Smogon's Top Video Games List - Stage 2 (Current topic - REDEMPTIONS)

[WaterBomb]

Xaqwais - you're evaluating greatness, not favoritism.

Jebus keeping track of these votes sucks...

 

[yond]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors ABSTAIN
Ace Attorney InvestigationsNO
Ace of SpadesNO
ActraiserNO
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole RisingABSTAIN
Advance Wars: Dual StrikeYES
Age of EmpiresNO
Age of Empires 3NO
Age of Empires II: The Age of KingsNO
Age of Mythlogy: The TitansNO
Age of Mythology NO
Amnesia: The Dark DescentNO
Angry BirdsNO
Animal CrossingNO
Animal Crossing: City FolkNO
Animal Crossing: Wild WorldNO
Ape EscapeNO
Assassin's CreedYES
Assassin's Creed 2YES
Assassin's Creed: BrotherhoodYES
Banjo-KazooieYES
Banjo-TooieYES
BastionNO
Baten Kaitos OriginsNO
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost OceanNO

 

[Manafii101]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors ABSTAIN
Ace Attorney Investigations YES
Ace of Spades ABSTAIN
Actraiser ABSTAIN
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising ABSTAIN
Advance Wars: Dual Strike ABSTAIN
Age of Empires ABSTAIN
Age of Empires 3 ABSTAIN
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings YES
Age of Mythlogy: The Titans ABSTAIN
Age of Mythology ABSTAIN
Amnesia: The Dark Descent YES
Angry Birds NO
Animal Crossing ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: City Folk ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: Wild World ABSTAIN
Ape Escape ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed 2 ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ABSTAIN
Banjo-Kazooie YES
Banjo-Tooie ABSTAIN
Bastion YES
Baten Kaitos Origins ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean ABSTAIN

 

[Umbreon Dan]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors ABSTAIN
Ace Attorney Investigations ABSTAIN
Ace of Spades ABSTAIN
Actraiser ABSTAIN
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising ABSTAIN
Advance Wars: Dual Strike ABSTAIN
Age of Empires ABSTAIN
Age of Empires 3 ABSTAIN
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings ABSTAIN
Age of Mythlogy: The Titans ABSTAIN
Age of Mythology ABSTAIN
Amnesia: The Dark Descent ABSTAIN
Angry Birds NO
Animal Crossing NO
Animal Crossing: City Folk ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: Wild World ABSTAIN
Ape Escape ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed 2 ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ABSTAIN
Banjo-Kazooie NO
Banjo-Tooie ABSTAIN
Bastion ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos Origins ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean ABSTAIN

 

[WaterBomb]

Ok guys, change in format - please complete the survey listed at the bottom of the intro post. Keeping track of all this stuff in excel is driving me nucking futs. Those who have already voted may feel free to vote again.

 

[Zacchaeus]

Hooray I didn't have to write it all out

Edit: comat sucks

 

[comatthew6]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors ABSTAIN
Ace Attorney Investigations ABSTAIN
Ace of Spades ABSTAIN
Actraiser ABSTAIN
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising YES
Advance Wars: Dual Strike YES
Age of Empires ABSTAIN
Age of Empires 3 ABSTAIN
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings ABSTAIN
Age of Mythlogy: The Titans ABSTAIN
Age of Mythology ABSTAIN
Amnesia: The Dark Descent ABSTAIN
Angry Birds NO
Animal Crossing NO
Animal Crossing: City Folk NO
Animal Crossing: Wild World NO
Ape Escape NO
Assassin's Creed ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed 2 ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood YES
Banjo-Kazooie ABSTAIN
Banjo-Tooie ABSTAIN
Bastion ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos Origins ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean ABSTAIN

 

[vonFiedler]

I am voting yes on every game. This step is understandable. But it already takes discussion and merit out of the list in favor of popularity. This one IS directed at you Waterbomb, this all started because of one of the many many Top 100 lists that exists was being mocked, as they all are. This is NOT the way to do it better.

 

[Zacchaeus]

I am voting yes on every game. This step is understandable. But it already takes discussion and merit out of the list in favor of popularity. This one IS directed at you Waterbomb, this all started because of one of the many many Top 100 lists that exists was being mocked, as they all are. This is NOT the way to do it better.

