Let's examine this 100 Best Games of All Time list...
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
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(originally streamed on Sept 19 2024)
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I saw this video, chilled out on the couch, and told myself I wasn't going to get mad. Opinions that differ from mine are perfectly acceptable!
I made it a shockingly short amount of time before getting mad. 😂 in good fun of course, but you know.
I'll just be over here nursing this goose egg and enjoying my semiannual ff6 playthrough.
Another issue with ‘top anything’ lists is that you almost certainly will forget something important when you’re on the spot with a ‘what’s your favorite/top x whatever’ question.
I think the best way to think of this list is not as strictly best, even though that's what it's trying to be, but it might be very useful as a list of works that give a general shape of the gaming zeitgeist as it stands at the time of its creation.
You've inadvertently presented a challenge to me, as I'm not even sure if I could name 100 games that I've played in my lifetime.
I appreciate your chill vibes extending even to a potentially spicy conversation.
I also agree about Final Fantasy VI, I think people have strong nostalgia goggles on about that one. Playing it and Chrono Trigger back to back, the contrast was pretty sharp, and there's only a year difference between them. I didn't play either until college, decades after they came out, and with no spoilers because I live under a rock (or rather because I'm not friends with any 30-somethings who won't shut up about it). Chrono Trigger had me bouncing along, strongly invested in story, characters, art, music, environment and especially combat. I had a lot of trouble staying invested or even figuring out the mechanics of Final Fantasy VI without resorting to online guides (the Nintendo Power option). The endless grinding especially killed me inside. I really tried to experiment and build a full roster of strategies. But after a point I was just spamming my heaviest attacks so I could be done quickly, and that point came when there were still many hours left in the game. I really like certain parts of FFVI. For example, Locke and Celes' relationship conflict comes out of their characters and baggage in a really natural way that's not super common to find in even tv or movie relationship drama with a lot more resources to work with. And the crossover from Terra's protagonist status to Celes is pretty moving. But a lot of stuff felt like it was gesturing at emotion more than really making me feel it, and I think that comes down to limits in presentation. I didn't need explaining to feel a primal horror at the sound of Lavos' scream.
All those issues don't make FFVI bad, and I respect the heck out of it, but this is a list of the top 100 and I flat out didn't enjoy the experience of playing Final Fantasy VI very much despite liking RPGs and being down for dealing with the limitations of older games.
Bringing up League of Legends and Starcraft made me realize that this list needed Warcraft III.
Warcraft III is single-handedly responsible for the entire MOBA and Tower Defense genres.
Agreed. Warcraft III as a game may not have stood out, but the things it's map editor enabled? Yeah, it deserves a spot for entire genres spawned from its custom maps system.
It's definitely historically relevant, but I'm not sure if it stands up on its own. I think it got overtaken by a lot of it's successors.
But if we include that aspect, it should definitely be on the list.
I know right, having AoE 2 on it but not starcraft, not broodwar, not starcraft 2, not warcraft 3. Hell not red alert 1 or 2, not C&C. There is some serious RTS blindspot going on.
This was such a fun stream to have randomly been able to pop in from the very beginning and see all the way through.
After having some time to reflect since this stream, I think that these sorts of lists have one very specific goal in mind: To start a conversation and promote virality. Sometimes they manage it with outrage, but I'm not convinced that's the primary strategy (as opposed to something like 5 minute crafts, which is entirely designed for you to share and comment "Look how stupid this is"). This list seems to have been compiled with some amount of effort, and they have a solid list of people they polled. The problem with only polling people IN the games industry, or limiting it to any one group of people, is that you always end up with some kind of lens, which is nearly impossible to avoid in one way or another.
The best way to get around this is to label your results more descriptively, or give the people you are polling just a little more direction. What are your most influential games of all time? The most important? The most underrated? Which game is the one you want to scream at people to play until your face turns blue? I know I would have vastly different answers to each of these questions, and the list that is created from them would be a lot more thought provoking and interesting than simply "Best games of all time".
While I find this list interesting, as with most "Best Game" lists you have too many competing metrics, so that you end up only speaking very generically. You end up having statements like "A ___ needs to be on the list" allowing collective credit over a series to be applied toward an entry, you have some games listed based on impact, some on significance, some on fun and gameplay quality IN THEIR TIME, etc.
