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Edge Special List: The 100 Greatest Video Games

BlackRock

Member
Dark Souls and Bloodborne in the Top 10 is definitely a sign of a someone over there trying too hard to be 2cool4school. I can see the beards now.

Agreed. It's a level of hipsterism I hadn't previously thought possible. I don't often agree with lists like this, but this one just utterly baffles me. Haven't played BB, but completed DS. DS isn't a bad game, but it's certainly not a great game. It's got serious, fundamental flaws. Something many other, better games on that list don't. Anyway, it's just a list of some group's opinion, but it does seem Edge is trying way, way too hard to be cool.
 

JeTmAn81

Member
The continued acclaim for GTA V kind of makes me want to give it a shot even though I feel like I'm done with that series after IV. Only problem is, IV was just as well-reviewed at the time and I sort of hated that game.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Really surprised to see LttP so far down the list. In previous lists it always made the top 10. Hell, there was one instance where Edge went as far as saying it was the pinnacle of 2D game design.
 

Anth0ny

Member
The continued acclaim for GTA V kind of makes me want to give it a shot even though I feel like I'm done with that series after IV. Only problem is, IV was just as well-reviewed at the time and I sort of hated that game.

Play it. I thought GTA IV was mediocre as shit after loving Vice City and San Andreas. Played V and loved it. Deserving of all the praise it gets imo, unlike IV.
 
The years going by on games from the 360 gen proves this. System Shock 2 is always going to be a better game than BioShock. It does more. It has better pacing. It has more systems that work together in smart ways.

With each passing year BioShock looks less like what it did in 2007 and more like what it is: a mediocre shooter with a great setting and some vestigal bits of SS2 mechanics that are downplayed to a fault because ultra-streamlining and removing anything that could be construed as a frustration for the gamer was a trend back then. Only a couple years later, Demon's Souls set in motion the transition away from that style towards more of a middle ground between intuitive mechanics and complex systems.

I hate how many SS2 fans can't accept Bioshock as a good game in its own right.
 

Fugu

Member
And your top 10 is heavily biased towards mid-to-late 90's games with a heavy emphasis on PC.

Everyone's Top Games list is going to be heavily biased. A Top Games list is by its very definition, a list of subjective opinions. The best thing to do when you see a Top Games list is to use it to remember good times & look for suggestions of games you may have missed. Using top lists as a way to validate your own good taste in games is a recipe for anger and disappointment.
My top ten is biased towards the late nineties and the PC because a random sampling of great games would be biased towards the late nineties and the PC.

Besides, if I'd listed a hundred it would be far easier to justify listing the arcade classics of the early eighties, the plethora of quality games from the sixteen bit era, half of the library of the Saturn, the games from the golden age of PC RPGs (Ultima, Wizardry, Might and Magic, the Gold Box games), the dozens of stellar Dreamcast, Gamecube and especially PS2 games, and, yes, even some games from the last five years. But I wouldn't dream of putting out a list where eighty percent of the games just happen to be from the last decade and the three greatest games of all time are no more than five years old.

Obviously this is wholly subjective and all but it's still possible to point at a list and go "the people who made this probably don't have enough experience to make a list of the 100 greatest videogames". You don't see me arguing with the most esteemed film critics just because I've seen a few Ozu films.
 
My top ten is biased towards the late nineties and the PC because a random sampling of great games would be biased towards the late nineties and the PC.

Which is a very biased thing to say! I'm personally not much of a fan of that era of PC games and feel it was an awkward transition period. Most of my favorite PC games came earlier (was a big early Sierra fan) or much later (the modern indie PC movement), but on the whole, I'm more partial to console & portable gaming.

Anyway, my point wasn't that your list was a bad list, just that everyone has different tastes in games. I wouldn't include a single game in your top 10 in my own top 10 and that's because we obviously have very different tastes in games. And that's okay! Everyone is looking for different things and so different games resonate with different people. And different people have different way of evaluating these things - if I was to make a Top 100 list, I would focus on the games I felt are still the best now and ignore historical significance. I'd list Path of Exile over Diablo 2 and Persona 4 Golden over Chrono Trigger because I feel like in those cases, the newer game excels over the older one, even though the older one was an amazing game for its time and revolutionary in many ways. Pitfall 2 for the Atari 5200 was one of my favorite games as a kid, but there's no way I'd recommend somebody play it now as a form of entertainment.
 

