Game is for fun: I would definitely like to see elements from fun and from a fictional POV rather than trying to over-realistic-fy things. GTA series and RDR2 have good matches.

Another genre that I liked was Project IGI, I think that was a very appealing series in South and South East Asia. Hitman was good, but didn't feel as refreshing as that was, maybe because it allowed a lot of non-stealth things to do?

Counter Strike has been my favourite FPS Teambased series as well, the game was focused on simply defeating either team in a limited no of ways. Nothing too much fancy of different power boosts, skills, etc. The old Assassins Creed genre followed this too, but slowly faded to a larger and larger RPG style.

NFS is the only series that, albeit with its different game content in every title, interested me more than Forza or GT. Maybe because they did as much "they needed to do"?

I haven't tried online RTS, but AOE2 gave me a good playing time, never did I get time to devote to other RTS to judge them.

- Give me freedom.
- Don't put artificial limits in place ("You can't explore these lands yet - the evil mists have not been banished", or make the 'one true hero' incapable of using the +1 Axe because he hasn't learned that feat yet).
- No invisible, respawning enemies! I want to see the ground soaked with the corpses of my fallen enemies for the rest of the game!
- All quick-time events must die.
- The boss who returns again, and again, and again. Seriously - this was old hat in the 80's with consoles / arcades rehashing bosses with palette swaps.
- Limited save points. NO! For the love of god, I'm an adult, with limited free time - if I want to pick up the game and play just 5 minutes between making lunch and getting the kids to do their homework, damn well let me! Slogging through 20 minutes of unskippable, brutal encounters or non-interactive sequences just to get to a point where I can save? Campfires? Save Crystals? No thanks, I just won't play it.

I can't stand the modern twitch shooters. They all just leave me cold. I was disappointed in the modern Doom games - they may be great, but I also think they lost some of the spirit of the original. A bit like when we finally saw Yoda fighting in the prequel Star Wars trilogy - bouncing around like a demented green yoyo. Just. No.

If I had to pick my favourites, of all time they would probably include Sim City 2000 + Sim City 4, Doom (original), Skyrim, Fallout 3 (whilst not the best of the modern Fallout games, I will forgive it for the sheer sense of scale when you finally leave the vault). XCom / UFO Defence would probably sneak in there too, despite being infuriating at times!

I lost interest in most of the rinse-and-repeat formula of Ubisoft titles (AC, Far Cry). Ghost of Tsushima whilst very much in that vein I give a *big* pass to in recognition of its pure cinematic spectacle that leaves most of the Ubisoft titles in the dust.

Seriously, Elder Scrolls VI has a lot to live up to.

gerry wrote on 2025-01-29, 13:25:

but to also enjoy the environment and importantly, to interact with it

Exploration. That would be the required component for perfect game.
The game should expose you to new designs and ideas, not necessarily being totally new and not used before in other games. Just present it from some new or unexpected angle, and let you interact with it without forcing you to do that or making that a game mechanics point.

Perfect game first of all must be simple game. Good example is Red Faction, with 4x AI Upscaled Textures it still playable and fun.

Probably a game that wasn't designed through committees and focus groups, consultation and harvesting of user feedback and forums, and that wasn't overridingly designed to make money. Something that the designer(s) created because that's what they wanted to do and what was inside them to create, and that turned into something they loved, lived and breathed and above all wanted to play themselves.

I quite like games that have consequence's for your actions like in might and magic and Baldur’s gate and elder scrolls having a reputation affect gameplay.
Games also used to be basement businesses with their particular humour and art styles.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-01-29, 13:35:

NFS is the only series that, albeit with its different game content in every title, interested me more than Forza or GT. Maybe because they did as much "they needed to do"?

I like them too, but i want to stop the car, get out, talk to some random people, enter buildings, read some emails and then maybe race a bit 😀

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-01-29, 14:20:

- Give me freedom.

that's it i think, model the world and then let me do things. i like elder scrolls / fallouts for that, and gta too - but they are never quite as open as i want

when we finally saw Yoda fighting in the prequel Star Wars trilogy - bouncing around like a demented green yoyo. Just. No.

some things are best left to the imagination, in this case, best left to not even be imagined 😀

vstrakh wrote on 2025-01-29, 14:29:

Exploration. That would be the required component for perfect game.
The game should expose you to new designs and ideas, not necessarily being totally new and not used before in other games. Just present it from some new or unexpected angle, and let you interact with it without forcing you to do that or making that a game mechanics point.

exactly my thought too, just let the world build and i will interact with it - but then its more a simulation than a game perhaps - but perhaps games were always simulations of sorts

MAZter wrote on 2025-01-29, 14:57:

Perfect game first of all must be simple game. Good example is Red Faction, with 4x AI Upscaled Textures it still playable and fun.

