Psychonauts 1 and 2.
Some of the most imaginative big budget games in existence, from themes to art style to level design
What games are just objective master pieces?
Submitted 2 months ago by weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
afaix@lemmy.world 2 months ago
C45513@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Hades Hollow Knight Noita Super Metroid Prey (2017) DOOM (2016) Factorio Stardew Valley
richardwagner@lemm.ee 2 months ago
- dark souls
- elden ring
- bloodborne
- sekiro
- outer wilds
- doom 2016
- binding of isaac
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Someone likes a challenge. :)
KiNo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Witcher 3 for me.
TheOneAndOnly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I had to scroll so far to find anyone mentioning W3… Absolutely insane to me that this isn’t much higher and more mentioned.
GaMEChld@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Super Metroid
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Doom (93) I guess ?
Also HL and HL2
mostNONheinous@lemmy.world 2 months ago
MAD MAX from 2015, while not tied directly to the new movies it scratches an itch I haven’t found in any other game. It’s dark and bleak and brutal. The combat on foot and behind the wheel are both incredible. Nothing quite like being in the middle of ripping a convoy 7 new assholes and being hit with a dust storm. It can be repetitive if you want to complete everything but BY THE GODS OF VALHALLA is it a fucking blast.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
It actually is directly tied to the movies. The character who first gives Furiousa a chassis to build from isn’t quite as hunchbacked as in the game but he is credited as “Chumbucket!”
mostNONheinous@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No shit that’s awesome!
GraniteM@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Red Alert 2
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Super Mario Brothers 3
Radin@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Hades. Transcends the rogue-like genre through incredible writing, art direction, and music. The gameplay is some of the most addictive I’ve ever played. I’m at over 200 hours logged and I still get lost in it.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’m taking this to mean games that stand out in or define their genre, are widely considered to be excellent, are timeless, and there’s very little if any fat to trim.
- Super Mario Brothers - NES
- Super Mario 64
- Dark Souls - maybe Elden Ring takes over?
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Half Life 2 - honorable mention: Left 4 Dead 2
- Diablo 2
- Doom
- Tetris
- Chrono Trigger
- Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Portal 2
- Little Nightmares - honorable mention: INSIDE
- GTA SA
- Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
These aren’t necessarily my favorite games, but games I think are well respected. I probably missed a bunch.
alexaralvarado@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Supergiant games’ holy trinity: Bastion, Transistor and Pyre.
Also, the only Borderland games 1 and 2; don’t believe the lies there are no more true Borderlands games and no there most certainly is no movie.
There’s also one other, but you’ll need a crowbar or a gravity gun in hand for me to tell you about it.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 months ago
Feels odd to include Hades over Pyre.
inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bastion and Transistor, sure. Without a doubt, imoactful clever stories that were well delivered.
Pyre always felt like a buggy mess tho. I tried multiple times to get into it but it’s just not on the level of the first two.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 2 months ago
You are wrong about borderlands as there is one more and it is pretty muc h perfect.
Tales from the Borderlands.
Shame they never made a sequel for it but the artistry, music and story are all so well crafted. Someone loved Borderlands making that.
Sophocles@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Heres a list of some favorites:
Imperfect perfection: Morrowind
Perfect perfection: Starcraft Brood War
Objective perfection: Plants vs Zombies
Subjective perfection: Knights of the Old Republic
Perfect for its time: Gauntlet IV
Perfect timeless: Sonic 2
Perfect for its genre: LOZ Minish Cap
Perfect All-in-one: Shenmue II
pdqcp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Minish Cap seems such an underrated gem
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Glad to see some love for Shenmue
kint@infosec.pub 2 months ago
The Witness
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Dragon Age: Origins and Bioshock
emilygage@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Yes to both of these.
maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 2 months ago
I think masterpieces is one word.
msage@programming.dev 2 months ago
Games I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
- Fez - cute little 2D/3D platformer. It’s amazing and very wholesome
- Stalker: Shadow of Chenrobyl - dunno what exactly is it, perhaps the settings and the grit, but it has a special place in my heart. It’s about average FPS, but not too long and for me enjoyable
- F.E.A.R. - very good FPS, with amazingly scripted enemies, decent horror elements (not compulsory - you might miss some of them if you’re not looking).
- Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - for me the best 3rd person action adventure ever. Best combat hands down (or head, or torso, you choose), streamlined blade dance at your fingertips. You play with your enemies, and you get many tools. There are some locked camera issues.
- Touhou: Lost branch of time - If you liked Slay the Spire, but wished for colorful mana, this is the game for you. It has anime artstyle, I usually focus on the cards, though it might turn some people off
- Dota 2 - Dunno if it was mentioned and I didn’t see, but the mechanics are absolutely amazing, the things the game lets you get away with are incredible. 10/10, but other people might bring your experience down. Specially friends. Can play against custom (workshop) bots. Still takes too long to git gud. I studied the game for 10 years and still sucked.
- Divinity 2: Original Sin - also haven’t seen a mention, everybody talks about BG3, I haven’t yet played it, but D2:OS was also a masterpiece. Haven’t played a lot of TRPGs, this was a blast, with easily set up multiplayer. Played through it twice completely, with many abandoned runs.
- CS 1.6 - remember that? I lost my childhood to that. They don’t make counter strikes this good anymore.
- Synthetik - top-down rougelike shooter, with amazing weapons and physics and classes and enemies and mechanics and 2 person multiplayer
- Dwarf Fortress - the real objectively best game :D strategy simulation of the 3D box world, predecesor to both Minecraft and Terraria, but with A LOT more sand in your box. They are still extending it. And it’s on Steam if you want a UI.
- Terraria (Calamity mod) - Terraria is obviously a great game, but what makes it 20/10 is the mods. Calamity specifically. Tripple the content, 5x the difficulty (20x if you try Infernum), amazing multiplayer experience. Don’t install Infernum if you haven’t beaten at least Revengeance on Calamity. Trust me, it will fuck you up.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 months ago
I love STALKER with all my heart, and if we’re talking atmosphere and vibes and even world building it is up there. But it does not really belong in the objective masterpiece category. Flawed masterpiece, maybe.
Also I think Call of Pripyat is the better STALKER game, but it might be controversial.
msage@programming.dev 2 months ago
Yeah, but it still popped into my mind sooner than other games, dunno why,
mutat0@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I love that you included 1.6. I spent my all teenage years staying up all night playing this. I was thinking single player epics but this is absolutely a masterpiece.
msage@programming.dev 1 month ago
Yeah, me too… man, I would play 16+ hours on some weekends… I was kinda good, too. Too young, but godly reflexes. I still think about those days sometimes…
Redacted@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Good taste
owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Undertale
Krauerking@lemy.lol 2 months ago
So I think it’s actually really important that the games that would be co sidered objective masterpieces would have to overcome any language barriers and be an experience approachable by anyone. You can learn the mechanics to enjoy the gameplay without words
So:- Portal
- Journey
- Binding of Isaac
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Metro 2033 (which I have sat on and I believe even if it was entirely in Russian you would still get it )
- DOOM (original you don’t need words you shoot)
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Katamari Damacy
Then there are dialogue option stories that are fantastic stories that I could sider greats but shareable masterpieces is hard to say as they rely on you speaking the language both literally and then gameplay wise:
- Stanley Parable
- Outer Wilds
- Tales From the Borderlands
- To the Moon
- Talos Principle
- Golf Club Wasteland
- Dead Space
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 2 months ago
RDR2. Witcher 3. Fallout New Vegas.
Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Curious to hear what the criteria for “masterpiece” is, otherwise I think it is just peoples’ subjective opinion of what makes a great game that they also think others might agree about being a great game. Genuinely curious, interested in discussion, not saying this to shut down any of the answers here.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Historically a masterpiece has been a (or the) work that demonstrates an artist is capable of utilizing their medium to its fullest extent, i.e. it has been mastered. Per ye olde Wiki:
Historically, a “masterpiece” was a work of a very high standard produced by an apprentice to obtain full membership, as a “master”, of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts.
