Zelda - A link to the past: Set the Zelda formula for the next two decades. Aged imho better than OoT, because it stayed within the capabilities of the SNES and the pixelart is timeless. Wonderful vibes, great pacing and just so much fun.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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A link to the past is my favourite Zelda Game. I wish they would make something of that format and style again.
There are some games that fit that format I think. Four Swords Adventures. Link's Awakening. I have that Link's Awakening DX HD fan game downloaded and I only tested it for a a minute but it was super impressive.
Ocarina Of Time because I'm old and I still think it holds up. Dark Souls 1 probably for the same reason even though it is janky.
My measure of how good a game is is mostly whether it provides an experience that utilizes the interactivity of video games to tie into other parts of the medium and therefore: Far Cry 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.
A game can just be a plaything, Tetris is good, but for it to be perfect I believe it needs to be more than the sum of its parts.
you might have to elaborate on how you mean
I vaguely understand that Far Cry 2 is using things like player expectations of enemy patrols. Like enemies are so prevalent and respawn so quickly it's some kind of something to draw the player into frustration over endless conflict. I haven't read much about Far Cry 2, but that's always the impression I got from it. It's presenting a situation where human life is very disposable. You end up working for every side in a conflict and the only winners are the arms dealers you buy stuff from.
Far Cry 3 I felt like handled this theme a lot better, and did something most games are afraid to do. Your character starts as a normal guy, but after becoming powerful enough to slaughter hundreds of enemies, he develops a deranged god complex. He's a scared college guy at the start. By the end of the game he's a snarling murderer who cackles madly at his enemies. That's the only type of personality that would arise from someone performing all those in-game actions
Far Cry 2 paints a very grim picture of conflict and especially Soldiers of Fortune, like you are. You start out with "good" intentions, killing an Arms dealer who keeps the conflict going, but once you fail that you basically start immediatly working for both factions, killing wantonlessly and causing destruction. All your mission objectives are like "Destroy the crops" or "Steam medicinal supplies", and it never even changes anything. Your merc friends might give you extra objectives, like "Hey man, do me a favour and do some other bad shit while you're there"
And it doesn't get you anything, except more gear, to cause more destruction, that also never has a point or changes anything. The only thing that could be argued is good for anyone involved is the missions to refill your malaria pills, where you trade passport papers for malaria pills so refugees can get out of the country that you're currently fucking up, and even that's a coercive deal with the devil from the point of the priests who organize it.
And everything ties into it. The fire mechanics, that spread - in unwanted ways - when you use certain guns. Your weapons all decay. You're, depending on difficulty, rather squishy yourself and the healing animations show you doing grueling stuff to yourself. All the pain and death and destruction, only for a day to go by and the next set of soldiers to stand guard at a checkpoint - and that to me, is the important point. The themes of the game are interwoven into basically every facet of the game.
At the end:
spoiler
The few buddies you have in this world, the other mercs, who did probably save you a lot of times over the playtime and vice versa and as such are the only people you could possibly feel a connection to, all turn on you to kill you over money. Now you learn it would've been smarter to take them all out through getting them in danger for you and letting them die. And then you team up with the Jackal to help some refugees out safely and you die, intentionally, doing it and it just cuts to black. Depending on your choices you may get a bit of text that says there's now 2 million displaced peoples (that you helped displace), but surprisingly little casualties among them due to your action, a final redeeming act
By the end, it's a power fantasy, but it's empty on all accounts, which is great!
Far Cry 3 tried this and fell flat on it's ass trying it because none of the other elements of the game weave into it. It just tries to at the end subvert it by saying "aha, got you!" as per power fantasy but it's too good of a power fantasy that's too fun for that to have any meaning. I am pretty much the actual god of war, nearing magic powers for combat, of course me / the player character is into it, it's easily explained by the Nietzsche Quote in the first 15 minutes of your previous games, you hacks! If you want your power fantasy subversion to have meaning you can't just make a bona-fide power fantasy and then turn it around at the end, you have to be willing to offend the players seeking such experiences a bit.
The first thing i think of in terms of a perfect game is Link to the Past. Its a perfect excecution that still holds up like over 30 years later
StarCraft brood war is the perfect convergence of bugs and intentionally difficult mechanics that kicked off the entire e sports industry and it consumed my entire teenage years.
Diablo 2 similarly was a perfect accident by Blizzard. I can go back and play it or the remaster any time and have a good time, even if the remaster has new questionable content
Diablo 2 similarly was a perfect accident by Blizzard. I can go back and play it or the remaster any time and have a good time, even if the remaster has new questionable content
D2 was a balance disaster, but the game itself was perfectly playable with each class. You just couldn't compete on the ladders against the CCB WW babas and the Burritozons and the FW sasas sojsojsojsojsoj.
Outer Wilds is my favorite game, it's just so tight between the narrative and the gameplay, there's not a second wasted and everything ties together appropriately and it doesn't overstay it's welcome so long as you're moderately competent at the sleuthing. Better yet is the DLC they released was equally satisfying while remaining a standalone narrative with it's own themes and mechanics, while still managing to tie in nicely with the base game narrative. I would suggest holding off on playing it until you've completed the OG, but theoretically you could do it anytime during the playthrough.
I guess the only downside I can think of is re-playability, being a mystery/puzzle game once you've acquired the prerequisite knowledge it's a bell that cannot be un-rung and experienced again with the same novelty. Maybe someday I'll go back, but until then I'll suffice with the tear-jerking OST of both game and DLC, as I'm reminded of the most humanistic and existential game I've ever played.
