best video game of all time

Good point. GTA:3 should make the list.
The thing is, it's hard to judge these games because new techology is naturally going to make newer games look better, more in-depth, etc.
So I focus heavily on influence and how much it blew away the competition at the time.
Ocarina was, by far, the most engaging game I had ever played. It was a true epic in an era where people didn't do epics.
Goldeneye showed that first-person shooters could be successful on platforms and it had the most fun single-person storyline of any FPS I have played (even to today). Without it, you don't have games like Halo.
Tecmo Super Bowl helped create the football game revolution. No Tecmo, no Madden or College Football.
God of War is simply an amazing adventure game that combines the fun of hacking and slashing with great puzzles and may do the best job of maximizing the system's potential (graphics, sound, etc.) of any game I've ever played.
GTA:3 is another game that was so far ahead of everything else at the time, it isn't even funny.

 

I agree with these three:

Tecmo Super Bowl
Golden Eye
Zelda: Ocarina of Time

 

Combat never gets old, and that's coming from someone who barely knew Atari growing up (Nintendo was taking over by the time I started playing VGs).

My pick:

 

LJB: Venture and Zaxxon are a great, great call.

Old school: Pitfall, RBI Baseball.

Nowadays? Goldeneye 007 for N64 is still awesome, 10 years after it came out. Proximity mines...mmmm....

 

Corky, I loved Venture. Played it until my fingers hurt.

 

Also some votes for:

Zelda: A Link to the Past for Super NES

Sports: NHL '95 (first one with player movement through trades and free agents, player creation, and better graphics and game play than '94, which was the first one without fights)

 

I'll echo the votes for Super Tecmo and RBI.

 

I did love Super Breakout on the Atari. I still have that thing somewhere.

 

No love for "E.T." for the Atari 2600?

Seriously, without the original Super Mario Bros. the video game industry as we know it wouldn't exist today. It was such a deep, great game that you could probably pick it up today, 20 years later, and not be bored with it. And as good as that was, SMB 3 was even better -- longer, more depth, more things to use and do. So I'd go with SMB 3 as the best ever, overall.

"Ocarina of Time" was a great game, but the difficulty was off the charts. That takes it down a notch in my book. A great game is challenging, but you should be able to figure out the puzzles without running to the internet for help. That's why "Street Fighter 2" will always be a better fighting game than "Mortal Kombat".

 

Great calls. I was playing SMB on one of the NES simulators recently and it was like no time at all had passed.