At the recent Joystick Awards, Dark Souls was awarded as'best video game ever', a category so ridiculous that it does not even deserve particular disquisitions, however it is fair to explain why this award does not make any sense.
If we were at the bar, certain speeches could also exist, but the award ceremony took place a few weeks before Game Awards which will decree the best video game of 2021. An important review, therefore, in which, however, a prize has been awarded to which we cannot give a valid reason for its existence.
The problem is not Dark Souls, which can win all the prizes of the globe as far as we are concerned, it is not even a question of subjectivity, the problem lies precisely in the 'best video game ever' because conceptually it is wrong even just to think that there may be a video game with the right to boast that title. The best video game ever cannot exist for various reasons, all inherent in the history of the medium.
There are too many factors at stake - temporal, technical, gender, evolutionary, economic, etc. - that cannot line up to lead us to a single video game; the parameters with which the goodness or otherwise of a video game is decided are not sufficiently exhaustive because they are linked to a too general vision of the medium and in continuous mutation. Furthermore, a video game cannot represent the best in all existing parameters because these must take into account the gender of belonging and exit period of the product, during which some of these parameters were either not considered or were considered differently.
A striking example is given by the "very banal" graphics because even the visual aspect counts in a video game, despite the slogan "the graphics are not important"Is always of strong impact. The video game, however, must also be judged for that, the point is that the same graphics are no longer a universally equal parameter for everyone, since today this can be replaced or, better, surrogated byaesthetics and, more generally, from the style,art design.
The best video game ever, in theory, should ALSO have the best graphics / aesthetics / terminology you prefer, but that would mean excluding less modern video games a priori. And if you exclude a whole historical period, isn't it going to undermine the credibility of the very concept of the best video game ever? It seems very clear to us that this is the case.
In a medium in which the clear classification and on well-defined tracks is slowly disappearing, leaving room for hybrids and new terminologies, it seems even more laughable to assume the right to decide the best video game in history, because if Doom is better than Halo, or vice versa, it is not clear how it can also be The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, having to meet completely different requirements and targets. The medium has evolved exponentially despite its relative youth compared to the other arts, causing a distinct discrepancy in the same genre: for example, if Monkey Island yesterday could be compared with Broken sword, today should contend with Detroit: Become Human because, in theory, they are both graphic adventures. In theory, but in practice can we really say that it is the same genre? Who decides that one is better than the other?
Then there are video games that are considered the best ever, with no ifs and buts, for example Metal Gear Solid e Half-Life. Two icons, two titles that have made history, which have influenced the entire industry with their ideas. All true, but even in this case we cannot say that they are the best video games ever (by the way, which of the two dominates the other? And why?) Given that the video game is not just an idea, it is also application, it is not a passive art, it is the only active art, from the viewer's point of view. Therefore, can we today affirm with absolute certainty that, from the practical aspect, therefore of gameplay, pad in hand, there is nothing better done? Are the controls, the management of the camera, the fluidity of the movements, the animations still all factors prerogative of MGS / Half-Life? We have our doubts because if that were the case, it would mean that the medium has stopped, hasn't moved forward, and that's absolutely not true.
In any case, a video game must always be evaluated for the time in which it comes out, consequently its value cannot be universally transposed into subsequent eras. The opposite is even more true, because a modern video game cannot be considered superior for innovations impossible to obtain in an earlier era.
The concept of the best ever is not acceptable even in the other arts, so why should it be so for the video game? The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica is the best film ever? You are free to think, however, someone has to explain to us what a neorealist film has in common with Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks, to name another that certainly doesn't suck. La Gioconda is it the most beautiful painting ever? Okay, then we have to infer that post-Renaissance artists wasted their time on something that had already reached its peak, right? It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make the slightest sense.
The illogic in wanting to find the best video game ever is also demonstrated by the same behavior of the players, and proof of this came a few days ago. When the possible winners of the GOTY were announced, a crawl space arose for the absence of Forza Horizon 5. Many said they were convinced, outraged, that the Microsoft exclusive did not have the same opportunities as the others because it belongs to a little-considered, extremely undervalued genre. Well, who decides that the best video game ever cannot be a sportsman or a simulation? Gran Turismo, Flight Simulator, a soccer game! Blasphemy!
We reiterate it, it is a problem of concept, the parameters that make a sports game cry for a miracle are non-existent or negligible in a title of any other genre, therefore, on these bases it is not possible to build a constructive discourse that begins with: "the best video game ever is ”. Such a work should respond to all the needs of each individual player, from the most hardcore to the most casual, covering every variable.
Thinking that a single title can rise to a universal masterpiece that transcends the ages when it comes to an artistic expression / entertainment as complex as the video game, is objectively reductive. Even today, within the same community, the complexity of the video game is not understood.
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