Guinness Appoints Zelda the Third-Best Game Series Ever

No, that is a lie. THIS IS ALL A LIE!

Halo and CoD are so overrated...

I like how previous polls were a little more balanced and true. Then all of a sudden Halo and CoD make the list and at 1 and 2 respectively lol.
Wow, that really shows that due to mainly hype and high sales numbers clearly are more of a deciding factor than gameplay enjoyment, originality, and having a very well rounded and always great series.
Idk that's just my two cents. Not to say those aren't great games, but they do not deserve to be so high on the list.

Are you kidding me? Mindless shooting games surpass the wonderful gameplay and storytelling of zelda?!?!?! Wow. Just wow.

Wow, I'm living in a world where first-person shooter crap is more popular than Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Sheesh!

This is ridiculous. How could #1 not be a Nintendo game? And how could Halo top Zelda? Halo is mediocre at best, and nothing separates it from all the other generic "run & gun" FPS's out there.

Good job Zelda! As for the top two, I'm not surprised. COD & Halo basically brought in a massive amount of casual players (and stupids) who are still playing video games to this day (and I'm not sure if that's a good thing).

I don't understand. The world record book comes out yearly. Aren't we in the middle of the year?

@post 2 SandMan
"Halo and CoD are so overrated..."

Yes, they are. So is Legend of Zelda, Mario, Final Fantasy and every other big name you can mention.

I dread the fanboy BS set to follow this story.

@V8 Ninja: I never tried Halo or COD, but they seem like the opposite of casual to me.

@V8 Ninja
"COD & Halo basically brought in a massive amount of casual players (and stupids) who are still playing video games to this day (and I'm not sure if that's a good thing)."

I'm glad your superior intelligence allows you to determine whom is stupid or not based on the games they play.

I know people have different opinions, and that's cool... but I wonder who are the people making these decisions? Is it a self-selecting online poll?

Oh well. Halo and CoD are both mediocre in my opinion - good for what they are, but not something that appeals to me. Obviously I'm in the minority there.

(For the record, I still think that Tetris should be top banana.)

@10: I have played both, and they are heavily geared toward non-gamers.

...

No, just no. Mario pwns all of those.

I like Halo and all. (COD has no soul) but you can't top the brothers. No one can top the brothers. No matter how high you go the Mario Brothers will stomp you!

Blegh, Halo as a video game is just plain boring. The multiplayer is the only reason to play, but it's not the kind of thing you would want to revisit many many years later, like you would for Zelda. But I DO like the books though, and I'll try the anime OVAs and that live-action movie. But the games themselves aren't very interesting (I personally find Bungie's Marathon series to be more interesting)

CoD is a good shooter series, but playing a new version each year with just cosmetic updates (and the rare gameplay update: attack dogs) just isn't for me. Maybe for rich people who would buy anything, but not for me. I want to use my limited money to buy games that me and my siblings and friends could enjoy and game the occasional epic or ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE (like Monster Hunter Tri).

Sure, people have opinions, but who the hell is making the decisions of what's the best over there?

Halo and Call of Duty series and the FPS genre in my eyes are EXTREMELY overrated. Zelda should of been picked #1.

BLASPHEMY!

@2: I agree wholeheartedly. Mario pwns all.

A poll like this is likely to change results depending on the current atmosphere of the video game world. People are still enthralled in MW2 and are even more eagerly anticipating Halo: Reach, which easily, in my opinion, explain slots 1 and 2. Nintendo is a little behind on their hype machine, but by E3, hopefully we'll have a little more to be pumped for.

Damn. Metroid still gets no love.

@SandMan Agreed!

The whole list was bogus. How does Call of Duty top Mario? Honestly, Call of Duty shouldn't even be on a top ten games of all time list. It's a good series, yeah, but one of the top 10? I doubt it.

Funny thing is that on every other list Zelda is number 1. But Guinness is "supposed" to be more reliable.

Halo and COD are the best. Zelda is boaring.

Jeez where's the Metroid love?

Mario, SSB and Zelda are there but no accolades for our bombshell bounty hunter? Bah.

Well, congrats to Bungie, they have something good under their belt to last a couple years or so until the Nintendo takeover is complete.

FPSes always hog the spotlight....

Tsk. Halo? Bleah who wrote that..thing?

Bah, I don't even LIKE Zelda games (sue me) and I think that it should have beaten Halo. And Call of Duty, but that's because I'm in the 1% of the population that thinks Call of Duty is terrible, derivative, and horribly, horribly written. Horribly. (Actually, I think we can all agree on that last point.)

But yeah, Halo has never been as revolutionary or impressive as most of the ten-year-olds of the world seem to think. The only reason it got any attention is because it was one of the first console FPSes with a decent control system and online play, etc etc. Other than that, it's just another generic deathmatch game.