This is a popularity contest. What else would be implied by "Smogon's favorite games" unless you thought there would be 500 discussion threads

 

[breh]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors ABSTAIN
Ace Attorney Investigations ABSTAIN
Ace of Spades ABSTAIN
Actraiser ABSTAIN
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising ABSTAIN
Advance Wars: Dual Strike ABSTAIN
Age of Empires ABSTAIN
Age of Empires 3 ABSTAIN
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings ABSTAIN
Age of Mythlogy: The Titans ABSTAIN
Age of Mythology ABSTAIN
Amnesia: The Dark Descent ABSTAIN
Angry Birds NO
Animal Crossing ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: City Folk NO
Animal Crossing: Wild World ABSTAIN
Ape Escape ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed 2 ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ABSTAIN
Banjo-Kazooie YES
Banjo-Tooie YES
Bastion ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos Origins ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean ABSTAIN

 

[WaterBomb]

I realize your concern vonFiedler, but how else would you suggest it be done? The sheer scope of video games is so damn wide that we HAVE to go by popular nomination just to get a list to start with. From there, we cannot possibly have every user play every game on the list and evaluate it based on our criteria. The closest we're going to come to an accurate list is by offsetting the popularity with a pledge to be unbiased, which of course operates on a shaky honor system. I have faith that most users on Smogon are intelligent enough to at least make an honest effort to be objective, which helps immensely in the evaluation process.

Do you have a better suggestion on how to get a list of 500 games down to 100?

Also, just to be clear, I do plan to have plenty of discussion and debate, just not with the whole list of 500. Once we get that number down to a reasonable amount, I will make every attempt to make the final rankings be as merit based as possible.

 

[vonFiedler]

This is a popularity contest. What else would be implied by "Smogon's favorite games" unless you thought there would be 500 discussion threads

Well I thought that after several pages of bitching about journalist lists and popularity contests, Waterbomb was motivated to make something better than that. Hell, that's evident in his rules (no personal bias). I'm not saying it would "work" under anyone's guidance, but the process could have been interesting. Now people are free to eliminate games without citing their reasons or giving debate at all. One has to be curious why 3 different people would say no to Ape Escape, the game that pioneered analog sticks and showed that you can do more in a platformer than just "finish the level". But we might never have that conversation now. And damn, look at all those abstains.

Do you have a better suggestion on how to get a list of 500 games down to 100?

I suggest we don't. I'm sorry. I get the concern. But the only real way we can determine the value of these games is by the value of the arguments made in favor of it weighed with those against it (and as no game is perfect, every game should have both). Maybe we can't play all of the games, but we can hear out the people who have. If the rubrik you make works, that should be the best you can do.

There are very few games I would say no to on this list. Almost all of them deserve to be here, even Angry Birds is the most successful video game ever made and at least merits talking about.

What exactly is the criteria for removing a game? A majority of No? How many Abstains?

 

[WaterBomb]

I do understand that, but a problem arises when only one or two people have actually played the title in question. If we have 100 users involved in this, for example, and only 3 people have played [insert title here], how can the other 97 of us operate based on the evaluations of 3 people? Even if they all have compelling arguments, how can we judge them when we don't know the subject itself? By nature, for a game to make a list like this, it must at least be popular ENOUGH that a workable sample of users can evaluate it.

Let me use an example, based upon a rubric that uses 7 categories, each with a score 1-10, and the average being its final rating:

Game A has been played by 84 people and receives an overall rating of 8.1
Game B has been played by 4 people and receives an overall rating of 8.2

When a game has only been played by 4% of the total population of the process, how do you justify the rating? This is a serious question, as I want to make this list as good as it can be, and any advice/suggestions are very much welcome.

 

[Corka]

999: 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors YES
Ace Attorney Investigations YES
Ace of Spades ABSTAIN
Actraiser ABSTAIN
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising ABSTAIN
Advance Wars: Dual Strike YES
Age of Empires YES
Age of Empires 3 NO
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings YES
Age of Mythlogy: The Titans NO
Age of Mythology NO
Amnesia: The Dark Descent ABSTAIN
Angry Birds NO
Animal Crossing ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: City Folk ABSTAIN
Animal Crossing: Wild World ABSTAIN
Ape Escape ABSTAIN
Assassin's Creed YES
Assassin's Creed 2 YES
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ABSTAIN
Banjo-Kazooie YES
Banjo-Tooie ABSTAIN
Bastion ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos Origins ABSTAIN
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean ABSTAIN

 

[vonFiedler]

A rubric is not a good idea. It was said several times in the G4 thread that there is a problem with even comparing games against genres and generations, and while I disagree with that how do you factor in say story without penalizing games that barely have one? A universal rubric won't work.

