Top three video games of all time. Ever.

The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time - the boss fights in this game are spectacular. The Z-targeting invented here has become a standard of any 3-d game worth its salt that requires hitting something.
Super Mario Brothers 3 - Excellent level design, fantastical settings with rich variety, excellent gameplay, the tanooki suit, and the boot. All great fun.
Chrono Trigger - RPG with multiple story lines, multiple endings, and a slew of original characters designed by Akira Toriyama (Dragonball fame). Made as a collaboration between Enix and Square, the story line and characters are all top notch and highly memorable.

BG

Edit: added reasons, changed FFVI to CT

Marathon Series

Quake 3

Prince of Persia 2.

I'm going to have to agree with the first and the last ones on there. For the middle one I'd put Goldeneye.

Oh man, I am going to have to think about this one. I think I have about 150 games between my systems.

Super Metriod & crono trigger off the top of my head.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time... yea what he said

Resident Evil: First gameplay and story worthy of having to deal with strange camera angles and controls

Gran Turismo 3: makes you learn real driving techniques and get licenses... plus rally racing

Unreal

Carmaggedon II

And a best of video games wouldn't be complete without mentioning Megaman for the original Nintendo

Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time, Secret of Mana, to name a few. It's too hard to decide. Super Metroid probably number one.

Oh yeah, Unreal.

elite

metal gear solid

gran turismo

asteroids
pong
frogger

Pong
Donkey Kong
Quake 3 Arena

oh and Starcraft.

Final Fantasy VI

Twisted Metal 2

Mario Kart

Goldeneye
Zelda: Ocinara of Time
WarCraft II

Banjo Kazooie
Banjo Twooie
Zelda: Ocarina of Time

I didn't really get serously into gaming until N64 came along. I chose these games because I've spent countless hours playing them.

Neverwinter Nights is close 4th.

Here are mine, no specific order:

Final Fantasy 1 (Yeah, FF1 rocks!

Halo (Halo 2 is going to be awesome.)

Starcraft

Super Metroid

Original Zelda: A Link to the Past

Goldeneye

These 3 games account for countless years of my short, short life.

Super Mario 64 (don't tell me you weren't hooked at the time)

Goldeneye

Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Unreal (aside from maybe Internet Explorer, no other program has ever commanded so many uninterrupted hours of my life)

Super Mario Bros.

Tetris

tooki

good man!

Been playing FF past two days, if you don't already know (I just found out) about 8-bit theater. comics are down right now, no clue why.

Anyway, it's so very hard but I'll take a crack at it.

Legend of Zelda:A Link to the Past
Final Fantasy IV (aka 2 US)
Civilization

Super Mario 3 - racoon suit was the bomb and the frog suit was ill cute

Street Fighter 2 - "Guile" and "Ken" were my best characters

MegaMan 2 - The strategy of which boss to attack and which weapons to use was cool.

Contra - Spread Gun. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Select Start.

Pac Man

I think that's gotta be the coolest video game of all time. And my runners up:

Tetris

Super Mario Bros.

Geez people, he said video games. Console crap isn't video! You gotta go to an arcade to get this stuff. Most of y'all are too young to know that Ms. PacMan, Galaga, and (IMHO) Joust, are the best video games ever made. Heck, Ms. PacMan and Galaga still suck in the quarters, to the extent that they made a new machine containing them both.

Halo?? Gimme a break, it's not been released yet! How can it be best?

lol

Crono trigger, Doom, LoZ:Majoras mask.

Marathon
Zelda - Ocarina of Time
Gran Tourismo 3

And I'm sure if I thought about it more, I'd change the list again and again. Too many games to choose from and too many reasons why it would be in a top 3.

Mike

I would have to say Banjo Tooie was my all time fav. That game was damn huge.

Zelda would be it but I found it too easy. I beat the last boss on the FIRST TRY! He looked sweet though.

The best game is beyond a doubt Dungeon Master for the Atari ST. A breakthrough realtime 3D adventure/role playing game. Simply stunning, even today.

Second: Ghostbusters for the Commodore 64, because of immense playability and great game design.

Third: Starglider for the Amstrad PCW because it was better than the Starglider games for other platforms. For some reason it had more depth that was not included in other vesions. Totally fab!

Yay! 3000 posts.

And every time MuchMusic (Canadian MTV, except they actually play music videos) asks viewers to vote for best songs of all time, they always pick flavour of the month like Britney, Backstreet Boys, etc. C'mon people, how long is your attention spans? The best video games of all time are:

Pong
Pacman
SimCity

I dunno, if you guys are getting in to computer games, there should be a bunch of votes for:

Ultima 7
Civ 2
Warcraft 2

Not that I would vote for them, because I was a poor (financially) console baby growing up.

BG

In that case:

Diablo 2

TaskMaker

Solitaire Until Dawn

Holy sh*t, someone actually remembers that game!!!!!!!!!!!