I liked that game too, i always wanted to do more though - interact with the others, go up to surface more, go through more buildings, get more background

ratfink wrote on 2025-01-29, 17:17:

Probably a game that wasn't designed through committees and focus groups, consultation and harvesting of user feedback and forums, and that wasn't overridingly designed to make money. Something that the designer(s) created because that's what they wanted to do and what was inside them to create, and that turned into something they loved, lived and breathed and above all wanted to play themselves.

like Daikatana? 😀 but yes, there is something about games with vision when they work well - where compromises for "mainstream audiences" are not a factor, some indie games probably close

Greywolf1 wrote on 2025-01-29, 17:19:

I quite like games that have consequence's for your actions like in might and magic and Baldur’s gate and elder scrolls having a reputation affect gameplay.

yes i like that - its part of the interaction. some games like oblivion, fallout and gta have some degree of this

gerry wrote on 2025-01-29, 17:29:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-01-29, 13:35:

NFS is the only series that, albeit with its different game content in every title, interested me more than Forza or GT. Maybe because they did as much "they needed to do"?

I like them too, but i want to stop the car, get out, talk to some random people, enter buildings, read some emails and then maybe race a bit 😀

Maybe the idea is no game could be funded to such an extent, and also there would be imperfections when handling one component of it. You may not enjoy GTA driving in NFS, or NFS driving in GTA

Not sure that I am the best person to answer as I don't really game anymore but,

Quake 2 was the shining star of the original games
UT99 was basically perfect. Every release since has been a tiny bit worse tbh. (and Quake 3 was Pepsi versus UT's Coke, just no....thank you)
Doom and Doom 2 were super fun. (I can't conceive why in the world ANYONE would choose to play Doom 3. It may have looked great but it was straight garbage. )
Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior were great
Max Payne and Max Payne 2 were both excellent.
Half Life and HLF 2 were both very good, but could get a bit boring in some sections. Enough that replay value is somewhat diminished.
Fable and The Lost Chapter expansion was simply fantastic. Fable 2 was good as well, even 3 had it's moments.
NFS 3 was nearly perfect
OMF 2097 was fun
Mortal Kombat games up to MK3 and it's derivatives.

Honorable mention goes to A Link to the Past as it is probably the very bestest game ever.

If one could take Urban Assault and overhaul the unit AI to be on par with a very good human opponent (give them the ability to lead weapon shots and evade incoming fire) and get rid of the blatant cheats (always knowing where your Host Station is and being able to build structures free of charge) that'd be a dream come true game for me.

gerry wrote on 2025-01-29, 13:25:

[short version - what characteristics would make a game perfect for you? any actual games come close?]

The specifics would very likely depend on the genre, but, in general terms (warning, very long post incoming):

A. The game should be fun and interesting to play to me, meaning that there has to be something that would compel me to continue playing. I often think that this quality cannot be narrowed down to a specific list of features, but also depends on my personal tastes and my previous gaming history. Yet if I don't want to spend my time on a game, it will remain an occasional curiosity to me, however pleasant it might be in any other respect.

I also think it is quite noticeable when a game has sprung from a genuine creative effort of its author(s), and is a labour of love, or at least a work of clever invention; as opposed to all other motivations behind creating games, which, sadly, quite often boils down to going for a quick buck and attention-craving.

B. The game should be challenging but fair. I don't mind relaxing gameplay from time to time, but games that require no real effort will quickly become boring.

However, the challenge should be overcome by building your skill and learning the game's workings, not by luck/RNG or by simply going through all available options to find the right solution. For example, I'm not a fan of adventure games where there are "hard" counter-intuitive puzzles that you can only solve if you get an extremely lucky insight, or if you just cycle through all items in your inventory and/or dialogue options with NPCs.

