GameFAQs' Own 'Best. Game. Ever.' Contest Launched 90
XtremeLeader writes "Just days after GameSpy releases its Best All-Time Game competition, GameFAQs answers with a much more interactive Spring 2004 Contest to vote for the best games (you need a GameFAQs account to view the page). Unlike the GameSpy awards, however, this is completely gamer controlled. It begins by a registered user submitting their choices for favorite games (one per system, with more than a few systems), of which any game you want can be nominated. Voting ends at the beginning of March, and the polls are slated to begin late March/early April. The top 64 nominations will be accepted and placed into a series of polls that we get to vote on. Hopefully, this one doesn't have great games like Chrono Trigger thrown into the potpourri category."
Chrono Trigger (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Chrono Trigger (Score:4, Informative)
Why they didn't roll Chrono Trigger and a couple other Square games into the Final Fantasy poll I don't know. It won the Potpourri qualifier, but I don't think it's going to go much farther. It faces off against FF7 on Monday.
Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
As others will say, it'll end up being a popularity contest. The most recent games have a decided advantage while older games like M.U.L.E., Elite or Ultima IV will get killed off early. There just isn't any context for the vote. It's like pitting Canterbury Tales against Harry Potter.
So what's the best way to find out the Greatest Game of All Time? Sigh, there will always be debate. There will probably need to be some organization like the American Film Institute that will consist of developers, fans, academics and historians that will come up with a list. Perhaps the AAIA? Who knows...
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good idea. (Score:2)
I still consider the first Final Fantasy on the NES to be the best one in that series. I still have fond memories of Zelda, too. How about Impossible Mission on the Commodore 64? Doom is timeless. These games really do rank with modern titles, because so many of the whiz-bang 3D girls with big titties games are unimaginative and have zero replay value (fake big
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Until then, there's no such thing as a perfect polling mechanism. Any attempt to average the diverse views of a few hundred, hundred thousand, or hundred million people is NEVER going to be completely representative of how everyone truly feels, even if you have directly polled each and every one of them.
With all that said though, I do concede that "bracket" selection is quite possibly slightly more 'flawed' than some other approaches, like approval voting.
But GameFAQs has always done bracket voting, as quite frankly the intention is not to get the "one true answer" as much as it is to have a lot of fun in the voting process. And watching your favourite games traverse the ladder towards the top, voting for them each step of the way, that's a lot of fun compared to saying "I think this is the best game" and clicking "Submit" and waiting for the other results to tally.
Re:Good idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I've got a better one for you, at least: Condorcet's Method [eskimo.com].
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is one of the advantages of a double elimination bracket over a single elimination bracket. Of course, a major disadvantage is that double elimination requires twice as many matches and can take more than twice as long (with 8 or 9 rounds required for a 16-entry bracket instead of 4 rounds).
But, as has been pointed out by nearly everybody, there is no perfect voting system, and no really good way to narrow down a pool of 64 extremely dissimilar video games to just 1 winner.
I think it'll be fairly interesting just to see what the top 64 are.
Re:Good idea. (Score:2)
With GameFAQs' Character Battles, I thought that that usually wasn't too bad. The real contenders tended to do battle later on. Hell, I was hoping for a final showdown between Cloud and Sephiroth in that last one. Would have been awesome. And that, the filling out of the brackets for prizes, is really what makes the GameFAQs one fun.
Re:Good idea. (Score:1)
Here's my list, below. I only voted for a few, since these were the only ones I felt strongly about. Most of them are old, but I'd love to hear from anyone who shares any favorites. As you can see I don't limit myself to a pa
They're all elitist approaches. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you could put up a list of games that have the greatest historical significance, but history is written by the victors, ie. the Nintendos of the era and not the Ataris. Whose to say that some games on the TurboGrafix 16 or NeoGeo weren't the best for their time? And how do you even approach this with numbers and different age groups?
Back in the day, there could be some sort of consensus, maybe, because the demographic was similar. But now you have 50-yr olds who play, you have teenagers whose minds have been captivated (I would almost say brainwashed) by Anime and Pokemon. Different people define greatness differently in a game. It's like defining the greatest movies - a futile exercise created by basic greed - the AFI wants you to buy their newest AFI100 DVD or VHS, just as Lucas wants to sell you his newest 6-movie Super Humungo Collector's Director's Extended Limited Edition Star Wars set. Nevermind that Citizen Kane bored me, it had historical significance. People will no doubt continue to do these lists, as companies like GameSpy release Top10 after Top10 so they can keep people interested in going to their site so they can sell ads and subscription and generate new debate. Now granted, I think these current debates are fun, and you might even find a game you hadn't heard of sorting through them. But raw numbers aren't going to tell you what game is best.
Um, no. (Score:1)
Re:Um, no. (Score:2)
Goldeneye is my pick (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Goldeneye is my pick (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. We used to have this elaborate cardboard and blanket shield that we would put up next to the TV, so that we couldn't look at the other players' screens to determine their location. I can't imagine going to such lengths over any other game.
