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Edge Special List: The 100 Greatest Video Games

Kevtones

Member
I'd more comfortably put Goldeneye in the Top 10 of all-time than I'd put Driveclub in the Top 50 of RACING games of all-time.


Lol
 

Shadoken

Member
Those series have been around for decades and deserve top marks rightfully so. Two Souls games being in the top 5 is complete overkill. The franchises you just mentioned could have their best game be part of the top 5 of any "best games ever" list and no one would bat an eye. Stuff like GTA III / MGS / ALttP / SMW / FF VII was revolutionary for the entire industry.

I adore Demon's Souls and like Dark Souls, but cannot agree on any game not called "Minecraft" being called significant or best of all time that was released in the past 5 years.

That is just your opinion. To me Shenmue was more revolutionary than GTA 3 . But I am not going to label that opinion as a fact. And say everyone must put in their top 10 lists.

And again being revolutionary doesn't always mean best. I am sure many here would pick Souls games over minecraft for the best game they have played last gen.


Also the list as mentioned in the OP isnt related to historic importance anyway. There are many important titles of dead franchises that helped shape gaming in the 80s and 90s. You rarely see them on these lists. It is mostly filled with titles that helped shape the modern AAA games (such as the PS,N64 titles you mentioned), which aren't the only type of games out there.
 

Zia

Member
Two things: One, many games that were considered fantastic upon release (or still are) haven't aged particularly well, especially compared to modern games. While it's fine to judge a game based off of how it compares to modern games, I don't think it's fair because then most historically great and important games would either not be on a list or would be pretty far down. If somebody wants to make a list with that mindset, it's their prerogative though.

As for the list, you are right in that no list will get universal praise. What differentiates a good list and a bad one is how many issues people have with it and how much importance they place on it. If people were complaining about the same 4 or 5 games, or were saying there are only a few games they missed or disagree with, that's pretty great. But with this list, it's like people are complaining about 80% of it. Not to mention it is supposedly a "modern" list but has Tetris on it (just as an example of the quality of the list).

Historical importance isn't really interesting or relevant when defining what's "best." If that were done in other mediums, say the Sight & Sound poll, it'd be a bunch of Méliès stuff, a video of Edison electrocuting an elephant and Battleship Potemkin.

And Tetris is timeless, which is why it made the list. I still play the GameBoy version on my 3DS. It's wonderful game design and its abstraction and simplicity have allowed it to age really well. Probably the best puzzle game ever still, slightly ahead of Tetris Attack and Drop 7.
 
Two things: One, many games that were considered fantastic upon release (or still are) haven't aged particularly well, especially compared to modern games. While it's fine to judge a game based off of how it compares to modern games, I don't think it's fair because then most historically great and important games would either not be on a list or would be pretty far down. If somebody wants to make a list with that mindset, it's their prerogative though.

But this list is specifically about judging games based on modern standards so why complain that it's judging games based on modern standards?

Not to mention it is supposedly a "modern" list but has Tetris on it (just as an example of the quality of the list).

It's not a modern list; it's a list of games that are still great by today's standards. Tetris is still an excellent game even today. A lot of old games aren't. Now, obviously, there are a lot of older games that are still great today that could have been included, but everyone's tastes are different and when you're limited to 100 games, you're not able to include every worthy title.
 

trixx

Member
Top 10 is pretty controversial lol

Those games are all better than a game that is pretty much perfection in gane design i.e. super metroid...okay
 
Historical importance isn't really interesting or relevant when defining what's "best." If that were done in other mediums, say the Sight & Sound poll, it'd be a bunch of Méliès stuff, a video of Edison electrocuting an elephant and Battleship Potemkin.

the most recent movie on the Sight & Sound poll top 10 is from 1967. The top 10 has 3 films from the 1920s.

This list is like putting 12 Years a Slave and Gravity in the top 10 with nothing pre-1967 to be found. With one Tetris/The Godfather spot as an outlier.
 

zsynqx

Member
So the Top 4 video games of all time was made within the last two years?

What a time to be alive!

/s


Does kind of make sense due to this being a technical field which requires a lot of iteration so technically as the years go on, games should be getting better and better. Of course, that is not the reality of things.
 

Anfony O

Member
Just can't believe the Last of Us sport. I mean it was a great game don't get me wrong but ahead of ocarina of time? Really?
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Top 100 of the last 5-8 years, mostly consoles?

Man I've seen bad lists in my time, this takes the cake.

DESTINY in the top 50, ALL TIME? Holy fuck.
 

Dennis

Banned
DESTINY in the top 50, ALL TIME? Holy fuck.