C. I much prefer games with great replay value. If I enjoy a game, it'd better last for as long as possible. This may be achieved by introducing non-linear progression, various game modes, secrets, secret levels, optional ordinary levels and so on. From the more recent titles, I like it when games have clever achievements, that is when you have to accomplish some real in-game feat to get them (unfortunately there are plentiful games that give players completely dumb "achievements", such as for finishing a regular level).

D. Following the above, it's very good when a game is moddable and allows for plenty community content. I love user-created stuff, and the general notion of player creativity is very dear to me. Again, quality user content adds to replay value.

E. It is very desirable for the game to be open source and cross-platform. That will ensure better survival of the game overall, and is a nice thing to have. This also contributes to a much greater degree of moddability. The game does not have to be free as in free beer, I'm quite fine with developers making a buck off their work 😀 All the more I appreciate it if the game is free and open source.

F. A pleasant art style is always welcome. I don't expect every game to be a visual masterpiece, nor do I give much worth to cutting-edge 3D graphics that will make your latest GPU melt; but good art always makes itself visible, and that's a good bonus point.

G. A game is something meant to be played, and I have to confess that I value game mechanics and playability over everything else. However, I will much appreciate a game that will evoke some positive emotional response in me. I completely detest any form of glorification of violence or cruelty, and there are themes and settings that I do dislike, so I will not enjoy certain games that might otherwise hit the mark but go in directions that make them overall unpleasant to me.

I think that's about it concerning the theory, now to some examples:

Tyrian/Tyrian 2000 -- interestingly, this one seems to tick all or almost all of the boxes for me. I missed this game in the 90s when it came out, and discovered it in the early 2010s. Had a blast playing, completed the shareware episode several times in different releases (1.0, 2.0 and 2000), played some other episodes too. The trick is, I'm not a fan of shmups generally, so this one kind of bucked the trend for me. Anyway, the game is notable for excellent art, excellent music, great replay value, lots of game modes and secrets, and so on. The shareware episode alone could count as a complete, full-featured game. Amazing.

Duke Nukem 3D -- out of the famous 90s FPS titles, I'll pick this over Doom, simply because I like it way more. It's an excellent and fairly balanced game with loads and loads of user content, mods and derived games. And in a way, Ion Fury is the perfect successor to Duke3D for scaling everything up while remaining true to the core gameplay and level design philosophy.

Prince of Persia (1989) -- this game excels in level design and world-building. The replay value comes not from optional game modes or extra levels, but from the challenge of conquering the tightly packed 12-level adventure through the trap-filled castle/palace. When I was a kid I did not know of the save game feature, and I'd just play again and again until the clock would run out, making it slightly further each time. I think it's a perfectly valid strategy for playing and learning. At the same time, the labyrinthine dungeons and palace levels in PoP definitely evoke a feeling of a living world in me -- granted, this is one of my first games that I played as a kid, and I might be looking at it through rose glasses. But every level introduces new elements, hazards and enemies, and is completely unlike all the rest. Overall, I do believe it is a game design masterpiece that has not been eclipsed to this day.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty -- I only played the singleplayer campaign, which felt perfectly written to me in a number of ways. First off, every mission is so designed that you should complete it in 25 to 40 minutes or so. During the pandemic I'd wrap up my work day an have a try at the next chapter of the campaign, then go to bed. Each mission gives you several achievements of the "clever" kind to be unlocked, encouraging players to master the game and replay the levels. And like the levels in Prince of Persia, every mission is unique and requires the player to do different things with different units. At the same time, all of this tells a story that is, granted, not the pinnacle of sci-fi writing, but it features pleasant characters, fun dialogue and decent world-building. The characters were not particularly deep, but relatable enough to roll along with the story. I don't know how well this would've worked, had I not been a longtime fan of the first game, but it does not matter. At any rate, I did not care for retcons and inconsistencies with StarCraft and Brood War. I had fun playing and replaying the levels, generally had a great time. I wish this game was not only free(-to-play) but also open source, but it doesn't look like this is gonna happen soon.

