Friday open thread: greatest game of all time

The article about the 20-year anniversary of The Sims and the discussion in the comments of yesterday’s Cannon Fodder got me thinking — what is the greatest video game of all time? I’m sure if I googled that question, there would be about 100 different lists, listicles, slideshows, and the like answering it.

But I don’t really care about some random stranger on the internet’s opinion (a sentiment that would vastly improve just about everything in modern life). I’m interested in what you think. What game do you think is the GOAT? It could be the game you played the most frequently, the one you thought was the most enjoyable, or some other criteria.

For me, I think it was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64. It was the first open-world game that I had ever played and the sheer amount of content was amazing — the main storyline took forever (in a good way) and the side quests were rewarding. The puzzles in the dungeons were fun, the combat was engaging, and the number of different items made the somewhat-linear progression feel non-linear because you could move through areas in different ways. Other games have come close to knocking it off it’s pedestal for me — The Witcher 3 and Skyrim jump immediately to mind — but I think I’m sticking with my old school, go-to answer.

How about you?