Inq. of the Week: Best. Game. Ever.

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Inq. of the Week: Best. Game. Ever.

Submitted by The Game on Monday, November 19, 200711 Comments

I’ve decided to let last week’s poll on what kind of games you play run for another week to try to get a few more responses in. It’s great to see that everybody that comes here plays some kind of games, and there are many (like myself and Wooglin) that play everything! “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes.

My weekend was shot due to a combination of a brutal class on Saturday and heading up to Philly for PhilCon (short review: it blew). So I have not yet been able to compile my list of perfect or close to perfect games. But I’ll let you all do some of the work for me:

What game is your favorite of all time? What game do you think is the most well made of all time?

Though they sound like similar questions, and for you they may be the same, but there’s a difference between games that you would be perfectly willing to play forever despite their flaws, and those that you think are perfectly put together but somehow lacking in one area that appeals to you. So lay it on me, what are the best games out there?

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Dave The Game is Dave Chalker, son of science fiction author Jack L. Chalker. In addition to being a semi-professional game designer Dave is the Editor-in-Chief of Critical Hits (which means he writes about everything.) Dave is also Executive Director of the RPG Bloggers Network. (Email Dave)

11 Comments »

Phil said:

If I go for favorite based on longevity, my 3 favorite games Magic the Gathering (14 years), Dungeons & Dragons (version 2000 and onwards) and Nethack.

If I go for most well made game, I’d say Magic the Gathering (it appeals to a lot of people and you can usually work around the ‘bad’ parts by adjusting your social circle or using established variants)

- 19 November 2007 at 4:44 pm

Reverend Mike said:

Once again, D&D prevails for me because of how open it is…

I’m a bit biased as I haven’t played all the great games out there, but as far as most well made that I’ve played goes, I’d say KOTOR…gave me the same sort of open feel the first couple of runs through, despite being a closed system…KOTOR 2 may have beat it if it hadn’t been rushed to stores missing a few big side parts…

- 19 November 2007 at 4:52 pm

count_crackula said:

Oh man, I don’t know. The best game evar is the one I haven’t played… and even better if it hasn’t been published.

But making an effort to actually answer the question, I would have to say I always have immense fun playing Survive! though there are a couple things I would have changed if I had designed it. Crokinole never gets old for me, and is easy to teach and hook players on; if only it had a theme to generate some story. Champions of Norrath: Return to Arms (PS2) might be the perfect game for me (and the missus) if it had a generative quest system in place of its canned scenarios and had just a few minor tweaks.

There are plenty of games that I find to be excellent designs but that fail to interest me. I try to be interested in Go, as I feel it is the best designed boardgame in history, but it’s so damn opaque for beginners! Basic poker is a pretty clean design, but bluffing and detection thereof is something I don’t find much fun even on the rare occasions in which I am successful.

- 19 November 2007 at 6:45 pm

Abe said:

Catch

Okay, maybe hide-and-seek

- 19 November 2007 at 7:43 pm

Reverend Mike said:

I take it back…

Ultimate frisbee is the most well made game ever…

- 19 November 2007 at 7:50 pm

Chris said:

Nethack and Paranoia.
Everything else is light years away.

- 20 November 2007 at 10:32 am

TheMainEvent said:

Racquetball is awesome, although old men consistently kick my ass with their superior skills. Videogames: nothing ever kept me as engrossed as Final Fantasy 7… it may have been my age when I played it too, but nothing has ever come close except the KOTOR games. The Civilization franchise has sucked up more of my life than any other game. As for board games, its hard to get any better than Acquire…

- 20 November 2007 at 10:44 am

The O said:

I honestly do not think that I could make a claim for the most well-made game of all time due to my lack of expertise and variety of gameplay. However, I thought about it and feel that probably my favorite game of all time was 2nd edition Talisman. I’m aware the game had plenty of flaws, but at the time I played it, I was infatuated with it. Leprechaun ftw!

- 20 November 2007 at 3:08 pm

joshx0rfz said:

Starcraft:Brood War

Oh, and Monopoly and Risk!

- 21 November 2007 at 2:35 pm

OriginalSultan said:

D&D is pretty hard to beat. Settlers of Catan, for the replay value. And as for video games: Super Metroid, Final Fantasy 7, and Super Mario Brothers 3. Super Mario 3 is probably the most well-made game I’ve ever played.

- 27 November 2007 at 10:59 am

Inq. of the Week: Musical Nerds : Critical Hits said:

[...] last week Dave asked the question of what you think are the best games ever, to which he got some of the expected answers such as Magic: The Gathering and D&D, with some [...]

- 3 December 2007 at 2:05 pm