Out of all systems, genre's, platform, everything. What goes down in your book as the best ever?

This will either be really easy, or really hard for you

For me its pretty easy. I'm going with Deus Ex for PC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex

Reasoning? Well simply put it bended genre's like no other. It took some concepts from games of the time but executed the open ended gameplay like nothing else did.

To this date I can't really think of a game that you can really play your own way entirely. In deus ex I prefered the straight forward kill everything with big guns approach. But had a blast replaying it and using mainly methods of sneaking and silent killing. A lot of games offer gameplay options, but with that game you really truly could play about 90 percent of the game however you wished.

Close contender:
System Shock 2

The game mechanics of the halo series are very worthy of merit, but going by one single game, while great, not best ever level. Same goes for the sandbox mechanics of the GTA franchise, but they never delivered well on actual content.

Well its hard yet easy at the same time there are many games I think that are great games. The one game I think that stands out the most when I think about it is Deus Ex.

I don't know about the PC version but I had the ps2 version of the game. I have played the game about 25 times now and I'm still finding secrets. I find new ways to go about parts of the game it truly is one of the best and earliest fusions of RPG elements and a first person shooter that was any good. The amount of content in the game the thousands of secret stashes and paths among other things is amazing.

The story line is one of the best I have ever played through in a game and is presented well throughout the game. The game gives everything you want in a game plenty of action characters that seem human a great storyline and plenty of different ways to play through you could go through nearly the entire game anyway you want. I would have to agree with Rahx as this being one of the greatest games of all time.

Hah, I figured at least one person would agree with me, didn't figure it would happen that quick!

But yeah, you touched on something I didn't. The story. At that time in my life I was ALL ABOUT conspiracy theory stuff and it was so fun to play it all out as if all that stuff was really true. Whats scary looking back is how much potential there is for stuff like that to become real. As they say, sci-fi become reality on the right timelime

For me it definitely is .....

a REALLY hard decision >_< While Gothic has the best atmosphere i ever experienced in a game it cannot beat the long term fun of diablo II:lod, which unfortunately has a poor story. in terms of story i think i like bioshock best but gears of war has an even better gameplay. i would pick star wars galaxies for most solid variety and Hellgate:london for best concept (although the actual game is hardly compareable to what it could have been...). Best game series would be heroes of might and magic.

how can i possibly pick one? also i didnt play deus ex, the final fantasy series, the baldurs gate series, kingdom hearts, GTA, ....

so many games, so little time...

Roller coaster tycoon 1 with the expansion packs for PC.... I wasted about 18 years of my 18 year old life playing that game... sooooo addicting. I'm a multi-billionaire in like 35 parks D:

Diablo II , Half-Life 2 or Fallout 2 :]

Metal Gear Solid. It brought the franchise to a larger audience, put it in 3D, and set the blueprint for one of today's most anticipated games, MGS4.

Quoted^(ref) Yoshiyuki (on 10 May, 2008, 08:29 AM PDT) —

Metal Gear Solid. It brought the franchise to a larger audience, put it in 3D, and set the blueprint for one of today's most anticipated games, MGS4.

I second that opinion

I downloaded Deus Ex awhile ago, but I could never get into it.

Quoted^(ref) Durrr (on 6 June, 2008, 08:10 PM PDT) —

I downloaded Deus Ex awhile ago, but I could never get into it.

You were a little late to the party for that one. What it brought new to the table has already been used an reused to the point you wouldn't quite bear the same respect for it having just now played it.

Yeah, that's true, and I'm not much of a PC gamer.

I do plan on finishing it at some point though.

Pac man !!!!!, no im inly joking it would either be halo or super smash bros

I think the vg that wasted the most of my time was Diablo II.... I loved it and I got to play it with very awesome guys. <3

Well anyway, I don't think it's fair to give a definitive answer on what I believe to be the absolute, best video game ever.

The scope is just too grand - and with as fickle as I am - my opinion will change at the drop of a hat.

Quoted^(ref) Yoshiyuki (on 10 May, 2008, 08:29 AM PDT) —

Metal Gear Solid. It brought the franchise to a larger audience, put it in 3D, and set the blueprint for one of today's most anticipated games, MGS4.

I agree. that's why it's one of my favorites.

But my most favorite is the Final Fantasy series (except X-2), Because of the many different worlds there are with the games (look at FF7, then FF8, then FF9 and tell me if there the same world.....) that allow you to explore different areas and emirse yourself in different gameplay with everyone.

phoenix wright

it's the game that made me interest in law at all

and why the hell am I posting??

For me id say World of Warcraft or Ocarina of Time. Id say WoW just because of the ridiculous amounts of hours you can put into it without getting bored.

Battletoads.

Only girls would disagree.

Mario Party 8

epic =]

Diablo 2 LoD - Ha...too good, after playing it since released I've finally become rich. Everytime I'd become rich before they'd patch and all my stuff would lose its value.
SSBM - Very...Very technical which is why I love it, Brawl is completely horrible compared to it.
Halo 2 - This is the only good one of the series.
Guitar Hero 3 - The only reason this is the best one for me is because it has the hardest songs, still surprised One hasn't been FC'd yet though.
Counterstrike : Source/1.6 - THE BEST FPS' I've ever played.
Tony Hawk's Underground - The BEST one of the series, and the ONLY good one of the series. I played that game to much.