My suggestion is a system of Positives and Negatives. Every game should have both, and being objective will mean listing both even if you like the game. There's only Resident Evil 4 where I couldn't think up negatives, and I know some people will. We use these discussions to determine a ranking.

If a game has only 4 people discussing it and they can't come up with any negatives, well, they probably aren't being objective.

There's also more to making a good list than just lining games up by an arbitrary number value. Knowing that no list will be accurate in the strictest sense, a list should be entertaining and varied, maybe including some choice bits of talk from the discussions. It's gonna be up to you, or you and a few others, to ultimately decide what goes where. That's where you can factor the games that only 4 people play. If people overwhelmingly gush over a game it probably deserves a spot, but not necessarily in the top 50.

Actually finishing this list is going to be a hard and thankless job, but if nothing else we get the opportunity to gush about (and let's be honest, knock heads over) the best games ever made. To make a list of 500 games go faster, you could have a social group where several games are discusses at a time.

 

[faint]

vonFielder regardless of how this list goes about being made it's not going to be good. The list started with everyone suggesting their favorite games, which is already bad. We are asking people who (with all due respect) don't know a good game from a bad game to compile a top 100 list.. There is a difference between what your favorite game is and what is actually worthy of being on a top 100 list.

The fact that we have 500 games and most people were not around for the majority of them also won't help. People should have been voting based on multiple factors and not just their own opinion or what they liked.

So regardless, we will have a list. I do not expect the list to be good. The way I see it we'll have 90+ Nintendo games with a couple PS1 classics thrown in there just because people chose their favorite games and not games that are actually deserving of a top 100 spot. This is also a Pokemon forum and the majority of the people participating in this are Nintendo fans.

tl;dr no matter how this is done this will not turn out to be a good list. but I do give waterbomb props for attempting to manage this the best he can.

 

[TheValkyries]

If 4 people say yes and no one says no on a game it should pass on to the next round. Even if 100 people abstain, that doesn't mean it's a bad game. As you said in the first post Abstain isn't a negative vote.

You can make an arbitrary rule of needs 50% more yes votes than no votes or something to move on so that the pure popularity of the game doesn't force it higher than it should be.

Also, Waterbomb you made a point about justifying one rating of 4 people to another of 82. The problem is this thread is not about discussion or justification, so you are obligated to take the 4 person rated game on merit, and then see if it's justified later in the discussion thread.



EDIT: Also, I can't stress enough the importance of not worrying about justifying how the votes land and play out. That's later. We'll burn that bridge when we get there.

 

[icepick]

On a film forum I frequent, people tried to cut down a list of 1000 films to 20, and the final list ended up being surprising, non-canon, and varied in tastes. I thought the voting method was interesting in that there was strategy and compromise, rather than just polling, and it could work well for this list, too.

Essentially, each game starts with 5 points. Every day, voters can add and subtract points in the following manner:
+2 X
-1 Y
-1 Z

When a game hits 0, it falls off the list and cannot be voted on again.

It's a bit pc++ since you can vote every day, but who really cares.

 

[Corka]

I believe player base is something a game must have to have to honor a spot in a top list.
If only a handful of players (5% to 10%, for example) have played a game, but gave it a enormous mean score, it should be directed to a parallel list of recommended games, so it can have a bigger sample (and sample quality) in the next edition of this list.