Gozert

Member
That's a pretty turrible list too. I like WW, much moreso nowadays than ever before, but no. 2? Can't co-sign that. No OoT? No SMB3? No SMG? Pretty wack, yo.

They only pick one 2D and one 3D entry to represent each series for the sake of variation. That means picking The Wind Waker, Super Mario World and Super Mario Galaxy 2 will automatically exclude Ocarina of Time, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Galaxy.
 

Cromat

Member
I usually don't care about these lists but omitting the second best selling franchise in videogame history is just daft. Where the hell is Pokemon Red and Blue? (and Gold and Silver come to think of it)
 

ec0ec0

Member
In 100 years, newer generations will play old games and think "why was everyone talking about OOT back then o_0? MM existed!!" MM ideas and mechanics had so much to offer to videogames in general, and it got ignored ;_;

Also, what about some of the local multiplayer masterpieces!? how can you write 100 game names without thinking about super smash bros melee. Ridiculous. Not only did that game work beatifully with friends, but the gameplay also had massive potential. The gameplay and mechanics were some of the best nintendo has ever produced.

Old local multiplayer games tend to be ignored, even when they were truly great.
 
Agreed. It's a level of hipsterism I hadn't previously thought possible. I don't often agree with lists like this, but this one just utterly baffles me. Haven't played BB, but completed DS. DS isn't a bad game, but it's certainly not a great game. It's got serious, fundamental flaws. Something many other, better games on that list don't. Anyway, it's just a list of some group's opinion, but it does seem Edge is trying way, way too hard to be cool.

Dark Souls IS a great game for many people. There is a reason it topped this list, other top 100 lists, best games of last gen lists etc. It's not a matter of people trying to be "cool" or "hip". It's a game that many genuinely love. Not a problem if you personally don't think the game is great, but don't be shocked when it's still appearing on "best of" lists in 15 years time.
 
I always love these threads. Every time I enter one I see a bunch of nostalgic people proclaiming their nostalgia in big chunks of words. Oh and what is this? "The Ultimate Collection of Modern Classics"? I wonder.
Other than that, most people will go "It's a bad list", "X game is not inside, worst list", and of course, "X game is inside this list, horrible list".
jNL2e.gif

I bet you haven't even bothered to look at the list.
 

B-Genius

Unconfirmed Member
Dark Souls IS a great game for many people. There is a reason it topped this list, other top 100 lists, best games of last gen lists etc. It's not a matter of people trying to be "cool" or "hip". It's a game that many genuinely love. Not a problem if you personally don't think the game is great, but don't be shocked when it's still appearing on "best of" lists in 15 years time.

Exactly. If it's "cool" to love a good game, then I guess we're all just a bunch of cool idiots.

He's implying they are hipsters, though I object to the notion that beards are now a negative just because they are popular with a group people like to shit on.

Thanks for the explanation. So people just think it's cool to hate on cool stuff. That's cool. And normal.
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
knew it was a worthless list before clicking in

Majora Mask at 34

just....makes me feel sick in the stomach
 

Vyrance

Member
My main problem with these lists is that they always tilt heavily toward very recent games, and they practically ignore PC games.
 

kdoll08

Member
This list is supposedly of modern games but they have snes and Nes titles on it. It's either all time or modern which is it Edge? Plus any list with SoTN at 63 can gtfo.
 

Dennis

Banned
When I saw this thread had been bumped I just naturally assumed it was because Edge had issued a formal apology and retraction.
 
Lists like that make no sense. Everybody has their own favorites and this list focuses way too much on newer games. What about the classics that defined genres?
 

Tagyhag

Member
Lists like that make no sense. Everybody has their own favorites and this list focuses way too much on newer games. What about the classics that defined genres?

Well they said they're not considering historical significance or industry changing as values.

Which is really weird. I guess they're trying to get rid of nostalgia as a factor but that's not how it works.
 
Well they said they're not considering historical significance or industry changing as values.

Which is really weird. I guess they're trying to get rid of nostalgia as a factor but that's not how it works.

Yeah it's just really weird no matter how you view it. It's not even so much a veiled "Top 100 Gameplay errr Games" list, but more a "Top 100 games with gameplay that isn't bad by todays standards. Stanley Parable is a really neat game/experience, but it doesn't have good gameplay. So when gameplay is clearly the dominant factor, having a game with no mechanical interaction other than go here or press this, it's just inconsistent.

I've seen some bad lists in my day, but this honestly is one of the worst from a relatively major publication.
 
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