Greatest video game ever played?

Portal (1&2)
- Portal is amazing, also the community DLC but unfortunately not my greatest.
  I'd go with something like Satisfactory or Dota 2 (gasp).

Dwarf Fortress.
They're even making sequels to "the carp stands up" now. They added exercise to the game, and now carps get fucking ripped as fuck just swimming upstream, so when they start walking on land they're there to just destroy you and everything you hold dear.
- I wasn't going to say df but I'm realising now after thousands of hours in that game there's STILL new things to learn, that was a wild ride thank you

Baldur's Gate 3. Hands down. Red Dead Redemption 2 is probably number 2. That said, I have more hours in World of Warcraft than every other game combined. It was an entire lifestyle for a few years back in the day. But WoW was good because of the people, not because of the gameplay.

Minecraft. Even with all the shitty updates there is so much to be done in Minecraft that it’s honestly mind boggling. Almost anything is possible especially with mods. Only downside is Microsoft’s greedy ass owns it
- Only downside is Microsoft’s greedy ass owns it
  I feel compelled to mention Luanti here, just in case it's not on your radar. Also VoxLibre.
  It's uh, well it's done.
  And it's fully open source so it continues to grow.
  And it's lighter and faster and has cleaner network code than MineCraft.
  And it doesn't have M$ enshitifying it.
  Disclaimer: I love this game and want to see the community grow and grow forever. It's so good and I want to keep playing it until I die.
  Edit: I forgot to mention it's completely free and runs great on Windows, Linux, SteamDeck and Android.
- Otherwise known as M$

Star Control 2
The Ur-Quan Masters
Free Stars

Boulderdash II on C64.
- And later, Emerald Mine on the Amiga. So many hours of my life, gone.
- I never had a C64 and was pretty jealous of this series.
  I played a few DOS based clones and various ports and they were pretty cool but from what I've seen everything they've done with the franchise since 2000 has been soulless.

Minecraft, circa 2015. It was a religion.
- Ooh. Good pick.
  I satisfy my nostalgia for previous versions of Minecraft with Luanti.

Team Fortress 2

Barbie horse adventures

Joust
- /thread
  Nothing left to see here folks. Question answered correctly. Let's all move along.

Detroit: Become Human
It was the only story ever that has pulled me in completely. I wasn't just playing it, I was living it. It took me 2 more days to come down to earth after finishing it.

Breath of the wild.
Played it on a friends new Switch and bought a Switch and that game three days later. I was so immersed in this weird and wonderful world...

The Mass Effect Trilogy. By the time I was fighting in London I wondered where this game had been all my life.

Deus Ex

My favorite game, the game I can always come back to, is The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind
- Wealth beyond measure, sera.
- WHAT A GRAND AN INTOXICATING ANSWER

Grim Fandango. Despite the weird tank controls, it created such an amazing world - and all in a point-and-click adventure. My home PC is named Manny, our NAS is Eva, the router/firewall is Glottis, and so on.
Also, Psychonauts. Just a perfect 3D platformer.
- Have you played Psychonatus 2? How does it compare? I haven't, but I've been wanting to, but I also have limited time, so I'm looking for the next game after Baldur's Gate 3, which I'll complete in the next 3-4 months with my availability lol
  
  I have. In fact, I backed the development of it.
  Definitely worth playing. Maybe a bit less memorable than the original, but also a bit more consistent. There are no huge difficulty spikes like the Meat Circus in the original.
  The story is a bit more complex, and a bit more muted. Most of the levels are less memorable. But absolutely worth the time to play and enjoy.
- Grim Fandango is an amazing story about life and death and love...
  ... Built upon an engine where the protagonist walks around at sloth speed. Manny Calavaras just sashays along, and there's no way to speed his ass up. I wish you could hit escape or something to skip him walking in and out of scenes, but nope! I'm forced to watch him drag his feet from location to location.
  But the most touching parts of the story stick with me after 20 years.

Metal Gear Solid 3

BioShock Infinite and Spec Ops: The Line are the only two games I've played that I would consider "art" in the truest sense of the word. Video games in general are creative works, and they all have debatable levels of "greatness", but those who have played these two know what I mean.

Vagrant Story.
- That game is one of my saddest histories. As a bit to young to play it I bought it and found it immensely boring just slogging through the dungeon at the start. Didn't understand the weapon system. Eventually after several tries I got into the city proper but couldn't handle that first boss fight. Put it aside and never picked it back up again. Still have the game somewhere. No PSOne tho'
  
  Similar story for me. I bounced off this game several times, going back to it repeatedly because (to this day) Matsuno's games are some of my all-time favorites. Then maybe 15 years after release, I realized I'd stopped just short of the crafting station which was such a strong hook for me I ended up with multiple spreadsheets!
  Unfortunately, as I began to realize as I delved into the game, it had a lot in common with looter ARPGs, a genre that ages so rapidly. I probably would have loved the game back in 2000 but didn't give it enough of a chance back then. By the time I did, it was just too dated.
  
  I was also too young when I got this game and it is one I would like to return to. Don't have my psx any more either :(
  
  You need to carry one of each weapon type. Unlike most games you can't brute force through weapon resistances.

