EDGE: List of games awarded a 10 in their history.

Josey Wales

EDGE have an article up here discussing the 15 games they have awarded a 10 to over the lifetime. Here is the list:

- Super Mario 64
- Gran Turismo
- The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
- Halo: Combat Evolved
- Half-Life 2
- Halo 3
- The Orange Box
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Super Mario Galaxy 2
- GTA IV
- LittleBigPlanet
- Bayonetta
- Rock Band 3
- The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword
- The Last Of Us

It sounds like a very impressive list of games but I'm surprised at how few I have played and actually finished. From the list I've finished Halo 3 and Little Big Planet. Halo 3 was the first and only game I've played in the series and I thought it was thoroughly underwhelming. Little Big Planet I thought was excellent but am surprised by the 10 because of the jumping physics causing so much frustration.

Of the others I've played GTA IV, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 64 (although only last year for the first time, never had an N64). Of those I think Galaxy could be a 10.

What do you think of this list? Overrated games or a valid list?

Kirby

Only ones on that list I haven't played are Bayonetta and Little big Planet. It's a pretty good list.

I would say that Mario 64, Ocarina, Mario Galaxy and The Last of Us deserve to be on a higher level than games like Halo and Gran Turismo though. Perhaps they should have received nines instead of tens.

Giblet

I would rank Super Mario 64, and Ocarina higher. Although Link to the Past and Super Metroid would eclipse either. GTAIV is a favourite of mine, although playing it normally isn't fun, but the sandbox is great. Halo is useless, Quake 3 is far superior as a multiplayer game. I found Goldeneye and Halo to be baby versions of Quake and Quake III.

Azza

I've completed Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy, Half Life 2 and GTA IV and the Orange box.

I've also played but not finished Bayonetta, The Last of Us, Ocarina of Time and Halo Combat Evolved and Gran Turismo.

Bayonetta, just didn't do anything too me. Was too over the top and the screen tearing on the Xbox version reduces me to tears literally.

GTA IV was good, but after the hype died down, the game has significant flaws.

Half Life 2 I'd rate the highest, although I didn't rate too highly on my first play through. I came to appreciate it more on later play throughs. Still a little on the easy side.

Orange box was overall very good, but I had played 2 of its 5 games already. Team Fortress 2 never held my attention although I found it good the little I did play. Portal was excellent and Episode 2 was great, with a really good ending.

Mario games where fun, but to me platform games will never end up on my favorite games list, they just seem like a lesser genre. No plot, no sense of peril, limited challenge, and gameplay that's just not as exciting as other genres. They get by on charm.

GT was good at the time but racing isn't a genre I like too much.

Halo:CE was solid to me but very overrated. Nothing stood out to me when I played it. Nothing terrible either, just apathy towards it.

Ocarina of Time never clicked with me. 3 attempts to get into it and I just end up not bothered going back. Hard to put a finger on why though. I think the N64 version gave me motion sickness and the 3DS version gives me hand cramps!

The Last of Us was pretty good , but it can't compete with some of the games I'm currently playing in multiplayer. I'm sure I'll get back to it at some stage and enjoy it.

richymcdermott

Ugh super mario 64



Sonic adventure is much better

Creamy Goodness

Rockband 3 seriously?

Retr0gamer

richymcdermott wrote: »

Ugh super mario 64



Sonic adventure is much better

What utter rubbish. Not only was it a game that completely revolutionised player control in a 3D space it is also still one of the best games ever made.

While I'd agree with most on that list there's a few that I feel were over rated. Halo was a great game on release but was hardly earth shattering in comparison to PC FPs games at the time. That and the whole backtracking in the second half and the boring flood mean it's far from perfect. Halo 3 I enjoyed but was quite underwhelmed by. Even the so called innovative forge mode was a poor mans level editor and was done far better on consoles with farcry instincts.

GTA IV was real emperor's new clothes. A lot of people got very excited about it but in retrospect it wasn't that great. I feel the same about the last of us. While I believe it's a much better game and truly excellent there's some really annoying parts in it that don't make it the exceptional game for me. There's some dodgy gameplay moments and I felt one of it's final moments was trying to emulate spec ops but without any understanding of why spec ops worked.

Skyward Sword as well is thoroughly underserving as well. A fine game but also by far the weakest of the 3D zelda games.