 

[WaterBomb]

I see where you're going with the positives and negatives bit, but that system seems a bit too simple to differentiate and rank a list of 100 games. A system like that can be used to eliminate games from contention, but I think the ultimate problem will be how to actually RANK the top 100 games in rightful order. A system of positives and negatives is not specific enough to show a discernable difference between, say, #7 and #8. The reason I wanted to use a rubric system was that it's ultimately based on math, which makes it much easier to ascertain final rankings. I also think you're underestimating the potential of a universal rubric, because combining it with a weighting system could help all games have a chance, provided the distribution of weight is universally acceptable to us. I envisioned a weighting system that allowed us, as the users, to emphasize the "non-negotiables" that we feel every great game must have. Sure there are some great games that lack a deep story, but a proper weighting system would allow that game to compete if it excelled in other areas. This is why having many categories to rate a game is so important, so a game lacking in one area can make up ground in the other areas. The trick, then, becomes actually striking the correct balance of weight and categories, which of course would be long and strenuous. I still think it's possible though, and believe it's the best way to go.

Ultimately, even the definition of a "great" game is subjective, but I think we're intelligent enough human beings to come to SOMEWHAT of a consensus on what that is. If we can at least agree on that, we have the potential to create a rating system that accurately evaluates each game and gives it a tangible score. My hope is that in the end we can end up with something like the NFL QB rating system: Not everyone agrees with it, but it's generally accepted and the most accurate method available.

Hell, I'll be happy as long as we can come up with something that is even modestly better than G4 and other lists. I don't care if it's perfect.

 

[icepick]

I see where you're going with the positives and negatives bit, but that system seems a bit too simple to differentiate and rank a list of 100 games. A system like that can be used to eliminate games from contention, but I think the ultimate problem will be how to actually RANK the top 100 games in rightful order. A system of positives and negatives is not specific enough to show a discernable difference between, say, #7 and #8. The reason I wanted to use a rubric system was that it's ultimately based on math, which makes it much easier to ascertain final rankings. I also think you're underestimating the potential of a universal rubric, because combining it with a weighting system could help all games have a chance, provided the distribution of weight is universally acceptable to us. I envisioned a weighting system that allowed us, as the users, to emphasize the "non-negotiables" that we feel every great game must have. Sure there are some great games that lack a deep story, but a proper weighting system would allow that game to compete if it excelled in other areas. This is why having many categories to rate a game is so important, so a game lacking in one area can make up ground in the other areas. The trick, then, becomes actually striking the correct balance of weight and categories, which of course would be long and strenuous. I still think it's possible though, and believe it's the best way to go.

The problem, I think, is the more complex the rules become, the more unsatisfied people will be with the final list. If people disagree with the rules from the get-go (eg disagree with your weightings, which, of course, is extremely subjective, anyways), the list loses credibility with them, and if the list doesn't turn out how they want it, they can blame the rules.

 

[zorbees]

Where the rubric fails is the cross-generation aspects. Even ignoring the fact that stories are absent from basically every early game, a game like Super Mario Bros 3 has a perfect visual style for the type of game it is, but you can't really call the graphics very impressive when comparing it to something like [insert current gen title]. Super Mario Bros (original) has some of the most iconic music in video gaming history, but comparing something like theme music to sound effects is very difficult. Even cross-genre can be difficult for something like analyzing the gameplay. Heck, comparing a game designed mainly for single-player to a game designed mainly for multi-player is a challenge already. When you add these all together, I don't know how you can create a rubric that will be unbiased when comparing Galaga to Halo.

 

[WaterBomb]

Well, one thing that helps is we aren't pitting games against each other directly. Games are competing, but they are all being evaluated and rated separately as their own entities. To address icepick's concern, my plan was to have a discussion thread devoted solely to the creation of this rubric, so the weights, categories etc. will be things we agree upon as a community, not stuff I just decided on my own.

Another positive is I'm expecting people to really look at a game and evaluate it with respect to chronology. When evaluating the graphics of a game like FF7, for example, you'd be expected to look at the graphics based on when it came out, not today's standards. I realize I'm probably expecting too much of the community to be capable of doing this, but I can dream can't I?

The only way we're going to find out is by attempting this anyway, so I say we keep going and see what happens. I'm a very meticulous manager, so I'll be making sure this process is not rushed at all and each step will take as much time as it needs. I honestly don't care if it takes a year to finish the project, if the end result is something we can be proud of.

 

[Wikey]

I think it might be better to start by breaking the list down by console generation or console. Make several lists instead of one. Maybe break it down by genre instead? That hurts unique games that dont fit into one genre, though.

 

[zorbees]

When evaluating the graphics of a game like FF7, for example, you'd be expected to look at the graphics based on when it came out, not today's standards.

VKCA's head just exploded.