Top Ten Games Of All Time

[Bwarch]

So hey, game discussion is pretty fun, and discussing favorites is also pretty fun, so let's see how a topic on top tens does. Talk about your own top ten, talk about how much you love the games on your top ten, talk about others, discuss rankings and ask people why they placed a game here instead of there. Hell, feel free to post a top ten that's not yours, feel free to make fun of top tens as long as the person that made it isn't on Talkhaus.
Keep it civil!
So basically for this first post I've got all the top tens that were discussed recently in the IRC, so I figure this is a good way to us start off.

Bwarch: http://pastebin.com/fDF01jmA
Mindez: http://pastebin.com/Hpx0b1J8
Cup: http://pastebin.com/Ptbi0VHz
Paste: http://pastebin.com/uW77AmHj
HorikawaOtane: http://pastebin.com/yziZP8gn
Daniel Jackson: http://pastebin.com/HBKrGaf4

Now you'll have to explain whether your top ten is actually ranked or just "Here's a top ten in no particular order" I know that for the IRC it seemed like all of us went with the latter.

For me personally I still have to figure out how exactly I'm going to order mine, things definitely need to be changed around but for the actual roster it's pretty final.

[limepie20]

Hey, this seems really cool.

10, 9. Probably some I forgot
8. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 - I'm not picking one (some Sega thing, I don't know, but I played it on Gamecube. Why am I even doing these parentheses things if I'm gonna say that?)
7. Super Mario World (SNES)
6. Phoenix Wright: T&T (DS)
5. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
4. Yoshi's Island (SNES)
3. Pikmin 2 (Gamecube)
2. Paper Mario: TTYD (Gamecube)
1. Fez (XBLA)

I made this from a brief list I've kept and off the top of my head, so it's probably not too too accurate.

It probably seems weird to put Fez at number 1, and I couldn't exactly explain well why I like it that much. It just kinda struck me at a deep level, and it's something I can never stop thinking about. Then in addition, everything else about the game is great.

[Ashan]

It would probably be impossible for me to make a top 10 since I'm indecisive like that and the list changes so much, so I'll just name a few favourites in no particular order:

• Super Mario World - probably at the top of the list considering how much time I've spent playing it and romhacks of it. One of the first games I ever played, so it's pretty awesome how well it's aged.
• Yoshi's Island - Pretty much purely for the nostalgia factor. I haven't played it in a super long time, but that was another super big part of my early gaming years.
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga - I just love the atmosphere, characters, gameplay, and pretty much everything about that game. Not sure whatever happened to my copy of it, though. Might have to bust out the GBA emulator at some point.
• Megaman X - First Megaman game I ever played, and still one of my favourites.
• Megaman: Battle Network 3: Blue Version - One of my first GBA games, and still one of my favourites.
• TLoZ: Wind Waker - I put a LOT of time into this game. I don't even know what it is that made this game in particular stand out so much from the rest, but I ended up doing a 100% run and a 3 heart run simply because I loved it so much.
• The Binding of Isaac - I may have mentioned this game a few times in the "what games are you playing" thread.
• Portal/Portal 2 - Awesome concept, awesome gameplay, awesome sense of humor, overall - Awesome.
• Super Mario Sunshine - Lots of time put into this one in the early elementary school days.

Those are the first to come to mind. If I think of more I'll post again.

[Bwarch]

8. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 - I'm not picking one (some Sega thing, I don't know, but I played it on Gamecube. Why am I even doing these parentheses things if I'm gonna say that?)

The question for me is, have you gone back and played either one recently? So much fat and fluff man, so much.

Other than that those are two pretty fantastic lists, I wish I'd been able to justify knocking off one of mine for a Paper Mario title but in the end I just couldn't see it. Now if we're talking favorite and most consistent SERIES on the other hand, HOO BOY. Such a fantastic series that kept things fresh instead of relying on the conventions of the last one.

