Gaming Gaming RedCafe's Greatest Video Games Of All Time Contest (FINAL ROUND)

[The Hilton]

But Mario games were truly head and shoulders above most games in their era and there's a reason why they're so popular in gaming culture. As we have progressed in the contest, they have had less impact, mirroring real life.

Would you not consider the early Mario games as some of the most important games of all time? Nothing touched then back in those days.

As for diversity...

Mario (platformer)
PES (sports)
Street Fighter 2 (fighter)
GTA (sandbox)
Football Manager (management)
God Of War (action)
Final Fantasy VII (RPG)
TLOU (adventure)
Hollow Knight (Metroidvania)
Hades (rogue-like)
Deus Ex (FPS)
Age Of Empires (strategy)

There's plenty diversity no?

I don't think 3 of them are important enough to be in this list, especially with some other innovative games back then.

I'd say you're really stretching for diversity there, and what diversity is there is mostly because the PC round was so big.

Anyway this is nothing against you or the setup, I think you've done a good job, have been mostly impartial (Alex Kidd aside haha), and it was a good idea - the rounds of voting were great fun racking my brain, I just saw the final 30 we've arrived at and it was really disappointing.

 

[Moby]

It has dross like Rise of the Tomb Raider which had knocked out Half-Life 2 in the previous round (just let that sink in!

Somebody hold me.

This entire set of games overall shits on the IGN set.

 

[BusbyMalone]

I was going to type a different reply until I saw the bolded

Street Fighter 2 is incredible. Fond memories.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I don't think 3 of them are important enough to be in this list, especially with some other innovative games back then.

I'd say you're really stretching for diversity there, and what diversity is there is mostly because the PC round was so big.

Anyway this is nothing against you or the setup, I think you've done a good job, have been mostly impartial (Alex Kidd aside haha), and it was a good idea - the rounds of voting were great fun racking my brain, I just saw the final 30 we've arrived at and it was really disappointing.

I don't take offense to anything mate don't worry!

I personally think the early Mario games should be in every "best-of" lists. Sure, they pale against something like TLOU but I'm all about impact and not many games impacted the landscape like those did. But this is all subjective right?

As for diversity... I think the PC round was the round that hindered the diversity overall

And about the bolded bit... I don't know what you're talking about

 

[Dirty Schwein]

Street Fighter 2 is incredible. Fond memories.

I still play it to this day

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

I'd probably have the IGN 32 over these personally, but I cant lie that many of the games on our list are more impactful. Can't help but think the voting was carried out by different demographics here though. Clear the gamers on the CAF are skewing much older than that IGN poll. Most of which wouldn't have been born for those Mario games.

 

[Moby]

Mmm... TLOU is an interesting one. I am simply not a fan of that gameplay - not because there's anything wrong with it but I never enjoyed it personally. It became really really tedious for me at times having to pretty much one shot each enemy with the lack of ammo and stuff while keeping up stealth at all times.

On the other hand the narrative, acting and the experience overall is fantastic. Uncharted was my preferred ND title of the 2 with UC2 being the best game the studio have come up with. So I guess I don't have to really put this in based on my own experience, although objectively it is definitely a class game overall and one of the better ones from the last 2-3 gens or rather the post the golden era of PS2.

 

[The Hilton]

Somebody hold me.

This entire set of games overall shits on the IGN set.

It's always going to be subjective of course, but comparing our list to the 32 bracket from IGN, I still think ours is superior (and that's with two games less). Yes, there are games from those 32 I would have liked to see here, like Burnout 3 or Breath of the Wild, but the other way around, theirs doesn't have a single RTS for example. It has dross like Rise of the Tomb Raider which had knocked out Half-Life 2 in the previous round (just let that sink in! ).

We'll have to agree to disagree.

They've got some nonsense I'll admit, but I'd take the 32 bracket from IGN over the 30 we've ended up with any day, even if they've hugely overrated God of War (although that seems to be happening here too). We've got a list of 10% Mario, and a bunch of 3rd person hack/slash/shoot games, and some tokens from the PC round.

Looking back perhaps a better approach would have been time ranges rather than console generations, or PC generations to match consoles (dunno how that would work, OS maybe?), or one game from each console to prevent some of the similarity/exclusive spam.

 

[Moby]

I'd probably have the IGN 32 over these personally, but I cant lie that many of the games on our list are more impactful. Can't help but think the voting was carried out by different demographics here though. Clear the gamers on the CAF are skewing much older than that IGN poll. Most of which wouldn't have been born for those Mario games.

