What's your favorite video game of all time?

[Reyold]

Grandia. The first one.

Alright! Good to know I'm not the only one who likes that game.

But as good as it is, my top favorite has got to be Ico. Gameplay was really enjoyable, and no game I've played had the emotional torque it did, especially at the end. Shadow of the Colossus will likely join alongside it, as soon as I get around to playing it.

That said, there are a few games that come pretty close:

Metal Gear Solid 3
Portal 2
Earthbound
Pikmin 2
Spelunky
Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
Valkyria Chronicles
Resonance of Fate

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Super Metroid. Great atmosphere and music, great bosses, great structure, great weapons including some techniques for sequence breaking that add an entirely new dimension to the game. The only problem is length, but I'd say that about all the games I really like. You just want more and more and more from a game like that, and thankfully there have indeed been some amazing fan remakes of it, one of which actually exceeds the original in graphical fidelity somehow.

I might have said Metroid Prime instead (it's longer), but the Chozo Artifact quest at the end was a chore, as were both the final boss' two phases.

If I was allowed to make one game in a Nintendo franchise, it would be Metroid.

 

[Do4600]

X-Com: Apocalypse

A very strange answer coming from me, I would say X-Com: UFO Defence, but then I remember how much more there is in Apocalypse. UFO Defence is very tight, nothing is wasted, every element is equally as important. But this isn't about which game is better, it's about which game is my favorite. Apocalypse is my favorite game because it takes every important quality from UFO Defence and takes it to incredible lengths. It gets higher appreciation from me over games like Deus Ex because when it comes down to it Deus Ex, while being one of the greatest games of all time, is still a fairly linear progression through a story.

Apocalypse is totally different each time I've played it. They gave it so many variables, the city has 27 factions, each one trying to accomplish their own goals, each time you start a new campaign the city is randomized changing the way those faction interact. At any time you can choose to attack those factions for whatever reason, you actually send a team to attack them, you go inside their buildings and take their stuff and kill their workers and security people, the faction is then forced to replace the equipment and personnel you destroyed, this affects their financial position in the city and their relations with other factions. It also affects how active they are, if you empty their operating budgets they can't be a visible force in the city.

Factions will enter conflicts with each other, and the private company that runs the police force and the government already starts out in conflict with the many criminal syndicates in the game. In one game very late, right before I was about to destroy the Aliens, The week ended and I was about to receive my standard X-Com Government subsidy and they increased my subsidy that week, but their income was so depleted from fighting in the streets with criminal syndicates that they were only able to pay me 5% of the normal amount, that was okay because I was making all my money through manufacturing alien technology at the time.

In one conflict a stray Justice missile from a Diablo gang's hovercar hit a building belonging to the Technocrats and leveled it, including all of the transportation conduit branching off of it, this caused the Technocrats to scramble their own hovercars and they totally destroyed Diablo's hovercars and one of the slums owned by Diablo. The Extropians hate the Technocrats because they are political rivals, so the Extropians allied with Diablo, when the Technocrats destroyed Diablo's slums, one of Diablo's gang rivals, Pyske, allied with the Technocrats, and from that point on, each gang was effectively being supported by these two political lobbyist groups. Then when the Aliens managed to infiltrate and control the Extropians and I began raiding them, I found myself in higher standing with Pyske and the Technocrats.

Apocalypse manages to pull off complex political intrigue, if you took out the aliens and added a slightly more complex market it would still be a great game about a city in the future where corporations have their own armies.

And, you can go to a corporations facility with 25 people armed with 2 disrupter cannons each and literally level the building piece by piece, completely vaporize the supports and let gravity bring everything above it down, including their people who will be crushed under the rumble.

Long story short: You can vaporize an entire sports stadium with hand held weapons in real-time for the purpose of bankrupting the league...oh, and there are aliens.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

X-Com: Apocalypse

A very strange answer coming from me, I would say X-Com: UFO Defence, but then I remember how much more there is in Apocalypse. UFO Defence is very tight, nothing is wasted, every element is equally as important. But this isn't about which game is better, it's about which game is my favorite. Apocalypse is my favorite game because it takes every important quality from UFO Defence and takes it to incredible lengths. It gets higher appreciation from me over games like Deus Ex because when it comes down to it Deus Ex, while being one of the greatest games of all time, is still a fairly linear progression through a story.

