Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

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DaHeckIzDat
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Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » May 31st, 2017, 4:06 pm

I've been thinking lately. Batman: Arkham Asylum is probably, speaking in terms of quality, the best game I have ever played. However, while it's one of my favorites, it's not my favorite game. That would, in all honesty, probably be Tales of Xillia or Nier, even though when you look at them objectively they both fall far short of Arkham Asylum. I may even rank Donkey Kong Country 2, Kingdom Hearts, and a few others higher than Arkham Asylum just for pure nostalgic value. I find that strange. What about your guys? Is the best game you've ever played also your favorite game?

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 31st, 2017, 7:38 pm

Well Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past has always been my favorite, but I have to admit Zelda: Breath of the Wild is probably the best game I've ever played.

That said, Link to the Past remains my all-time favorite because I like it's smaller scope and 2D graphic style.

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MoarRipter
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby MoarRipter » May 31st, 2017, 10:45 pm

A Link to the Past is one of those games I could sit down and play all the way through in one sitting loving every minute of it. I usually do replay it once a year.

Favorite game? Tetris DX for the Gameboy Player. No other variation of Tetris comes close. Best game I've played though? Probably, Super Metroid. That game was and still is an amazing adventure.

Arkham Asylum was a pretty awesome game though! Mark Hamill is my favorite Joker.

Voor
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby Voor » June 1st, 2017, 7:04 am

I came here to say Super Metroid is both my favorite game and best game I've ever played. I never got tired of it, and after I discovered that it is one of the most popular Speedrunning games (complete with amazing strategies for the fastest times), I fell in love all over again.

Check out this video of "reverse boss order"

https://youtu.be/9VH-NWMezEo

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scotland
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby scotland » June 1st, 2017, 8:38 am

'Best' for videogames is a moving target as technology, investment, interactivity, etc keeps growing. Its like asking 'best airplane'. Favorite may be the opposite, as we have memories and emotional attachments to games.

I think my favorite games are simpler ones, whether arcade games such as Pac Man or strategy games like Advance Wars or Rogue-likes. These are games I play all the time, like your favorite kind of exercise.

The best games immersed me in a world where the video game action was just part of the enjoyment. Games like Bioshock, with all the world building, make a lasting impression that its not just a setting, but a real story. However, these are not games I replay, like it was a one time experience like seeing a Broadway show or attend a Superbowl.

goldenband
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby goldenband » June 1st, 2017, 11:18 am

It's amazing how liberating it's been for me to stop caring about "best", or even "good/bad" for the most part, and strictly focus on what I do or don't enjoy. Put differently, whether a game is "good" has surprisingly little to do with whether I want to play it.

That said, sure, there are some games I think are the best on their system that are also my favorites on that system, or darn near it. Dungeons of Daggorath on the Tandy CoCo is probably that system's most acclaimed game, and also my favorite. Same with the AD&D games for Intellivision, especially Cloudy Mountain and Tower of Doom: consistently part of the conversation when naming the system's greatest achievements, and I like 'em better than just about any other game on the platform.

But "best game I've ever played", across systems, times, and places? That's like asking me to specify the best food I've ever eaten, or the best music I've ever heard. The question's too broad, and too devoid of context. The cheap beer I was given as a teenager after a day's hard work in the sun tasted amazing; the high-end microbrew I had the other week was infinitely more nuanced and an empirically better beer by most standards, but did it mean as much to me? Probably not. And Beethoven isn't "better" than the Beatles or Miles Davis, just different.

Maybe there was a time and place I would have nominated Super Metroid for "best game I've ever played". It certainly was the best at doing what it was trying to do, when and where it did it. But then, so was Robotron, or Dungeons of Daggorath, or Combat. All of them gave me peak experiences, in their time, which matters more to me than measuring their objective standing in some pantheon of "the best games" (which too often means "the best graphics", BTW).

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pacman000
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby pacman000 » June 1st, 2017, 1:18 pm

In a word, yes.

My favorite game probably be Tetris.

I'd also argue it's probably the best game ever due to it's mix of "easy to lean/difficult to master" elements.

:)

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Rookie1
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby Rookie1 » June 2nd, 2017, 6:21 am

I was thinking about this yesterday while watching a podcast that asked the same question. Like the critic, my favorite game is also Link to the Past, but I dont think its the BEST game I have ever played. Thats hard to say considering that my mood dictates the type of game I want to play. While I have been playing LttP for more than 20 years without getting tired of it, I may not want to dedicate a large chunk of time. I might want to sit down and shoot a bunch of stuff like in Smash TV, or blow a bunch of stuff up in GTA. Maybe knock out a few of my favorite levels in Mega Man 2. I dont know if I could necessarily determine what the best game I have ever played is.

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Retrology
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby Retrology » June 2nd, 2017, 7:16 am

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the best game I've ever played. The scope of the game is sensational, and each and every level feels fresh and a lot of fun to play. I bought it the day it came out, and it's the kind of game you're consistently excited for no matter how much you play it.

Portal 2 is another one. The puzzle solving is so mind warpingly genius that I even have fun trying to figure out what the concepts are. Nothing is more satisfying than completing a puzzle.

My all time favorite game would have to be Chrono Trigger. The game gets better each and every time you play it, and the difficulty level is PERFECT.

BanjoPickles
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Re: Is the best game you've ever played your favorite game?

Postby BanjoPickles » June 2nd, 2017, 1:24 pm

My all-time favorite game, one which I have beaten several times over, is Final Fantasy VI (on SNES and GBA).

The best game that I have ever played, to be honest, would probably be either Dark Souls III or Grand Theft Auto V. Those games offered an experience that defied what I thought was possible in a video game. The boss fights in DS3 were absolutely exhilerating, and beating one of them provided the ultimate high, while GTA5's scope was absolutely breathtaking! Actually, I'm tempted to add Red Dead Redemption to the list as well.


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