My Ideal Video Game
It's been a long time since I last played The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. I really came to enjoy it as I played along, but eventually I lost interest in general. I doubt I will actually finish the game at this point.
I'm not sure when I started thinking about my "ideal" video game, but I can tell you that the Zelda games are not it. They can be fun, and reward the puzzle solving side of my brain, but I don't like all of the side quests and moving back and forth from one location to another to unlock everything. It's not the kind of puzzle-solving I want to do. So what is my ideal video game?
This is definitely a cheat of an answer, but I don't have one single ideal. But I do have a specific set of games that I enjoy playing.
The Platformer #
Think Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, that kind of thing. THESE are the puzzles I like to solve. Each level takes you from Point A to Point B, and there are puzzles in between that you need to solve. The type of puzzle can range from "How do I get around this part?" to "I need to time this jump at just the right time". In general I think I'm describing 2D side-scrolling games, but I think this extends to some modern games as well. Unfortunately though, the games that I like of this variety tend to be older and require either old consoles (at least I have some of those!) or DOS emulators. But at least you can find some of those.
Sports #
This is a much wider category and there is room for some minutea here.
This category - in my mind - includes cartoon-y games like Mario Kart or Mario Tennis, but I am mostly referring to franchise titles such as the NHL and MLB series of games. The problem I have with the NHL/MLB games is that eventually the rosters become so far out of date that it's not quite as fun to play, which has led me to try different tactics to keep the game enjoyable.
On the other hand, and somewhat counter-intuitively, I have some older games like Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo NBA Basketball that are timeless even though their rosters are static; my guess is because the players are so old, it doesn't really matter who I'm controlling, it's all about the gameplay.
Just as timeless are the Mario Kart/Golf/Tennis/etc. games that rely on "mascot" characters and the gameplay doesn't need to be as realistic as the franchise games, so the game developers have the opportunity to make these titles challenging in different ways (imagine if NASCAR had banana peels...I can't!).
So I guess I have two types of ideal games: old-school platformers and sports games. I have tried many different types of games but these are the ones that resonate the most with me.