[Video Game Wednesday] The Undisputed, Greatest Video Game of All Time

What game is the greatest of all time?

It seems like every year, at least one of the dedicated video gaming magazines, blogs, and websites comes out with a list of “the top 100 video games of all time.” These lists are generally pretty short-sighted and include games that, ten years from now, most people won’t even remember. Generally, as you get to the top of the list, you find a few sacred cows — Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid — that are good games, and maybe even great games, but certainly with some element about them that prevents them from being considered the greatest of all time.

Maybe part of the problem is that the criteria used to evaluate the concept of “the greatest games” are subjective rather than objective; in the writer’s head instead of on paper; made up as the list is compiled, not established ahead of time. So of course a lot of games that are nostalgic will wind up on the list, not because they are truly the greatest, but because they stuck out in the writer’s mind.

We also should avoid the GameRankings style of quantitative rankings based on qualitative reviews. I’m not going to get into the details, but there are many flaws with such a system, and when you look at the top games (available here), you find that there are lots of really excellent titles that have been snubbed because they didn’t receive the level of acclaim that they deserved since they weren’t AAA releases. Plus, the GameRankings system has some very arbitrary logic to it, and it’s really not a very good system for judging the worth of a game any more than Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic are good for weighing the worth of a film.

I’m going to offer a different take on this. I’m going to start with a set of guidelines, and then narrow my focus down to one title that stands above all others. When you see my conclusion, it probably won’t surprise you — nor should it. But understand that the purpose of this article is not to state what the greatest video game of all time is, but why it deserves such a title.

Are you ready? Here we go.

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