Best game ever made? Here's a poll. UPDATE.

[Jumpin]

 

Hiku said:

Jumpin said:

Resident Evil 2 was the biggest game in the series by far. It was pretty much THE game until Ocarina of Time. When RE4 came out, it didn't have that same kind of hype or lustre of RE2. RE4 was big, but it was never the IT game like RE2 was in the day. RE4 is was like Skyward Sword or FF13-2, while RE2 was more like Breath of the Wild or FF7.

According to VG Chartz, RE2 ended up just under 6 million, while RE4 sold 3.6M on its PS2 launch, and then later 2.2M on the Wiimake. But if anyone is like me, then they bought both versions of the game, while it is unlikely any more than a very trivial number (like maybe 0.001%) bought multiple copies of RE2 on PSX. Plus the series was still new and fresh back then, it didn't have the strong legacy of past releases going for it.

That would be Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid.
Resident Evil 2 was never the big phenomenon that Resident Evil 4 was. One of the highest rated games of all time (96 on Metacritic for CG), and won pretty much every game of the year award. It stood out so much partially because of how it broke the formula with a more action oriented approach, while every previous RE was more of the same, including RE2. FF7 and MGS also brought a lot of fresh and unique elements to the series, being the first 3D games in the franchise.
And you left out the GC sales of RE4 for some reason. But lets go with Capcoms official numbers instead of VGC:

Resident Evil 4 has as of Sep 2016 sold 6,67m according to Capcom. While RE2 has sold 5.72m.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Best_selling_Capcom_games

Although I wouldn't use sales numbers to measure how good the games were. RE5 and 6 sold more than RE4 and 2.

If you look at top 50/100 lists of the greatest games of all time, you'll consistently find Resident Evil 4 higher up on the list than RE2, if RE2 even makes the list at all.

IGN: RE4 #43, RE2 #82
Time magazine: RE4 #46, RE2 N/A
Game Informer: RE4 #18, RE2 #41
Edge: RE4 #9, RE2 N/A

On Wikipedia there is a page dedicated to compiling a list of games that have more frequently been ranked among the best ever by video game journalists. The more nominations, the higher up on the list a game ends up.
Resident Evil 4 is ranked 12th on that list, while RE2 is ranked 66th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered_the_best

Sales of RE2:

1	Resident Evil 2	PS	1998	Action	Virgin Interactive	1.88	1.47	2.02	0.45	5.82
2	Resident Evil 2	N64	1999	Action	Virgin Interactive	0.39	0.09	0.07	0.01	0.56
3	Resident Evil 2: Dual Shock Edition	PS	1998	Action	Capcom	0.00	0.00	0.26	0.02	0.27

Sales of RE4:

1	Resident Evil 4	PS2	2005	Action	Capcom	2.08	0.83	0.46	0.25	3.62
2	Resident Evil 4	Wii	2007	Action	Capcom	1.32	0.56	0.14	0.20	2.22
3	Resident Evil 4	GC	2005	Action	Capcom	0.98	0.42	0.22	0.06	1.69
4	Resident Evil 4 HD	PS4	2016	Shooter	Capcom	0.07	0.00	0.01	0.02	0.10
5	Resident Evil 4 HD	XOne	2016	Shooter	Capcom	0.04	0.00	0.00	0.01	0.05
6	Resident Evil 4	PC	2007	Action	Ubisoft	0.00	0.02	0.00	0.00	0.03

Consider also the platforms:

For RE2:

4

PlayStation (PS)

38.94

36.91

19.36

9.04

104.25

14

Nintendo 64 (N64)

20.11

6.35

5.54

0.93

32.93

For RE4:

1

PlayStation 2 (PS2)

53.65

55.28

23.18

25.57

157.68

5

Wii (Wii)

45.38

33.75

12.77

9.28

101.18

19

GameCube (GC)

12.55

4.44

4.04

0.71

21.74

Obviously, significantly larger userbases RE4 was sold to, and across multiple generations where many users likely bought multiple versions considering the substantial upgrades to the Wii version, in particular. Yet on PSX, RE2 VASTLY outsold any version of RE4. And those lists you posted are not based on which games were bigger, it was based on what games those sources liked more; Pokemon Go was FAR larger than RE4 and I bet that game isn't on any of those lists.

On Metal Gear Solid, it launched much later in the year, just before Ocarina of Time, and despite the critical praise, it was a sleeper hit, picking up steam through 99 and 2000, especially with the hype of MGS2 around; all of this after Ocarina of Time. Resident Evil 2 was explosively popular at launch; and combining both dual shock and original releases, outsold MGS on PSX, lifetime.

The bottom line is, the critical ratings are fairly negligible in difference (96% average vs. 93%) , and RE2's lower scores are from reviews as much as a decade later, while RE4's reviews are mostly from the time of its release, when the game was brand new. Resident Evil 2, in its time, was the far more significant release. While the first Resident Evil introduced many people to the survival and horror genre, it was Resident Evil 2 that defined it, and turned it into the next big genre; with tens of millions of games sold across franchises Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Echo Night, Dark Messiah, Koudelka, Galerians, Dark Tales, Chaos Break, Evil Dead, Countdown, and Dark Seed; and all largely in reaction to Resident Evil 2. Resident Evil 2 was the bomb.