Oh, don’t be silly. There’s no such thing as a “perfect” game. Or maybe there is?
Nah, surely not.
But wait… then again…
You know what, let’s see what you guys think. What game fits your definition of The Perfect Game? Surely it means something different to everyone. What makes a game perfect to you? And why?
Weigh in in the comments below, and please include the game’s name and why you think it’s The Perfect Game.
Comments
58 responses to “What’s ‘The Perfect Game’?”
No, there’s not.
Closest you will get to the “perfect game” is the game you are thoroughly engrossed in any given moment
What I love, and think is perfect today, may not be so tomorrow
What I love, and think is perfect today, may not be so tomorrow
and may not be the same for the next person.
Correction- the definition of a “perfect game” is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue. Nothing shall ever be better than that game!
Hahaha
What makes this funnier is that I grew up in Tassie :oP
The game was practically made for you and yet you ignore its greatness!!!?
There is no such thing as the perfect game for everyone. However, I’ll answer with this. As I said to IGN when they tweeted the same question this morning, not playing as a white guy with brown hair all the time would be a great start. Joe Everyman is boring as batshit.
Ocarina of Time is as close as it gets for me. But I don’t think any game can ever be truly perfect.
There will always be something about it that will annoy you or could have been done better no matter how small of a detail.
Arcanum, deathrow, heroes of might and magic 3.
All with faults but have a perfect experience overall.
+1 deathrow
+ 1 Arcanum! God damn that takes me back.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Huh?
Tetris is the perfect game. Impeccable mechanics, simple yet engaging difficulty, surprising complexity, and graphics that fit. Iconic soundtrack.
Lumines is pretty friggin closeThis is another excellent answer. I guess part of the question is understanding what we define as a game. In terms of it’s design and rules and engagement, Tetris is pretty nigh unbeatable as a game.
Maybe modern games that tell a story need to be called something else, because we’re not really doing this kind of pure gaming anymore. Well, people who play Candy Crush Saga on Facebook are. Maybe they’re the real gamers.
Story is pretty far out, though.
I know you’re joking, but I’m glad that Tetris doesn’t even attempt a story- it’s a pure “abstract” game without (esp these days) a theme even added to it.
I dunno, they did have that subplot about the Russians and their dealings with extra-terrestrials.
Some insane cross between Fallout: NV, Bioshock 2 and Portal.
Another answer is Half Life 3. (so I guess there will never be a perfect game)
A game that uses logical and well-polished gameplay rules to deliver an interesting narrative with compelling and layered characters from the protagonist(s) to the antagonist(s) to the support cast, who are well acted enough to not take you out of the experience and effectively balance action/problem solving with more subtle interaction with the story depending on what the situation calls for. It should ultimately deliver on it’s plan of telling a story people want to see, and resolve it in a satisfying way, even if that resolution is controversial, bittersweet or even sad.
It’s a pretty broad criteria, and I don’t believe there is one perfect game that stands above all others, but I would consider The Last of Us and Mass Effect 2 to be good examples from recent years.
There are games that when you play, at no point do you ever think “I wish that was different”, and you’re swept along by how amazing they are throughout the entire playthrough.
For me, only two games have done that perfectly, both of them short games.
Portal
and
Journey
To me, those are perfect games, as I wouldn’t change anything about them and they are masterfully executed works of art. There are many other games that are so good I would give a 10/10 to on a standard rating system, but that I know are not really perfect games.
Yeah, it’s Portal for me. It not only hits every goal it sets for itself, it surpasses them. The visuals, the sound, the storytelling, the way it all integrates into the gameplay, there just really isn’t anything that could be improved. Except maybe technical stuff like faster load times or higher res graphics, but those are the kinds of things that would improve every game.
define perfect and you’ll have your answer
no but seriously it’s T.I.M
Flappy Bird
I don’t know, I’ve always thought Flappy Wings was better..
you horrible human (i joke of course)
Little Big Planet 2
It was LBP1 until 2 was released. it was a game in which you could create your own perfect game.
Perfection.
Then Project Spark will blow your mind.
I’ll need to check it out. Thanks
I’ve been playing the beta on PC. Given enough time and work, you can honestly create anything. The visual programming language (referred to as “Kode”) is fantastic, really will help people understand the basics of programming (When [something happens] -> Do [this]).
Everything has a brain that’s programmable and you have almost complete control over map and object physics. Cut scenes, camera angles (people have been making games from sidescrollers, to vehicle racing to FPS and adventure RPG’s), dialogues, quest lines, all possible to make.
Here’s a little example brain (http://i.imgur.com/6xvGog8.jpg). Sorry about the essay, it’s one of my most anticipating games of 2014. It’s incredible what people have been creating in the beta.
Why complicate it.
The answer is obviously Dark Souls.
Chrono Trigger was pretty much perfect.
FF7, Portal 2, Day of the Tentacle, Seiken Densetsu 3 and Escape Velocity for mine
My vote is for Garry’s Incident
I think they meant other than Garry’s Incident, since it’s just to perfect to compare to any other videogame in existence.
I thought your vote was going to be Biker Mice from Mars 😛
No game is perfect, at least not for me. Why? Because the qualities by which I judge a game occasionally conflict with each other, or they might change over time. For example, I like large games with a lot of player freedom, but I also want immersive, interesting stories, and I get frustrated by bugs/glitches. The larger a game gets, the more bugs it will have. The more freedom is given to the player, the more likely it will be to be able to break or exploit the system. The more immersive the story is, the more likely it is to be linear, constrained, and scripted.
People are complex, and their ideas of “perfect” are rarely realisable because of the above – either the qualities they desire in a game conflict with one another, or as they play something that meets their qualities, they think of a way it could have been even better, thus moving the goal posts.
I dont have a perfect game but I do have a few favourite games. Chrono Trigger and Persona 4 are amongst then
The one in your head. The actual act of making a game is a sequence of compromises.
Unreal Tournament 99
Perfect games are games I can come back to a decade or two later and still be in awe of. I’d classify these as my perfect games:
Sega Rally Championship
Super CastleVania 4 and Bloodlines
The original Sonic series
Robotron
Tetris and Columns
Castle & World of Illusion
Shatterhand
OutRun, Space Harrier and Afterburner II
Virtual Fighter 2 & Kids
Soul Calibur
Grandia series
Each and every one still blow me away with their playability, sound and graphics.
PERFECT GAMES:
* MGS1 and MGS3
* Uncharted 2
* Batman Arkham Asylum and City
Necromancer, by Bill Williams on the Atari 800.
Pure. Gaming. Perfection.
http://www.xlatari.com/?p=1875
Or BallBlazer on the same system, my brother and I played that against each other for hours a day, seemingly forever.
Duke Nukem Forever… before you actually play it…
Unfortunately once you start playing you wish you hadn’t…
If the perfect game already existed then no more would of been made since or a least no more would of been sold. From that I can only assume that it is still in development.
Hmm – Wings – Character Development. The continuation of the horrors of war regardless of which pilot you wanted to be, how many you had and how many you lost. The genuine feeling of loss and the at times unbeatable foes which didn’t disturb the story or rythm of this game. The manuals and packs with the game taught me more of WW1 than any text book or class.
Geoff Crammond Micropose Formula 1 GP – unmatched realism and detail, pushing the boundaries at the time but not bloating the genre a la Gran Turismo style.
Monkey Island – Narrative humour, wit, puzzles. a series that became worse after being remade. Guybrush didn’t need that voice acting.
Metal Gear Solid: took a limited game and made it legendary. Superb story, voice acting, and stealth espionage. Who didn’t want to play on to find out who were the la li lu le lo? Who didn’t have questions at the end of that game or feel for Snake?
Honourable Mentions: Megalomania, Final Fantasy X, Mass Effect 2, Doom, and the Crusader Kings 2 AGOT mod.
For me – a LONG time gamer I have to put this down into catagories, you cant have a “perfect game” as theres so much variety between say an FPS and an RPG it makes comparrison too difficult.