I'd find it interesting to see Floydo, perhaps with input coming in from chat, imagining a scenario like "We're sending a colony ship off to settle a new planet. we don't have FTL communications, so instant uploads of media is not possible. For whatever reason, the digital budget allowed for video games is 25 entries. Anything that is not on that list of 25, that whole future segment of the entire human population CANNOT and WILL NOT ever experience. There might be records describing them, they can create new games for themselves going forward, but by and large these 25 entries are the ONLY existing games we are able to pass on to them. WHICH 25 games do we choose to send with them.
This makes the discussion MUCH more focused. Things like "It was very good 'for the time'." stop interjecting, as it only matters how good they are NOW. Sure, Final Fantasy ? was super impactful to YOUR childhood, is including as well worth billions of people never having a chance at Hollow Knight, or Skyrim, or Monster Hunter World, or whatever other game you bumped off the list in order to include it?
I think the best thing is for it to be more of a tier list - without ordering within each tier. That way, we'd be able to see a general progression of "pretty good games" to "masterpieces", as well as allowing unordered tiers like "influential but no need to play" (because what it inspired is much better)
I have to appreciate the people who can make these lists, as I'm the kind of guy who finds every side quest, explores as much of the map as I can, power levels way above final boss requirements, then stops in front of the final dungeon because there's nothing left to find. I'm not sure I can name 100 games I finished, though I've enjoyed more than that even without the endings.
How does one define a "best game"? Sure, let's pretend we can define a "good game" objectively, but how does one define "best"?
In this case, "which ones do you like or think should be on this list".
The few people who would have put Monster Hunter on the list were too busy grinding away at Monster Hunter to reply to the survey.
I almost wish these lists would be called like... "a bunch of games to know about if you ever talk with someone who loves games."
No love for The Witness? Shocking.
If I had to pick a pixel FF to include in that list it would be either 6 or tactics
I think (one of) the inevitable problem(s) a list like this runs into is the question of "Why is ____ higher then _____?"
For example; Fallout 3 being higher then New Vegas.
It can be pretty tough to individually look at every game in comparison to every other game and then decide which is higher for all hundreds or thousands of comparisons.
When i bought fallout 3 i kinda hated it because the landscape was bland and i got so far off track i wandered into a difficult zone. However,i ended up getting NV and then understood its type of exploration and now fallout is one of my favorite franchises.
I think the reason so many Zelda games are on the list is because there are so many very good Zelda games that they are all someone’s favorite. So the scoring system ends up putting all of them there.
In contrast games like Fighting Games where there is StreetFighter and Smash as big names and more niche favorites you just get the 2 big names and everything else falls off the list
I feel like with Okami, most people would agree that it's not a very good game, it's not a very important game, but it is unique. I think a lot of people would also say they'd feel guilty putting it on their top 100 which is why I think it's perfect for a low spot on that list. If so many people can love Okami despite its flaws, I think that's a mark for it, not against.
Dan, your opinion on FFVI has upset me a bit. I'll let it go. You are human, after all.
GTA London is the only one worth playing. Also where are Repton 2, Treasure Island Dizzy, Bubble Bobble, Elite, Beyond Good And Evil, Discworld 2, Oilpipe...
Takken 3 or 5 not being on this is wild.
I can't be the only person who thinks Gabriel Knight should be on this list. Even if it's number 100, it should be on this list. And even if this pre-dates Baldur's Gate 3, what about a Baldur's Gate game? Or Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, one of the D&D games? Or a Diablo?
The problem with best games lists is what you are measuring?
Cultural significance?
Importance in founding genres?
Importance in revolutionizing genre?
Which genres get more representation than others? How many RPGs are on this list?
I also just reject the idea of GOAT in general. Generations of games build on the previous ones, so if you don't get an Ocarina of Time with A Link to the Past, is OoT a higher best game?
No Lords of Midnight? Bah.
No Elite? Humbug.
Oblivion definitely doesn't belong, I personally would say even Skyrim isn't 'best of all time' it's just nostalgia inducing for people who played it over a decade ago. Playing Skyrim after literally any game with better combat mechanics really puts it into perspective how BAD it is.
Hmmm, watching this makes me curious about the gender distribution among the people polled; games that have traditionally not been as popular among male players seem a bit underrepresented (Animal Crossing being the most glaring omission imo).
Three of my top five games being on this list was actually unexpected (that top five being Hollow Knight, Hades, Outer Wilds, Tunic, Celeste).
But overall it seems very mid 30s, American male, nostalgia and popularity based picks
Bottom 10 and I already disagree with both Dan and the list, lol. Serves me for being old and PC retrogame oriented.
I hate League of Legends but how can you have Fortnite on here and not League of Legends?
Even the people who spend most of their free time playing LoL hate it. It's design conditions people to engage in the worst human behaviors imaginable. It's a bad game.