It was pretty competitive, and really defined what a fun video game should be. If you don't agree, you might set off the proximity mine that I put down earlier.
Re:Goldeneye is my pick (Score:1)
Re:Goldeneye is my pick (Score:1)
Re:Goldeneye is my pick (Score:2)
Re:Goldeneye is my pick (Score:1)
Other Great Games (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:X-COM? (Score:1)
Re:X-COM? (Score:1)
The first X-COM game in the US was "X-COM: UFO Defense", followed by "X-COM: Terror From the Deep".
Re:Other Great Games (Score:2)
Blasphemy! How can you say that when StarCon2 clearly had an awesome melee option. I can't count the number of times that I played that against my friends, seeing if I could position my Shofixti Scout just right against that Chmmr Avatar.
I hate (Score:5, Insightful)
With a poll on gamefaqs there are sure to be a zillion 12 year olds voting for GTA 3 and a million dumbasses voting for FF7. Heck, I'm almost 22 years old. Some of the 18 year olds who are coming into college now never owned an NES and were all about the Playstation. Playstation! Not even SNES! Just as if you've never seen Citizen Kane you can't be a movie critic you can't be a video game critic if you haven't played Zelda 1. Well, I guess you could be a critic, but you wouldn't have any credibility.
Zelda 1 is probably the Citizen Kane of video games. Although Mega Man 2 is #1 in my personal book. PC games? TIE Fighter or Civ2. I mean, it is so plainly obvious which games are the best to anyone who knows their shit.
Really I just wish they would rename the contest to "most popular video game as of right now". As opposed to "best game ever".
Re:I hate (Score:2)
For people like you and me, NES, SNES, Atari were all the rage in our youth (rose colored glasses and all). Nowadays, it's p-iv's and PS2 and everything else new.
Anyways, my point being that even as little as a 5-7 year gap in age difference can make people feel very different about what is "the best". I agreed with most of your list, but I'm in th
Re:I hate (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, if anyone cares:
PlayStation - Final Fantasy 8
Genesis - Phantasy Star 4
Master System - Phantasy Star
Sega CD - Lunar: The Silver Star
Nintendo 64 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
NES - Dragon Warrior 4
Super Nintendo - Chrono Trigger
Turbo CD - Ys Books 1 and 2
TurboGrafx 16 - Military Madness
DOS/Windows - Planescape: Torment
Macintosh - Marathon Infinity
MSX - Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Dreamcast - Soul Calibur
PlayStation2 - Grand Theft Auto 3
(Notes: Picked FF8 instead of FF7 or MGS because I figured it would be underrepresented. Picked Lunar because I haven't played Snatcher or Dark Wizard. Planescape: Torment is my favorite game in general.)
Rob
Re:I hate (Score:2)
It'll work out in the end, though. I'm sure we'll see a great list of contenders.
Re:I hate (Score:2)
Just because I'm old and embittered compared to the young punks that are now playing video games doesn't mean that I can't appreciate progress.
What's interesting is that I, at 26, usually think of the guys in their low 20's as the "young punks" while *I'm* the old embittered one. ;) And many of my friends, in their mid-30's, consider me a young punk gamer.
Perception is everything, eh? =)
Besides, if you're familiar with the GameFAQs audience, you'll know that the largest gamer contingent there is th
Re:I hate (Score:4, Insightful)
ITYM "the greatest." "The best" is almost entirely subjective, and relies mostly on personal taste. I think the best movie is Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. How could you prove me wrong?
Now, when Gamespy referred to its poll as being for "the greatest game of all time"? That was wrong. Especially when you consider the piss-poor way the poll was designed.
Really I just wish they would rename the contest to "most popular video game as of right now". As opposed to "best game ever".
As noted above, those are basically equivalent.
Rob
Re:I hate (Score:2)
No they aren't. They're two totally different meanings.
"Most popular video game as of right now" implies NOW. Not 5 years ago, not 5 years into the future, not after you take a bathroom break. Now means NOW.
"Best game ever" means ever. Theres a huge difference based on how you phrase something. Saying "I think Final Fantasy is the shittest of them all" is not the same as "I think Final Fantasy is the shittest RPG series of them all" nor "I think Final Fantasy
Re:I hate (Score:3)
He didn't say "now," he said "as of right now." Which is redundant. I mean, how the heck are you supposed to vote on games that aren't out as of right now? And if most GameFAQs voters vote for games that are new (which they probably will), then how would "now" be any different from "ever" in the first place?
Rob
Re:I hate (Score:2)
Thats the thing with sequals in video games. In cinema sequals suck, they're hampered by continuity and form. With video games its
Re:I hate (Score:2)
however, my pick for today is star control 2.
for tomorrow it might be fallout 2..
and last week I might have said ultima underworld 2.
see where this is going? I can't give out a definite answer.