The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall -- this game is very much imperfect in many ways, but I like it. It has some great replay value thanks to multiple options for character classes, random quests and a huge game world. I've never been a very dedicated roleplayer, but this game just has this good balance of action and RP, making it appealing to me to come back to it over and over again. Sadly, the source code is lost and Daggerfall Unity is not a 1:1 recreation, but it offers very broad modding possibilities that enhance the experience even further. It also does well to evoke positive emotions in me. I picked this over other titles in the TES series that I've played (namely Arena and Morrowind) because Daggerfall is the perfect example of the mid-90s first-person game, and I like the art style with all the imperfections, partly due to nostalgia.

I'd like to have a space combat game set in the Halo universe during the Covenant War. Something similar to that sequence that we got in Halo: Reach, but with its own single-player narrative. Make a team versus team multiplayer mode too, and it will likely be a great time!

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-01-29, 18:18:

I like them too, but i want to stop the car, get out, talk to some random people, enter buildings, read some emails and then maybe race a bit 😀

Maybe the idea is no game could be funded to such an extent, and also there would be imperfections when handling one component of it. You may not enjoy GTA driving in NFS, or NFS driving in GTA

yes, true - but gta comes close as an example of being 'open world racing' within an open world action/rpg type setting. the Crew was an interesting attempt at making a persistent online world for racing too

MrFlibble wrote on 2025-01-30, 15:06:

The specifics would very likely depend on the genre, but, in general terms (warning, very long post incoming):

i appreciated it, very good points rounding out what makes a game compelling to play and play again

Duke Nukem 3D -- out of the famous 90s FPS titles, I'll pick this over Doom, simply because I like it way more. It's an excellent and fairly balanced game with loads and loads of user content, mods and derived games. And in a way, Ion Fury is the perfect successor to Duke3D for scaling everything up while remaining true to the core gameplay and level design philosophy.

i think it may have been the first game i played where i felt like i was in a "world" not a map or level - even though Duke3d levels are clearly levels! it was the nod to realism with interactive things and a tone to the world, especially in the first few levels. I always wanted to jump through more windows and see more rooms in buildings, it was good to just explore -even within the limitations of the time

gerry wrote on 2025-01-30, 16:51:

i appreciated it, very good points rounding out what makes a game compelling to play and play again […]
Show full quote

MrFlibble wrote on 2025-01-30, 15:06:

The specifics would very likely depend on the genre, but, in general terms (warning, very long post incoming):

i appreciated it, very good points rounding out what makes a game compelling to play and play again

Duke Nukem 3D -- out of the famous 90s FPS titles, I'll pick this over Doom, simply because I like it way more. It's an excellent and fairly balanced game with loads and loads of user content, mods and derived games. And in a way, Ion Fury is the perfect successor to Duke3D for scaling everything up while remaining true to the core gameplay and level design philosophy.

i think it may have been the first game i played where i felt like i was in a "world" not a map or level - even though Duke3d levels are clearly levels! it was the nod to realism with interactive things and a tone to the world, especially in the first few levels. I always wanted to jump through more windows and see more rooms in buildings, it was good to just explore -even within the limitations of the time

Try out Selaco. It has a very detailed world, and honestly the combat is much more refined than Duke 3D ever was.

Overall then i think my perfect games is a mix of

No Man's Sky - but with realistic solar systems (If i want to walk the millions of square miles of Callisto's surface i will!)
GTA (with a hint of The Crew) - a modern world where i can drive around, walk, bike, fly anywhere in the world, millions of NPCs
time travel earths - ancient egypt, 60 million years ago, cyberpunk futures, the lot
Oblivion earths - travel to fantasy worlds fully featured earth size with millions of NPCs and millions of things to do!
alternative earths - alternative history, zombie survival etc etc
etc

basically i can go anywhere and do anything!

a ridiculous wish list of course - but i wonder if it becomes possible with procedural and 'ai' generation in which content doesn't have to be all pre-designed. Also wonder if, were it done, whether the worlds would become samey, generic and insensible (buggy) due to generative incompatibility with gameplay mechanics or somesuch

MadMac_5 wrote on 2025-01-30, 16:54:

Try out Selaco. It has a very detailed world, and honestly the combat is much more refined than Duke 3D ever was.

