As near to perfection as I've found....

- Persona 4 / Persona 4 The Golden :: P4 had everything I wanted in a game - great characters, a personal story rather than some globe-trotting army-trashing epic, wonderful soundtrack, graphics that complement rather than eclipse the gameplay, total freedom without ever once making you ask "Well, what am I meant to do now?" and a set of game mechanics that perfectly intertwine such disparate things as combat, fishing, summoning demons (personas), going to school, making friends, sitting for exams, cooking lunch and stopping murders.

- Mass Effect 2 :: Possibly a controversial one, this. First time I played it, I hated it as it had stripped out a lot of the RPG and character progression elements from ME1. By the end, though, I loved it. The vision and consistency of the Mass Effect universe is a labour of love for Bioware, I feel sure of it (just as I feel sure that everyone of any relevance or talent was off sick when they had the meeting about how ME3 was going to end. I should have just let Marauder Shields save me!). Mass Effect 2 was a sci-fi Dirty Dozen with an ensemble of engaging and memorable characters on a one-way ticket to hell and they rode there in style. There is no game I've played through to completion as many times as I have Mass Effect 2 (8 times so far, 60+ hours each time)

- Xenoblade Chronicles :: Quite aside from changing my mind about what the Wii was good for, Xenoblade Chronicles delivered a solid story that wasn't afraid to play with tropes (mmmm, snipe me with those healthy bullets of love, Sharla!). After all, how many game plots are fueled by nothing more than pure, murderous vengeance? I found it's pacing and gameplay suited me very comfortably, and the constant chatter of the party members imparted a sense of cheerful camaraderie that I found to be heartening (which may seem at odds with the whole 'pure murderous vengeance' bit, but.... look, just play it? :) ).

I've got three. The versions of Solitaire and Freecell that came with Windows XP. They fit your requested parameters exactly. I have not played them in many years, and have no real desire to do so, but that is not the topic at hand.

The one I would play again, and again, and again, forever, is a very specific version of Sudoku. When building computers and installing everything they need in order to be fully functional, this gets installed. I usually remove the two Windows games mentioned above.

The list of near perfect, for me, is significantly longer. As others have already listed theirs, I'll add a few myself. You can skip this part now everyone.

Columns on MegaDrive. The only things I would change are .. somehow, giving the game a point. Also unlike the games mentioned above, this one could do with some periodic updating of the gfx and the soundtrack. Those last two points knock out pretty much every game I've ever played to be honest.

Jewel Match. I love it as you can turn the timer off. It is near perfect only as the grids are set. Re-release the game with a random grid generator and it would be perfect. Wel, probably not actually as like Columns the gfx and soundtrack would possibly need a "polish" every few years.

Wizball n C64 is my personal favorite game of all time. ALL TIME! Perfect? not quite. It is still one of the closest to perfect true co-op games I've ever played. The only problem is the two players are attached by an invisible rubber band. I would remove this so each character could move independently of each other, remaining close manually, rather than the game constantly pulling the two back together. The whole point of the came is, quite literally, unplayable if you don't stick together. So the rubber band thing always welt.. intrusive and too forced.

The big Daddy of them all for me is Splinter Cell. God how I love that game. But again, it is only Nearly Perfect. What were they thinking with those forced combat situations? Just so stupid! Honestly, apart from that, Splinter Cell is pretty much my go-to game measuring stick. How goes a game compare to Splinter Cell?

I'd also like to chuck in a really baffling game here as well for "almost perfect". Deadly Premonition. Fair dunkum, how the hell can a game contain so much fail in so many of its basic ingredients, and yet end up creating an overall complete gaming experience that is so brilliant? The ONLY thing I think anyone would DARE change about that one is to revert it back to the non-combat game Swery was making until he was pretty much forced to slap in the combat at the 11th hour. Other than that, changing anything would potentially be catastrophic, completely destroying its near perfection. This upcoming "Director's Cut" version makes me really quite worried because of this. I'll still buy it however. The game may be a one-off fluke, but games this close to perfect need to be encouraged at every opportunity.