I was born in 1988 - starting playing games in the 90s and I cannot imagine anyone who started gaming during the 80s and the entire 90s at the very least without playing EACH of those marios for a huge amount of time.

It is only those who started gaming around the PS2 era and never owned 8/16 bit consoles etc who wouldn't have themselves played these games.

If anything our overall list is still fairly modern and even a game as recent as Hades which wasn't a huge title has made it while some absolute classics are still missing. No doubt there's a huge amount of nostalgia involved but if you evaluate the game at the era in which it was released, how much impact they had this is what you'd be fairly close to.

 

[Moby]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

They've got some nonsense I'll admit, but I'd take the 32 bracket from IGN over the 30 we've ended up with any day, even if they've hugely overrated God of War (although that seems to be happening here too). We've got a list of 10% Mario, and a bunch of 3rd person hack/slash/shoot games, and some tokens from the PC round.

Looking back perhaps a better approach would have been time ranges rather than console generations, or PC generations to match consoles (dunno how that would work, OS maybe?), or one game from each console to prevent some of the similarity/exclusive spam.

Mate at least tell us which exact games you'd rather want in and think should be in an ideal top 30?

I know all of us wanted some games in here which didn't make in but this was a public poll and that's to be expected.

Only reason I think some are feeling like this is because it has a lot of the games from the formative years for both consoles and PC as opposed to the newer shinier shite that is all style no substance. Otherwise all the genres and generations are fairly well represented here and there's nothing that you'd think is completely out of place. Even bloody God of War which may not be a top tier game in itself but still defines a huge franchise and possibly will be one of the foundation games for a great bunch of sequels.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

They've got some nonsense I'll admit, but I'd take the 32 bracket from IGN over the 30 we've ended up with any day, even if they've hugely overrated God of War (although that seems to be happening here too). We've got a list of 10% Mario, and a bunch of 3rd person hack/slash/shoot games, and some tokens from the PC round.

Looking back perhaps a better approach would have been time ranges rather than console generations, or PC generations to match consoles (dunno how that would work, OS maybe?), or one game from each console to prevent some of the similarity/exclusive spam.

I looked into this but as we get closer to the present, it would have become lame. Imagine an Xbox One round.

But I will be looking to do more of these in the future so learnings will be helpful!

I was born in 1988 - starting playing games in the 90s and I cannot imagine anyone who started gaming during the 80s and the entire 90s at the very least without playing EACH of those marios for a huge amount of time.

It is only those who started gaming around the PS2 era and never owned 8/16 bit consoles etc who wouldn't have themselves played these games.

If anything our overall list is still fairly modern and even a game as recent as Hades which wasn't a huge title has made it while some absolute classics are still missing. No doubt there's a huge amount of nostalgia involved but if you evaluate the game at the era in which it was released, how much impact they had this is what you'd be fairly close to.

I think this is vital. Most people forget the founding fathers.

 

[Irwin99]

1. Witcher 3
2. Final Fantasy 7
3. Metal Gear Solid (can't believe 3 didn't make the list...what's wrong with you people/monsters?!!!)
4. Bloodborne
5. Pokemon
6. Goldeneye
7. Shadow of the Colossus
8. Rome Total War
9. Street Fighter 2
10. Supermario world

Probably could switch FF7 with W3 but they're both fantastic and i'll stick with W3.

 

[Revan]

If I am mistaken, TW3 is leading, with 10 points more than FF7.

2 of the very few games I would give a perfect 10/10 score.

 

[Ainu]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

They've got some nonsense I'll admit, but I'd take the 32 bracket from IGN over the 30 we've ended up with any day, even if they've hugely overrated God of War (although that seems to be happening here too). We've got a list of 10% Mario, and a bunch of 3rd person hack/slash/shoot games, and some tokens from the PC round.

Looking back perhaps a better approach would have been time ranges rather than console generations, or PC generations to match consoles (dunno how that would work, OS maybe?), or one game from each console to prevent some of the similarity/exclusive spam.

Come on, some tokes from the PC round? A list that includes games like Half-Life 2, Age of Empires 2, Deus Ex, KOTOR, World of Warcraft, those aren't token games. They are often sighted in GOAT lists and some of them very close to the top of those lists. The PC round wasn't just an extra, it was essential.

 

[Moby]

If I am mistaken, TW3 is leading, with 10 points more than FF7.

2 of the very few games I would give a perfect 10/10 score.

Yeah at this point you can come up with a bunch of deserving finales and that would one of the deserving ones for sure.