I checked a gameplay - it looks good, especially the apparent level of detail in the environment plus the art style

gerry wrote on 2025-01-30, 16:51:

I always wanted to jump through more windows and see more rooms in buildings, it was good to just explore -even within the limitations of the time

Haha, I wanted to mention exactly this, but my post was already too long. Yes, a good while ago, while exploring the urban levels I had this idea that it would be vey cool to have a real city on Duke3D, with every building fully detailed and explorable from top to bottom. Now I think that this, while being a cool gimmick, would hardly serve any purpose in the actual level design. That said, there are some very detailed user-made urban maps like the Roch series (I know not all folks are fan of those though) that kind of scratch this itch, and Ion Fury did a great job at that as well (actually, I especially liked the preview demo level where the offices from Zone 3 were put into the building that houses the shopping mall in the full game).

Also, The Terminator: Future Shock (which actually came out before Duke3D, at least in demo form) allows to enter a lot of buildings, and is generally more sandbox-y in level design than the Build games. Less tightly packed, yes, but still very cool. And did you know that Duke3D implemented mouselook after players who have tried the Future Shock demo and liked this feature requested it? I discovered this by accident when browsing newsgroup messages from 1996.

Back to the "perfect game" ideals, I like various strategy games, both real-time and turn-based, but what I felt lacking in many of those is the feeling that I'm actually controlling settlements (or nations, civilizations) of living people with actual needs. Sure, there are games where you'll have to manage food for your population, various tools and firewood for winter, and so on, but it all ultimately comes down to being a sort of playing mechanic to master, rather than an aspect of life for the virtual characters on the screen.

The closest I ever felt to this idea was, somehow, in Seven Kingdoms, where each unit has a name and a level of loyalty to the player. Still, this game is very focussed on economy (your underlings will never prosper without access to clayware and tin cups), and is pretty hard, so that feeling that a villager is very uncomfortable when ordered to leave his home and march into the unknown in a winter storm, with loyalty steadily trickling down as he goes, is very quickly overshadowed by events of much greater scale happening in the game, like an AI player brutally subjugating every neutral village it can reach, then mustering a huge army and taking out the player's fledgling empire.

Another game that kind of hinted at the population being anything other than just a mechanic for me is Conquest of Elysium II, which generally has some good depth, and also features a meaningful seasonal cycle. In winter, your population's mood declines and the income from villages gets lower. I also think armies take more turns to move in the snow, but I'm not sure. Haven't played this a lot so far, but the game is really cool, in spite of its simplistic presentation.

A while ago I quite enjoyed Eador, which has some very interesting concepts and is generally a solid game, with a small but dedicated following -- but it's very far from being perfect. Its balance in early-game is such that you constantly have to fight one turn-based battle after another, and fight very carefully so that you don't lose your hero and minimize casualties among troops. The game actively punishes failure and any attempts to save scum, which often resulted in tedious and unnerving playing sessions for me. There are provinces with different kinds of population, and they have their "mood"/attitude towards the player, and also there are special events that will trigger randomly, such as famine or an uprising (your reaction to those affects your global karma in the game), but these seem to come from a very limited pool, and soon become repetitive, as there are usually predictable outcomes, although some events will provide alternate results from the same choices made by the player. Still, all this did not really evoke the feeling of a living world in me, even though I really wanted it to be so. I don't know why. Eador was a very ambitious project for its author (being an indie game developed by one person), and a lot of features had to be cut down one way or another, which might explain why some ideas are not implemented to their full potential.

I mostly enjoy adventure games and open world games. I like games that are somewhat mysterious, where the story is not told too open and with a lot of forced dialog. Instead give the player a chance to investigate and read books etc to find out what is going on in their own pace.

Also I'm tired of fast traveling, it kills immersion and should be at a cost for the player or at least with some limitation.

Other modern things that is more or less expected of games is a compass pointing to the objective, it is also very immersion-killing, as you don't even have to look at your surrounding.

In rpgs etc you should not be forced to level up your party members, I find it absolutely exhausting.

An other thing that is infuriating are automatically picked up quests. I do not like my quest log to be filled up, perhaps I don't want to save the farmers daughter at the moment and probably don't want to do it later either and it just stays there in your quest log, staring at you, trying to make you feel guilty.

So the "perfect" game for me would be a kind of "world" simulator

what about minecraft ? Have you tried a survival game from scratch and then moved from survival to exploration and to a more ambitious creation of a world of your own ?