What is League of Legends? Is it on Nintendo?
It took me a while, but I figured out what my main problem is; a lot of these are here for historical or influence reasons, and those are valid for a list of 'important' or 'influencial' games, but influence and history don't affect quality. Influence and cultural significance should not be a factor in a list of 'best' games, which is why a lot of the games here absolutely don't fit the criteria.
Ultimately, this stream was really boring because you just agreed or disagreed with everything, without trying to justify your opinions. You just blanket stated that Deus Ex was "so important" without ever explaining why. I didn't learn anything from watching.
I would disqualify any game that wants you to spend 45 minutes choosing your eyebrows before you can play. Good character design is hard. That's why I'm paying you to do it. Stop passing the buck back to me.
No diablo, no red alert, not a very valid list. This seems to be a cinematic story loving list.
I don't think I'll ever understand why Witcher III appears on lists like this. I played like 3 hours of that game and it was boring, unimmersive, the combat was shockingly bad (worse than any other tripleA game at the time). I'm still confused about it to this day
Because it's an incredible vidi game
Dude other people exist, they might have valid opinions too
Yeah, I get you, feel the same.
I'm told this is a "the series get's real good after the first two books" thing.
Dan talks about it at 1:40:32 fyi
Yea I won't lie Witcher 3's combat is pretty basic, but I think most people that likes or loves the game never really say "they like it because the combat is amazing" but more "Writing, side quests stories, etc."
Your taste in the FF games is questionable at best, Dan. I mean, you enjoy the dumpster fire that is the FF7R series.
32:52 i kinda wish i was there on the stream because i would've quoted Philomena Cunk and ask "Is it significant? Or important?"
the bonus lists are wild!
...WHY IS IT NUMBER TWO??????
For thief 2 is probably a better choice than one and 4 doesn’t exist because it's not really the same franchise just stealing its fanbase via bad fanfic.
I genuinely don't understand the hype behind FF7. I've tried playing it, and almost all other FF games I've played were just objectively better.
I'm surprised Rimworld, Factorio, and (War/Star)Craft didn't make the list.
While a top 100 games list will never be perfect i think a comprehensive list would've been possible in perhaps 2005. Now that we're approaching 2025 i think you'd have to bump the number up to top 150 or top 200 to have a chance at being "comprehensive". I also think that rather than ranking each game individually perhaps putting games within a range makes more sense. So for example games 100 to 75 would all be ranked as "From 100 to 75" meaning any one game amongst those 25 could get any ranking from 100 to 75. Doing this for the entire list gives some interesting wriggle room to play around with and removes the nearly impossible task of differentiating between a "number 53rd best game and 52nd best game". And if a range of 25 is too wide you can go with increments of 5 or 10 instead.
When it comes to GoldenEye, I think it belongs on the list if only because without it, we might not have got Halo - and if we had, it would have been another Marathon.
The one game I was expecting to see but didn't is StarCraft 2 (though I'd accept replacing it with SC1 or BW).
There are also a handful of games I'd want to put in my own top 100, but don't insist other people should:
- Commander Keen
- Life Is Strange
- Virtue's Last Reward
- Kingdom Hearts 2
related to the "some franchises are over-represented in the list"...
at the end of the 2010s, billboard did a "most influential songs of the 2010s" list, with the rule of 1 song per artist/group (and with a second list, "100 runner-up songs we could've put on the 'most influential songs of the 2010s' list" waiting in the wings). they also included a little write-up on why, say, rihanna's "we found love" made the list as opposed to one of her many other hits from the decade. granted, influential =/= "best" but it seems like this list would have benefited from that sort of approach.
Idk man, I love dragon age origins (currently playing it again in anticipation of Veilguard), but I feel like it'd have to be the one to go. Both ME and KOTOR broke major new ground and were big stretches for Bioware. DAO may have more player freedom and better character writing, but conceptually it is just kind of slicker sexier baldur's gate.
Is it one of my favorite games of all time, but I think on influence alone, it shouldn't take the place it has.
Edited addition: Granted, I've always bounced off KOTOR's gameplay, and ME1 is unbearable if you don't have a podcast on in the background (provided you're engaging with all the Mako portions). DAO's gameplay is only getting more enjoyable as I get older.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who've never played Mother 3 and those who are scandalised that it isn't on this list
Interesting. Also shows some developers blind spots when it comes to influence. Something of Xenogears, Xenosaga, or Xenoblade should be on here. For influence because it influenced their number 1 and Elden Ring which was also on here Xenoblade 1 should have been on here.