Re:I hate (Score:5, Funny)
true, older games get the shaft... (Score:2)
Where's Lode Runner in any of these polls? Archon? I was even going to add Lemmings (which is almost universally ignored), until I looked at the gamespy potpourri category and flipped when I noticed they had included it.
my personal favorite *old* game was for the Atari 800, Dandy. Kinda like a gauntlet type game; you played the s
Re:true, older games get the shaft... (Score:1)
Re:I hate (Score:2)
Still, I have Final Fantasy 7 on my list of nominations, because nothing else ever drew me in that much. I love that game, and I say that having played nearly all of the great RPGs of all styles...from NetHack, to Wasteland, to Dagge
Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:1, Insightful)
I call em' like I see em'... nt (Score:1)
Re:Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it's also the truth. Even though he neglected to mention the significant (though not huge) number of Sega fanboys as well.
I clearly remember the day when a character who does nothing but buy things from vending machines and pet kittens (Ryo Hazuki, Shenmue) defeated one of the most hilarious video game protagonists of all time (Guybrush Threepwood, Secret of Monkey Island) in one of those big GameFAQs polls. I think I heard
Re:You forgot looking for sailors! (Score:2)
Rob
Re:Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:1)
Re:Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean yes, Myst and the Sims break the trend, but...well for example I had heard the name Age of Empires vaguely, but didn't realize it was made by Microsoft; it doesn't strike me as a well-known game; heck anything that gets outsold by three different $30 expansion packs just isn't that impressive for recognition.
To be utterly blunt, I'm not convinced it's GameFAQs that's biased against PC games (though it might be). I think it's more that Slashdot which is baised for PC games. This is a crowd which just likes modding/upgrading their PCs, so using them for gaming is a logical extension.
As for the XBox..........
Well to quote Maddox [xmission.com]
Yes this is false...or at least there are plenty of exceptions (seeing as 10% of all GameFAQs readers owned all three by 11/10/2002 [gamefaqs.com], let alone today which I'd ballpark as closer to 20%) and the XBox has improved a fair bit since Maddox wrote that in 2002. Still, the stereotype that XBox has a weak game lineup frankly does hold some water. Despite all this, there's certainly numerous people who like the XBox on GameFAQs. I wouldn't worry about its games being underrepresented.
If there's any system I'd be worried about getting underrepresented here it's the Dreamcast. Never owned one actually, though I keep looking at the title lineup and old reviews and thinking "dude, I missed a fair bit".
Re:Except there's one problem with GameFaq's (Score:1)
Final Fantasy 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
(GameFAQs's user base is primarily RPG-oriented, which makes sense considering that RPGs are the games you usually go to FAQs for, and console-oriented, which is largely arbitrary.)
Re:Final Fantasy 7 (Score:2)
Not really. There are a lot more console gamers out there, it is a lot more international (a lot of computer types are far more specific to regions, historically), and there are a lot more console games. Makes sense to me.
Re:Final Fantasy 7 (Score:2)
FF7
FFT
Kingdom Hearts
Eherhiz (or however the heck you spell that).
Sephy has been in FF7 and KH as well at the very least...
3DO's best (Score:1)
Re:3DO's best (Score:1)
My picks... (Score:5, Informative)
Other than that, and in no particular order, Masters of Magic, Star Control II, Super Mario Bros. 3, Leisure Suit Larry 4*, Final Fantasy V, and Ultima VI...
* Yes, I realize that this game does not exist...
I agree, but... (Score:1)
Re:I agree, but... (Score:2)
Re:My picks... (Score:2)
Preset Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, yes, it does boil down to a popularity contest. But I do have some faith in the people who are willing to show what real games were about. We will have to remind them about the times of the SNES, NES, and maybe even the Atari days.
Mainstream marketing is what is driving a lot of the younger crowd that is buying games. That is why the FF series is flying off the shelves, but games like Zelda and SMB are being turned into EB and not being brought again.
for Web/Online only game - Grow (Score:3, Interesting)
Be sure to pick Grow [eyezmaze.com] Can you make everything GROW! and get 20,000 points?
Link to the brackets (Score:1, Informative)
WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I see I can nominate games from popular platforms like the Virtual Boy, but there's no option for the BBC, which only brought us games like Elite and Exile (as mentioned here not two days ago [slashdot.org]). Ah well, "Computer Misc" here we come.
I wouldn't mind the arbitrary list so much if it was even in alphabetical order...
You do realize... (Score:3, Interesting)
Best. Game. Ever. == Best. April. Fools. Day. Scam. Ever.
Re:Too bad not many people had a Saturn... (Score:2)
Panzer Dragoon Saga was good too, it's a shame that the only chance most people will ever have to play it is a pirated copy. I won't argue that the Saturn h
The only fair way to pick the best game (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this really necessary? (Score:1)
That's really all I have to say, but the lameness filter might block the post unless I add some useless drivel like this line.
did I mention civ?