- This is a list of video games that have consistently been ranked among the best by video game journalists,
critics and publications. It is largely based on "Top 25 / Top 100"
type lists that list the best games ever in the publication's view,
sometimes restricted to a time period or a "generation" of systems.
While any single publication's list reflects its own taste, when the lists are taken in aggregate, a handful of notable games have achieved something approaching critical consensus by multiple appearances in such lists, and often ranking highly when they do appear.
Contents
Methodology
A number of sources taken from across publications, from 1985 to the present, were used to compile the list. Games which consistently showed up in multiple lists are featured below. Some of the lists are outdated in that the same publication later published another best-of list. There were two notable exceptions to critic "best of" lists: games are credited for having GameRankings or Metacritic scores of 95 or greater (about 50 games as of 2013), and several large reader-submitted polls are used. In general, contemporary reviews do not necessarily reflect the long-term consensus, hence only a single source of credit for high GameRankings/Metacritic reviews; and open player-submitted polls, while obviously measuring an important facet of a game's reputation, tend to be easy to rig or otherwise influence, hence the primary usage of critic lists.
Because most sources are from the English-language press, this list reflects the preferences of the English-speaking world, primarily North America, and to a lesser extent, Western Europe, and not those of other video-game-playing areas, such as Japan and South Korea. The only non-English sources used are Japanese reader polls from Famitsu and Dengeki, and a German reader poll from M! Games. Very recent games are not usually represented either. Another issue is "vote split;" many publications, either implicitly or explicitly, choose a single game from a set of closely related games as a "stand-in" for the whole group. Sometimes, this is easily combined, as with the various versions of Tetris or Street Fighter II. In other cases, this is impossible, resulting in a series that would have made the list had all versions been combined, but not separately. One example is the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series – of which the first, second and third games all received nods from a variety of critic best-of lists, yet no individual game achieved enough consensus to be listed here.
This list mostly includes games since the "third generation" of gaming onwards, along with some prior arcade games of the late 70s to early 80s.
The minimum criteria for inclusion is at least ten sources. For sources listing the top 200 games, only the top 100 are considered. For sources restricted to the "seventh generation" of gaming, only the top 25 games are considered.
List
List 01 CNET[1] List 02 CVG2000[2] List 03 Edge2000[3] List 04 Edge2007[4] List 05 Edge2009[5] List 06 Edge2013[6] List 07 Edge10s[7] List 08 EGM2001[8] List 09 EGM2006[9] List 10 Empire2009[10] List 11 Empire2014[11] List 12 Famitsu2006[12] List 13 G4[13] List 14 GameRankings[14] List 15 GamingBolt[15] List 16 GF2004[16] List 17 GF2005[17] List 18 GF2009[18] List 19 GF2014[19] List 20 GI1999[20] List 21 GI2001[21] List 22 GI2009[22] List 23 GameSpot2006[23] List 24 GameSpot2014[24] List 25 GuinnessConsole[25] List 26 IGN10s[26] List 27 IGN2003[27] List 28 IGN2005[28] List 29 IGN2005Readers[29] List 30 IGN2006Readers[30] List 31 IGN2007[31] List 32 IGN2008Readers[32] List 33 Maniac[33] List 34 Metacritic[34] List 35 NowGamer[35] List 36 PM2014[36] List 37 RetroGamer[37] List 38 Slant2014[38] List 39 Stuff2008[39] List 40 Stuff2014[40] List 41 UnikGamer[41] List 42 Yahoo[42] List 43 ActionButton[43] List 44 Dengeki[44] List 45 EGM1997[45] List 46 GamesRadar[46] List 47 GI1998[47] List 48 Time[48] List 49 CVG2007PC[49] List 50 EGM1997Dev[50] List 51 EGM1997Readers[51] List 52 NextGen1996[52] List 53 EG1992[53] List 54 EGM1997Arcade[54] List 55 FHM[55] List 56 GameSpyArcade[56] List 57 GuinnessArcade[57] List 58 NextGen1999[58] List 59 Destructoid2000s[59] List 60 MyGameMag[60] List 61 Famitsu1989[61] List 62 GameSpy80s[62] List 63 Strong[63] List 64 GameSpyPC2000s[64] List 65 IGN2000s[65] List 66 PCGamer2011[66] List 67 PCGamer2013[67] List 68 EG1985[68] List 69 KLOV[69] List 70 GameSpyPC90s[70] List 71 Eurogamer7thGen[71] List 72 Edge7thGen[72] List 73 IGN7thGen[73] List 74 IGN2011Modern[74] List 75 WatchMojo3rdGen[75] List 76 WatchMojo4thGen[76] List 77 WatchMojo5thGen[77] List 78 WatchMojo6thGen[78] List 79 WatchMojo7thGen[79] List 80 WatchMojoAllTime[80] Other criteria
- Only video games with 20 reviews or more are included.
