastly inferior to Marathon. Now, if you were compiling a list of influential games, sure, I'd rate Doom ahead of Marathon. But best games? Marathon was so far ahead of Doom, iD ought to be embarrassed. Gameplay, AI, graphics, freedom of movement, plot, everything was superior. If it hadn't been Mac-only it would have cleaned Doom out completely.
posted by rodgerd at 4:13 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Why would anyone need more than 64K for a game? And anyway, both computer games have already been written: Chuckie Egg and Crystal Quest. Everything else is just decoration.
posted by scruss at 4:48 PM on September 8, 2008

Action button doesn't seem to be able to keep me reading it. I'll read a couple of reviews and then either think some of them are pure posturing or go to another blog to read something that'll make me think. (Also, who thinks SoE is top25 stuff?).

But then again, people mentioned Relentless/Little Big Adventure, Hunter (nostalgia), Fallout1&2 and various other games, so the thread wasn't without merit. And Chrono Trigger doesn't suck.

Btw:
Gamespy's Top 25 underrated games
Top 20 Games That Nobody Played - But You Should
posted by ersatz at 4:52 PM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites]

From Gamespy's Top 25 underrated games:

23. Blood

Oh hell yeah. I loved this game hard. Before I got rid of it, I actually pulled out all the sound files and kept them for samples and ringtones and stuff.

So great.
posted by quin at 5:18 PM on September 8, 2008

My earlier reply may have come off as one of those "FAIL" comments, but I really can't take any list seriously that omits Civilization.

Sure, with each new version there's been greater depth, more options and prettier tilesets. But had there been no Civ 2, 3 or 4, I'd still be sitting in front of the computer at 3 AM playing "just one more turn" of the original.
posted by JaredSeth at 6:09 PM on September 8, 2008

The reason Marathon is not on the list is because it was a mac-only game, and wasn't played by most computer gamers.
posted by graventy at 7:01 AM on September 9, 2008

"What, no (whatever)? FAIL" I think those comments don't add anything to this discussion.

I disagree because...

I think the list real purpose is to promote all these excellent games

Because really, that's the biggest value to these discussions. You get a game recommended to you that you hadn't heard of or had no intention of playing and you decide to give it a try and it's awesome and you are a winner. Yay!

So if you see a bunch of people saying, "What? No Psychonauts?" and you try it, and you like it, everybody wins. And if you play it and don't like it, well, that kind of thing happens all the time anyway.
posted by straight at 9:27 AM on September 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

softsantear: The thing is, you either worship at the temple of Tim Rogers or you think he's full of hot air. His acolytes seem to only care for games that are a) console games, b) from Japan, or c) both.

Well, a lot of games on the list are neither, including their #1, Another World.

As to mac games... my favorite mac game of all time isn't on this list, and it isn't Marathon, it's Dark Castle, one of the finest platformers ever made. I have run into maybe one or two other people who've played it. Beyond Dark Castle, the sequel, was no slouch either. I love mac games but I don't think Marathon should be there. It was a fine game but I think that Doom was better. However, since it's a matter of taste it's not something that's much worth disputing. One likes what one likes and so on.
posted by Kattullus at 9:38 AM on September 9, 2008

Lotsa hate for the author here. I'm unfamiliar with this "New Criticism" or this "Tim Rogers" but I enjoyed the review of SMBIII very much. Quite insightful and interesting. It had heart. It had moxie. But hey, I'll just have to remember to stay off all y'alls lawns.

My nebulous list of 'best' games is based on one criteria: immersion. And atmosphere.

Me too. And with those criteria, here is Flotson's List of the Best Video Games of the 20th Century (in Chronological Order):

Combat (1977, Atari 2600)
Eamon (1980, Apple II)
Rogue (1980)
Zork (1980)
Zork III (1982)
Pitfall (1982, Atari 2600)
Disks of Tron (1983)
Star Wars (1983)
Golf (1984, NES)
Excitebike (1984)
Pitfall II (1984, Atari 2600)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)
Gauntlet (1985)
The Bard's Tale II (1986)
OutRun (1986)
Bubble Bobble (1986)
Beyond Zork (1987)
Zelda (1987)
Leisure Suit Larry (1987)
Gauntlet II (1987)
Wasteland (1988)
SMB II (1988)
Sim City (1989)
SMB III (1990)
Scorched Earth (1991)
Doom (1993)
Twisted Metal II (1996)
Civ II (1996)
Mario 64 (1996)
Nethack

(If I had to begin ranking them in terms of awesomeness, that list would begin: 1. SMB III 2. Zelda 3. Zork 4. Nethack )
posted by flotson at 11:05 PM on September 14, 2008