[Argumentable]

I know for a fact he played SA2 recently

[limepie20]

8. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 - I'm not picking one (some Sega thing, I don't know, but I played it on Gamecube. Why am I even doing these parentheses things if I'm gonna say that?)

The question for me is, have you gone back and played either one recently? So much fat and fluff man, so much.

Yeah, I beat SA2 again really recently. Haven't played 1 in a while though. I definitely agree, and the main things that keep me liking it is the soundtrack and nostalgia. But I really do enjoy just having fun and running around in levels as sonic/shadow or knuckles/rouge. Tails and eggman levels (in 2) can eat a worm.

[Zygl]

I've never really given a top ten list any thought, so I'll just list off 10 games in no particular order that might make it on the list if I were to fully contemplate it.

• Super Mario World - Aside from the nostalgia of spending my entire childhood not having read that text box explaining red levels and having to thoroughly explore the entire game to find anything, I like the world map idea and the controls to me just feel better than in any other Mario game. (And I guess romhacks also exist, so that, too.)
• Super Smash Bros. - Because punching an opponent and watching them go flying off-screen just feels satisfying. And it helps that it's pretty much the only thing vaguely classifiable as a fighting game that I can succeed at.
• Skullmonkeys - It's a PS1 platformer that happens to be the sequel to The Neverhood. And the gameplay is - dare I say it - actually more interesting overall than the average Mario game. Quite a few levels have some unique gimmick to them to mix things up a bit, and aside from that you have about 5 abilities beyond just running and jumping on stuff, each with a limited number of uses, that can make things significantly easier if used strategically. Which is good, because it actually gets rather difficult later in the game. Which is also good.
• Final Fantasy X - SO MANY BONUS BOSSES. One of these days I'm going to go back and actually fight them all.
  ...That's pretty much all I have to say about that.
• Donkey Kong Country 2 - I find it to be one of the better games to just sit back, relax, and just play through in its entirety for about 4 hours.
• Kingdom Hearts - Sometimes I like action in my RPGs. Which is why I also considered listing Tales of Symphonia instead of this. The difference being, I know firsthand that this game gets intense when you play on Expert mode and skip as much of the game as you know how to, whereas I haven't tried anything like that with ToS. Yet.
• Yoshi's Island - For nostalgia, mostly. The difficulty and uncommon amount of geometry involved also help.
• Gotcha Force - It's a GameCube game. I can't really categorize it much more specifically than that. It has the collection and team-building aspects of Pokémon, except leveling up is usually rather pointless and it's small robots of various sorts (i.e. ninjas, tanks, dragons, jets, angels, samurai, gunmen, airships, a cockroach, etc.) instead of various animals. Also there are 5 kinds of shinies at varying levels of rarity, all of which are more common than Pokémon's (but still absurdly rare). As for the gameplay, you have two attack buttons, one covering melee attacks and/or basic projectiles and the other covering any other attacks. (It apparently resembles Virtual-On, but I've never played that.) Also it's absurdly fast-paced, allegedly, if Gamespot's reviewer guy complaining about it for half his review is to be believed. (By the way, he spent the other half complaining about the graphics, sound, music, and voice acting. Which, admittedly, are nothing to write home about aside from the hilariously bad voice acting.) Go look it up on YouTube or something, because this is not an adequate description.
• The Legend of Zelda (The First One) - I like it when a game allows me to go into level 8 before level 1. If A Link to the Past did that I would've actually put that here, but that game's an entirely different thing.
• Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - I'm not sure exactly why. I just like it for whatever reason.

[TheVulpineHero1]

No particular order:

Final Fantasy IX: I found, and still find, the characters to be some of the most charming in RPGs, especially Zidane (who manages to not be A: super angsty or B: a complete and total idiot, which sets him apart from the vast majority of RPG protagonists) and Vivi, who's just the best thing. Battle system is simple enough to be picked up easily but depthy enough to allow Level 1 runs, and generally it's just my favourite Final Fantasy game from a holistic point of view. Loses some points for the pre-battle load ins, although at least they have dynamic camera swoops to distract you. (Since this will be the only FF game on the list, I'd like to give an honourable mention to FFVI's GBA port, which has a really nicely balanced battle system.)