Half-Life (1998), Deus Ex (2000), GTA San Andreas (2004)
All three games that are great writing, plot and gameplay wise, while also being actually finished (which is shockingly uncommon among the GOAT games)
Left 4 Dead 2
I read the title and got halfway through the first lil paragraph and the word “Portal” immediately popped into my head lol.
Otherwise, I think Titanfall 2 has the perfect FPS campaign. Just like Portal, it’s fun, replayable, fat free, and every level is exciting and finds a way to surprise you. The story is far from original but it’s told so well because of the fact that it’s an interactive video game and the two main characters are supposed to be the player and a robot so their relationship is defined essentially like the player’s relationship to the game. It’s not as approachable as Portal since the controls have more depth and complexity, but that’s why I said it’s the perfect FPS campaign.
- Half-Life (the original). First game that legit made me jump back from my PC, screaming, "Ahh!" It was a very tense moment--I was out of ammo so that meant my only weapon was the crowbar... Others that have played the game will know what I'm talking about. I was playing that moment in the middle of the night--probably 2AM-ish--with my headphones on in a basement room lit only by the light of my (1024x768) CRT monitor.
- Final Fantasy 7. The first and only game that made me cry actual tears (of sadness; not like that time the house lost power in grade school after a long and eventually successful boss battle which is another gaming moment I'll never forget).
- Minecraft. Well, it's not perfect on it's own but here I am playing modded Minecraft with my kids again. We've been playing this game together like this for almost ten years! We'll play until we've learned every major/popular mod that exists for any given version then stop playing for a while then a year or so later we'll be at it again for a month or two 😁. Aside: Myself and my kids are like absurdist experts in cross-mod overpowered combos and nonsensical things like how to combine nuclear power with mana generation and all the steps/progression necessary to get there (LOL).
- Baldur's Gate 3: It won GOTY in so many places for a reason. Absolutely fantastic and one of the big reasons why is because it doesn't dumb things down for laymen or children (or child-like people aka game reviewers hehe). It's a game made for geeks that are adults and can understand and appreciate adult themes and scenarios where it's impossible to save everyone (and having to play the rest of the game living with the consequences of your actions). Aside: You could say it's a game that teaches consequence culture! Haha. BTW: If you haven't tried modding BG3 yet it's totally worth it. Even if just for some of the QOL improvements and cosmetic stuff 👍
- Before EPIC bought Psyonix, Rocket League. Oh man I spent like 3,000 hours in that game and never got bored. I was happy to pay for Rocket Pass every time it came up for renewal because I was just having way too much fun and wanted the game to do well. Then EPIC bought Psyonix and they ended support for Linux (I got a temp ban from the Rocket League subreddit and the associated Discord for saying that was going to happen!) and at that point I stopped playing. Then they made it free to play and way too quick and easy to get a new account and that's when my friends stopped playing too (because it ruined ranked play which was the only way to play people that were near your skill level).
- Beat Saber. Truly the perfect VR game. You burn loads of calories while listening to awesome music (your choice of music if modded) and having fun. Mod it to make it truly next level. I mean, the BeatLeader mod saves the entire replay of you beating any given map and posts it online where you can re-watch and share your amazing speed/accuracy and cool dance moves! Example: https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7668607 (watch it, you'll smile... That's one of my replays and it's "replay of the year" 2023 👍)
If I think of more later I'll try to remember to come back to this thread and edit my post.
Aside: There needs to be more high speed competitive games like Rocket League that use 120HZ event loops (that aren't just twitch reflex FPSes). I miss playing a game with the controller where careful and precise control would make you feel like you had a superpower compared to the average player. Like, if you practiced enough you could keep the ball on your car (aka dribbling) and flip it up in the air just before an opponent tried to take it from you (making them feel sooooooo inadequate haha). Also, expert mid-air maneuvering could have you completely crushing your opponents with them feeling like they didn't stand a chance... Not because you got lucky and/or bought the best equipment but because of your sheer skill at the game.
I also miss the feeling of being an impenetrable goalie, haha. Even facing off against pros I could lock them out of scoring unless they coordinated their attacks. It felt sooooo good to block a well-executed, amazing double touch ceiling shot and then... "Calculated" followed by another block within a second from their teammate, "Calculated". Ahahaha. Good times.
I think a perfect game is just a game that successfully accomplishes it's story or mechanical goals.
Rainworld, Stellaris, AoE2, StarCraft, Disco Elysium, and Doom (the OG one) all come to mind as games that had a very clear vision and accomplished them.
HADES
HADES YOU HAVE TO PLAY HADES.
It's the closest a game ever got to perfection without being some barebones abstraction like Tetris or something.
So leftist Twitch streamer said something like "it's like weebs, but for Greece" and that always stuck with me. But ya, it's been me favourite game in the last maybe ten years.
I really enjoyed Bastion and have been meaning to get around to Transistor which has been sitting in my library for years now. Is Hades much better than Transistor or Bastion?
Depends on the goal of the game surely?
Portal is a gamey game. It's a good game but it's not a deep rich story or work of art that will give you complex emotions. It demonstrates excellent mechanics that it executes very well and packages inside an amusing environment that suits it. The execution is great.
Journey made me feel things I didn't know a game could achieve.
Monopoly
Don't even joke about it.