Now if only Edge would apologise for giving Gunstar Heroes 6/10 instead of 10.

moc moc a moc

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

Rockband 3 seriously?

I've had more fun from that one game over the past 3 or so years than almost any other game I've ever owned. Must be literally over two thousand hours at this point. I think it's the only game other than Quake that I've continued playing at least every couple of weeks this long after the original purchase.

calex71

These things are very subjective but it's a strange list of 10/10 games all the same, not that most of the games listed don't deserve it but I'm surprised that others haven't made it on, I must go and have a look and see what they scored some other games that came to mind.

mystic86

Retr0gamer wrote: »

What utter rubbish.

Steady on, each to their own retro.

TimeToShine

Surprised at LBP and GTA IV. I personally found LBP to be a very childish game and had absolutely no time for it but of course I can see why it would appeal to some people. GTA on the other hand is quite a surprise, it's a good game but very flawed.

Never played Rock Band or Bayonetta but i'd agree the rest are fairly worthy of their scores.

johnny_ultimate

mystic86 wrote: »

Steady on, each to their own retro.

Not when defending Sonic Adventure over Mario 64 :pac: It's like favouring getting punched in the face to winning the lottery.

(and Richy has admirably stood his ground on this one many times before, even though he's absolutely wrong )

Azza

I notice richy has a sonic avatar and retro has a mario avatar.....looks like we have some fanatics here.

ykt0di9url7bc3

Josey Wales wrote: »

- Gran Turismo
- Half-Life 2
- The Orange Box

I have only given these games serious playtime, I have seen or play some of the others but not enough to warrant a serious opinion.

It is easy to praise Half-Life 2 and The Orange Box, they play very well, nice pacing, not too difficult, and not piss easy. Valve's quality shines through on these titles easily.

Gran Turismo looks very dated now but when it was released it shocked gamers.

This is a video of Need for Speed 2 , released 1997

Then this trailer came on a UK PlayStation Demo Disc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4qihzPajA

• 140 cars
• 11 Tracks
• Driver licenses (which was a challenge mode)
• Split Screen Multiplayer
• Arcade and Career Mode
• Engine customization

Colin McRae Rally came out in the same year and Codemasters must have been kicking themselves when they realised what they were up against. While Colin McRae Rally had some amazing tracks, they felt empty, narrow and flat in comparison to the venues that GT served up. The cars available to the GT ranged from the everyday to the top of the line dream sports cars. Codemasters Toca Touring Car was a big seller six months earlier in the UK but GT's sales were unreal, "to this day, remains the best selling video game for the PlayStation"

It was a leap forward, maybe the AI wasn't a good as Toca, maybe there was some noticeable pop-up scenery on some of the tracks but that was true of nearly all the games at the time.

GT was 10/10

Riesen_Meal

Weird,

I've owned//still own everyone of them games except Skyward Sword as I had sold the Wii at that stage, been reading Edge for years also unsurprisingly.... :P

Retr0gamer

Azza wrote: »

I notice richy has a sonic avatar and retro has a mario avatar.....looks like we have some fanatics here.

I prefer prophet of truth.

RobertFoster

Azza wrote: »

I notice richy has a sonic avatar and retro has a mario avatar.....looks like we have some fanatics here.

Oh crap, it's like the 16-bit era all over again. It'll be Super Soakers and Pog battles at dawn if we're not careful


As for the list, I think it just shows how selective EDGE are about giving out tens. Gaming scores are skewed high at the best of times, i.e. 7/10 is average rather than 5/10. I think EDGE tries to be different.

Adyx

GTA IV was hugely overrated and the only time Halo should get a ten is out of a hundred. I remember when I bought it (PC) and there was so much hype about it. I don't think I ever got more than an hour out of it. I have to say I also prefer the 2D Mario games. Of the games there I've played, only the Orange Box would get a 10 simply for value. That said I don't really like scoring as an accurate measure of a games quality.

ShadowHearth

Halo 3 got 10/10? ..... Okay.... :rolleyes:

carpejugulum

They don't like RPGs and strategies?

cherryghost

Everything on the list seems bang on with the exception of Halo 3.

Riesen_Meal

cherryghost wrote: »

Everything on the list seems bang on with the exception of Halo 3.