Apocalypse is totally different each time I've played it. They gave it so many variables, the city has 27 factions, each one trying to accomplish their own goals, each time you start a new campaign the city is randomized changing the way those faction interact. At any time you can choose to attack those factions for whatever reason, you actually send a team to attack them, you go inside their buildings and take their stuff and kill their workers and security people, the faction is then forced to replace the equipment and personnel you destroyed, this affects their financial position in the city and their relations with other factions. It also affects how active they are, if you empty their operating budgets they can't be a visible force in the city.

Factions will enter conflicts with each other, and the private company that runs the police force and the government already starts out in conflict with the many criminal syndicates in the game. In one game very late, right before I was about to destroy the Aliens, The week ended and I was about to receive my standard X-Com Government subsidy and they increased my subsidy that week, but their income was so depleted from fighting in the streets with criminal syndicates that they were only able to pay me 5% of the normal amount, that was okay because I was making all my money through manufacturing alien technology at the time.

In one conflict a stray Justice missile from a Diablo gang's hovercar hit a building belonging to the Technocrats and leveled it, including all of the transportation conduit branching off of it, this caused the Technocrats to scramble their own hovercars and they totally destroyed Diablo's hovercars and one of the slums owned by Diablo. The Extropians hate the Technocrats because they are political rivals, so the Extropians allied with Diablo, when the Technocrats destroyed Diablo's slums, one of Diablo's gang rivals, Pyske, allied with the Technocrats, and from that point on, each gang was effectively being supported by these two political lobbyist groups. Then when the Aliens managed to infiltrate and control the Extropians and I began raiding them, I found myself in higher standing with Pyske and the Technocrats.

Apocalypse manages to pull off complex political intrigue, if you took out the aliens and added a slightly more complex market it would still be a great game about a city in the future where corporations have their own armies.

And, you can go to a corporations facility with 25 people armed with 2 disrupter cannons each and literally level the building piece by piece, completely vaporize the supports and let gravity bring everything above it down, including their people who will be crushed under the rumble.

Long story short: You can vaporize an entire sports stadium with hand held weapons in real-time for the purpose of bankrupting the league...oh, and there are aliens.

I actually remember one mission I had in that game in a munitions factory. I think we got off two shots before essentially the entire building exploded in a massive chain reaction. I killed the aliens, but the corporation wasn't too happy with me.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I am ashamed to admit that I have never played a Silent Hill game, but I intend to rectify that someday. I've heard that the horror is really well done because the majority of it is psychological.

That's a difficult one to answer because horror is different for everyone. Personally jump scares and endless gore doesn't do it for me but Silent Hill's deeply unsettling world certainly does.

Silent Hill is special for what it doesn't do. Sure it uses plenty of disturbing visuals and threatening enemies but, for the most part, it's the elements SH holds back that actually provides the scares. Games like Resident Evil will have hard coded into us the sort of situations in which a scare will occur, a monster will jump out, a boss battle will trigger etc. But SH elects to ignore these moments, leaving the player uncomfortable and on edge with an expectation that is never validated. Even the amazing discordant soundtrack is more effective when they don't use it; there's nothing worse than entering a silent room.

I honestly believe our own brains make the whole experience far scarier than it actually has any right to be. For example I found the film The Ring terrifying and it haunted my dreams for weeks after viewing, but some people were bored by it. The Ring uses very similar ideas to Silent Hill and as such it will depend entirely on the viewer/player as to how much they get from it.

I'd highly recommend starting with any of the original 4 Silent Hill games. You can buy the original Playstation game on PSN. The most recent Downpour isn't too bad for a recent game but heed my warning when I say don't touch Homecoming! It's a pile of arse.

 

[AntiChrist]

Grandia. The first one.

This game is a genuine joy to play. It is colorful, comical and light-hearted, but still manages to convey an awe-inspiring, epic feel as main man Justin and crew explore its sprawling world (spanning two cram-packed PS1 discs!)

The graphics are somewhat primitive, but the game world is still beautifully crafted and it's clear from the outset that everybody involved wanted to make the best game possible with the resources available. (And Grandia actually looks better than Final Fantasy VII!)

The combat system is hailed as pure genius to this day. It is surprisingly deep, yet as intuitive as anything. Leave the game for ten years, come back, resume kicking ass. And yes, I am actually speaking from experience here. It IS turn-based, but FAR more dynamic than in Final Fantasy games of its time. The battle screen actually looks like a battle, for one thing.

Spoiler: The music-

-actually rivals most of Nobuo Uematsu's work! YES, I just said that. No regrets.