That said – In terms of the theorical (best game design implementation) I actually would have to go with:
RPG: White Knight Chronicles 1&2
Reason: These games are bloody well designed but require large time investments which is a blessing and a curse. But if you do have the time to invest you would not be let down, it has a fantastic story – (almost perfect) battle mechanics, I say this because if you could avoid attacks better it would be perfect. – Online play – If you have friends to play this with it makes the game even more fun and feel less grindy. – The environments are fantastic – You can build your own village and have people come in and join you on quests (This needs to be in more RPG’s!)
The Armour/Weapons are all unique and really nicely designed with alot of variations late game specifically. And awesome giant monsters to fight (either alone or in a party)
I just felt like the game had every aspect I had wanted of an RPG – its only let down was I didnt have enough time for it and then my PS3 died.
Driving:
Alot of people will probably disagree here but I actually thought Need For Speed Underground 2 came the closest to what I would call a perfect game (for a driving simulator).
Open world, easy map to follow and start drags where you like, interesting enough story and cars were fun to upgrade.
FPS: COD4/World at War
I reeallly want a World at war remake or something similar for PS4 that game was fantastic.
All round great games:
Waaay more then I would like to mention but AC: Black Flag for a newish Title has blown me away by how much can be squeezed into 1 title.
Tombi/Tomba – The first one was a perfect game that still remains perfectly playable over a decade on. Number 2… Not so much.
Minecraft – Ok its not perfect. But it can be, you just have to build it so 😉
Suikoden 2/4 – Amazing RPG’s that executed what they were trying to achieve perfectly.
The Last of Us – Doesn’t need explaining if you have played it.
I better stop here.
Well thats arrogent. Believe it or not, not everyone likes that game, or understands all the hype about it, and a lot of people certainly don’t concider it a perfect game. There are balence issues, mechanical flaws and a large amount of ludo-narritive conflict in almost every part of the game, it can still be a great game, but if you want to claim its an example of a ‘best game design implimentation’ some explaination would be nessisary, especially as no one seems to be able to rationally explain it while accepting and explaining its flaws
bit harsh. But I’m pleased I’m not the only one who didn’t really enjoy The Last of Us.
I got bored early on when I realised I could just run through sections and not actually bother playing the game in the spirit was intended. If I can run past 4-5 police with machine guns, I get that the first person running may make it, but the two people following you including the tag along kid. would be toast. Annoying that if you just make the next scene all pursuit stops even though you are technically 10 metres away from where you just burst past a group of people looking for you.
I wasnt going to add it, but alot of people did enjoy it.
I Thought it was a fantastic game with great mechanics and amazing story but I couldn’t go back to it since my PS3 is dead.
I had problems with a lot of the mechanics, such as with the clickers, the bottles and bricks are there so you can move the clickers out of your way, but what happens when the roaming AI they have means they get stuck near the bottles and you can’t reach them. The level itself breaks. And If you don’t have the clicker upgrade some of those levels, made with that upgrade in mind, break. Presentation wise I was frustrated by a lot of things, like how you cant walk at a normal crouch pace, but Ellie can be talking in your hear at a normal volume and they don’t see her. And a lot of other little things like that.
This is why I don’t like this perception that its a perfect game, or has amazingly implemented mechanics because they aren’t a lot of the time, and why I was saying an explanation would be nice when saying stuff like that.
And yeah didn’t mean to be that harsh, was just grumpy about another person saying ‘of course its a great game, everyone knows it’ with no explaination or actual reason
What are you talking about? This game was widely praised for being free of ludonarrative dissonance.
It was praised for not being as severe as many other games, but it isnt completely free of all of dissonance. Its handled better, but it’s still there
Bayonetta.
Perfect combat system. The story (even if you think it and its characters are completely bizarre), style and soundtrack all come together perfectly. Three characters to play as, two with some subtle but meaningful nuances to differentiate them, with the third presenting a different style all together. Lots of in game unlockables. No DLC. Balanced incredibly well, even on Non-Stop ∞ Climax mode.
Just utterly fantastic.
Homeworld. Need I say more, but ok just in case I do. Amazing graphics, brilliant story and campaign that made you care about your units and mission, sensational music score I could go on and on. Of course this means nothing if you don’t like RTS games, in witch case you’re a fool and ur opinion means nothing
Max payne 2 and mass effect 2 and 3. Question answered.
It’s called Dark Souls without a shitty last 1/3rd. 😛