New List: GamesRadar's 100 best games of all time

Popular website GamesRadar has recently released a surprisingly controversial feature detailing its picks for the top 100 video games ever. Notes on what made the list, and what did not, after the jump.

The most striking thing about this list, aside from the high profile exclusions, is its love of JRPGs, which most lists tend relegate to a few token selections. Bucking this trend, GamesRadar lists nine (!) games that are frequently categorized as JRPGs. Of these, Chrono Trigger is ranked the highest, coming in at #3. This, coupled with the paltry number of sports games (no 'mainstream' sports titles, aside from Hot Shots Golf, are featured), makes this one of the nerdiest lists created by a professional source that I have ever seen.

Curiously, despite the aforementioned nerdiness of the list, it excludes perhaps the two games most often associated with the negative fanboy video gamer cliche: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII. In other words, if you were 14 in the late '90s, you will hate this list.

Here are the ten highest ranked games* not included in the GamesRadar list:

1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
2. Doom
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Little Big Planet (series)
5. Fallout 3
6. Goldeneye 007
7. Halo
8. Super Mario World
9. Grand Theft Auto 3
10. Guitar Hero (series)

The rationale for excluding Ocarina of Time, clearly the most controversial given the overly-zealous nature of Zelda fans, is that The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are more playable by contemporary standards. It irks me when games get highly ranked based solely on nostalgia, so it is refreshing to see a more modern and critical take on the classics. Doom is left off for a similar reason, with Doom II: Hell on Earth chosen in its stead.

On a more positive note, here are some low-scoring games* that the list does include:

• Pokemon Black / White [#26]
• Fallout 2 [#58]
• Sonic CD [#67]
• Contra 3: The Alien Wars [#82]
• Magicland Dizzy [#86]
• Everybody’s Golf 2 / Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 [#88]
• PlanetSide [#89]
• Cobra Triangle [#92]
• WWF: No Mercy [#94]
• Killer7 [#96]
• Blazing Lazers [#97]
• DuckTales [#99]

Fallout 2 and DuckTales are both fairly acclaimed on platform specific lists, but rarely feature on lists that include all platforms, so their featuring on the above list is somewhat misleading. Similarly, Pokemon Black / White, being a 2011 release, currently has a low score due to the Bayesian ranking system Acclaimed Video Games employs, so its classification as a 'low-ranked game' is also misleading. Cobra  Triangle, on the other hand, is generally obscure at this point, as this is only its second list [the other was a mid-range placement on IGN's Top 100 NES games], and for that I applaud GamesRadar.

One final note, Portal is ranked #1, which marks the first time that a list has placed it at #1. Cake for everyone!

See the list in its entirety here: GamesRadar's 100 best games of all time
Also, check out GamesRadar's lovely breakdown of the list here: What do our choices say about us?

* = This refers to a game's current score and only on all-platform lists (that is, lists that include games from every platform instead of just, for example, PC or console specific lists). Therefore, these rankings do not reflect the current, or the next, list version.