Seriously, people, try Grandia if you haven't already. It's available on PSN. It's like playing through a Studio Ghibli movie!
[small]OK, I admit that I haven't tried Ni No Kuni. It's expensive, hard to find, and has been getting less-than-promising reviews.[/small]

In no way would I consider Grandia a flawless game, but the first half of the game inspire a sense of mystique, wonder, and genuine awe that games today seem incapable of achieving. Grandia is an adventure in the truest sense.

Check out this live peformance of the Grandia theme [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_MMY_WnUM]. How awesome would it have been to experience it live?

 

[otakon17]

Grandia. The first one.

This game is a genuine joy to play. It is colorful, comical and light-hearted, but still manages to convey an awe-inspiring, epic feel as main man Justin and crew explore its sprawling world (spanning two cram-packed PS1 discs!)

The graphics are somewhat primitive, but the game world is still beautifully crafted and it's clear from the outset that everybody involved wanted to make the best game possible with the resources available. (And Grandia actually looks better than Final Fantasy VII!)

The combat system is hailed as pure genius to this day. It is surprisingly deep, yet as intuitive as anything. Leave the game for ten years, come back, resume kicking ass. And yes, I am actually speaking from experience here. It IS turn-based, but FAR more dynamic than in Final Fantasy games of its time. The battle screen actually looks like a battle, for one thing.

Spoiler: The music-

-actually rivals most of Nobuo Uematsu's work! YES, I just said that. No regrets.

Seriously, people, try Grandia if you haven't already. It's available on PSN. It's like playing through a Studio Ghibli movie!
[small]OK, I admit that I haven't tried Ni No Kuni. It's expensive, hard to find, and has been getting less-than-promising reviews.[/small]

Oh that's a great one, had a physical copy for years and only finished it after a 3 year hiatus or so due to lack of PS1 playing capable system. However, my #1 game for me would be Chrono Trigger hands down. I have played through it on emulators, the SNES, the PS1 and the DS and damn near on the iPod(but I have an Android tablet with an SNES emulator). I've played through it over a dozen times and have yet to tire of it. Everything about it I just find fantastic. The graphics, the music(Frog's Theme for one, one of the best) and the gameplay.

 

[Poppy JR.]

I am ashamed to admit that I have never played a Silent Hill game, but I intend to rectify that someday. I've heard that the horror is really well done because the majority of it is psychological.

That's a difficult one to answer because horror is different for everyone. Personally jump scares and endless gore doesn't do it for me but Silent Hill's deeply unsettling world certainly does.

Silent Hill is special for what it doesn't do. Sure it uses plenty of disturbing visuals and threatening enemies but, for the most part, it's the elements SH holds back that actually provides the scares. Games like Resident Evil will have hard coded into us the sort of situations in which a scare will occur, a monster will jump out, a boss battle will trigger etc. But SH elects to ignore these moments, leaving the player uncomfortable and on edge with an expectation that is never validated. Even the amazing discordant soundtrack is more effective when they don't use it; there's nothing worse than entering a silent room.

I honestly believe our own brains make the whole experience far scarier than it actually has any right to be. For example I found the film The Ring terrifying and it haunted my dreams for weeks after viewing, but some people were bored by it. The Ring uses very similar ideas to Silent Hill and as such it will depend entirely on the viewer/player as to how much they get from it.

I'd highly recommend starting with any of the original 4 Silent Hill games. You can buy the original Playstation game on PSN. The most recent Downpour isn't too bad for a recent game but heed my warning when I say don't touch Homecoming! It's a pile of arse.

Hehe. I saw the Zero Punctuation for Homecoming. I wouldn't touch it with a 50 foot pole.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Planescape Torment, even though I have finished quite lately having never played it "back in the day".

It completely blew my mind and me being a sucker for story over everything else then I don't think I will find another game that will surpass that game in that department.

 

[Poppy JR.]

deus ex, best game ever made, too bad all its sequels have been utter crap

I feel ya. I think this is appropriate.

Spoiler

By the way, welcome to the forums!