Super Mario Galaxy 1: I haven't played 2, so that might be better, but when I played Galaxy, all I felt was just pure unadulterated joy. Might just be nostalgia or whatever, but that initial feeling biases me to put it in my top ten.

Sonic Colours (Wii Version): I was a Sega kid when I was growing up, and after so many crap games, playing Colours was just a joyous moment akin to Galaxy. It took the decent bits that previous entries had begun to show, polished them up, and spent an entire game on them. Really fun.

Wild Arms 3: This game shook up the cliches of the genre, and breathed fresh life into them. Each character is atypical for the rpg norm; your tankiest character is also your mage, your white mage-esque character is the leader of the party, the smartest character is the one with the most attack, and so on. The world setup is different, too -- every random encounter skippable? You got it. Healing items being of limited quantity for a good part of the game? Neat! All tied together with atmospheric music, a nice plot, and a charming cel-shaded art style.

LoZ: Wind Waker: For me, every Zelda has a moment that really makes me love it and want to play it again in the future. In TP, it was the Hidden Village shootout; in Skyward Sword, it was the time sphere dungeons, and in OoT, it was the first time you explore as Adult Link. Wind Waker is the only one where that moment is just 'the whole game'. Objectively, it could stand a few less fetch quests, and the Triforce Of Courage bit is a dick move. But in the end, the whole roaming across the sea exploration part of things really sells this game for me.

Odin Sphere: Gorgeous graphics and music? Norse mythology plot? Anachronic storyline presentation with scene selection to help you puzzle it all out? Sold. Had its flaws (it reused dungeons/bosses like crazy) but if you can look past them, the whole thing is really atmospheric.

Harvest Moon (various incarnations): Don't judge me.

Persona 3 FES: More for the characters than anything. Since it breaks the whole 'travel the world, kill monsters, get loot' rpg thing by taking place all in the same area, you really start to care for the characters, especially since you have a hand in solving their various personal problems. Although I recognise that the game has fairly big flaws, and the writing won't appeal to everyone, I really enjoyed it. (Also, dat soundtrack.)

Disgaea 2: Having only played the first and the second incarnations of the series, 2 was the one that felt most polished in terms of combat for me. However, the first one also eats large chunks of my life. I just adore the outright lunacy of the whole series. Ridonkulous stat caps, rocket tag gameplay, plot that parodies the entire genre, fourth wall breaking aplenty... It's just really enjoyable if you're into it. And I am.

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2: This gets the spot just for being a really nice surprise. Arno is full of win, the battles are fun, and it's just a really nice game with very funny writing at times. It manages to be very charming, which puts it above a lot of things.

And, off topic, the most disappointing game I've played in recent memory goes to...
Unlimited Saga: This game had a lot going for it. A nice art style, voice acting, various characters with different gameplay emphasis so you could pick your own poison, very in depth battle mechanics, and a far more tabletop inspired design than most rpgs on the market. What lets it down? The Reel system, which is everything an RNG shouldn't be. The fact that you have to essentially play slots for every single action (slots that are timing based in combat, but essentially totally random in the field) really hurts this game. Even the things that aren't controlled by slots are random-- if you attack an enemy, the game basically rolls a dice to see if you did any 'real' damage. When you get to pick skills, the game rolls a dice to see if you get any decent ones to choose from (and you only get a certain number of choices per game). When you try to learn new attacks, the game rolls a dice to see if you do, and the chance is always pretty low. It's okay in the Binding Of Isaac, but really not okay here.
Also, those depthy battle mechanics? The game will tell you approximately nothing about them. To the point where one of the most important stats that affects nearly everything and which is applied to nearly every character and piece of equipment is hidden. And the game is hard enough at times that you will actually want to know that information. Overall, this game is just a huge example of how a little mismanagement can ruin a potentially great game. There's still some value in Unlimited Saga if you're willing to tough it out, but yeesh.

