This is something I’ve been wondering for a while. Videogame publications and communities are always doing “Your Top 10 Games Ever” or “The 100 best videogames ever made” type things. EDGE recently (well a couple of months back) published a magazine with their top 100 games ever created in, here’s a link to a list of its contents.

So what makes a greatest ever videogame? Lets just take a quick look at their top 10.
1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
2. Resident Evil 4
3. Super Mario 64
4. Half Life 2
5. Super Mario World
6. Zelda: A Link to the Past
7. Halo: Combat Evolved
8. Final Fantasy XII
9. Tetris
10. Super Metroid

Pretty much a standard Top Ten List there, although there will always be arguments for and against certain games. But why? Are the games ommited genuinely the best examples of videogames, or are is it normally opinions based on nostalgia?

Will the likes of Resident Evil 4, Half Life 2 or Final Fantasy XII be even in the top 100 in 5 years time? How about 10 years? Does Super Mario 64 really still stand up to more modern games with more fluid controls such as Jak and Daxter on the PS2 (Which Miyamoto even admits is a better game)? Does this all really matter? Surely this is just a list of games that EDGE think are worth playing?

In that respect, why is Ocarina of Time number 1? Story aside, which wasn’t all that fantastic to be honest, the core gameplay elements have been the same in every single 3D Zelda made since it was released 10 years ago. Twilight Princess has tightened the controls immensly on Gamecube, resulting in you accidently running off of less lledges than you would of done using the N64 controller in Ocarina of Time. Don’t believe theres no real difference between all four 3D Zelda’s? Pick up a Gamecube and get Wind Waker, Zelda Collectors Disc and Twilight Princess for it and you can sample all four games.

It’s all based on opinion really, and alot of games that feature in these lists may have been great games in their time, but just don’t cut the mustard in this day and age. Take two N64 games, placed 17th and and 28th on the list, Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark respectively.

Now for the record, I’ve never been a fan of these games, the controls have always just felt completely wrong to me. But Goldeneye, as a console game, was revolutionary for its time. It was the first time a developer had made an FPS game work properly in terms of controls, atmosphere, story telling and multiplayer. But the console FPS has moved on in a huge way, possibly reflected by Halo: Combat Evolved’s placement in the number seven spot (although that could also be EDGE justifying their 10/10 for it).

So, what makes a great videogame? Surely with how fast our industry moves, only a game that plays incredibly well still years later (see Super Mario World and Super Metroid, the only games there of an age that I can’t make any complaints about), doesn’t lose any of its appeal and stands up well alongside more modern games? In this respect, nearly every game on that list has been bettered in one way or another.