Greatest game of the generation

Dang it guys , it's Portal 2 ! It's the closest to a perfect game in recent memory .

LBP 1 & 2 are runners up for me . Bayonetta then ME2 . There's my top 5 :D

I'm going to have to say Halo 3. Multiplayer perfection and the forge mode was inspired.

Mass Effect is my choice. It promised so much potential for the future of gaming and it was the start of a very very cool story universe. The Mako M35. Separate power timers, less aim-assist, hip-fired sniper rifles with level X explosive ammo. reasonable character models and armor designs. Fantastic setting designs and art.

Mako M35 #1

Mako M35 reference

EDIT: whatever, link editing on GB sucks

Shit, man.

• Skyrim?
• Call of Duty 4? (Yes, hate me all you want but fuck me if that game wasn't simply amazing, it completely changed competitive multiplayer in FPS games, whether you like what it changed or not is a personal preference.)
• Red Dead Redemption?
• Portal 2?
• Left 4 Dead 2? Though, as much as I love this game and think it's pretty much closest to my ideal co-op game, it still has flaws and many things I wish were different... so only mentioning it because fuck I love co-op zombie stuff.
• I want to say League of Legends because I love the hell out of that game... but I don't know if I would put it in this category either. It has done stuff for games though. It has come into eSports in a big way and doing the F2P. 267,000 people tuned into the IEM Hanover LoL finals a couple weeks back. That's a lot. Also, it's basically the perfect example of the F2P model done right. They make it very viable to play the game without ever buying anything, but they give you great incentive to buy shit too. I've spent 150 dollars or more on that game. Don't regret a penny.

I love all of these games a bunch, and each for a different reason. Easily the games that have stuck out most to me this generation.

If I'm going to come at this from purely a gameplay perspective, I guess I would have to go with Call of Duty 4... Like I said, it completely changed competitive multiplayer FPS and no game has really done its style better than it did since. Sure, games expanded on it but then failed in other areas. If you want a fast-paced military twitch shooter with a lot of customizability, CoD4 remains to this day a very viable option. Not to mention I fucking love the campaign for that game. My Xbox's ethernet port was broken for like a year and in that year when I didn't have access to XboX Live, I played the campaign a good 50+ hours unlocking all the cheats and beating it on all modes and just replaying the hell out of it because it was just damn fun.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

This game sucked me in like no other this generation. I can't think of many non-rpg titles that I sunk 100+ hours into, but this is the first that comes to mind. The hours spent playing this game over and over again are still vivid in my memory. The whole game put me into this calm, tranquil, zen state; and even those damn purple cubes that split into three other cubes, yeah those assholes, couldn't ruin the fun I was having.

@spartanlolz92 said:

(puts flamesuit on)

for multiplayer Cod 4 the memories i have of that game with friends are just to awesome for words

search and destroy over grown= bliss

single player skyrim no other game this gen has left me with such a sense of adventure when ever i step into the world

Fuck the flamesuit. No CoD will ever make my top 10 (or whatever) games list, but I would gladly stand in the corner of anyone who wanted to argue that CoD4 was the greatest game of this generation. It was fucking fun and no sane person can deny the impact it had.

And I don't know about greatest, but Valkyria Chronicles is probably my favorite game this generation.

@AhmadMetallic: ... No, I just really like Asteroids. Asteroids is my desert island game because it's perfect. But thanks for implying I'm incapable of individual thought, asshole.

I was going to say MGS4 but Demons Souls comes close.

I'm tempted to say Human Revolution, even though it's flawed. I loved that game to death.

Other than that, maybe the first Mass Effect ? Discovering that world for the first time was amazing.

Skyrim is up there also, hell I don't know. Ask again in 5 or 10 years I guess.

Sanic Evenchur Too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StIObmOIiwQ&list=FLnsLmMa_rQ22tAtRkAYENgA&index=2&feature=plpp_video

I agree with everyone who said Mario Galaxy. I remember playing it and feeling like a little kid again, it literally brought a smile to my face.

Call of Duty 4 is an effing masterpiece.

I love games like ME, Dark Souls, Portal 2, etc but if there's been one game that has defined this generation, surely it's Call of Duty.

Yes, COD is now infamous for hideous 14 year old dudebros and relentless sequels, but damn if that multiplayer isn't godly. The fact that the sequels just copypasta the multiplayer just goes to show how good it is. All those 13 year old kids aren't deluded, they just don't care that they're buying essentially the same game if the gameplay is just that good.

@AhmadMetallic: What would your favorite game of the generation be, I am curious.

Nope is Street Fighter III 3rd Strike : online edition opening song ... close second Mass Effect 2 and 1 and 3 (haven't play that one yet) the whole series actually.

TF2, HL2: EP2, The Binding of Isaac, Oblivion/Skyrim, and Dark Souls are all games I really enjoyed/still play. I am looking forward to BioShock Infinite, Double Fines next games, Valve's stuff, future GTA games, as well as getting around to some games I have yet to play like Super MeatBoy, Journey, and The Witcher 2. It feels a little early to consider the best games of this gen when its still got a few years left.

Dragon Age:Origins is my favourite game of the last ten plus years. So I guess that one.

We're over sixty posts into this thread and not one mention of an Assassin's Creed game... I don't know what to make of that. Seriously, not one? Assassin's Creed 2 had a great story, amazing and unique gameplay, a fully realized world full of amazing art design, able to handle huge crowds of AI pedestrians... How is this game (or Brotherhood) not getting any consideration?

It's a pretty tight fight between Skyrim, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock, but I think Mass Effect 2 wins out.

@Bulby33 said:

Mass Effect 2. Jeff is correct.

Office Bat endorses it!

@spartanlolz92: You got a spare one of those suits?

The original Modern Warfare was just amazing. I continued playing the multiplayer for years, past the releases of both World at War and Modern Warfare 2. Many fond memories of that game.

-

Hard to think in the moment but I'm a big, big fan of Red Dead Redemption. 90+ hours into the single player, did absolutely everything I could and I almost felt like I was forcing myself to stop.

Pulling on my love of westerns and open world games, the atmosphere just took over. I role-played the entire game; never fast travelling, saving at night time, hunting and herb picking even when I wasn't focused on challenges, avoiding online help with treasure finding etc, and also making trips across the country just to enjoy the scenery.

I truly loved it.

Not exactly obvious choices but while I'm thinking of them I've got to at least mention the Condemned games, and I guess Saints Row: The Third. Got to give the latter more time to sink in, but that game was one hell of a ride and I enjoyed the humour, especially when it drew on the medium itself; the deckers.die level, for example.

Renegade Ops is the obvious answer here.

Deadly Premonition

Super Mario Galaxy 1/2, Bayonetta, Team Fortress 2, MGS4, and maybe Red Dead Redemption.

People saying Mass Effect 2 sound crazy.

@AhmadMetallicsaid:

I just LOVE how we measure the greatness of a game based on the story and universe and emotional impact of the events and sentimental attachments to the characters rather thanTHE MOTHER FUCKING GAMEPLAY. What is wrong with us gaming folk? I really love Mass Effect (I pretend that I don't but I freaking do), but seriously, gameplay wise it does NOT deserve to be in the same boat with games that took the diversity, fun and tightness of the interactivity and gameplay to next-gen levels..

Certainly the way the game plays has a role in the way the story, universe, and emotional moments impact us.. the same way the writing style effects how much we enjoy a novel's story. You can't just separate these things.

@Kevin_Cogneto: If it makes you feel better, I had it on my list and then took it off right before I posted. I don't know... as much as I FUCKING LOVED (and believe me, I fucking loved it) AC2, I couldn't think of a reason other than "Well Assassin's are fucking awesome, the story was good for a game, and by the way Assassin's are fucking awesome and stealth kills are badass" as the reason. I know there was other awesome things about it, but I don't know, just couldn't think of a huge, important, well-thought-out reason as to why I would choose it at the time. You pointed out some good points though.

Props to that game though, definitely one of my favorites this generation.

Call of Duty 4 for sure is the first one that comes to mind, that shit rocked my world.

Other than that, Mass Effect 2 is definetly up there, even though I never played it until about a month ago.

Also Assassin's Creed 2 did a bunch of cool unique stuff I really enjoyed. I actually liked Brotherhood a decent amount more than 2, but I think in terms of advances it made at the time, AC2 should be placed higher up.

Honestly if I had to pick a game to represent the greatest of its generation, it would either have to be Heavy Rain or L.A. Noire, but not for very obvious reasons.

This generation to me is honestly the first where acting and story-telling at a pure visual level (via believable face and voice acting and a toning down of conventional game mechanics) became a practical reality. What either of those two games proved to me is that we are reaching a shift where there are game enthusiasts that now demand a completely different experience from their usual range of games. That isn't to say that traditional games aren't evolving as they are certainly becoming more and more impressive, however not many games are truly pushing the envelope of focusing on the details that sell the believability of the characters and their interactions with others quite like these two games.

Sure they are in a sense technical experiments that still need refining, but compared to other games that attempt convincing acting like the Mass Effect series, very few games comes close to what was achieved by these two games in that sense. Not only that, they are also a reminder that graphics are still just as important as gameplay for a lot of people, because only with improved graphics and improved ability to render more complex and subtle elements in our games will we be able to properly reach real-time realistic acting to a greater degree that what is possible right now, elevating games to be a lot more than just merely 'fun'.

That's just my personal opinion for this question anyway, as I'm a guy that typically wants to see things like thousands and thousands of people in a city rendered in real-time to demand developers to make cities of realistic size, or have facial animations that sell me that acting is taking place and not digital puppetry. There really can be a market for real-time acting games which will encourage story-telling to improve significantly. This can only benefit the game industry in the long run so long as there are developers with these kinds of dreams and goals.

There were a couple really good titles in 2010. Red Dead Redemption doesn't get nearly enough notoriety, though at the time I was guilty of proclaiming Mass Effect 2 as the best game of the year, so I can't really speak to that too strongly.

For me, it comes down to the impact a game has on the rest of the industry, but also on how well it executed the theories it put into play. So, while I think it's nice to vote for the original Mass Effect because it really embraced the fluid, emergent storytelling mechanics we've come to embrace in the series, Mass Effect 2 made all those mechanics better, plus it's a better all around game.

I have a hard time ignoring Call of Duty in this discussion. Again, it comes down to semantics. What does "Greatest" even mean, really? "Best"? That's too qualitative, and you simply can't have a discussion founded on logic about a matter of taste. If you're talking about lasting impact, the list of games becomes significantly shorter, and you're only denying reality if you argue Call of Duty didn't change everything about the way tentpole games are marketed, designed, even conceived. Entire franchises emerged hoping to piggyback on the success of the Call of Duty formula, and did so with relative success. Other franchises, franchises that had, for all intents and purposes, worn out their welcome, instituted elements the Call of Duty games had so elegantly streamlined for the rest of the industry.

When this discussion can happen seriously--which won't be for another few years at the earliest--it won't be about a single game. You'll find that too many games did too many interesting things. Maybe here at the end of the cycle we've hit a period of stagnant creativity (and who's to say even that's true?), but so many developers innovated in transformative ways over the last few years.

And I haven't even mentioned Nintendo. Who really ought to get the lion's share of the credit.

I'd probably have to say starcraft 2, but console wise it's a little tougher. It'd either be Mario Galaxy, Arkham Asylum, or Mass Effect 1.

My own personals favorite,? impossible to pick one tbh.

@SoledadBrother said:

Deadly Premonition

I think I want to change my answer to this, though I should probably actually play it first. Can't wait for the NA PS3 version to drop.

Mass Effect 2 hands down.The suicide mission had me on the edge of my seat.

Dark Souls along with RDR.

Probably Call of Duty 4 for me. Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim are close.

The last game I can recall giving me alot of enjoyment was Dark Soul's 

@MistaSparkle said:

Might get shit on, but maybe I'll be able to step out of the way fast enough...

Fallout 3 had me at the first bit of information I heard about it. The concept had me completely enticed and when I saw some gameplay for the first time, just...damn. I couldn't believe something so incredible was coming out and I was going to be able to play it. I didn't think the news I kept hearing about the game could get better but then it did. Liam Neeson is your Dad!

Nah, I'm with you. Mine is either Fallout 3, Portal 2, or Super Mario Galaxy. But I'd have to stare off into the ocean from a pier for hours to pick just one.

