Feel free to list a few video games from different genres. Best is definitely subjective and I’m sure there are many “Best” games for various categories.
Half Life: Alyx for example is widely considered the “Best” VR game. Many would agree it’s the best Action VR game, but it wouldn’t be the “Best” for puzzles.
To make it easier I’ll list the types of Genres for Video Games from Wikipedia. Please do give suggestions for some of the highest quality games you’ve played from various categories:
- Action: Platform games, shooter, fighting, survival, etc
- Action-Adventure: Survival horror
- Adventure: Interactive, real time, 3d, text adventures, etc
- Puzzle: Exploration, trial and error, breakout, logical games, etc
- Role-playing: Action RPG, MMORPG, tactical, sandbox, etc
- Simulation: Management, life simulation, vehicle simulation, etc
- Strategy: Real time, turn based, wargame, grand strategy, etc
- Sports: Racing, competitive, sports games, etc
- MMO: Massively multiplayer online game
- Openworld: Sandbox, creative, open world, etc
Note: Non-exhaustive category list. There are more such as card games, board games, etc. Please check the wiki link above for more categories to get ideas for the “best” games.
I personally would recommend Subnautica (Open World), Half Life: Alyx (VR Action-Adventure), The Witcher 3 (Role-playing), Black Mesa (Action), Titanfall 2 (Action), Portal 2 (Puzzle), Battlebit (MMO/Action), and Half Life 3 (Fictional Game).
In terms of games that were so advanced they almost feel like they were made by time travellers:
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Elite (1984) - procedural open world space sim
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Ultima VII (1992) - full NPC schedules, open world and day/night system so you could rob stores at nights, follow people, etc. and awesome exploration. In 1992!
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X-COM (1994) - a voxel-based LOS system, destructible environment, z-levels, natural elevation on terrain (deforming the isometric grid), reaction fire, etc.
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Daggerfall (1996) - a faction system, procedurally generated areas and quests, a lot of options to get to different areas (climbing, levitation, etc.)
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Thief (1998) - a full sound simulation with different materials having different properties, the ability to extinguish torches (dynamic lighting!) and cover metal surfaces, a light system for visibility too (now commonplace).
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Baldur’s Gate (1998) - a semi open-world AD&D2e implementation - with co-op multiplayer! (most modern games don’t manage this)
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Deus Ex (2000) - a branching FPS/RPG campaign where choices matter with a basic stealth system and lots of approaches to each level. It was basically a completely modern game out of nowhere in 2000.
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Runescape (2001) - one of the first major graphical MMORPGs with a full player economy.
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Morrowind (2002) - a fully 3D open world with a lot of options for magic (including custom magic) and exploration.
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Hitman 2 (2002) - first stealth-focussed game with a full disguise system, map, etc.
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Oblivion (2006) - like Morrowind but with some NPC schedules (like Ultima VII), a stealth system (based on Thief) and Havok physics based traps.
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Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) - fully destructible buildings and environments in an open-world campaign.
Those are the ones that really stick out (also Super Mario and Zelda on consoles, especially the SNES, N64 and recently on the Switch handheld). It’s a shame that the rate of progress seems to have slowed down a lot at least in terms of ground-breaking features and simulations.
But who knows maybe Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield will both be on future lists like this.
Ultima VII really sticks out as just crazy though, that game could have released 10 years later and held up.
I would actually also put KotOR on this list. It was the first game that I can think of that had branching side quests for companions and a relationship system depending on their usage. It was basically the precursor to the Mass Effect system.
Good list. Some extra info on xcom, it is basically a remaster of an 80s 8bit game called Laser Squad.
It’s more than a re-master though, Laser Squad was independent missions IIRC? No geoscope
And it also didn’t have elevation, etc.? That said, Laser Squad released on the ZX Spectrum so it’s incredible as is.
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I’m surprised to not see any love for The Witness. I’m not usually a puzzle guy, but the way they teach you how to play without dialog is incredible and the environment is gorgeous.
Yes, finally. No one I know has played it, and there seems to be little interest in trying. The game consists of perfect mind-bending puzzles, with no duplicate “tricks” - just a steady growth of what is considered outside-the-box thinking.
Sekiro (RPG).