Pretty much all combos from this whole list will be better than IGN's though.

 

[Revan]

Yeah at this point you can come up with a bunch of deserving finales and that would one of the deserving ones for sure.

Pretty much all combos from this whole list will be better than IGN's though.

Yup. There are a few games that I think should have made the final (Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect 2) but in general, it is a very good list.

 

[The Hilton]

Mate at least tell us which exact games you'd rather want in and think should be in an ideal top 30?

I know all of us wanted some games in here which didn't make in but this was a public poll and that's to be expected.

Only reason I think some are feeling like this is because it has a lot of the games from the formative years for both consoles and PC as opposed to the newer shinier shite that is all style no substance. Otherwise all the genres and generations are fairly well represented here and there's nothing that you'd think is completely out of place. Even bloody God of War which may not be a top tier game in itself but still defines a huge franchise and possibly will be one of the foundation games for a great bunch of sequels.

There's plenty that's out of place in our list - for starters we have 3 Super Mario games as three quarters of the entrants from a time that included classics such as Sonic, and various Atari & Sega games that should have 2 of those 3 places (Super Mario gets one for sure).

And if you look at the modern games we've got in the list, they're so similar, round 5 and 6 are all third person slashers or shooters. There's a very heavy historical Nintendo bias, with Sega getting basically ignored, and a very heavy modern Sony bias.

I can come up with a top 30 list for you if you really want, given time, but if you gave me a choice off the shelf I'd take IGN's over ours every day just for the fact that there's a lot more variation.

Come on, some tokes from the PC round? A list that includes games like Half-Life 2, Age of Empires 2, Deus Ex, KOTOR, World of Warcraft, those aren't token games. They are often sighted in GOAT lists and some of them very close to the top of those lists. The PC round wasn't just an extra, it was essential.

I mean tokens in that they'll barely get any votes, they're making up the numbers as PC had loads more going through. I agree they're classics, I'm suggesting that PC was somewhat underrepresented still, as it had 1 round to 6 console rounds despite being around at the same time as all of them.

I looked into this but as we get closer to the present, it would have become lame. Imagine an Xbox One round.

But I will be looking to do more of these in the future so learnings will be helpful!

I think that's harsh, the Xbox One had some great games. Even if you narrow it down to exclusives there are classic franchises like Gears, Forza, Halo, etc.

Anyway I'm gonna take a break for now, as there are too many conversation threads of people being annoyed with me to follow, and I have work to do!

 

[Moby]

I can come up with a top 30 list for you if you really want

Yeah please do, keeping the rules that were in place for this whole competition in mind.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

I was born in 1988 - starting playing games in the 90s and I cannot imagine anyone who started gaming during the 80s and the entire 90s at the very least without playing EACH of those marios for a huge amount of time.

It is only those who started gaming around the PS2 era and never owned 8/16 bit consoles etc who wouldn't have themselves played these games.

If anything our overall list is still fairly modern and even a game as recent as Hades which wasn't a huge title has made it while some absolute classics are still missing. No doubt there's a huge amount of nostalgia involved but if you evaluate the game at the era in which it was released, how much impact they had this is what you'd be fairly close to.

While this is important for our contest it probably shouldn’t figure in objective “best video game of all time contests”. Under that category newer games will almost always win because they have taken those old formulas and improved upon them. I know in rare instances that isn’t the case but for example those Ole Mario games while great in their era, would barely occupy you for 30 mins today. So in a way it kind of depends what you are looking for. The best Video game to play as of today. Or the most iconic and genre defining games ever made. I think our list leans closer to the second one than the first.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

By the way sorry if my posts are coming over as a complete moan. I really don’t want that to be the case as I’ve enjoyed this whole thing and would love more contests like this going forward. Great job to all involved, it’s just fun to moan/discuss changes or alternative games.

 

[Moby]

While this is important for our contest it probably shouldn’t figure in objective “best video game of all time contests”. Under that category newer games will almost always win because they have taken those old formulas and improved upon them. I know in rare instances that isn’t the case but for example those Ole Mario games while great in their era, would barely occupy you for 30 mins today. So in a way it kind of depends what you are looking for. The best Video game to play as of today. Or the most iconic and genre defining games ever made. I think our list leans closer to the second one than the first.

Yeah I've disagreed with that notion every single time it has been brought up and I'll never agree to it, period.

The era of any game has absolutely nothing to do with their quality. A great game can be from any era.

