Lists will ALWAYS create this reaction. Are you 100% happy with teh Codex Official Top 5 RPG's of last decade? Diablo II, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Gothic II + Night of the Raven, Baldur's Gate II, and Arcanum? And we also are one of the most prominent sites in the genre.
Yes, actually. I don't personally like all of the choices, but I'm sufficiently aware of why people would like them. And yes, the adventuregamer's list has a lot of these games are genuinely good; either from my own experience or from what I've heard. But it also includes ones that I know are not as good as some they've put lower down (or not on the list at all), that other people also mention as being good games while including some titles that don't get talked about in the same way.
Take Pepper's Adventure in Time. It's "ranked" higher than the entire Leisure Suit Larry and Colonel's Bequest series, and part of the Quest for Glory and King's Quest ones. There has to be a good reason why this is so, since not too many people get nostalgic over Pepper (and from my own perspective, for good reason), while the others are pretty well-liked series, and many of them have entries that are (from a game designer point of view) crafted better and/or (from a player point of view) much more enjoyable to play. But there's no rationale given, no real argument as to why it's better. How can I possibly react to this list without disdain if all they say is "X is good. Y is good. X is ranked higher than Y. But no, we're not going to tell you why that is so."
They don't even justify why they include the Portals as an adventure game (rather than as a shooter game). I can see a possible argument, but
I'm not the one who needs to make it to me. They are.
There is no hivemind in that website or here, is just a list made by the site staff, and they wrote a little text explaining why every single game was chosen. And thank god is not a shitty gamespot-like "this is the best game ever because of this and this" bulletpoint fest, just honest reviews about why they found it so good and why you should play.
Just because a list creator can manage a few more words than Gamespot does not make it better. I find it weird that you argue for a ranked format by saying "at least they didn't turn it into a bulletpoint fest"; in fact, a bulletpointed list of these games, with the explanations that they gave, would have been far less objectionable and achieve the same purpose.
RPS didn't rank any but their top game; everything else came out on different days, but they weren't. It's a much better way to handle these subjective "good game lists" than the usual "Top X"; especially if you're not going to bother to use any metrics to make the games more impartial. Another better example is the CRPG Addict. Yes, his rankings are subjective, but he's actually gone through and detailed the whats and the whys in a measurable way.
The order is not as important as the games on it, just face it as a "must-play" list. You can go from top to bottom, or just browse the overviews after something you might enjoy. They gave us a list, we choose how to use it. I'm gonna search for interesting stuff that I've might have missed, and also posted it here so that bros may discuss it and maybe even recommend a game that's not on the list.
I'm not the one who decided to rank them. They did. The onus is on them to justify their list. Saying a lot of nice things about a game is all well and good; but they don't bother to say why X is better than Y. In fact, they seem to relish in the fact that they applied no real rule into ranking these games at all.
If
they go to the effort of making a list with rankings without justification and include nothing for people to understand why they chose to do so other than "it's good", then they fail at justifying their rankings. If it's on a "best list", then of course it's got good features; but don't claim it's better than something else without saying why. If you don't want people to respond to their rankings and argue them, don't make a ranked list.
I'm not the only one who's going to be looking at the ranked list as what it is: a ranked list. If you want to color in the numbers with black circles, then you're certainly free to do so, but if someone makes a list with bad choices, and not justify them in any way, that's a bad choice. I'm not here to make the argument as to why someone else might like something better. That's their job.
), but Grim Fandango is easily one of the best, even if the controls are a bit cluncky.