It was being ported to the Mac years ago and then...poof!

Mike

1 :: halo

2 :: grand theft auto (original)

3 :: sonic (genesis)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

and so many more...

Sonic is l33t!

Heck yeah I remember that game! The best one I ever played

I never heard anything about converting Dungeon Master to tha Mac. I know Dungeon Master II was converted for the Mac ('cause I have it), but the original Dungeon Master was never made for the Mac.

Perhaps you would like to check out this page here:
http://dmweb.free.fr/

They have *everything* about Dungeon Master. Everything.

Including the game itself for many many platforms. You can even download DM2 for the Mac there.

Oh, OK maybe it was DMII. I remember seeing it at MW in Boston I think. I don't recall seeing it at a MW in NY.

EDIT: That site ROCKS! DM for the PC . I have to try it on an old DOS machine at work. I'm DLing the album now.

Mike

Doom/Dark Forces/Duke Nukem (a toss up)
Rogue Squadron (N64)
Star Wars (the arcade standup version)
ADDED: Myth and/or Myth II

Metroid Prime
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Counter-Strike

-matt

Zaxxon
Track & Field
Centipede (man it took me a long time to spell that)

Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy Tactics
Super Metroid

How about this - top 3 per platform.

Atari 2600:
Pitfall
Star Raiders
Raiders of the Lost Ark

DOS:
Thexter
Rogue
Starflight (this was a WICKED game)

Arcade:
Sinistar
Donkey Kong
Star Wars (vector)

Atari 800:
Ballblazer
Temple of Apshai
Monetuma's Revenge
Honorable Mention: Softporn Adventure (text game which became Leisure Suit Larry)

Atari ST:
Dungeon Master
Phantasie
Starglider
Honorable Mention: Rogue

Nintendo:
The Legend of Zelda
Super Mario 2
Contra

Mac (B&W)
Shufflepuck Cafe
(some baseball game I can't remember)
Castle Wolfenstein

Mac (Color, pre-PPC)
Maelstrom
Bolo
Diamonds

Mac (PPC)
Marathon
Quake
Myst

Playstation:
Crash Bandicoot 2
Final Fantasy VII
Tekken 2

Dreamcast:
Soul Calibur
Bass Fishing
NFK2K

Nintendo 64:
Zelda - Ocarina of Time
Super Mario 64
Rogue Squadron

Playstation 2:
Final Fantasy X
Gran Tourismo 3
Everquest (I'm currently beta testing it)

XBox:
Halo
Steel Batallion
Splinter Cell

Nintendo Gamecube:
Rogue Leader
Super Mario Sunshine
Metroid Prime

That's off the top of my head. I might rearrange the list a bit once I remember more.

Mike

1. Ico (PS2)
Proof that video games can be art.

2. Final Fantasy IV (Super NES, PlayStation)
Interesting characters, perfect music, plot twist after plot twist after plot twist.

3. Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, Sega CD)
Who knew that a dolphin simulator could be fun? A mix of several genres with an emphasis on puzzle solving. Normally that doesn't work well, but Ecco pulled it off beautifully. Visuals are so artistically impressive that they look good even today. The music in the Sega CD version is some of the best ever composed.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
Puyo Puyo series
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy VI
Super Metroid
Grandia II
Street Fighter III
Super Mario World
Grandia
Samurai Shodown II
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Rayman 2: Revolution
Klonoa 2
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Tetris

1. Original Mario Bros.
2. Donkey Kong
3. Miss Pac Man

Oldies, but goodies!

Civilization series (tough to pick one really)

Mario Brothers 3

Zelda 3: Link to the Past

Honorable Mentions:
Resident Evil, Mario 64, Super Metroid, NHL 94, Zelda 1, Zelda 64:OOT, Super Mario Kart, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, World Series Baseball '98, and Wipeout XL.... of course, I could list about 30 more....

Personally I don't believe in voting for games like Pacman because, although they were immensely influential, they bore the living crap out of me.

Asteroids
Tempest
Tetris

Pong (mobile phone)
Brickbash (mobile phone)
Snake II (mobile phone)

Only games I like, only games I play.

Lifetime Achievement Award goes to the original Legend of Zelda. Even though it's very doubtful that there are any cartridges capable of saving games left nowadays (the batteries have almost certainly all died), it's still the most asked-about game on Nintendo's tipline, and still the most popular FAQ for its system on GameFAQS. That's one hell of a lot of staying power. Its sequels are all great games in their own right, but the original has outlasted them all. And don't even get me started on Zelda:Outlands, the uber-hack of the original to create a new game which may be even better.

Personally, my favorite Zelda was Ocarina of Time (especially the sequence where you escape from the Gerudo prison), but the original simply won't be denied.

This is a Mac forum. But even in a Windows forum, show me the person that's running Halo. Zip, nada, zilch. It's not out yet.

Did you forget Archon?

Super Mario World
Quake 3 Team Arena
Deus Ex