 

[XX Y XY]

Star Control 2

Nothing else comes close

 

[the_great_cessation]

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess : I'll spare my usual nostalgic ramblings and just summarize by saying that, growing up as a huge Zelda fan, this game pleased and delighted me in untold ways. It was at once a nostalgic homage to 3D Zelda's past while at the same time completely raising the scale and size of the world, the boss fights, and hidden secrets. I also feel the game has the best atmosphere of all the Zelda games and best captures that sense of heroic fantasy adventure they all strive towards. The level and world design is top notch and is just brimming with mystery and life. Perhaps the best example of this, is the ride across Gerudo desert Boar-back in search of the Arbiter's Ground. While riding across the barren wasteland the atmosphere is heavy; so heavy that you can almost feel the sun beating down your back. You then stumble upon a huge enemy camp which you proceed to advance upon. While exploring / infiltrating the enemy camp, you stumble upon a roasted boar that the enemies were preparing for dinner. With this small detail, Twilight Princess' Hyrule becomes all the more real. Link's enemies didn't just dwell around in dungeons and patrol fields - they had homes and lives. They ate and slept and lived in communities much like Link and the people of Ordon Village. The game is chock-full of moments like this such as meeting the Yetis who live atop Snowpeak, getting lost amidst the hustle and bustle of Castle Town, discovering the ancient ruins of a lost Skybound city, etc. These moments (to name a few) made the world of Hyrule all the more immersive and have yet to be topped in a Zelda game. It is a perfect representation of both everything Zelda is and everything it can be. Twilight Princess, to me, represents all that I love about both video games as a medium and the Zelda series more specifically; building upon and actualizing all the values and adventure fantasies I held so close to my heart growing up and creating an absolutely enchanting and memorable interactive adventure in the process.

 

[busterkeatonrules]

In no way would I consider Grandia a flawless game, but the first half of the game inspire a sense of mystique, wonder, and genuine awe that games today seem incapable of achieving. Grandia is an adventure in the truest sense.

Check out this live peformance of the Grandia theme [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_MMY_WnUM]. How awesome would it have been to experience it live?

That was great - they even got the electric guitar part just right! I always admired the composer for including an electric guitar in a symphonic piece. That had to take some balls - though the REALLY cool part is, it WORKS! Doesn't sound the least bit out of place.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[God's Clown]

I can't pick a top game of all time. Too many of equal standing.

Seiken Densetsu 3
Persona 3 Portable
Persona 4 Golden
Chrono Trigger
Skyrim
Those would be in the top 1%

 

[Scy Anide]

Final Fantasy Tactics, followed closely by Earthbound. I own a PSP purely for FFT and I've beaten it more than half a dozen times, most of which while on a plane since I live on the East coast but most of my family and friends are on the West coast.

 

[DanielBrown]

It's hard to answer this question with only one game. Played games for 18 years. Owned and played several hundreds during that time and I've loved plenty of them.
Nostalgia vise I'd say Spyro the Dragon, like a few others here. It was my first Playstation game that I got when I was seven-ish. Played it like insane. Actually replayed it just a few days ago for the first time in over ten years and it's still a great game. The world is a lot smaller than I remembered, but the gameplay is still solid and just as fun as an adult as it was when I was a kid.
Final Fantasy X and Ratchet & Clank would also be contenders. My first PS2 games that simply blew me away with the graphics and voice acting. Still play them once in a while and they're still great(though I've grown to hate Tidus). There are better Final Fantasy games, but the mind blowing and combat is what makes it the best to me. By far my favorite combat system across all FF games.

LOTRO should also be mentioned. Played it almost daily for over three years. The atmosphere, the classes and the community were the best I had ever come across in alll the MMOs I've played. Unfortunetly Turbine keeps fucking the game up with each expansion. Haven't had a good one since Mines of Moria... and that was the first out of the five expansions we got now. Doing a farewell tour of the game at the moment and don't intend to come back after I'm done.

Sooo out of these I guess my favorite would be LOTRO, pre-Rise of Isengard, but I treasure Spyro the Dragon most of them all.
Sorry about the rambling and shit. Haven't slept tonight, so I'm only half conscious.

 

[EyeReaper]

Man, I'm gonna be so original when I say mine, I bet no one else will agree or has said the same

P to the E to the R to the S to the O to the N to the A to the 4 golden.
everything that is good in the world, it is here. Ever since I got it, I've spent more time playing than I have sleeping. Of course, the same thing happened when I got Persona 4 classic as well.

