One glance and already I know this is wrong.
As with every “all time” list, there will never be a consensus over what’s the best or otherwise. But John Scalzo of Warpzoned tries his best to great a “scientific” means of producing a top 100 list. He used IGN, Edge Magazine, Game Informer, G4 (really?), Games Radar and GameRankings to average it all out to iron out any statistical variation.
The result: Tetris is number one.
Now, that’s fine. Okay. I’ll accept that. I do think that the use of IGN, who makes payola on radio stations seem like a drop in the bucket, is problematic, as is G4, which has Adam Sessler and that’s about it.
And then it immediately goes downhill. Resident Evil 4 stands as number two. Which I never knew that something could be double-incorrect, but there you go. And don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the Resident Evil series. It is well documented in these pages that I have, out in the aether, a thrilling international global adventure story set in the world of Resident Evil. But it is not number two all time.
Super Mario 64, Super Metroid and Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past round out the top five.
Strange, not a single one of those items are Fallout 2 or System Shock 2, which in the case of the latter, had been declared #1 Greatest Of All Time by GameSpot, and since its release in 1999, had been included on those lists, never going below 25.
Yet in the top 25 of this “scientific” list, it doesn’t even rank. 2007′s BioShock makes #6, but was developed as “a spiritual successor” to System Shock. Indeed, the primary reason why anyone paid attention to it when it was first announced was because of its connection to this game.
The problem with “all time” lists is that it’s stupid and often wrong. In the case of Resident Evil 4, in a vacuum the game is okay. But when compared to the rest of the game series, it’s a revitalization of a brand that had been on the decline. People were shocked that the series still could innovate and thus overrated it — to encourage old fans to come back. In my case, it totally worked and I don’t begrudge that.
That doesn’t mean we should assume that overcompensating rating equates to it truly belonging in the upper echelons. It’s a fun game, but it certainly doesn’t have half the punch as Bioshock’s “a slave obeys” orMass Effect 2′s (#18) game-long storyline of acquiring a team to go on a suicide mission.
Or for a game older than that, it certainly doesn’t have the gut-wrenching storyline of Magus’ downfall and redemption that most will see out-of-order in Chrono Trigger.
The moment you see a game like Resident Evil 4 that high up on the list, you’ve just got to go, “yeah, no one believes that,” and re-evaluate the list. I mean, hell, I think World of Warcraft is one of the most boringly restricted MMOs out there, but I could absolutely see it as #2 and not think twice about it.
Also, not a single MechWarrior game in the bunch. Not even anything of that nature.
But then again, here I am writing over five hundred words about it. So perhaps this was his goal.
In which case, I doff my cap to you, sir.
Question: What’s your favorite game of all time?