[Paralars]

Screw your top ten, here's 12 of my favourite games/series in no particular order

Sanic Adventurs 1,2:
Not especially good, but the music is cool and childhood memories of me thinking it was the raddest shit ever.

Golden Sun (good), Golden Sun 2 the Lost Age (epic, forever absolute favourite), Golden Sun Dark Dawn (almost as good as the second one):
typical rpg, epic plotline and interesting backstories, fun and interesting gameplay with your occasional sidequest and puzzles, really long playtime (because there is SO MUCH TEXT, SERIOUSLY, I KNOW IT'S AN RPG BUT...),
graphics are really nicely done and the OST is of outrageously high quality for a gba title.
What I really like about it is the way it makes dungeons/temples seem epicly huge and sacred. You get to the core of it to find that whatever, you're searching for and you feel so safe and confident... I don't know.

The Quests of Runescape:
Runescape is boring as hell, but I actually did all the quests back when I was still playing (2009 or so)
and I gotta say, that's something they're really good at.
The whole - huge and miraculously coherent - backstory of the rs universe you're provided with is super interesting (for the 5% of players who actually care about that), the atmosphere of all those different places you go is amazing... And those were fun to play, too!

BlazBlue:
Idunno. I like it. Every aspect of it.

Portal, especially Portal 2:
One of my definite favourites, atmosphere and storyline are amazing, thinking about that HUGE complex you travel through from the very bottom to the top. Portaling onto the moon?.. Just so epic!
The only thing I dislike is how easy it was, at least to me. And the only replay value of the singleplayer story mode is in experiencing the story again.

Pokemans general:
Just, you know.. it's Pokemon
(Generations I'd say III > V > II > IV > I, not considering OP gen I nostalgia value)

Mario Galaxy
not really though... I have it but... I don't get it... at all.

Harvest Moon, FoM:
It's Harvest Moon, it's super fun, it has neat music and a cute story, good memories and it's one of those games where you never get to the point where you've seen all the content, because some of the requirements are really ridiculous (but still surprisingly well fleshed out)

Metroid Prime:
Every Cliche you'll hear about it being a good game, I especially like the balance between future technology, temple stuff and strange life forms.

TF2:
It's just really good and well rounded, besides all that hat economy crap. Every time I don't play it in a while and I go back to it, I'm reminded how really good it is.

TBoI:
I don't consider it one of my favourite games actually, but I have high respect for how good it is

Spiral Knights:
I especially love the music and art style, the gameplay is nice, but not outstanding. The game's just so CUTE!

Darksiders:
Well, it's basically Zelda+Hack and Slay, I just was never much of a Zelda guy and I like a good coherent storyline

[Bwarch]

Those sure don't seem to be all favorites since you downplay the aspects of a few of them, could've easily been a top ten

[Paralars]

I'm just trying to be objective, to me they're still all favourites.

[Alice]

It's hard to pick only ten games. Let alone actually number them. So these aren't in any particular order.

• The Ys series (I started with Ys III: Wanderers from Ys on the SNES, since then I've played Oath in Felghana and a bit of Ark of Napishtim on the PSP and I have Ys I&II Chronicles+, Ys Origins, and Ys: Oath in Felghana on Steam. All of which are incredible games in their own right.)
• Super Mario World (Who would've guessed?)
• The Legend of Zelda (A Link to the Past for the 2d games and Twilight Princess for the 3d ones, TP is the only 3d one I've actually thoroughly enjoyed.)
• Metroid (Super Metroid obviously but also Metroid Zero Mission which was very good.)
• Yoshi's Island
• Final Fantasy II from Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls (Also possibly FFX-2 even though most people didn't like it. The story was pretty bad but the gameplay was actually really fun in my opinion.)
• Audiosurf
• Doom (Doom/Ultimate Doom and Doom II but not Doom 3.)
• Galactic Civilizations II (and also Stars! for a much older 4x game but also a really good one. Edit: Moving Space Pirates and Zombies under this heading since it's reasonably similar to the aforementioned games and to make room for Persona 3 which I somehow forgot.)
• Persona 3

It's more like ten groupings of games and there's no real order to them but oh well.