 

[Volumiza]

Come on, some tokes from the PC round? A list that includes games like Half-Life 2, Age of Empires 2, Deus Ex, KOTOR, World of Warcraft, those aren't token games. They are often sighted in GOAT lists and some of them very close to the top of those lists. The PC round wasn't just an extra, it was essential.

Absolutely. Been a long time since I've owned a gaming PC and my top 3 games are PC games.

I'm just gutted Skyrim has somehow not made the list! Gutted I tell you. Nothing short of lunacy!

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

Yeah I've disagreed with that notion every single time it has been brought up and I'll never agree to it, period.

The era of any game has absolutely nothing to do with their quality. A great game can be from any era.

But you don’t really have that insight because you have grown up with those games by your own admission. Having only started on the PS1/PS2 when I was young I have absolutely no desire to go back and play those older games just as I don’t really enjoy those old movie classics that are so highly rated. Maybe that’s just a generational thing or perhaps it’s a me issue being unable to put up with older graphics/gameplay etc.

 

[Moby]

But you don’t really have that insight because you have grown up with those games by your own admission. Having only started on the PS1/PS2 when I was young I have absolutely no desire to go back and play those older games just as I don’t really enjoy those old movie classics that are so highly rated. Maybe that’s just a generational thing or perhaps it’s a me issue being unable to put up with older graphics/gameplay etc.

No obviously you can only talk about what you've played and there would be a bunch of great games before the first era we started with. So I've absolutely no problem with you omitting games prior to your time tyou haven't played. If a kid started playing today we won't blame them for not presenting the likes of Half Life 2 etc in their own lists. And bassed on that you obviously will be in the right to find a list that contains a chunk of games that are before your time and that it will be more interesting for you to make a list of 10 games released in last 15 odd years.

But any 'objective' list should absolutely contain the best games of each era and there should never be a conversation of how the recent games always play better than previous ones. There's no such thing.

 

[Organic Potatoes]

1. Super Mario 3
2. Final Fantasy VII
3. Metal Gear Solid
4. The Witcher 3
5. KOTOR
6. Shadow of the Colossus
7. Age of Empires II
8. Half Life 2
9. Street Fighter 2
10. Mass Effect

 

[Moby]

People voting for The Witcher 3 are actually voting for Gwent, right?

 

[Dirty Schwein]

There's plenty that's out of place in our list - for starters we have 3 Super Mario games as three quarters of the entrants from a time that included classics such as Sonic, and various Atari & Sega games that should have 2 of those 3 places (Super Mario gets one for sure).

And if you look at the modern games we've got in the list, they're so similar, round 5 and 6 are all third person slashers or shooters. There's a very heavy historical Nintendo bias, with Sega getting basically ignored, and a very heavy modern Sony bias.

I can come up with a top 30 list for you if you really want, given time, but if you gave me a choice off the shelf I'd take IGN's over ours every day just for the fact that there's a lot more variation.



I mean tokens in that they'll barely get any votes, they're making up the numbers as PC had loads more going through. I agree they're classics, I'm suggesting that PC was somewhat underrepresented still, as it had 1 round to 6 console rounds despite being around at the same time as all of them.



I think that's harsh, the Xbox One had some great games. Even if you narrow it down to exclusives there are classic franchises like Gears, Forza, Halo, etc.

Anyway I'm gonna take a break for now, as there are too many conversation threads of people being annoyed with me to follow, and I have work to do!

I wasn't trying to be harsh to Xbox One... I meant the conversation during newer consoles would be dead as they only have a handful of exclusives.

 

[KirkDuyt]

1. FF7
2. Witcher 3
3. Street Fighter 2
4. Rome Total war
5. KOTOR
6. Mass effect
7. World of Warcraft
8. Bloodborne
9. Mario bros 3
10. Hades

 

[V.O.]

1. World of Warcraft
2. Metal Gear Solid
3. Rome: Total War
4. PES
5. Mass Effect
6. Football Manager
7. Star Wars: KOTOR
8. Witcher 3
9. GTA: San Andreas
10. Super Mario Bros

 

[amolbhatia50k]

People voting for The Witcher 3 are actually voting for Gwent, right?

That's why it's such an incredible game. Not only a wonderful open world, but super writing, a card game that's actually additive and then 2 excellent DLCs.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Mate at least tell us which exact games you'd rather want in and think should be in an ideal top 30?

I know all of us wanted some games in here which didn't make in but this was a public poll and that's to be expected.

