Perfect Game

A friend asked me this morning what my perfect game would be.

I couldn't answer him.

I know what makes a bad game, from the player's point of view, and I'm not just talking strictly gameplay. The look and feel, the writing, whether or not it's set in World War f*@%ing II...

Take Batman: Arkham Asylum. For all the gush filled reviews and 10/10 scores, it has some serious problems. The final boss fight with the Joker is completely pathetic, the Scarecrow platforming sections are about as enjoyable as a shivving yourself with a rusty nail, and the Ivy fight has to be done twice after you kill her the first time. I thought we learned from the mistake Prototype made of fighting Elizabeth Greene over and over again until she FINALLY dies, but apparently not.

COD4 came appealingly close to one of my favourite games, up until the end mission I was having a blast.

[SPOILERS ARE FUN!]
The one where it's a race against time to disarm the missiles heading for the coast of America. That's intense and fun, but the fun soon gets rubbed away by you getting shot at by three different directions. Then, when the final cutscene happens, Gaz gets shot, Price dies and you shoot the evil Russian bastard. Closure, yes, but it's still a massive kick in the balls.
[Spoilers end.]

I have a lot of fun with MDK. Every mission is widely varied in environment, and thus it's never the same level repeated six or seven times. And the concepts they come up with are pretty cool. I would list them, but that would take up a lot of the page.

I like Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes is pretty good, too. Both RTS's, both uses an interesting resource system and both have squads instead of individual units.

I honestly can't answer the question of what my perfect game is. I have a bunch of ideas of games I would really like to play, but most are heavy modifications of game that already exist.

For example, Vampire: the Masquerade (probably the only real PC RPG), plus an open world, plus more places to visit and people to meet, plus a slightly bigger char sheet, plus the ability to eventually have a fourth Discipline, plus a slightly improved combat system (B:AA had a pretty good one) would come appealingly close, if not outright, to my vision of a perfect game.

But since Troika games shut down because of low sales of one of my favourite games ever (VTM), I can't see that happening in the near future.
(HINT HINT GAME STUDIOS, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE)