Ask Lemmy

Runescape. It's been around for more than 20 years and still is one of the most active online games.

Command and conquer generals zero hour

Haven't seen TIE Fighter mentioned yet.

Doom (1993).

Why: I'm still playing it. Most people know it, and it's the grandfather of all FPS games.

I think an interesting way to define the greatest game of all time would be a game that captures your attention the longest and provides the largest variety of ways to play.

To that end, I would say StarCraft 1.

My personal reasoning is I love games that have user generated content to keep you coming back to enjoy fresh experiences. StarCraft 1 had a game mode called use map settings where you could play maps made using the built-in level editor. There was enough complexity in the level editor that basically the sky was the limit.

You want to play a tower defense? StarCraft 1. You want to play an RPG? Which franchise do you want to play, cause a lot of them are on StarCraft 1. You want to play an action adventure game? StarCraft 1. The list goes on lol

I've never personally played it, but I feel like another example of this would be Roblox and another one that I have would be Gary's mod.

My answer is SNAKE BYTE!

Just TWO keys, none of that FOUR KEY nonsense from other snake games.

It doesn't matter how old I get, I will always go back to Snake Byte and spend hours playing it when I do.

Marathon, by Bungie. From the box it came in, to the hugeness of the spaceship, the coolness of the story, all the secrets, and the fan community that sprang up to research and theorize.

And then they made it open source so anybody could play it on any computer.

It's not favorite game to play any more, but it was the greatest game to me.

Halflife 2 + Incl Episodes

Tetris

Just about everyone has either played or heard of it. It is easy enough for young and old people alike to pick up. But it can get so challenging that even nowadays new records are broken regularly.

It's simple. It's fun. And will remain so for all eternity.

I don't think "greatest game of all time" is really a thing.
As you mention pubg for example it was a simply copy as well.
Does it take originality to the The greatest? Does it take being popular?

What does it actually take to the greatest?

This is such an absurd question. I mean, it's weird in movies and books, weirder in music... but games?

I mean, Tetris. It's Tetris, isn't it?

But then you're out there going "so is Tetris better than Baldur's Gate III", which is a nonsensical sentence.

Well, I think there are multiple potential candidates depending on how you define greatness. I think these few are certainly the most influential:

• Super Mario Bros. Possibly the system it ran on was more important, but this game was a system seller for the system that single-handedly saved not only the entire video game industry, but probably the very concept of video games at a time when it was looking like it'd just be another fad that faded away right along with bellbottoms and pet rocks, with what was left of it remaining caged in Japan. Mario 1 was most people's first platformer, I also have to think that the first damn goomba in 1-1 probably holds the crown for the highest kill count of any entity in the universe.
• Tetris. Infinitely playable and probably infinitely played, and you can get it to run on damn near everything. Everyone knows Tetris, even people who haven't played it or any other video game.
• Doom. Just, Doom. Yes, Quake was more advanced. Yes, Quake was technically the actual technological forefather to the polygonal 3D games we play today, and many game engines still include tiny bits of Quake's original code. But there would be no Quake without Doom. It certainly wasn't the first FPS, but it's the game that cemented the FPS formula for good and firmly established the x86 PC as not only a viable gaming platform, but the king of gaming platforms from that moment until this very day. Ever since Doom, outside of specialized arcade hardware the PC has been the powerhouse platform for the biggest, most technologically demanding games. After Doom game out everyone wanted their own "Doom clone" on their platform just to show that they weren't just another me-too, also-ran.
• Street Fighter 2. The genre defining 1 on 1 fighting game template. Enough said.
• Chrono Trigger. This game showed everyone not what a console RPG was up until that point, but what a console RPG could be if you put actual effort and creativity into it and didn't just crank out another grindy and soulless, swords-and-sorcery-go-kill-the-dragon yawn fest just to keep your franchise going. Its contemporary Final Fantasy games almost got there (especially 6), but Chrono went the full mile. The feats Chrono Trigger pulled off on the humble SNES as well as many of the innovations it brought forward were far ahead of its time and it took literal decades for the genre to catch up to it -- including quite a few entries from its own studio.
• Final Fantasy 7. This game is objectively crap even compared to many of its peers. But there is no doubt that it was the next stepping stone from Chrono Trigger that finally firmly launched the console RPG into mainstream territory, made the genre as a whole truly successful, and was an awful lot of people's first RPG. It probably made a significant and permanent contribution to the formation of weaboo culture, as well.
• Half Life 2. No, not the first Half Life. Not Opposing Force and not Blue Shift, either. There was never before any hype and anticipation for a video game like there was for Half Life 2. In the months leading up to its launch it was all anyone talked about. Not Doom 3, not the new Warcraft. Half Life 2. And of course with Half Life 2 came Steam, and we all know how that turned out. Sure, Steam itself started life as a patch delivery and server browsing platform for Counterstrike, but up until Half Life 2 appeared in it, nobody cared. The impact Half Life 2 had on everything is absolutely undeniable, and that doesn't just include the horde of games that came after it attempting to imitate its unbroken linear first person narrative and setpiece based game design as a cash grab, not to mention that phase in first person shooters where seemingly everything suddenly had to have physics puzzles in it...

Portal

Mario bros 3 - it felt like a SNES game

It got to be Goat Simulator for sure:

• Top notch graphics.
• Full of features, even some not intended by the developers.
• You can hurt and get hurt, so it's BDSM-friendly.
• Open sandbox.
• It's more recognisable than Tetris. Tetris is easy to confuse with some Tetris knock-off, Goat Simulator is instantly "yup, this is Goat Simulator".
• It's deeper in lore and philosophy than Chrono Trigger.
• Zelda's worldbuilding pales in comparison with Goat Simulator's.
• Requires more strategy than Diablo and FFA combined.
• You play it as a goat dammit. Everything else is just fluff.

Someone already said my true #1. But if I ignore that one.

EverQuest. What a crazy game. So many ideas that are just brilliant but people don't do anymore. The enchanter is my favorite power set on any character in any genre and nothing touches it. I wish the design philosophy didn't move away from systems that enable that kind of game play.

Outer Wilds. Any explanation that I give would be massive spoilers, but it captures a genre, aesthetic, and theme that, in my experience, has been virtually unused by any other game before and still remains extremely underutilized

Doom.

It was the first 3(well, 2.5)D shooter. Plus, I can hear E1M1.

And using the shareware license for distribution widely helped it's popularity and it had multiplayer.

Honorary mention to Carrier Command ( the first one with like a 5 polygon island and a 40 polygon volcano).

Tetris.