Meanwhile, these games didn't make it into the top 100....


ctrl + F "Phantasy Star"

ctrl + F "Crysis"

ctrl + F "STALKER"

ctrl + F "Deus Ex"

ctrl + F "System Shock 2"

ctrl + F "Baldur's Gate 2"

ctrl + F "Fallout"

ctrl + F "Monkey Island"

ctrl + F "Gabriel Kinght: Sins of the Fathers"

ctrl + F "Sim City 2000"

ctrl + F "Syndicate"

ctrl + F "Mass Effect"

ctrl + F "Thief"

ctrl + F "Planescape: Torment"

ctrl + F "Arcanum"

ctrl + F "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines"

ctrl + F "Chrono Trigger"

ctrl + F "Diablo"
 
Meanwhile, these games didn't make it into the top 100....


ctrl + F "Phantasy Star"

ctrl + F "Crysis"

ctrl + F "STALKER"

ctrl + F "Deus Ex"

ctrl + F "System Shock 2"

ctrl + F "Baldur's Gate 2"

ctrl + F "Fallout"

ctrl + F "Monkey Island"

ctrl + F "Gabriel Kinght: Sins of the Fathers"

ctrl + F "Sim City 2000"

ctrl + F "Syndicate"

ctrl + F "Mass Effect"

ctrl + F "Thief"

ctrl + F "Planescape: Torment"

ctrl + F "Arcanum"

ctrl + F "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines"

ctrl + F "Chrono Trigger"

ctrl + F "Diablo"

Also no Snatcher or Freelancer or Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 or Lunar Silver Star Story or Gran Turismo or a number of other games

That really might be one of the worst lists ever
I mean hell they even forgot Goldeneye 64 and Half Life for goodness sakes
 
And there is nothing wrong with that. Just keep it in mind. :)
Yeah I know, it's ok.
What else could they be about? That's why I'm so confused by the reaction in these threads.
When you title your list "Greatest," it just sounds like a pretentious nonsense frankly. These lists aren't about quality, they're about the games we like the most. There's no real good way to say that Dark Souls is a better game than GTA V. They're also such totally different genres that it's a silly effort to compare them. Also if you don't like certain genres, what does it even matter? And then the further down a list (say 100-70), the lists get even more meaningless. Then the cherry to top it all off is an obvious recency bias. It's simply "which did I like more lately?" In that respect, I'd rather get a writeup A) without numbers, B) separated by genre and C) that excludes anything made within the past 12 months, if not even longer like five years.
As for the list, you are right in that no list will get universal praise. What differentiates a good list and a bad one is how many issues people have with it and how much importance they place on it. If people were complaining about the same 4 or 5 games, or were saying there are only a few games they missed or disagree with, that's pretty great. But with this list, it's like people are complaining about 80% of it. Not to mention it is supposedly a "modern" list but has Tetris on it (just as an example of the quality of the list).
This too is a problem, because even if we admit that these lists are about personal tastes, I'd still have to question the experience, tastes and intent of someone who put a mess of a list like this together. There are so many holes that you can poke in it, it's not just a few spots here and there.

There seems to be some serious lack of certain genres of games on here, so I don't know what this list accomplishes. That's why when I'm looking for a "Top" list, I find it's often better to look for genre lists written by people with extensive, detailed experience and knowledge about a few genres rather than a broad and flimsy overview of "everything."
 
And they're all incredible films? People had been trying to figure out how to tell a story with the moving image for thirty years before stuff like Sunrise and Potemkin rolled around. Video games are an immature, technologically-bound medium.

Film is a technologically-bound medium too, and yet critics somehow stop thinking the 100 greatest films of all-time happen in the last fifteen fuckin years. Its not like Pong and Spacewar came out in 2000. They've got a lot of rightfully hailed classics of the medium ignored for prisoner of the moment and bizarrely narrow console bias.

I'd actually rather they didn't even pretend to give a damn about the 1990s with their pity votes of Tetris and Super Metroid. It just makes the exceptions of so many other great games from the decade look even more glaring.
 
28 - Splatoon

6ec.png


EDGE is being pretty fresh, yo.
 
Historical importance isn't really interesting or relevant when defining what's "best." If that were done in other mediums, say the Sight & Sound poll, it'd be a bunch of Méliès stuff, a video of Edison electrocuting an elephant and Battleship Potemkin.

And Tetris is timeless, which is why it made the list. I still play the GameBoy version on my 3DS. It's wonderful game design and its abstraction and simplicity have allowed it to age really well. Probably the best puzzle game ever still, slightly ahead of Tetris Attack and Drop 7.