Perfect to me? Fully patched with all the add-ons BF1942, and also the Desert Combat mod. I wouldn't change anything about those games, but I would change the community. Mostly just to HAVE a community, active servers, that sort of thing. Not the games' fault.

The game I most want to be perfected? Without question: Independence War 2. Sooo close, but it ran out of content before I was ready for it to end.

To that end I'd say the royal game, Chess, comes pretty close. After a millennium it still has yet to be solved and is still the standard-bearer of the intellectual boxing match. But I assume the OP means computer/video games.

Seconded on SMAC. There was an old joke on the Apolyton forums about the "Alpha Centauri Conspiracy." Firaxis had made SMAC *too* good and people kept playing it, developing mods and scenarios, etc, instead of buying their new products. Alarmed, Firaxis endeavored never to make the same mistake of designing a game too good, too brilliant, too absorbing, too-replayable, and most importantly, with too much shelf life. I'd say they've succeeded.

I always thought Vampire: Bloodlines was also a near *perfect* game for me, especially properly (fan)patched. Again, an old joke on net goes: "Whenever someone mentions Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines someone reinstalls it."

To me, i always thought that Dragon Force (Sega Saturn, NOT THE BAND!) was the perfect game. Oddly enough, everytime there was a full moon outside, i made some weird commitment to play through the entire game with no sleep.

Anyways, I guess what stood out to me about this game was the aspect of conquering, awesome effects (at that time) and the characters of the game. Each of the 8 storyline characters had a different plot in conquering the lands for a great purpose. The strategic to the game was simple yet a bit challenging. its like any other war/strategy game but with a different twist of units. example, Harpies beats soilders, archers defeats harpies, soilders defeat archers, and many other units. This made the game fun when you had to plan the way you approach a fight with somebody with troops who can defeat yours. Once you played the game for awhile, or a few times, you will begin how to win or 'weaken' the opponent enough for your next fighter to beat them..

The soundtrack on the world map for each character was different yet nostalgic. I like them all, but Junon, Mikhail, Leon, and Reinhart was my favorites. I remember my Sega Saturn broke (along with the game cause it glitched it or something) because I played the game nonstop, and i left it running a few days straight.

I never really saw a downfall to this game except that with certain characters, you couldn't recruit the main storyline characters friends when you capture them. This really suck when you played Goldark. His storyline is amazing, for when you play as the other characters (SPOILER--------------------------------SPOILER), they think he was the cause of the war but really, his brother sent out the assassins to kill off the rulers in which led to the war breakout. He truly defined what we not only see in tv and in the movies, but how we must hide our emotions in the military. He didn't want the war, but he decided to play the demon part, which is hiding the truth from everyone until the end.

music awesome, character design is awesome, storylines of all characters is awesome. I so wished they brought Dragon Force 2 to America, or at least bring Dragon Force 1 back on the gaming console downloads. They did with Guardian heroes and etcetra. I would pay money, regardless if i have the game on the SS console still.

A Valley without Wind was nearly perfect. Then I made the mistake of adjusting the difficulty level and died to an overpowered boss.

You and I share an affinity for chess, Marid. And, in a broader context I would agree that chess comes as close to pefection (imo) as any game not so much for its complexity, but for the fact that it is an exercise in pure objectivity. No dice rolls, no hidden cards/pieces, same starting resources, etc.

But, yes, the question was directed more narrowly towards the computer/video game segment. And, frankly, I have yet to find a chess video game that I've stuck with for long. Chessmaster 9000 was the one I played the most. But even this game was average at best, imo.
I had no idea that there was a video game based on The Warriors. I love that movie! I demand that this game be put on the GOG wishlist post haste! :-)

D'oh! :-(

"You see, Warriors?! You see what you get when you mess with the Orphans?!"

I was reading through this thread thinking "no one has said Zelda?"

Perfect - for anyone at any age, adventure, fighting, games, collect stuff, learn new skills - just sheer fun. ;-)

I couldn't agree more... but we're suppose to talk about perfection, right? :P