I'll toss in for Rock Band. It pretty much perfected a genre, even though there's no denying that particular genre has faded well out of the mainstream. RB3 or The Beatles: RB would be near the top of my list of best games for the generation, though I don't know what would actually be at the top. There's a lot of really good games already mentioned here, so I figured I'd toss in one I haven't seen yet that has had a lot of impact on my personal life.

I'm down to: Burnout Paradise, Borderlands, Fallout 3, and Dark Souls.

@DelroyLindo said:

im gonna give some love to vanquish, i wouldn't say it was the best game of the generation but from a purely gameplay perspective that game was the tits

I'm going to not say Vanquish is the best game this generation, but if we were to say, be looking only at shooters, mechanically this game is way more exciting than a Gears of War or Uncharted. It looked awesome and was super fast bust still managed to control well and have some depth.

@AhmadMetallic said:

I just LOVE how we measure the greatness of a game based on the story and universe and emotional impact of the events and sentimental attachments to the characters rather than THE MOTHER FUCKING GAMEPLAY. What is wrong with us gaming folk? I really love Mass Effect (I pretend that I don't but I freaking do), but seriously, gameplay wise it does NOT deserve to be in the same boat with games that took the diversity, fun and tightness of the interactivity and gameplay to next-gen levels..

I agree with this. I always find that when people think of great single player it has to be some big story experience. And while I'd be behind the sentiment that Red Dead Redemption, GTA4, MGS4, Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect are worthy of the game of the generation, I'd also be fine with Call of Duty 4, Borderlands, Portal, Left 4 Dead, or you know, something even smaller and downloadable.

@leinad44 said:

Mass Effect 2 hands down.The suicide mission had me on the edge of my seat.

I thought it was a corny video followed by some repetitive combat in a terribly designed, linear level - basically like every other mission in ME2.

Don't get me wrong, I think ME2 is a good game - mainly due to the great characters and strong atmosphere, but I found the level design to be really weak.

Dark Souls or Amnesia.

@AhmadMetallic: What would your favorite game of the generation be, I am curious.

@AhmadMetallicsaid:

I just LOVE how we measure the greatness of a game based on the story and universe and emotional impact of the events and sentimental attachments to the characters rather thanTHE MOTHER FUCKING GAMEPLAY. What is wrong with us gaming folk? I really love Mass Effect (I pretend that I don't but I freaking do), but seriously, gameplay wise it does NOT deserve to be in the same boat with games that took the diversity, fun and tightness of the interactivity and gameplay to next-gen levels..

Certainly the way the game plays has a role in the way the story, universe, and emotional moments impact us.. the same way the writing style effects how much we enjoy a novel's story. You can't just separate these things.

@AhmadMetallic: Being a video game means more than being a game. Singling out gameplay as the individual trait of note in a video game is like singling out the look of a film when critiquing a movie.

@Nottle: Shit. I need to play Vanquish. I guess I never paid any mind to it.

@AhmadMetallic: It probably has my favorite cover-based shooting of this generation, barring ME3. I would also call the conversations "gameplay" in some way, along with the interrupt system. It's not like MGS4, wherein the best parts are the non-video game parts. Everything is interactive and engaging enough that it couldn't be anything but a video game. Player choice is a powerful thing, and the use of it in Mass Effect--while not perfected yet--is a far greater showing of what is to come than something like Super Mario Galaxy.

Deadly Premonition

RDR or Skyrim

GTA IV - Niko, Roman, Little Jacob, Brucie, Euphoria engine, the script, Katt Williams, driving controls, Liberty City, the bank heist mission, gorgeous visuals, etc.

This game is a masterpiece.

Fallout 3 for me. Made its way into my top 5 of all time.

Vegas and Skyrim can't hold a candle to it.

@CptBedlam: Oh sorry was this topic about game with best level design? My mistake.

My point is, the suicide mission was presented extremely well, great voice acting, awesome cinematics and a strong sense of tension. Did I stop in the game and go 'you know what!? This level design sucks'? Nope. The game had managed to suck me in and I was fully invested in where that mission took me, I was scared to death that characters that I genuinely cared about were going to die.