See, you say this, but it seems most people intuitively feel oppositely. The American Film institute has 1 film from 1990 or later in its top 50 movies of all time, and if I counted correctly only 7 total in the top 100. It has Birth of a Nation, which is nothing but historical relevance to explain why it would be on a top 100 list.

There are only two songs from 1990 or later in Rolling Stones top 50 of all time greats, and only two from the 1980's as well.

No, it makes perfect logical sense to take into account historical significance and innovation. Balancing how significant a game was to a genre or the industry as a whole versus how good it was both upon release and today is very difficult, but I find the notion of disregarding how great a game was to be baffling because then most historically great games would be sandwiched in between games we consider just decent by todays standards, and that is still assuming the person valuing the games would give older games some benefit of the doubt.

I mean wasn't Metal Gear Solid recently voted the best PlayStation game of all time? I adore that game, yet by every modern standard it's not a good game, except the story which still only caters to the sort of people that accept its wackiness. So the idea that the best PSOne game of all time shouldn't be on a best games of all time list just doesn't compute. I understand that a list can be made with only modern sensibilities in mind, I just don't think that A) That has much merit and more importantly B) I don't think that was the goal of this list.
 
What a terrible list. I use to agree with most of their top's.... This is just ridiculous. Maybe they have some new editorial team.

Also, not even 1 Mega Drive / Genesis game? Neo Geo? Nes? Pc engine? Sega Saturn? Arcade scene nearly absent???

Well my videogame memories and moments are very different from the games on that list.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Meanwhile, these games didn't make it into the top 100....


ctrl + F "Phantasy Star"

ctrl + F "Crysis"

ctrl + F "STALKER"

ctrl + F "Deus Ex"

ctrl + F "System Shock 2"

ctrl + F "Baldur's Gate 2"

ctrl + F "Fallout"

ctrl + F "Monkey Island"

ctrl + F "Gabriel Kinght: Sins of the Fathers"

ctrl + F "Sim City 2000"

ctrl + F "Syndicate"

ctrl + F "Mass Effect"

ctrl + F "Thief"

ctrl + F "Planescape: Torment"

ctrl + F "Arcanum"

ctrl + F "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines"

ctrl + F "Chrono Trigger"

ctrl + F "Diablo"

Math-Galifianakis.gif~original

ctrl + F "Any Sega Genesis Game, Just ONE"

I CAN'T, MAN

C
 

Zia

Member
Film is a technologically-bound medium too, it didn't stop critics from thinking the 100 greatest films of all-time happen in the last fifteen fuckin years. Its not like Pong and Spacewar came out in 2000.

Standards for film were developed much earlier and were capable enough that a lot of filmmakers still use early techniques and technology for filming, scripting, blocking, etc. We're just now reaching the point in the history of games development where the tech is affordable, accessible and capable enough that devs are able to express what they want exactly how they want it if given the time and resources.
 

TheYanger

Member
Even taking this list as 'modern' classics....it just seems entirely made to try and incite riot and debate for its own sake. No sane publication is going to include some of these games in this order, period. Let alone the notion that it's modern only when it's got things like Super Metroid and Tetris on it, clearly it isn't that.

Awful awful list, it's hard to call one of these objectively wrong and bad, but they managed it.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Driveclub over every single simulation racing game ever made? Oh, I finally get it....

son-this-is-bait.png~original


They got almost 1k posts on GAF, so I guess they won.
 
they really just fucked up with the random 90s choices. If they just kept to the list was what it REALLY was(the top 100 games from the last 15 years), random "alternative" choices like Drop7 or fuckin Nidhogg wouldn't look too out of place. Instead, you got these few little exceptions like LttP and SM peaking in, and it calls into question everything. Chrono Trigger? Yoshi's Island? DKC2? Planescape Torment? Monkey Island? ANYTHING from the Sega Genesis? Metal Slug? Mega Man? Doom? Countless titles you can recommend today, canonized classics of the medium, don't deserve a spot over fuckin' Limbo and Titanfall? It makes it look like you have no sense of history, like maybe you started gaming in 2005.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
Super Mario Bros. is a 30-year-old game which just got a level creator.

Why is the level creator worth anything at all? Because the 30-year-old gameplay is as ageless as Tetris.