Cyberpunk 2077 for me, it has everything, an amazing story with great characters, fantastic gameplay, a banger soundtrack, and an interesting world that's fun to explore and feels like a real place.

The Last of Us series
- I've only seen the show. Is the game as good as the show?
  
  The game was better than the show, which the show was actually based from. I liked the show too, but definitely give the game a go if you get a chance.
  The second game was a very difficult storyline to play through, however. I'm glad I did, but temper your expectations and expect to suffer a lot. Lol
  
  I have only play Last of Us 1 during PS3 era. I was a 20 year old kid back then I guess. I cried and sobbed through the game. I remember it having such a huge emotional impact on me. May be I was too emotionally disturbed at that time, who knows.
  Your mileage may vary, but i thoroughly enjoyed the game. Didn't enjoy the show as much.

Portal
Breath of the Wild
Alan Wake 2

I'll probably always think that Tetris is the greatest video game ever. The inherent dramatic arc that comes with watching the blocks stack up is tension directly within you the player, not you watching tension unfold for characters on the screen. It's different every time, even if the shape of the arc is similar, because you improve as a player. It's the kind of emergent involvement the most designers could only aspire to create.
That said of course Shadow of the Colossus is also a favorite. That one probably feels a little more obvious, but I'm okay with that.

There are a lot of ways to measure that.
I guess one reasonable metric is how long I probably played it. Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far and an old computer pinball game, Loony Labyrinth probably rank pretty highly.
Another might be how long after its development it's still considered reasonably playable. I'd guess that maybe something like Tetris or Pac-Man might rate well there.
Another might be how influential the game is. I think that "genre-defining" games like Wolfenstein 3D would probably win there.
Another might be how impressed I was with a game at the time of release. Games that made major technical or gameplay leaps would rank well there. Maybe Wolfenstein 3D or Myst.
Another might be what the games I play today are -- at least once having played them sufficiently to become familiar with them -- since presumably I could play pretty much any game out there, and so my choice, if made rationally, should identify the best options for me that I'm aware of. That won't work for every sort of genre, as it requires replayability -- an adventure game where experiencing the story one time through is kind of the point would fall down here -- but I think that it's a decent test of the library of games out there. Recently I've played Steel Division II singleplayer, Carrier Command 2 singleplayer, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, and Shattered Pixel Dungeon. RimWorld and Oxygen Not Included tend to be in the recurring cycle.
- The greatest single-playthrough game would be a fun category. I think my picks for that might be What Remains of Edith Finch, Gone Home, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, or Grim Fandango. Fire Watch would probably get an honourable mention.
  A "pinacle of a (mostly) defunct genre" category might be a good one too. I would argue that Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is the best isometric RTS games ever made.

Slay The Spire. Really excited for the sequel.

I’d say Baldur’s Gate 3.
With Demons’ Souls a close second. For those of us who got to play that game before Dark Souls became a thing, when we knew next to nothing about what to expect, it was an almost revelatory experience.

Tie between Final Fantasy X and Morrowind.
- Cosigned for mw

Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary
Shame about nearly everything else Sega has done to the franchise since.

Baldurs Gate 1. D&D Lv. 1-7 campaigns are the best

Space station 13

Mel Gibson's Safari 3
- No love for Washing Machine Emulator?

Mother 3
it feels like it was made for my brain specifically to enjoy it lol

What a lazy ass question
- Agreed, without better defined scope the question is just asking for:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered_the_best
  Its a fun read but its already available.
  
  Damn 2004 was a banger of a year for video games.
  
  Man why is did the list go so thin in the later years? Straight up nothing for 2021?
- What a lazy ass comment

Biggest surprise: Final Fantasy tactics. Bought it for PSOne, PSP and Android.
Time spent playing: WoW
Story: (though category to pick one) Deus Ex
Honorable mentions: Day of the Tentacle Minecraft Final Fantasy VII Diablo Mass Effect series Portal series Half Life series
- U played a2?

Riftsmud.net:4000
- I was always a discworld mud player... Lots of time there. But I bounced around many :⁠-⁠P
  
  I tried finding others but kept coming back to the one. Helped that i read a lot of fantasy and they used a lot of content i was already familiar with, but it was also the remorting system that entranced me

Recently, I would say Roadwarden, was such a great game with such a unique feel to it.

Valheim and Prey (2017)

No idea. Too many to pick from.

Tomb Raider 1.
I'm replaying the remastered trilogy for the first time since I was a teenager. The level design is outstanding. Very clever re-use of the same areas, just at different heights.
It's inspiration from side-scroller prince of persia (also played this obsessively as a young child) is palpable. The movement system is revolutionary.
And the enemy progression is hilarious. First you fight some bats, then you fight some wolves, then you fight motherfucking Velociraptors, then a goddamned T-Rex. And thats not even close to the weirdest enemy you'll fight. Boss battles are evenly spaced until they aren't. when you have two boss battles immediately one after the other.
And then eventiually, you get to the pulsating flesh caves...
- Yeah. Tomb Raider is wayup there.
  I remember being relieved when I survived the encounter with the bear, knowing that it was definitely going to be the scariest creature I would encounter. Lol.