[QUOTE="Zeliard9"]I'm wondering how many people have seriously even playedOoT. This idea that a superior game hasn't been released in the past decade is completely laughable. Just looking at PC games alone, Half-Life came out the same week as OoT and wipes the floor with it, with the likes of System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2 and Deus Ex as other Ocarina-crushing PC contemporaries. People really need to stop putting OoT on such a ridiculously high pedestal, especially when it comes to something as subjective as the quality of a video game, and especially since it's all based on arbitrary numbers. There were better games than it long before now.
mjarantilla
If you want to see how good a game actually is, and how " revolutionary " it was, go back and play the same game today, and judge it by today's standards in gameplay, story, interaction and overall fun.
You will find Zelda : OoT just does not hold up to the test of time the way that other games do.
Go play Baldur's Gate 2 right now, and see what you think. Go play Planescape : Torment, or Half-Life. These are games that were released years ago, and in the same general time frame as OoT and even by today's standards have much better gameplay. They are more complex, more interesting, deeper, and overall better games.
Zelda : OoT was praised and renown because it was a evolution of the Zelda franchise, not an evolution of gaming. The Zelda franchise was already so far behind gaming at the time any step forward would be a good step.
Zelda : OoT was a good game, and the best of the Zelda games to date. But hardly the best game of all time by any stretch of the imagination.
evilross
It's not about whether games are better, because games will always get better. It's about a game's positive influence and impact on the industry.
Ocarina idealized the 3D action-adventure genre. It didn't perfectit, but pretty much every action-adventure game that came after it can trace its game mechanics in some major way to Ocarina. Now, there are many games that had the same effect on their particular genre -- GTAIII for example -- but Ocarina accomplished it without any major flaws in its execution (meaning: the biggest objections you can make about the game are either based purely on personal preference, or are minor flaws), and most importantly, it accomplished this with no game design predecessor except a 2D game series with which it shared only a common mission structure.
GTAIV accomplished something similar by (IMO) idealizing the open-world sandbox genre, but unlike Ocarina, GTAIV was an evolution, not a revolution. All of GTAIV's mechanics and improvements can be traced either to previous GTAs, or to other games. The same can also be said for the PC games you've mentioned. Now, if GTAIIIhad had all of GTAIV's improvements, then GTAIII would've been an accomplishment equal to Ocarina in terms of impact. But GTAIII itself had several clear flaws in its game design that, as I understand it, weren't even addressed until GTAIV.
Your not taking into account all the other games that came before OoT that paved the way for the transition to a 3D environment. Your saying OoT perfected the 3D action adventure game, without a predecessor being a 3D game, but thats only because the series was late to coming to 3D. There were many, many, 3D action adventure games available long before OoT came along, and OoT borrowed liberally from those sources in its gameplay, as well as taking inspiration from its old roots.
A truly great game is a game that you can play right now, and it still seems fun, relevant, and fresh. OoT is a great game, but its not what I would consider "one of the greats" compared to the true heavyweights of gaming like Baldur's Gate, Doom 1, Half-Life 1, and Everquest.
Those are games that truly defined a genre, changed gaming, and moved gaming in a new direction. I'd even go as far as saying Super Mario Bros. and the original Legend of Zelda belong somewhere up on the list of the games that I mentioned that really deserve the praise of "one of the best of all time".
But OoT was more about the perfection and evolution of the series, not a standout and evolution in gaming.
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