Topic: The Definitive Best Game of All Time Forum Megapoll!

@RogerRoger @Gremio108 @Ralizah Interesting thoughts on Uncharted 2. I remember thinking it was the best because of it's balance between story segments and gameplay, a good antagonist, and good character writing. But...it has been some time since I last played it (haven't touched it since I got the platinum in 2015), so I may have to look at it again along with the rest of the trilogy. Maybe then my opinion on Uncharted 4 would improve.

Last of Us didn't click with me either (I'm in the middle of replaying it but it's still doing nothing), but it's probably going to win if Witcher 3 doesn't.

@DerMeister I would say that those reasons you listed are why I actually really enjoyed Uncharted 4. It has a good balance of strong narrative segments and pretty decent action/puzzle gameplay, the villain is not only believable this time around, but also an interesting reflection of Nathan Drake himself, and the character writing, imo, is the best in the series.

Only things I didn't like about it was the reliance on the "long lost sibling that we've never heard about" trope and Nadine being pretty forgettable but still prominent during much of the game, but those things can't ruin an otherwise stellar game.

@Ralizah I enjoyed going through the trilogy remasters and playing the "This Would Be A Good Time To Bring Up The Long-Lost Brother" game during the quieter moments.

@Gremio108 It's not as distracting with the first two games, but his absence makes Uncharted 3 pretty awkward at times, considering how big a part of his life Sam apparently was. It's almost like ND is making up things as they go along.

@Ralizah Sam actually did drag Uncharted 4 down for me. I just thought he felt shoehorned into the game, even after they try to justify why nobody knew about him. It could have been worse, but I didn't think he was handled as well as he could have been.

I could be wrong, but I think he was meant to be a villain in 4, which was probably the plan when Amy Hennig was still writing it. There was likely going to be a different reason why he was never brought up.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - 5
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - 5
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past - 1
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - 1

@Ralizah Weird, because even though I agree that Uncharted 4 is the best of the bunch, I thought that The Last of Us was still the better ND game. It's tense, not horror, but slightly scary at times. The gameplay is comparable to Uncharted, but there's a crafting mechanic on top of it all. Crafting parts are scarce, so there's a tactical aspect to managing your items. Do I go for a molotov cocktail or a health kit? And it's impossible to rambo through an entire group of clickers.

The story? It's what I wanted from The Walking Dead but never got.

@Octane Clickers are incredibly cheap, as they're designed to be 'special enemies' that trigger an insta-kill animation if they get too close to you, making the artificially more challenging than other enemy types. The fact that you have to manipulate sound to get around them is interesting, but there aren't enough sections of the game taking advantage of their AI.

Also, there is indeed a survival horror-ish resource management aspect to the game, but it doesn't give you enough operational freedom to make much of a difference to me. The combat is basically an inferior version of what you got in Uncharted 4, except it forces the worse stealth mechanics more often and has a rudimentary, tacked-on crafting system. I just don't feel like it adds too much to the game (as opposed to, say, Resident Evil, where it's a crucial aspect of the gameplay).

Story-wise... it's just super unambitious. The Walking Dead has major issues, but it also has the benefit of being a long-form work that explores multitudes of different scenarios and where the major characters have long and sometimes very interesting character arcs. TLOU has fungus zombies and a tropey relationship between a younger innocent and an older man who is working through issues related to the death of his daughter. That's it. Well, and the usual, unimaginative post-apoc stuff where rabid gangs of people prowl the streets looking for people to rob and kill, societies have become overly-controlling because of how much the zombie apocalypse destabilized the world, and there's some secret cure for the outbreak that entails an enormous sacrifice. It's an Oscar bait version of a bog-standard zombie narrative. I think it only really stood out because of how cinematic and realistic the game was.

The Last Of Us - 2
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 4
Witcher 3. - 5
Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1 - 1

I must have changed the top 3 a gazillion times. But in my eyes TW3 is closer to perfection than the other 2. I know some people had issues with the combat but I certainly didn't.