@4 "Storytelling?" I dearly hope you jest.

FPS nerds don't know real games

All us true gamers know the truth...Truth being that Ninty's games pwn CoD and Halo anyday.

Keep in mind that this is according to everyone, not just Nintendo fans. Still, Super Metroid and Metroid Zero Mission were amazing.

I think this is pretty interesting as it shows just the kind of people who vote in these kind of polls. But, honestly, I think Halo of CoD won't be looked backed on quite as fondly as Zelda or Mario or Metroid (even though it didn't make the list). But, that's just me. Carry on.

@4: I'm pretty sure he doesn't jest. I personally think the storytelling is top-notch! But again, that's just me....

EDIT: Just looked up the article:

"We decided to take a different approach with this list than we did in the previous edition," said Guinness World Records Gaming Editor Gaz Deaves. "Instead of asking developers, industry insiders and journalists to rank their favorite titles, we approached a different kind of expert: the players themselves! We are confident that this 'top 50' more accurately reflects the tastes of the average gamer and not just the critics."

Maybe they should have asked both the gamers and the devs......

Also, freaking LEGO Batman is on there. Really? That is just weird....

Man, if I cared what a bunch of random people said about video games, I'd be more ticked off that Final Fantasy is at #20, behind such RPG masterpieces as World of Warcraft and Runescape, for god's sake. >__<

@TheFox: 100% Agreed.

@8.uel: Just becuase Nintendo Life is reporting it doesn't mean the book just came out.

I don't believe this. I would have expected to see some Nintendo series at the top, then Halo then a few other Nintendo series, then a bunch of other video game series.

Call of duty deserves to be there (maybe on a lower spot though), Metroid so should be there, and Halo is so overrated!

Halo really isn't that bad of a game... It doesn't deserve to be classified within the same country as a game like CoD... Zelda is great as well but unfortunately not many people have really played the series to enjoy it enough. Overall the gaming community is going to vote a game like Halo more. (BTW MW2 is not realistic at alll... People whine that it is but who really cares if it is or not? Still overrated.)

@Shmavey
It may be overrated, but it's also more popular. It's a frag-fest. Now if Nintendo could give Metroid with online multi-player another chance...

Who's cat is that, by the way?

Bad list...how is Mario not #1?

I feel confused and want to lash out. But... public votes are pointless and stupid. Especially this one. I remain calm.

Guitar Hero beat out Super Mario? These people's opinions are laughable at best.

COD and halo are so overated. There is no way that either of these series are better than mario or zelda. Guitar hero isn't either. This list is crap and mario should be #1.

Yay, Chrono Trigger is on there! And it isn't even a series! I find it interesting how many old games are on the list, such as FF and Kingdom Hearts.

effing hail!!!
take mario, the original gaming icon that saved the industry as we know it, who has spawned dozens of games over the years and whose legacy has lasted multiple generations, and just smack him the face by putting halo, the series that has 4 games under it's belt and has only been around for about 8 years, above it! sure halo deserves a spot somewhere in the top 10, but does it deserve to top Zelda, Final Fantasy, Mario, Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, or Street Fighter!? thats another thing, where is metroid on the list?
wait a second
no...metroid?
what?

Mario was great until he got milked for all he was worth. And rescuing princesses is archaic.

Wow instead of getting opinions they should check the sales.

@Marvelousmoo: Ever heard of Chrono Cross? Yeah...a two-game series. Hard to just call it the "Chrono" series, though. Also, you can't really call Final Fantasy "old" since they're still making new games, and Kingdom Hearts isn't really OLD old to begin wtih...only eight years...and they're still making new ones.

Now...what kind of people actually visit the Guiness website in the first place? I know I'VE never been...how many of you guys have, eh? Seems to me that they're overrun with mainstream gamers. Which is odd, seeing as you'd think the core folk would be more likely to care about records. Bah. Humbug.

It's the Guiness site, so it's obvious what happened: The guys who wrote the article were roaringly drunk
Seriously, Guiness obviously asked the people their marketing is aimed at, namely guys who are (almost) old enough to drink beer, but still adolescent enough to be awed by World Records. Amongst that crowd, such a result is possible.
As for the rest of the world... well, I haven't seen a single gamer-poll (even on non-Nintendo sites) that doesn't list either a Nintendo- or a Final-Fantasy game as it's Number 1 game (so it's not just Fanboy-outrage).

No Metroid love. This means war!
_{shakes arm cannon in air}

EDIT: How is Mario Kart 47??
And can Runescape even be considered as a game series, same with LEGO Batman.
This is an outrage.

This is the problem with video gaming, the masses will only play what's new and will never look back and appreciate the more established series' with generations of pedigree.
So how do they expect to find a definitive conclusion? In five years time the result will probably be a whole new set of well-marketed shooter franchises.

This isn't the film industry, people treat it with a lot less respect.