This is how remakes should be, not only the same game, but improved graphics, new places and characters added, experiences improved all around. Also, inserting a kinda cliche Tsundere into your game will always get you some brownie points in my book

 

[Brian Tams]

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time, ever (and I'm still saddened by the death of my N64, since now I have to play it on a shitty emulator).
What can I say about? Its the first game that I had experienced that I now regard as a work of art. The story is fantastic, the side quests are great, and the emphasis on side questing gets you to care about the world of Termina. There are some great theories about the game that endear it even more to me.
And you know what? The time system was amazing. It organically added tension to the game; one of my favorite memories was frantically scrambling around the Stone Tower, trying desperately to conquer the dungeon, while the clock read merely 2 hours left before the final countdown. Same thing happened in the Great Bay Temple, but that was probably just me being cocky, thinking that I didn't need to start a new cycle after completing the Pirate Fortress. Boy, was I wrong.
The story itself manages to both hit the Zelda formula, and be wholly unique on its own. Its a fantastic sequel that surpasses Ocarina of Time in every single aspect, and I will take that statement all the way to the grave if I have to.
Link's story is fantastic. It raises a significant question; after being billed as the Destined Hero, and then fulfilling that destiny at a young age, what are you supposed to do for the rest of your life? Link in Majora's Mask is just a guy; there's no talk about being the chosen one, he doesn't have to collect some mystical sword to smite all evil (you can finish the game with the sword you start with, upgrading it is just a side quest), and he isn't in possession of the Triforce of Courage anymore. At the beginning of the game, he gets mugged by Skull Kid. He then pursues Skull Kid into his little cave... and is defeated and is turned into a deku scrub. He then tracks Skull Kid down to the top of Clock Tower, only to horrifyingly realize he can do absolutely nothing to stop him.
Do you see what the game is getting at in its opening moments? Link, the great hero of time who stopped the greatest evil Hyrule had ever known, was easily defeated three times in quick secession. Wow.
This raises the serious question; did Link defeat Ganondorf because he was simply stronger than him, or because he was the hero time and also in position of the triforce of courage? If so, how is he supposed to live the rest of his life, if the one thing he was going to be known for was something that destiny had already preordained was going to happen anyway?

The above is the realization I had about Majora's Mask that catapulted it from merely being in my top ten, and directly into the top spot (there's a veritable ocean of space between #1 and #2, as well).

I'm going to stop here, since anymore discussion about it would endanger this post of turning into a novel. I could talk about Majora's Mask and all its intricacies and the theories that surround it for months on end, and if Nintendo gets off their fat asses and remakes it like they've been hinting at for over a goddamn year now, then I probably will post several articles talking about the game. This game is both an integral part of my childhood (because, being the youngest, I was the only sibling who was skilled and patient enough to beat it first), as well as my adulthood. Its the kind of game that impacted me in a life-altering way. So many lessons were taught to me through that game that I owe Nintendo so very much. And David Cage? You and your polygons to go fuck themselves, because Majora's Mask was a very emotional game, packed full of happiness, quirkiness, and sadness...

 

[Evonisia]

Silent Hill 2 was a great game, imo it's story is second only to Silent Hill 4's, but 4 had bad (even by SH standards) gameplay. It's also my third (I think) favourite SH. But by realistic, do you mean 'realistic for them'? I'm pretty sure that a society wouldn't go and form a city in the sky if you know what I mean.

Ah, yes. I didn't even remember using the word realistic until I re-read my post! The idea I was aiming for was how well those games create a believable world, one I can become engrossed in and forget that it isn't real. Maybe Columbia isn't realistic in any sense of the word but I was totally pulled into the experience. Poor choice of words on my part!

I've never really given SH4 that much time in all honesty. The gameplay has always ruined it for me along with the repeated environments. I keep meaning to go back and play again, it certainly has a brilliant premise and some truly horrifying moments. Those Twin Victims in the Water Prison? *Shudder*

I'd be interested to know how you rank SH in order of your favourites.

Silent Hill 4 needs the day time damnit! Wait, I meant night time.

I rank 'em like I rank most games, just based on how much I enjoyed myself in them. If everything in Silent Hill 2 was as shocking, unexpected and effective as the burning staircase scene it would definitely be my favourite game of all time (the feels, man).

As it stands it'd probably go along the lines of:
3
Downpour
2
4: The Room
Shuttered Mammaries Shattered Memories and 1
Homecoming

Haven't played or seen gameplay of Origins but I've not high expectations of it.

 

[putowtin]

Can't be done!
Seriously I have trouble listing a top twenty
It's the same with music

but my man Grey has picked one of my finest gaming moments

Mass Effect 2:

When I first got to the suicide mission, I was really psyched up for it. The music, the direction, the execution, all of it left me on edge with adrenaline pumping, and an early mistake about what classified as a techie(I was still thinking in ME1 terms and thought Mordin was the engineer class...) left me terrified that even the slightest misstep could cause me to lose another beloved character. It will forever, in my mind, be the greatest hour in gaming history.

Tru dat!