In my opinion, it is unquestionably Halo 3. It is basically a perfect game and has so much content that it is still highly repayable to this day. The multiplayer is still my favorite multiplayer to play 13 years later, and the amount of customization is incredible.
It is hard to imagine any game ever surpassing it, and I can see myself playing the game for years to come.
Like, what do you base it on? I feel like I’d have a separate GOAT or Top 10 for replayable games vs one off experiences.
Like, for example, I’ve widely considered Zelda OOT possibly the best game ever, but then I only played it once and never went back.
Yet to this day I still go back and play Streets of Rage 2, Super Punch Out, Donkey Kong Country and continue to play Rocket League daily.
Will probably be playing Rocket League for the rest of my life. But would I call Rocket League the best game of all time? Probably not.
I feel like it’s such a hard question to answer these days.
For me to pick a singular game that encapsulates both the replayability as well as that first time “special feeling” that I’d love to be able to have again, maybe my GOAT is Daytona USA?
Imo, the greatest game of all time is GTA San Andreas. Just so content rich, first real black protagonist in a big game, one of the greatest antagonist in officer tenpenny, and ofc you can’t forget about big smoke
The original launch of World of Warcraft up to Burning Crusade. I never have and never will play a game so much in my life. The perfect game. I had to quit because it was life consuming but what a ride.
This is REALLY tough. If I wanted to be biased, I would say KotOR . But, looking at the question from the stance that GOAT means truly industry defining/changing, I’ll would say either Super Mario 64 or Metal Gear Solid.
SM64 truly showed the absolutely MASSIVE difference between 2D & 3D worlds. Just look at the E3 reveal when Mario climbs a simple tree & the journalists were completely entranced. And MGS is the game that created the “cinematic experience” blueprint (for good & for bad). Either of these 2 are the GOATS, IMO.
It’d be World of Warcraft, nothing comes close to the amount of content, different modes, old shit you can go back and do, mounts and rare weapons to grind.
Added on top is the social side with guilds,lfg and the auction house.
If I had to play just one game forever I’d go with this.
It did not only jump start the fps genre, it had a coop campaign, introduced deathmatch, had online and LAN modes, kickstarted the modding scene, open sourced their engine and made indie games a financial juggernaut.
Streets of rage 2 is amazing! probably spent hundreds of hours playing 2 player with my best mate on “mania” difficulty. still pull it out a couple times a year now
Super Mario Bros. 3. To me, everything about it is perfect or near to. Brilliantly levels that are clever and replayable, an amazing soundtrack, and a game design which teaches you how to play and improve as you progress. It was an incredible experience when it released and a cultural phenomenon and remains that way all these years later.
Its the full package, a modern day open world more detailed then anything else, great story, great characters, character switching, lots of mission variety and a online component that really is a pioneer in the GaaS style.
For me, the greatest individual game (not considering it as part of a series) that I’ve ever played is Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The combination of story, atmosphere, world-building, art direction, music and gameplay is unsurpassed in gaming history. And it’s miraculous when you consider they had a 3rd of the budget of what Rockstar spends to make games like that.