Only reason I think some are feeling like this is because it has a lot of the games from the formative years for both consoles and PC as opposed to the newer shinier shite that is all style no substance. Otherwise all the genres and generations are fairly well represented here and there's nothing that you'd think is completely out of place. Even bloody God of War which may not be a top tier game in itself but still defines a huge franchise and possibly will be one of the foundation games for a great bunch of sequels.

This isn't really true. Just because a game is stylish doesn't necessarily means it has any lesser substance and an obscure story doesn't mean a game has more substance because of some arbitrary refusal to conform. So while your person taste seems to disqualify a narrative driven game like GoW from achieving greatness, many find substance in narrative as well, and there's no hard and fast rule, really. Also, I'd argue that the list we've arrived at ignores a lot of the modern stuff that would otherwise get picked, but due to nostaliga bias we are getting the kind of list you'd get in 2022. I'd imagine a decade or so down the line, you'd see even more modern games which have pushed the boundaries of the medium but are overlooked because you can't ignore games like Witcher etc from the same generation.

 

[Moby]

That's why it's such an incredible game. Not only a wonderful open world, but super writing, a card game that's actually additive and then 2 excellent DLCs.

I meant if you don't spend 80% of your time playing Gwent, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I kinda wish I'd played Witcher 3 with the amount of votes it keeps getting. Doubt it's better than Alex Kidd but I reckon I would probably enjoy it.

 

[paulscholes18]

1 Red Dead redemption
2 The Witcher III
3 The Last of Us
4 God of War
5 Pokémon
6 Football Manager
7 Alex the Kidd
8 Super Mario World
9 Goldeneye

 

[Moby]

Just because a game is stylish doesn't necessarily means it has any lesser substance and an obscure story doesn't mean a game has more substance because of some arbitrary refusal to conform.

That wasn't my argument whatsoever, there are plenty of games from all eras which are incredibly stylish and look stunning while having a great backbone and things to actually do in the game. My point was that the average gamer in 2022 will generally feel strongly about a game having the state of the art graphics that are present in plenty of games nowadays and won't be interested in considering games that don't look as great as some of the best stuff out there right now, and eventually end up rating games which are more recent, and conform to the current standards of visual appeal in favour of games that haven't aged well in terms of graphics and performance, even if those better looking games are actually nowhere near the best games in terms of actual gameplay. The Rise of the Tomb Raider example Ainu gave earlier is a perfect example of that. That's exactly what I was talking about.

No idea why you even imagined God of War to belong in that category. I played that game to a 100% and completed far more than you have (I think you haven't done a bunch of stuff including the Valks?) and I have nothing against it on it's own, I simply won't have it among the best games ever and that's that.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

1 Red Dead redemption
2 The Witcher III
3 The Last of Us
4 God of War
5 Pokémon
6 Football Manager
7 Alex the Kidd
8 Super Mario World
9 Goldeneye

Yo! Someone give this guy a mic so he can drop it

 

[Moby]

I kinda wish I'd played Witcher 3 with the amount of votes it keeps getting. Doubt it's better than Alex Kidd but I reckon I would probably enjoy it.

Oh absolutely. It's a brilliant all round game that excels in everything - gameplay, open world, narratives and dialogues etc so pretty much all kinds of action/adventure RPG fans end up loving it.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I just had a look at that IGN top 32 and I'm sorry but if a list of 32 games has no space for Street Fighter 2 then it's null and void right away.

I know it's all subjective and that but this game kick-started (and STILL is influential over) an entire genre and on top of that, it's still played in tournaments to this very day! How many games can claim the same?

Get the feck out of here

Also, the majority of that list consists of FPS and third person hack and slash games... hmm...

Their top 8 was:

God Of War
GTA V
Zelda: BOTW
GTA: San Andreas
COD 4
The Witcher 3
Bloodbourne
Batman: Arkham City

It's decent to be fair.

The true test will be when our top 8 is released

 

[Ainu]

@Dirty Schwein Please stop spelling it as Bloodbourne!

 

[Irwin99]

I kinda wish I'd played Witcher 3 with the amount of votes it keeps getting. Doubt it's better than Alex Kidd but I reckon I would probably enjoy it.

People (sometimes rightly) criticize its combat as being a little weak but the world, the lore, the atmosphere and characters all make up for it. I hated it at first and didn't get what the fuss was about until a certain story mission just blew my mind.

It's one of the best games I've ever played in terms of making you think about the rights and wrongs of a situation as things are rarely black and white. Also the DLC is the best i've ever played, better than the main story in some ways. Play it