Uh oh .... looks like they only surveyed the world's biggest fools! Yeeeeeeeeesh.

Why are there so many trolls on this site?

Not saying you have to be a Nintendo fanboy to be here, but if all you do is complain in every post...why are you here?

One of the things I assume with these results is that Guinness held some form of pole in which people could more or less only decide on their "best game evar", and no others than that, although it's assumed by the article here more than anything. I think what should have happened was each player given their own "top 3" list to submit, and the additional submissions could be tallied and applied by a halving modifier, and this would have drastically changed their results.

The problem is the general definition of "Player" in the videogameverse. Many people who have played games on the 360 or Playstation absolutely REFUSE to play on another console, as if it's some sort of blood pact with Microsoft or Sony that they cannot own another console. This is reminiscent of the early console wars of Nintendo vs Sega, but back then it wasn't a legitimate ploy, it was the sake that most households could only afford one system, and the sides of this war were depicted not by the arguers, but by their parent's wallets.

Back on topic, and as was stated above ( 9 ), ANY big-time name is immediately considered "overrated" simply because they're household names. Even the word "overrated" is overrated because of how damn often /it/ is used. STOP USING IT. The word you're looking for is over-hyped. Halo games are really only low-quality shooters with only pretend-to-be-epic story lines. If you gave the guy from DOOM the same current-get treatment of big budgets by Microsoft, then I guarantee you it would hold itself up just as well as Halo or Call of Duty. The /problems/ with Halo, Call of Duty, and several other high-brow games, is that the primary focus of gamers, and especially younger ones, is how shiny the dangley-thing on them are. Halo has no right to be on any top-50 list, but "gamers" are going to vote for it anyway, because (A) They've never seen anything like it, and are awestruck by the magic of technology, (B) Want something 'new and original' to stand ground to and praise, and (C) Have never played a good video game. The same goes for Call of Duty, but I personally haven't payed much attention to it (or played it), so I can't argue; but as a rule of thumb, NONE of today's FPS' deserve a high placement on an overall game list. If it's for the XBox, sure, but only because at least 40% of XBox' games ARE FPS', as a lure to small children, and at the same time, poisoning what TV considers "A Video game". You'll never see "The World Ends With You" mentioned on TV, ever, and until that day comes, nobody on the damn planet knows what a good game is, or the fact that one-time things can hold up on their own. The media thrives and abuses the video game acknowledgment of children and morons, so really, big-company names outside of video game development itself should probably just sit tight and stay quiet.

The flip side argument is the ever-present statement that Zelda games are just the same game with new maps, but I could go on for twice as long as the above paragraph about this, so I'll save anyone actually reading my blathering the trouble.

@Aviator: You forget that Runescape probably has approximately the same player base as World of Warcraft by sheer numbers, which is ironically the reason Runescape receives such a bad status. For an online RPG, Runescape is actually one of the best concepts and ideas to go around, especially considering it RUNS IN YOUR INTERNET BROWSER. But the problem with it is the players, in that high-level players primarily mess around in low-level towns, while the low-level players remain both unaided, and crowded by the high-level. You can argue the reasoning why they go back to big cities looking for other people their level to team up with or PvP, but it is not world of warcraft in the sense that WoW's primary cities, say StormWind, are used a majority of the game because of it's military and guilds, whereas other towns in the game pale in comparison, and aren't as easily accessed by new players. Runescape on the other hand, doesn't offer new things to high-level players, so they seriously are sitting around doing nothing in low-level places. And at the same time, refusing to help low-players out. Oh, unless they ask you to trade for something they made, in which they ask for a million gold, and you don't even have 20 yet.

tl,dr: These games are UNDERSTANDABLE as the top 3, but sure as hell don't deserve the placement.

That's just depressing.

Halo is not even mediocre, it's single player campaign is just plain bad. I've never been so bored in my life as when shooting the endless look-a-like enemies in Halo's everlasting grey corridors. It wasn't even revolutionary: Goldeneye, Turok and others came long before it, and Perfect Dark's multiplayer was easily superior compared to this pathetic excuse of a game called Halo. CoD, on the other hand, is decent series.

@ZarroTsu: "You'll never see 'The World Ends With You' mentioned on TV, ever." That's the saddest thing I've read all day.

Im pretty sure the ppl that voted propally have no idea that there better games then just FPS.

Only 13.000 votes were made. Anyway the most ridiculous list i have seen in years.

Wow, seriously? I know Zelda is my personal choice, and I know Link always seems to win the Character polls on Gamefaqs.com, but yeah, obviously my opinions differ from people who picked Halo and Call of Duty, and I'll leave it at that.

f*** shooters!!! OVERRATED!!!

this list is so wrong. there are games listed that are not even a series.
no Donkey Kong?!

why am I not surprised FPS's are Overrated