Pong.

Since then, the video game industry went downhill.

I would say PS:T, it was one of the first games I played and I would be an avid reader, so it's marriage of reading and gaming was pretty perfectfor me.
VTM:B would be up there as well, it had such heart and replayability.
Dragons Dogma would be my most recent gameplay experience that bordered on perfection, combat was just spot on, the monsters were great and the hybrid classes were just fun on a stick.

There would probably be others, but these were so close to perfection for me and are the first that come to mind.

Tony Hawk's pro skater 2!
That thing was magic

Peggle Deluxe. Probably also Everyday Genius: SquareLogic and Astro Avenger. Maybe others I can't recall at the moment.

Actually even in these cases I think they would be better by offering a mobile version with cloud sync between the versions. So in this respect, not perfect.

The more complex the game, the more chances are there for it to be flawed in some way. I would certainly love seeing updated graphics on most old games. There are a lot of community patches because games aren't perfect.

I first thought I can't think of any (Ultima Underworld has unnecesarily complicated controls, and it is possible to kill certain lady which IIRC makes the game unsolvable), but I think a few games did feel pretty much perfect the first time I played them:

Doom 1 & 2
Descent 1 & 2

I can't really think of anything I wanted to change in them back then. EDIT: Actually now I am not sure if I still wanted the ability to jump and look up/down in Doom games (because you could already do that in games like Ultima Underworld)? Could be, in which case it would be only Descent 1-2 then.

I almost mentioned also e.g. MechWarrior 2 (3Dfx-version), but then I remembered the silly standing one-leg mechs... I think MW2: Mercs fixed that though, one-legged mechs would fall down.

I'm sure there should be also newer games where I should be able to say the same, but maybe I've become jaded.

Easy: Go (http://www.gokgs.com/)

"Pure computer game" though? Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander 1 come close to über RTS game as ive found so far. Not perfect though ;)

Hmmmm. Personally I don't there has ever been (nor ever will) a game that is "perfect". But then I am taking the definition as meaning totally flawless and the epitome of the said games genre.

But if you narrow the definition of "perfect" down to: "a game in which you would not change a single element... if given the opportunity. then, yes, I have played a few games like that.

The first one that springs to mind is Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. It stands as it is. I would not change one single thing about it. (Unless to remove the censorship for the western world...)

Tetris is almost perfect. (Until we try to decide which version/platform...)


(Games that come close to my first definition of "perfect" are:
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
GoldenEye 007 N64
These two are (arguably) the greatest video games of all time - and yet I would still change things in both of them. Graphics upgrade for a start plus add the features/areas that never got implemented in the final product release.

Dark Omen

I don't think there can be a "perfect" game, even for me. My taste is so varied, sometimes I just want to blow stuff up, like in Serious Sam, sometimes I want a deep strategy game that I can waste many days playing, like Victoria: An empire under the sun. But even if those two examples are among my favorites of their respective type, I don't find either one of them "perfect".

Not an easy topic as many earlier posters have pointed out.

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6

It might be nostalgia, but even as I play them today, I enjoy the graphics, the stories are still superb and the gameplay mechanics are classic. The only flaw I can think of is the games becoming easy when you grind and level up your characters if you know how to optimize them, but that's more of a problem of powergaming.

I'd struggle with finding big flaws from Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, GTA: Vice City and Super Mario Bros 3 as well.

This is not my favorite game by any stretch of the imagination but I can't find any flaw with it and that would be Unreal Tournament 2004 - it does everything it sets out to do perfectly.

Short answer, no.

Long answer... well, I have played games that have achieved what they set out to do with something so close to perfection that their flaws are irrelevant.

I'm glad to see Planescape: Torment being mentioned a lot, for me it is one such game. I'm not a huge fan of the gameplay, the artwork is not always to my taste, but it aims to tell a story, and in that respect it is as close to perfection as can reasonably be expected.

Bioshock Infinite is another such game. It does what it sets out to do with incredible success. It doesn't revolutionise FPS gameplay, but it creates a truly wondrous and immersive world of great beauty.

Other games that sit on this level: Doom II, Ecco the Dolphin II, WipEout 2097, Metroid Prime, Streetfighter II, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Half Life 2, several Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games... and there are probably others. Remember, I'm listing games that, to my mind, have achieved their goals most perfectly, rather than actually being perfect games. WipEout 2097, for instance, was incredibly simple in its execution, but holy crap it was awesome.

Shim Megami Tensei: Nocturne Is The Most AWESOMEST RPG EVER CREATED!!! I Played It 100hrs+ On The PS 2 Years Ago And Finished It... ALL OF IT! The Labrynth... The Demi-Gods/Demon Bosses... God And Lucifer... I Finished It And It Is One Of My Proudest Accomplishments As A Video Game Player.

The Other One Is In The Action Catagory Of Games... Yeah, I Have To Agree With Some Others On This Thread... GTA 3: San Andreas !!! You Could Do Everything In That Game!

I have had several games that took my breath for a while. I especially remember Civ 1 and C&C 1 - those two games I did play every night for weeks.

The perfect game? Perhaps what the Caveman to Cosmos mod for Civ 4 aims to be.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449