It’s interesting to read some thoughtful critique of UC2 and TLoU. I voted each highly, mostly because of the impact I got when playing them at the time. It’s probably true that the plot of TLoU and the gameplay of UC2 doesn’t live up to the praise it garnered at their respective releases, but each game did seem to push gaming forward, i think. Although none of us have played it yet, I suspect God of War to owe a lot to the Naughty Dog formula, for example. UC did the whole cinematic action game play thing before it, but UC2 really polished it. And the AI companion stuff had been done before TLoU, but I think it seemed to take it to another level, both in gameplay and it story/emotional investment in that companion. I think of all the escort missions I have done in single player games before and how annoying they are, and then you have TLoU, where Ellie is just kind of there for most of the game, and yet the game would definitely feel empty without her and she has become one of the PlayStation icons, despite her not being the true protagonist. I probably need to go back and play both games again (I think I’m fairly close to the UC plat) and it might expose those weaknesses more to me, but for now I have these rosy memories of what they did for me at the time.

With The Last Of Us, it was the ending for me. It made me actually stop and think, in a way a game ending has never done before. What they did with that ending was superb. I didn't realise how good the game was until after it had finished.

@Gremio108 Yeah the ending was great. When those credits hit and the music started playing, all I could do is sit back and stare at the screen. It somehow made the game even better, it's hard to explain.

@Gremio108 Yes! The ending. Many of my favorite games are on my list because of the ending. (SotC, Bioshock Infinite, RDR, MGSV, NieR Automata...)

Woah, sorry for running late. I had a lot of stuff to do this week.
Witcher 3 - 3 points
The Last Of Us - 3 points
Uncharted 4 - 3 points
Uncharted 2 - 3 points
I hope I did everything right

Stop the voting!

I would like to add, I realise TLOU is one of the least replayable games ever. However it was the first game I got with my ps4 (as well as watchdogs) and I was completely blown away. I hadnt read much about the game other than a few jealous glances at reviews as I was an xboxer at the time. I had never played uncharted and this basically set the scene. Joel and Ellie are amazing characters and the story was fascinating. The gameplay is functional but all the issues about zombie horror in film, were cast aside. In this one instance tlou for me is a better story than any film trying to showcase zombies or similar and you basically play the hero. The best sci fi film is Aliens, the best adventure film is The Temple of Doom, the best Army film is Full Metal Jacket and the best Zombie film is the last of us.

RESULT - ORIGINAL XBOX CONTROLLER SIZED GROUP

The Last Of Us 47
Witcher 3. 40
Uncharted 2 32
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 25
Uncharted 4 24
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 20
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 19
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 19
Tetris 18
Tekken 3 17
Yakuza Zero 16
Super Metroid, 15
Valkyria Chronicles 15
Tomb Raider (2013) 13

relegated
Tomb Raider 2 12
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward 12
Tomb Raider 11
Trails of Cold Steel 10
Trails of Cold Steel II 9
Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1 6
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 5
Super Smash Bros. Melee 4
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 4
Xenoblade Chronicles X 2

What a stonking group. Huge thanks to everyone voting. It was like some Sony vs Nintendo battlefield.

@themcnoisy Shaun of the Dead got robbed at the end there.

Ok so were are we after all of that?

Well the following games are out of the competition, they were in the bottom 4 of each grouping (or tied 4th bottom) and are immediately out of the competition.

GAMES OUT OF THE CUP
Age of Empires 2
Crash Bandicoot
Battlefield 1
Counter-Strike
FF Tactics
Grand Theft Auto IV
Gran Tourismo
Haunting Ground
Knight of the Old Republic 2
Ninja Gaiden Black
Overwatch
Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 2
Pirates!
Shining Force 2
SSX Tricky
Super Mario Odyssey
Soul Calibur
Rocket League
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
Super Smash Bros. Melee
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Xenoblade Chronicles X

Some very good games just left the competition.

Round 2 - Fight to the death Group - Voting closes at roughly 10pm on the 25th of March (Sunday Night)

12 points, 4-7 games, max 5 points to any one game. We got this!

Only the Top 6 games will make it through!

Batman: Arkham Origins
Bully
Burnout Paradise
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Final Fantasy 8
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Halo: Combat Evolved
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Lylat Wars
Mega Man II
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
Monster Hunter World
Pokemon Gold/Silver
Pokemon Red/Blue
Prince of Persia The Sands of Time
Silent Hill
Skyrim
Street Fighter 4
Streets of Rage 2
Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider 2
Trails of Cold Steel
Trails of Cold Steel II
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

After this round will be the start of the biggest experiment in forum history, I'm sure it will work with the help of everyone here. Because without you it wont, more details will follow once we have wrapped this round up.

@Wesker Ok maybe you have a point there.