What are the best Video Games?

I am interested in a couple of main things in video games, mainly around story telling, and then around social activity with friends and family. Maybe you picked up on this in my recent blog post. However, games mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and as I mentioned recently in a conversation about World of Warcraft, few games hit on all of these gaming needs and types (my point being that WOW sure tries to do so!).

I went to the Art of Video Games Exhibit recently, and it was a lot of fun. Even better was how it was taking games seriously. It approached games both by console, and by four groupings: Target (think Halo), Adventure (think Zelda), Tactics (think StarCraft), and Action (think Mario). Check out their list here. What is neat about this list is users voted on it, so it is a really good listing of games that have stuck with people and impacted them.

Of course, if that’s too much of a read, check this out:

But what other lists of top games are out there? I’ve found a few good ones. Let me know if you find some others!

• How do you define best? Not an easy question to answer. How about best selling games? Here is one such list. Lots of references!
• But then, that list breaks things up by console, much like the Art of Video Games. What about overall? Whoa, this one looks quite different from my list now…
• How about lists that are just top games like mine? Here’s one of those. Looks a bit like mine, to be sure.
• Or this one. Their site even sounds like they should be the experts… computerandvideogames.com.
• But if we want a more reputable source, how about IGN. I really like their Baldur’s Gate II description, number 25.
• Of course, if you want the List of All Lists, the folks at Filibuster Cartoons have just that for you!