I repectfully don't agree, Halo 3 shaped how all FPS games should be done on a console platform for the following 3 years after it was released imo...

It was the first Halo game for the 360 (as Halo fans were still playing Halo 2 BC on 360 for a good while waiting on 3) - the longevity of the multiplayer portion of the game kept it going for years, and a lot of people still play it religiously....

It is the penultimate Bungie Halo imo and the multiplayer will be fondly remembered by me and my whole friend list on XBL... the strategy, mini battles, matchmaking, forge etc all worked amazingly well for a console and set an XBL benchmark for others to follow...

Falthyron

Fieldog wrote: »

I repectfully don't agree, Halo 3 shaped how all FPS games should be done on a console platform for the following 3 years after it was released imo...

It was the first Halo game for the 360 (as Halo fans were still playing Halo 2 BC on 360 for a good while waiting on 3) - the longevity of the multiplayer portion of the game kept it going for years, and a lot of people still play it religiously....

It is the penultimate Bungie Halo imo and the multiplayer will be fondly remembered by me and my whole friend list on XBL... the strategy, mini battles, matchmaking, forge etc all worked amazingly well for a console and set an XBL benchmark for others to follow...

Halo is an incredibly overrated series. I reckon most PC gamers would agree. While I can appreciate what the original Halo brought to the Xbox (first real FPS with good controls, multiplayer, graphics and physics), it pales in comparison to FPS games that were coming out on the PC at the time and the years preceding it's release.

It brought nothing new to the genre. When you consider the original Unreal Tournament came out in 1999 and then compare that to Halo in 2001, there is very little change.

I'm not undermining the story or lore or what has since come from Halo, but in terms of input or influence to the FPS genre, Halo did very little, if any at all. Bungie's success should be recognised as being the first developer to accurately emulate FPS success with the PC platform on a console. Making it accessible, enjoyable and as simple as possible to play without a mouse and keyboard. But that's it.

ShadowHearth

Fieldog wrote: »

I repectfully don't agree, Halo 3 shaped how all FPS games should be done on a console platform for the following 3 years after it was released imo...

It was the first Halo game for the 360 (as Halo fans were still playing Halo 2 BC on 360 for a good while waiting on 3) - the longevity of the multiplayer portion of the game kept it going for years, and a lot of people still play it religiously....

It is the penultimate Bungie Halo imo and the multiplayer will be fondly remembered by me and my whole friend list on XBL... the strategy, mini battles, matchmaking, forge etc all worked amazingly well for a console and set an XBL benchmark for others to follow...

Its an **** thing, not advantage... So we can blame Halo for all corridor linier shooters with regen health.

RobertFoster

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Its an **** thing, not advantage... So we can blame Halo for all corridor linier shooters with regen health.

Do you miss health packs?

richymcdermott

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Not when defending Sonic Adventure over Mario 64 :pac: It's like favouring getting punched in the face to winning the lottery.

(and Richy has admirably stood his ground on this one many times before, even though he's absolutely wrong )

its like a kitten fighting a pack of wild dogs :pac:

johnny_ultimate

Because hundreds of instacure health packs lying around the place is such an elegant alternative. Both regenerating health and health packs are incredibly unrealistic gameplay mechanics, but both have been used wonderfully to create a compelling gameplay rhythm and flow, just as much as they've been used erroneously.

And in Halo's defense (three words I don't use everyday) the regen health is based on consistent internal logic, pretty much seamlessly tied into both the fiction and the mechanics: certainly an FPS where everything is built from the ground up. It's the less consistent ones themselves that should be blamed for taking a great idea to farcical lengths.

Azza

No RTS games on the list.

I notice they gave very few obscure games a 10, Bayonetta being about the most obscure one (but Platinum have a decent track record). I wonder how many of these games got 10's on the back of there marketing campaigns and how many games didn't get 10 because they didn't have one.

Retr0gamer

The only thing consistent about Edge's review scores is how inconsistent they are.

Dravokivich

If a game is to be measured 10, to me that means 2 things, its the most innovate/immersive game of its genre, alongside everything else released around the same period of it. Of the games ive played that are on that list, which admitdly isnt many, im not sure why halo3 and GTAIV are there. All they seemed to do for me was expand on visual pleasure, but then forgot about making a game...

Royal Irish

No Skyrim or RDR ?