[PlatinumTriforce]

10. Space Invaders (Arcade) - Classic game by Taito.
9. Super Mario World (SNES) - Smooth, nicely designed platformer, of course.
8. 19XX (Arcade) - One of my favorite shooters of all time that used to be at a local arcade.
7. Door Door (Famicom) [see profile picture] - Simple and cute little puzzle game.
6. LoZ: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons (GBC) - Engaging, portable Zelda for everyone!
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - Fighting and platforming + Nintendo characters = WHOA
4. Terraria (PC) - 2-D Sandbox game with endless possibilities. Also coming to PS3 worldwide.
3. Metal Slug 3 (Arcade) - Shooting and platforming HEAVEN. Just grab a lot of coins (or MAME).
2. Pokémon GSC (GBC) - Gen II, with its music, features, and storyline, is the best IMO.
1. LoZ: Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask (N64) - Decided to lump these two together because of they use the exact same engine. These games are everything an action gamer could want: they're 3-D, they have upgrade-able health, items, and magic, there are tough challenges and puzzles, they have intense plots (which also connect between the two), and it's ZELDA. I grew up with these two.

[peculiorz]

10. Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color (PS2) - This made the list purely for nostalgia's sake. It was my absolute favorite game growing up, and inspired a lot of my early art.
9. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (GBA)
8. Super Mario World (SNES)
7. Animal Crossing (DS) - The only version I've ever played. A game that can be really entertaining and relaxing, but overall there isn't much to do. I always come back to it, though.
6. Super Mario 64 - A big part of my childhood. The N64 was our first family system, as the Super Nintendo belonged to my uncle.
5. Pokemon Gold/Silver (GBC)
4. Minecraft - A really nice sandbox game that keeps me entertained for hours. After a while, though, you kinda run out of things to do, and it can get a bit tedious.
3. Skyrim
2. Fallout: New Vegas - The best newer game I've played so far, but I'm biased towards RPGs.
1. We Love Katamari/Katamari Damaci (PS2) - This will most likely be my favorite game for a very long time. It's a simplistic and very pretty Japanese game about an alien prince who has to roll up STUFF to replace the stars his father, the King of All Cosmos, destroyed. It's a game I can always come back to, and one I can always have a ton of fun with.

EDIT: Also, I'm going to give Okami an honorable mention. It was really fun and had an interesting premise, but most of what I ended up doing was running around in the fields with Amaterasu's sprint and barking at people. Also, it had a habit of spoon feeding the player, to the point where it got seriously annoying.

[pholtos]

In no particular order:

1.The .hack// series. Two of my favorite RPG series. It had enough to keep me interested, especially the G.U. line. I have yet to beat the original four.
2.LoZ:Windwaker. Great exploration style zelda game. - LoZ:LttP. Partially nostalgia but it really is my favorite 2D zelda game.
3.The Golden Sun games. Another of my favorite RPG series.
4.Super Mario World. Self explanatory for what I do.
5.The Katamari Games. Hilarity ensues in these roll-em-up style games.
6.Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Another of my favorite RPGs. I have not played the first game, and the following two are terrible in my opinion since paper mario has always to me been an RPG series.
7. Wario Land 3. Fun exploration game that is more about platforming than anything.
8. Freespace. A space shooter. Probably not well known.
9. I'm sticking Animal Crossing and the Sims in the same spot. Both are start from scratch sandbox games that are enjoyable from time to time.
10. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and the Tactics Series. Different from the other final fantasy games but enjoyable in their own right.

It always surprises me how much I like RPGs... odd. Also, these are the ones that came to me. I'm sure there are some I like more than some on this list but hey.