- Only the best reviewed version per game is used, filtering out multi-platform releases.
- Only video games with 20 reviews or more are included.
- Only the best reviewed version per game is used, filtering out multi-platform releases.
See also
- List of best-selling video games
- List of commercial failures in video gaming
- List of Game of the Year awards
- List of video games notable for negative reception
- List of video game soundtracks considered the best
References
- Top 10 video games, CNET, 2005
- Computer and Video Games, issue 218, January 2000, pages 53-67
- Edge, issue 80, 2000
- Edge's Top 100 Games of All Time, Edge, 2007
- The 100 Best Games To Play Today, Edge, 2009
- The 20 best games of Edge’s lifetime, Edge, 2013
- Edge 10s: the greatest videogames of the last 20 years, Edge, 2013 (The ten amendments: we crown seven games from the last 20 years of Edge with a retrospective 10)
- Top 100 Games of All Time, Electronic Gaming Monthly, 2001
- "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time". Electronic Gaming Monthly. February 6, 2006. Archived from the original on 2013-08-01. Retrieved November 19, 2013. Note EGM only covered console and arcade games, not computer games.
- The 100 Greatest Games, Empire, 2009
- "The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time". Empire. August 15, 2014. Retrieved September 25, 2014. A magazine readership poll.
- Edge Staff (March 3, 2006). "Japan Votes on All Time Top 100". Edge / Famitsu. Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. Retrieved November 24, 2008.
- G4TV’s Top 100 Games, G4, 2012
- All-Time Best, GameRankings
- "Top 100 greatest video games ever made". GamingBolt. GameRevolution. 2013. Retrieved 2014-12-30.
- "Spring 2004: Best. Game. Ever.". GameFAQs. Retrieved July 16, 2008.
- "Fall 2005: 10-Year Anniversary Contest—The 10 Best Games Ever". GameFAQs. Retrieved July 16, 2008.
- "Spring 2009: Best. Game. Ever.". GameFAQs. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
- Top 100, GameFAQs, 2014
- GI Top Ten List, Game Informer, 1999
- "Game Informer's Top 100 Games of All Time (Circa Issue 100)". Game Informer. 2001. Retrieved 2014-12-28.
- Game Informer's Top 200 Games of All Time, Game Informer, 2009
- The Greatest Games of All Time, GameSpot, 2006
- GameSpot's Complete List of 10/10 Reviews, GameSpot, 2014
- Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition reveals the Top 50 console games of all time, Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, 2009
- "Masterpiece" scores, IGN, 2014
- "IGN's Top 100 Games of All Time". IGN. 2003. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
- "IGN's Top 100 Games, 2005". IGN. 2005. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- "Top 99 Games of All Time: Readers' Picks". IGN. 2005. Retrieved 2014-12-13.
- "IGN's Top 100 Games, Reader-Submitted Poll 2006". IGN. 2006. Retrieved November 19, 2013. Only the top 25 were considered.
- The Top 100 Games of All Time, IGN, 2007
- Top 100 Games of All Time, IGN, 2008
- TURBO D3 GMBH, Cybermedia GmbH. "Bundesspielewahl 2013". M! Games. Maniac.De. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
- "Metacritic Game Releases by Score, All time". Retrieved November 19, 2013. Only games with a critical average score of 95 or greater were considered, approximately equal to the top 50.
- "100 Greatest Retro Games", NowGamer (Imagine Publishing), 2010 (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)
- Moore, Bo (2014-06-16). "The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time". Popular Mechanics.
- "Top 100 Retro Games", Retro Gamer, no. 1, p. 30, January 2004
- 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time, Slant, 2014
- "100 Greatest Games", Stuff, pp. 116–126, October 2008
- "100 Best Games Ever", Stuff, February 2014, pp.87-99
- Favorite Video Games of All Time - Top 100, Unikgamer, 2015
- The 100 greatest computer games of all time, Yahoo!, 2005
- Top 10 Video Games of All time, Action Button, 2009
- Ashcraft, Brian (March 6, 2008). "Dengeki Readers Say Fav 2007 Game, Fav of All Time". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2009-08-07. Retrieved March 29, 2008.