In that light, I’d say the best qualified would be games that completely utilized the capabilities of the platform they were designed for or, perhaps of interest to more people, expanded what everyone thought could be done with those systems. Games which were furthermore well polished and complete, and did not have much room for improvement taking into account the constraints they had to work with at the time. (For instance: No duh we could make Mario 64 run at a higher framerate and have better textures to look nicer on hardware now. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t arguably a masterpiece of its time, on the system it was on.) This doesn’t just have to be technical stuff – It could be the way the game used storytelling, its gameplay mechanics, or anything else.
ladicius@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Then Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom belong to that category - run smoothly as fuck on one of the lamest consoles there is, and are beautiful and complex.
ICastFist@programming.dev 2 months ago
Spyro and Crash trilogies on the PSX, as well as the Quake 2 port, would definitely merit being called technical masterpieces
On the original Xbox, Phantom Dust would fit that bill, despite being a commercial failure at the time. The tldr is that you create a collection of spells (attacks, traps, dodges, curses, buffs) and try to grab them and the “mana” during the real time duels, in order to beat your opponents. Terrain is semi destructible and you have to take into consideration the trajectory of your spells - www.xbox.com/games/store/…/9PCDNBHR11MR
KOhBaby@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In my mind a masterpiece video game can’t be copied. Or at least if someone tried it would just be called a cheap clone of the original.
Then again everything can be copied but the more difficult it is to copy the closer it is to a masterpiece IMO.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
- Portal 1/2 of course.
- Grim Fandango. (Flawed yes, but absolutely a masterpiece)
- Psychonauts.
- Fallout New Vegas.
- System Shock (the original).
- The Longest Journey.
- Mass Effect. Maybe.
fpslem@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Portal 1 & 2 were the first to my mind as well. I really like this list, actually.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Glad to hear it.
I’m tempted to add Red Dead Redemption 2 to the list, but it’s too new for me to decide yet.
I think it belongs. It was the greatest storytelling game I’ve played in a decade or more.
Shardikprime@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Spec Ops: The line
Basically the “committing war crimes isn’t funny after all” game
This is your fault, god-damnit 🫵
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Okay, now do it all on a bell curve.
What’s the most absolute medium game, to which all other games are compared to, and if worse, fail, or are better and pass?
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 months ago
Oooooh I like that question. I feel like it would have to be some kind of Call of Duty, right? Some absolutely mediocre slop that still has enough mechanical satisfaction and mind-numbing explosion-and-cliché-filled story to keep you somewhat entertained, yet still remaining completely forgettable.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
The McDonald’s of videogames.
weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Hell I’d make that a separate post!
Shardikprime@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Pong.
It’s that or tetris
PigStyle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Factorio.
SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Inside.
ndupont@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Came here to say Limbo
Jyrdano@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There hasnt been yet a game that could replicate the experience I ld had when I played Planescape: Torment
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Was it the game, or was it the life you had while playing the game?
Agrivar@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The game itself, for me. I played it through a few times when it first came out, and then very recently I got it on Steam and played again for the first time since. Still as poignant.
Kattiydid@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Zelda Breath of the wild for me. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom but breath of the wild scratched a perfect itch for me. Especially master mode. Well over 1000 hours played.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I also maintain that Breath of the Wild was superior to Tears of the Kingdom. Apparently this opinion makes Zelda fans incredibly salty.
Kattiydid@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
It’s the vibe. TotK just… Feels more industrial, and less clean and hopeful. BotW was just so pretty and you HAD to walk to places or glide the first time. The machines in TotK made it so easy to skip the nature that it felt less rewarding to play. Like, if you could just snap your fingers and have the perfect house immediately with no work, no effort, the house wouldn’t feel as rewarding as one you built with your own skill.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I don’t see Goldeneye on your list.
toomanypancakes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Super Metroid is still the first that comes to mind. Amazing experience from start to finish.
emb@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Super Metroid