RF Generation Message Board

2 outstanding games have been released recently: Bioshock and Half Life 2-The Orange Box.

Sadly, in this day and age, no matter how good a game is, it stands no chance of unseeding Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Soul Calibur 1 as the 1st and 2nd ranked games on Gamerankings.com.

With a 97.6 and a 96.4 approval rating, respectively, these 2 games were reviewed at a time where reviewers themselves, in my opinion, were learning by what criteria to score games. 10s were much more common if a game stood out from the crowd.

Also, with fewer sites on the net at the time of their reviews, there have only been 31 and 28 reviews counted on the site towards their total score. So unless more sites decide to go back to review these games, there's NEVER going to be a chance that their overall scores will decline.

Therefore, in 2007, with so many more sites reviewing games, and with reviewers being more experienced in evaluating them, and with so many new games to review (with consequently less time for the old) to stay on the cutting edge of media entertainment, it's safe to say that these 2 games will always be considered #1 and #2.

Just my $.02.

Thoughts?

If you think about it, Soul Calibur (http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=E-071-S-01730-A) dose deserve such an acclaimed rating. I mean, the leap between this and other titles of the time is phenomenal. I think it is better for games to be reviewed then and there, rather than introspect down the track of how you feel a 8 year old game would fair today.

God, I lost track how many times over I played this game.... good days :)

At the same time, as for a buyers guide, then it's probably the reverse. So the buyer, if they are after a game to play rather than it's legendary status, they know if it'll be worth the high price tag or not.

What do you expect?  Both of these games were extremly popular and remain so even today.  Your being rather simple minded in saying that because the games have aged.  What, because Pac-Man has aged it shouldnt rate more then a 1 or 2?  Soul Calibur wasnt just a great game, it was a launch title!  The games earned their ratings not because they were the newest coolest games but because people liked them.

Oh, and you discredit the ability of your fellow gamer to rate and review games.  As games had been reviewed in publication for atleast 10 years prior to their release and atleast 5 years (gamefaqs anyone?) online, the only people still coming around to forming an opinionated view on games were the people coming into games on their first systems.  Maybe there wasnt a thousand sites dedicated to the opinionated views of single sighted site owners but then again back in 96-98, the internet wasnt as widely available as it's become today.  Heck, even I have DSL now.

Keep in mind that review scores don't really mean anything anymore. They hand out 10/10's like Cracker Jack prizes these days, which means plenty of inflated scores. This will become the generation of games with so many 10/10 scores it'll make systems like the 2600, NES, Genesis etc look like failed attempts at gaming with their lack of game libraries with 100 titles that have 9.5 or higher. ::)

Be fortunate that older games haven't recieved as many reviews/votes and newer ones have. Otherwise there would be so many classic awesome games at the top of that list few games from the last 5-7 years would even make it to the top 50.

I've never been impressed by either.

Oot was annoying and Soul Caliber was inferior to Tekken imo.

I've never cared much for any of the 3D Zeldas myself. I could easily slip Link to the Past in OoT's place and keeping with fighting games either Samurai Showdown II or Street Fighter II CE.

I have never played any of them. Well i played OoT for 10 minutes or so.

Maybe the only way to accurately compare ranking todays games to those of yesteryear would be to take the top 31 reviews for the new games and see if it matches or exceeds the 31 review average of OOT or the 28 review average of SC.

Last I checked recent games seem to be topping gamerankings. OoT and Soul Calibur are a few of the exceptions.

As Tan said, reviewers hand out scores above 9 like they mean nothing these days.

Lists schmists.

It really shouldn't matter, should it? Good games are good games.

The thing is, new games actually have a pretty unfair advantage with the added novelty of a new game. So when older games are able to hold their head up above the rest you know it's something special.

Honestly I don't think anything that has come out in recent time has been all that ground breaking. Not saying there are no good releases today, but there hasn't been a game good enough to make me get a system solely for that one game since back in '98 when I got a Playstation just for Final Fantasy VII. It was the only game I ever got for it until the Saturn was completely dead.

Then further back in '96 I wasn't ever planning to upgrade from my Sega (I call it a Sega cause it was a MegaDrive/Mega-CD/32X+MasterMega Converter, it used multiple power plugs and was huge, it was a monster that could play any Sega game I had ever played). But then I saw the ad for Dragon Force and was sold.

The fact Super Mario Allstars isn't in the top 10 shows you the list's credibility.

