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Originally Posted by Electrotiger
Making a statement like "This is far and away the best game of all time," quite simply, is (or tries to be) a presentation of a fact, and not the writer's opinion. Fine, it's rhetoric; fine, it's nitpicky; but if you heard a movie critic say, "This is the best movie ever, bar none!" wouldn't that raise some red flags?
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Actually it works the oposite way with me! Because I look at it as a personal statement on the part of the reviewer I'm interested to see why he rates the movie/game/whatever so high. I look at it as an effective publicity stunt for the review (and since we live in a world where publicity is prevasive I don't say this in a negative sense). Of course, if the same person claims to have found the next best etcetera each week I see that his opinions are worthless, but that's another matter.
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Wouldn't you imagine, That can't possibly be true, why is he claiming that?
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No, I would think that it is true
for him. Not necessarily for me but I'm interested in seing why he rates the game so high.
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Likewise, if you were looking to buy a RPG or other game book, and the authors claimed on the back, "This is the best rules system/game setting/etcetera of all time!" does that not make you think twice about the validity of both the product, and the claimant?
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Yes, but this is a different matter alltogether. Here it is the creator that is claiming to have done the best game/etcetera. Most often than not this is just pretentious and self indulging. I hate this and I've seen it in several game books. Two come to mind, Cuthroat the Shadow Wars, and Sorcerer and Sword. If the writer claims this I hope he is able to really show it.
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I could give you a list of my favorite RPGs and game engines (Everway, Nobilis, Castles & Crusades, BESM & Tri-Stat, WEG's Star Wars & D6) but I would never try to present any of them as "the best RPG."
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Well, I'm undecided on which is the best rpg ever: Is it Toon or is it Prince Valiant? None are the best
possible rpg since I think that the really best rpg ever is still to be written (opefully by myself...). But this is just my point of view, it is not an attempt to rule for everybody which is the best rpg ever.
Of course, if a reviewer presents a rpg as the best ever he should be able to present some very heavy arguments for that purpose. Our reviewer of CoC didn't actually do it in the review, so he can be faulted for not sustaining or explaining his statement. I don't default him for utering the statement in the first place, though.