I really admire people's ability to look at old retro games like Pac-Man and explain how it's one of the greatest gaming experiences due to it's simplicity, though it's a bit of a worn out point and you could easily say it for just about any early video game. I wish more developers would try to emulate the simplicity of these games in 3D spaces. I want to play a video game and get to it - there's rarely a need for tutorials and the like.
To go on a bit of a rant - the best game ever, and your favorite game ever, are the same exact thing. Seeing people try to judge games on an objective merit is ludicrous because while it's great to try and be objective as a reviewer, we can never achieve true objectivity. This ultimately stumps "best game ever" lists and makes them increasingly less interesting because everyone talks about the same games. You can explain objectivity and the parameters around it(innovation, story, fun factor etc.) but you can never explain the objective merit of which games are supposed to be held to because it doesn't exist, it's just an opinion.
Games are by definition supposed to entertain you, and I don't just mean in the "fun" kind of way, I mean they're supposed to pull you through a set group of emotions to keep your brain busy. If one game entertains you more than another, it is the better game, because by definition the developers accomplished their objective better in that game than in the other one. As great as it is that Pac Man has lived on, I wouldn't call it the best game ever because there are so many other games more representative of what gaming can do that Pac-Man. Pac-Man has also lived on as a small time-waster instead of the Phenomena it used to be.
I do like your points a lot though. I almost bought YS on steam on a whim a couple of times - maybe it's time to just do it!
Personally I would say Metroid Prime, Dark Souls, very generic picks and the like.