It’s not necessarily representative of RPGs as a whole, but man, I have never played a game that felt so polished. The combat is immaculate, the levels are beautiful, and more subtly, the power scaling is really well tuned. Because it’s not open world, they were able to hand tune the enemies’ difficulty more closely to match your own progression, and for me, it resulted in fights that always felt challenging but fair.
Its not an rpg
Its just an action game
Amazing combat and bosses though
Seconding this. It’s phenomenal.
I’ve never played a game that felt so challenging while still being fair all the way to the end.
Thirding
The best way to describe it is playing a rhythm game using swords. The swordplay really made you feel like a samurai.
I both love this game and hate that I could never beat the final boss. Even after defeating the “harder” optional stuff. My Dark Souls training is punished hard by the combat system. (I love to hate it though - just so satisfying.)
So, an interesting point of detail, is a game “gooder” when it perfectly executes its formula after countless iterations, like FF6 did, or is it better when it innovates in a new way, bringing together new ideas into a magical, if occasionally rough-around-the-edges, novel new approach that others start copying, as Doom did?
Also, are we looking at them from the perspective of their time, where Pac Man was once the pinnacle of gaming itself, or from a modern, more objective perspective, where Pac Man struggles to provide the same value as BotW does almost half a century later?
Exactly. Portal 2 is no doubt a fantastic puzzle game. But so is Myst, and Myst did a lot more with a lot less technology.
If you haven’t played Riven yet, that game was a huge improvement on every aspect of Myst IMO. Still completely holds up
I’m old enough to have played both on release :)
Myst in fact did a lot with very little technology. The original Myst, the Macintosh version before it came to PC, was made entirely in HyperCard (with some extensions). Once you know this, each scene being its own largely static “page” suddenly makes sense.
Calling Doom a novel approach is a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? Doom is easily one of the most influential milestones in the history of video games, period. Despite the roughness around the edges – most or all of which was necessary to get it to even work on PC hardware of the time, as it was certainly well understood by hyper dimensional time traveling space wizard, John Carmack. Nowadays we all know how the engine cheated, wasn’t truly 3d, and where all the jank and bugs can be found. But from the perspective if someone in 1993 playing on their 486-DX, Doom really felt like a highly polished and complete experience.
Doom’s impact in the scene in 1993 was so vast that you can still see it to this very day if you know where to look. There was so much that it either invented or perfected: Network multiplayer, both deathmatch and co-op; the now standard FPS loadout of melee-pistol-shotgun-rocket-launcher; the entire modern concept of the “violent video game” controversy; the notion of rock star game developers (John Romero…); the capability of generating distinct and recognizable 3D environments with a sense place. That’s really just the start. Doom made the entire video game industry at the time do an about-face. It changed the landscape forever despite how quaint it might look today.
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ET for the Atari walked so that Superman 64 could run. Never forget.
Because ET couldn’t run… at the end because of the bug right?
Idk what you mean. That game clearly didnt have any bugs. Anything that you think might be a bug is a feature.
Chrono Trigger
The story is great. The music is timeless. The replay-ability of the game is off the charts. You can change the combat style to be time-based instead of turn-based.
Bioshock is the answer.
Has it aged? Yes. Is it still worth playing? Absolutely.
System Shock 2.
All the Bioshock games, in my opinion
Outer Wilds
Just completed this one myself - and yeah, amazing. I am sooo happy I went in not knowing anything. Figuring out what needs figuring out is half the fun.
It’s both a piece of art and a thoroughly enjoyable piece of playable entertainment.
The amount of attention to detail in that game is absolutely insane.
I’ve yet to play it, but I’ve only heard good things! Looking to purchase it next time it goes on sale
It truly is a masterpiece. And one that you only ever truly experience in it’s purest form once.
All the “gates” are knowledge based. So you’re exploring and learning and pulling on threads to various pieces of information and as you do you’re piecing together both the narrative but also the giant puzzle that is the solar system.
Once you know something… you know it. And so there’s always, with good reason, a dire warning to avoid spoilers because you can’t unlearn something.
There’s also a beautifully woven story and the feelings I felt playing that was something else.
I highly recommend it. It’s so masterfully done. I’ve got a list of people I plan on sharing it with when it next goes on sale it’s that good.
Yeah, the person who initially recommended me the game told me to not even watch the trailer. I watched it anyway, but the point he was making was to enjoy the game the first time, as you won’t get that same experience again.
I guess you could say the same applies to every story game, but from what I’ve heard, it applies so much more so to Outer Wilds. Wish me luck on my adventure, I look forward to it!