- "EGM Top 100 Best Games of All Time". Electronic Gaming Monthly. November 1997. Retrieved 2011-06-01.
- "The 100 Best Games of All-Time". GamesRadar. February 15, 2013. Retrieved November 19, 2013. Note that GamesRadar has since made subtle adjustments to the list since its original 2013 publication date.
- GI Top Ten List, Game Informer, 1998
- All-TIME 100 Video Games, Time, 2012
- Best PC Games Ever, Computer and Video Games, 2007
- "Best Games of All Time" (developers' picks), Electronic Gaming Monthly, issue 100 (November 1997), pages 101-155
- "Readers' Top 10 Picks of All Time", Electronic Gaming Monthly, issue 100 (November 1997), page 146
- Top 100 Games of All Time, Next Generation, 1996
- Players' Guide To Game Systems: The Five Best Cartridges For..., Electronic Games, 1992
- "The 10 Best Arcade Games of All Time", Electronic Gaming Monthly, issue 100 (November 1997), page 130
- The 10 Greatest Games of All Time, FHM, 2010
- "GameSpy's Top 50 Arcade Games of All-Time". GameSpy. IGN. February 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- "Top 100 Arcade Games", Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, 2008
- Next Generation, issue 50, February 1999
- The Top 50 Videogames of the Decade, Destructoid, 2009
- 10 Most Popular Video Games Ever, MyGameMag, 2015
- "Best Games", Famicom Tsūshin, no. All Soft Catalog '89, 1989
- "GameSpy's 50 Favorite Console Games of the '80s". GameSpy. IGN. November 13, 2009. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- World Video Game Hall of Fame, Strong National Museum of Play, 2015
- "GameSpy's 25 Favorite PC Games of the 2000s". GameSpy. IGN. January 28, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- Best Games Overall, Games of the Decade, IGN, 2010
- "The 100 Best PC Games of All Time". PC Gamer. February 16, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- "The 100 Greatest PC Games of All Time". PC Gamer (243) (Future plc). September 2013. p. 49. (Skyrim chosen as #1)
- "Hall of Fame Winners". Electronic Games 3 (35): 58–59 [58]. January 1985. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
- Our List of the Top 100 Coin-Operated Videogames, Killer List of Videogames
- "GameSpy's 25 Favorite PC Games of the '90s". GameSpy. IGN. October 5, 2009. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- "Eurogamer's Games of the Generation: The top 50". Eurogamer. November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 19, 2013.. The "generation" referred to is the PS3/XBox360/Wii/PSP/NDS generation.
- EDGE ranks the ten best games of the generation, Edge, 2014
- Top 100 Games Of A Generation, IGN, 2014
- "IGN's Top 100 Modern Games". IGN. 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
- "Top 10 Video Games of the 3rd Generation". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Top 10 Video Games of the 4th Generation". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Top 10 Video Games of the 5th Generation". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Top 10 Video Games of the 6th Generation". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Top 10 Video Games of the 7th Generation". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Top 10 Video Games of All Time". WatchMojo.com. 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- "Reviews for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for SoulCalibur". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Super Mario Galaxy". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews Super Mario Galaxy 2". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto V". Metacritic. Retrieved 2016-05-21.
- "Reviews for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Perfect Dark". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Metroid Prime". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto III". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Halo: Combat Evolved". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for NFL 2K1". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Half-Life 2". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for BioShock". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for GoldenEye 007". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Resident Evil 4". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Batman: Arkham City". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Mass Effect 2". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Half-Life". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty". Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Super Mario Galaxy". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Super Mario Galaxy 2". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV". GameRankings. Retrieved 2016-05-21.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto V". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for SoulCalibur". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Super Mario 64". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Metroid Prime". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Batman: Arkham City". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Resident Evil 4". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Tekken 3". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Mass Effect 2". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for The Last of Us Remastered". GameRankings. Retrieved 2016-05-21.
- "Reviews for Halo: Combat Evolved". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Half-Life 2". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto III". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Portal 2". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
- "Reviews for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas". GameRankings. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
Friday, July 15, 2016
List of video games considered the best
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