Let's be honest: listing SMB1, SMB3, and World might not be fair to the other games deserving of a Top 100 list, but listing Maker at all only underlines their timelessness. Either Maker is too low or its associated games were outright ignored.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
Doesn't choosing a level editor underrate how important and brilliant the actual level design was in the actual games? As amazing as Mario Maker is, it's a toolset... It'd be like rewarding Dragon Quest for gameplay innovation by throwing RPG Maker on a list like this.
Exactly. If Tetris can get mentioned, Super Mario Bros. 1 should be eligible too and would probably rank just as highly.
 
I'm actually in favor of this, but I always preferred the gameplay driven FFs. V and XII for LIFE.

Yeah FFXII is one of the few things they got correct, but overall this list is baffling no matter what sort of qualifiers they put on it. Can't believe they actually published a magazine just for this.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Destiny, Bloodborne and Mario Kart 8 are the defining games of this generation. I'd personally have put all three in the top 10.

All 3 in the Top 10 all time? The "defining games" of many previous generations shit mightily on those 3.
 

nib95

Banned
All 3 in the Top 10 all time? The "defining games" of many previous generations shit mightily on those 3.

Take away the element of nostalgia, and do those past games play as well today? The answer in many cases is no. Gameplay mechanics and systems have advanced in many ways over the years, to the point where past highlights in those said genres sometimes falter by today's standards. Eg stuff like Goldeneye and GTA3, which compared to GTA V or modern day shooters, just pale in quality of overall design and control.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I'm sad there's no Danganronpa here coz its one of the best games I've played for the past 5 years.
 

Anth0ny

Member
they really just fucked up with the random 90s choices. If they just kept to the list was what it REALLY was(the top 100 games from the last 15 years), random "alternative" choices like Drop7 or fuckin Nidhogg wouldn't look too out of place. Instead, you got these few little exceptions like LttP and SM peaking in, and it calls into question everything. Chrono Trigger? Yoshi's Island? DKC2? Planescape Torment? Monkey Island? ANYTHING from the Sega Genesis? Metal Slug? Mega Man? Doom? Countless titles you can recommend today, canonized classics of the medium, don't deserve a spot over fuckin' Limbo and Titanfall? It makes it look like you have no sense of history, like maybe you started gaming in 2005.

if it was a list of the top games of last gen (and this gen so far), it wouldn't be offensive at all.

their top 5 would look like this:

Dark Souls
GTA V
Last of Us
Bloodborne
Galaxy 2

and that's pretty close to my top 5 tbh

instead they had to throw the "greatest of all time" title on there. smh.
 
Absolutely awful list that looks like it was put together in about 10 minutes. Obviously, no list will be perfect, but you can easily do better. This makes a lot other gaming publications actually look really good.

There are so many odd things to point out on this list that I don't even know where to start. EDGE has officially lost its credibility in my eyes.
 

RoyalFool

Banned
Edge should know better than to make Top 100 lists really. Some poor sod probably had to come up with this quickly as it stinks of personal opinion rather than any sort of general consensus.

I feel sorry for them to be honest, as they clearly never played Starcraft or Phantasy Star Online.
 

zsynqx

Member
if it was a list of the top games of last gen (and this gen so far), it wouldn't be offensive at all.

their top 5 would look like this:

Dark Souls
GTA V
Last of Us
Bloodborne
Galaxy 2

and that's pretty close to my top 5 tbh

instead they had to throw the "greatest of all time" title on there. smh.

As a a broad snapshot of the best modern gaming has to offer, those are 5 good and, aside from Souls, very different types of games. Should swap GTAV for Read Dead though
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Still working on a list and the more I look at it the more I realize that we should just be honest with ourselves. These lists aren't about the "Top 100" but about "My Favorite 100."

If you want something different from "my favourite 100" or "popularity contest's most popular 100", you'd probably have to follow these rules:
- Get a team of ~5 persons who are well-versed in games and come from a different background wrt games
- Let each nominate a number of games
- Let them discuss the merits of each games, and if needed demonstrate them to each others
- Let them then consent on a selection of 100 games out of the pool generated
- No numbers, because this will just end aup in a meaningless fight. I mean, of course, Yoshi's Island would be number 1, but how do you decide if MGS is better than Sims?
Of course I'm joking with Yoshi's Island, even though it is my favourite game
, release or alphabetical order instead.

You will still end up having the absolute favourite games of each person involved on the list, but if you chose your participants well, you will end up with a list that many agree upon.

In fact, I would love to try this with a few gaffers of a differnt background from me (We'd certainly need a PC guy, a Sony-oriented guy and someone well-versed with classic Sega / Arcade games, I think I could cover Nintendo / platforming quite well), to build a list of 100 games complete with short write-ups we'd recommend to someone who wants to know what games are all about.
 
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