It’s probably the best game of this decade for me.
I will not give you titles because the list can be long and hardly I can find a total winner. The best games even made are the one shipped completed without pretending of expansions to fill it, or DLC, or micro translation, season pass, and shit like this. So we need to jump back to 5 or 10 years to find something. I’m still waiting a new generation game that I like and that can achieve this.
There are plenty of games like this from the last few years. Elden Ring, Zelda, TLOU2, GoW2 just to name some AAA titles. Many indie games too. It just got a bit more annoying to filter out the cash grabs.
True but let’s take for example elder ring, even if updated for free it something keep in mutating by updates bigger that dlcs, it didn’t come out from the box ready. This annoys me, not having a production finished when I buy, also the dependecy of the net to keep downloading and fix this games. I can’t recall something similar in the past when physically buying the cd without even internet I was used to play mine PS1/2.
XCOM, XCOM 2 (Strategy)
The balancing of risk/reward, tactics, and roster management spawned a whole genre. The newer XCOMs (Enemy Unknown/Within and War of the Chosen) are still so much fun.
Also, plugging /c/XCOM while I’m here.
Also the original X-COM was so far ahead of its time - a voxel-based LOS system, destructible environment, z-levels, natural elevation on terrain (deforming the isometric grid), reaction fire, etc.
Not to be confused with X.COM, a different series where an inept alien attempts to take over the world via shite grifting.
This is possibly my biggest gripe about that whole mess.
In almost 30 years I’ve yet to come across another game that captures the feeling of turning a corner and coming face to face with an alien when you’ve few movement points left
Hades is perfect. Every single pillar of that game supports each other.
It’s one of the few games I’ve sunk triple-digit hours into. Such a good game.
I had to stop playing it because of the faux “British” accent. It goes right through me. Feels like such a stupid thing to be put off by but it’s just so jarringly unnatural, it’s horribly off-putting.
The way he says “mate”… omg
I remember looking up who did the voice for Zagreus or whatever his name is, and the dude is clearly one of the big dicks at Supergiant. Think he played some major part in the sound design for Bastion or something. Can’t remember.
Anyway, I get the feeling he is senior enough when it comes to sound stuff that he was basically able to decide he would be the voice of the MC and then proceeded to go full Dick Van Dyke without people feeling able to criticize it.
Don’t know if it’s because I’m from the UK that I find it so uncanny and awful, or if it’s just me in particular but it’s probably the most random thing that’s ever completely ruined a (otherwise great) game for me
The Talos Principle is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time because it actually got me to stop, read, and consider the message
Hades, RoR, and RoR 2 are contenders for best roguelike for me. Not my favorite genre but these hooked me with great replayability
Valheim, while unfinished and full of bugs, was my favorite open world experience with friends but I think Astroneer is a more perfect game. It’s simple and does a great job “directing” you while you make your own choices. The sound design is unmatched for relaxing
I love strategy games but I’m a basic bitch here without a variety of them so Civ6, Cities Skylines, Advanced Wars, FTL, and Into The Breach are my favs
I’d split action into two separate categories: Action and multiplayer FPS.
Tomb Raider (2013) was a pretty perfect action game for me. Probably not flawless but I look back on it fondly
Overwatch remains my favorite FPS even though I stopped playing awhile ago. There’s just no objective-based team shooter with unique roles besides…TF2, my previous favorite FPS
+1 for The Talos Principle.
If you like puzzles, you’ll love Talos.
Great story, too.
I tried out Obduction based on a review that compared it to Talos but…I dunno if I would recommend it. I found the “puzzles” to be unintuitive and had to look up a guide multiple times. Then I’d see the solution and wonder how the hell the game expected me to know i needed an item from across the map.
So if you have any recommendations that are ACTUALLY like Talos, I’d love to hear them.
Yes, Talos II is inbound!
AHHHH WHAT I HAVEN’T BEEN THIS EXCITED ABOUT VIDEO GAME NEWS SINCE…Ok, Cities: Skylines 2. BUT BEFORE THAT…A LONG TIME
It’s been a good month of game announcements for me
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It’s weird, but the answer I came up with for ALL those categories… was Dark Souls. Even Sports.
Action platform: Portal 2. It is polished to a mirror shine. I can’t think of a higher “quality” game in the genre.