I think this needs to be bumped for sheer irony.

Hahahahahaha. Phoenix is so proven wrong now.

Excuse me, I need to go play the number 1 game on Gamerankings.

that is awesome.

Enjoy.


I actually don't mind being proven wrong on this. My point has always been that the low # of critiques for OOT and SC has skewed the law of averages in their favor. We'll just have to wait and see if SMG holds up when it gets more critiques in the weeks to come...

I just find it funny how a week or so later SMG becomes #1 game ever. :)

I don't know that it deserves it. We should wait like 10 years before we declare such things as that.

What? OoT and SC deserve to be there... many people enjoy the obviously.

Also, saying best game every isn't really correct, it's just most people say it and actually mean best game made so far, which there will always be controversy over.

Sorry about the post before, that was extremely dumb of me. I'm not on gamefaqs  ;)

well it wasn't so much bitching as just kind of having a discussion... jeeze

Haha, a bit on the harsh side perhaps...

It's always funny when you read reviews, where for an example this occurs:

"This is one of the worst game i've ever played!!" - 6/10

Or...

"This is truly a great game, however there are some major flaws" -10/10

You guys fret over statistics too much. #1 Highest Ranked Game does not necessarily equate to best game ever. There is no objective way to quantify subjective opinion. Stats are... stats. There is uncertainty involved. Let me know what the standard deviation is for this game, in fact, perhaps I'll do a quick analysis later showing the confidence in the number 1 versus number 2.

Using gameranking's top ranked list to determine the best game ever is like pretending to be the group who made the most dangerous cities list from crime statistics. Reading into stats too far is dangerous. Be careful.

Personally Super Metroid will always be my favorite until I see otherwise, and Skies of Arcadia Legends will be my second favorite

What console?

That would be for Gamecube.

Thanks. I'll have to look for it.

Skies is really a cult game. The over world map is the best I have seen in any RPG and the exploration aspect of the game is top notch, as well as the bounty hunting and various amounts of things to keep you sidetracked. Put in an insane villain who would kill his own sister without shedding a tear and an unbelievable cast of characters you got yourself a fantastic game even if the actual battle system is boring (albeit very strategic).

Mario Galaxy is no longer the best game of all-time...

How many times do I have to say that you can not confidently make any subjective comment regarding statistics? Everything subjective is just that... subjective. The best game is in the eye of the beholder.

I should have said it's no longer the highest rated game of all-time on game rankings.

You´re just mad. Stats are always 100% factual.

Just an observation. But I noticed that SMG dropped to #2 AFTER it got more than 31 reviews (the # that OOT has).

Looks like even with more reviews coming in, though, that it will hang on to #2.

GTA IV is number 1 and 2 now. Is it really that good?

*haven't played it, and yeah we don't need to delve back into the stats vs. actuality topic again I'm just curious what you guys think*


Lol uhh, I accidently just reduced your karma Phoenix cause I never noticed what the smite and applaud buttons do so I tested it out, sorry about that. I'll applaud you as soon as possible to give you back that karma.

[edit]
Better.

Well, for a short term answer, yes, but I still think it doesn't deserve 10s across the boards. There are still some glaring flaws with the game that make it a 9.7 or so at best. The thing is, for the moment, GTA is damn near perfect, especially compared against its predecessors and clones. In 10 years this definitely won't be the case because we'll look back on 4 like we currently look back on GTA 3 or any of the top-down games before it. Games that were extraordinarily groundbreaking and innovative for their time and exerted a ton of influence on the industry, but haven't aged too well. I'm sure that the GameRankings/MetaCritic score is going to go down gradually as more of the haters come out of the woodwork, much like what happened with Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. However, I still think GTA 4 is going to wind up in the top 5.

GTA4 is quite amazing. The sheer volume of things to do can be flat out overwhelming! Missions are appropriately balanced as far as difficulty, but some are just annoying in order to move the story forward (i.e. Chasing an El train for Manny...); but when you fail, sometimes Nico says it best for me: "Chasing a train? This is f*****' bulls***!" actually came out once. That said, you can do as much or as little as you feel like. But certain story points only come out if you continue to accomplish the missions for the primary characters.

I laugh when I see the new Saint's Row 2 trailers mocking the activities in GTA4, though. We'll see if SR2 can even hold a candle to it.

In short, GTA4 is definitely deserving of it's high scores. But as more ratings come in, the laws of averages are against it staying in the top 2.