The Perfect Game?

Halo 3Since I’ve been knocking out some of gaming backlog, I’m currently tussling with a few titles that I wouldn’t ordinarily play in the midst of some heavy hitting releases. At the moment, I’m trying to knock out Alpha Protocol, which is a meager portion of gaming goodness at best. While the game isn’t bad per se, to me it just highlights everything that Mass Effect 2 did right with that style of play. Even Mass Effect 1, which wasn’t nearly as good as the sequel, does many things better than AP.

But as good as Mass Effect 2 is in my mind, I know that it was a game that was far from perfect. And as I thought more about this, I realized many of my favorite games have some huge glaring flaws. Anthony, a newcomer to the 360, just finished Halo 3 over the weekend, and had some legitimate complaints about the last third of the game, really (though I’ll let him speak more to that himself). The game is one of my favorites of this gen, but I won’t argue about all the things that are wrong with it.

Interestingly enough, one of my other friends calls Halo 3 multiplayer “the perfect game”. While I disagree from just a game play perspective, I think I must disagree from a philosophical perspective as well. Is there such a thing as the perfect game? I’m not talking about just a game without any technical glitches or whatever, but a game that is the perfect blend of all the things that make gaming good? Some of my favorite titles are far from perfect. And really, the closest thing I can think of off the top of my head is Portal.

So what do you guys think? Can there ever be a perfect game? And what games to you hit the closest?