What is Your Desert Island Game?

1up has a feature today asking games industry heavyweights what their 'desert island game' would be. Games from the Civilization series are backed by the likes of Sony's Phil Harrison, David Jaffe, and Bethesda's Todd Howard, while Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has waiting-for-rescue fans among a number of the list respondents. Bioware CEO Ray Muzyka has an interesting answer to the question while talking about his pick: StarCraft. " It's an unusual choice for me in that I'd normally pick a role-playing game. But StarCraft has a strong campaign editor to make new content (including making either combat-oriented or story-based campaigns), plus you can play both the solid single-player campaign and against the A.I., and -- here's the trick -- you can play on a LAN or WAN (you said no Internet, but didn't mention local or wide area networks...my goal would be to build a WAN -- I'd explain how, but that would be telling -- connecting other folks similarly dropped onto nearby desert islands by other videogame online sites, who are equally eager to play some competitive multiplayer RTS or try out the campaigns I've created to kill time on the long days where there's nothing else to do but collect coconuts and build rafts." So, assuming that you have everything you need to play, what game would you want to take with you into seclusion?

Starcraft/Warcraft

[LordBafford]

Yes starcraft sounds like a good pick to me, that or warcraft3. Both would supply you with many maps and campaigns to play and allow you to create your own maps as well.

Tetris for original NES

[Corpuscavernosa]

All day. I've been playing the game for 20 years (on my original system that surprisingly still works) and I plan to play till I die. There are countless versions for countless platforms but nothing beats the music, the controls or the plain feel of the single greatest game of all time.

Something with a good chat function...

[servoled]

I'd take something with a good chat function so I can get my ass off the island... failing that probably a nice pinball machine.

Trackmania

[igotmybfg]

Unbelievably strong level editor. Endless amusement. In short, it r0x0r.

If mods are allowed

[Lockejaw]

Escape Velocity: Nova, plus a few favorite plugins and the Port Authority mods. Also, throw in ResEdit and the relevant templates in case the regular content gets old.

Can I have more than one? ;)

[petrus4]

If so...

1) An open source WoW server emulator. I could do a number of things with that; tweak the AI and make bots for WSG/partying, migrate it to postgresql if that's never been done, (I don't think WoW does run on postgres) and maybe make some new material if I had 3d studio max. Someone else said the Diablo Battle Chest; I'd *maybe* go with D1, but WoW is everything D2 is and more.

2) UT 99 with level editor, and offline copies of this [beyondunreal.com], this [beyondunreal.com], and this [beyondunreal.com] site.

3) GTA: San Andreas.

4) Another interesting game-related project if I could learn enough would be a truly decent 3D front end for Nethack. This [freshmeat.net] could possibly serve as a base, but I'd make a lot of graphical alterations.

Settlers III by Bluebyte Software

[chitselb]

I'm probably the only guy left in the world who still plays this game a lot, but I really like it and it kills time like no other game can

Re:NetHack

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been a subject of much discussion on the nethack newsgroup. There's virtually nothing* that spoilers can give you that can't be figured out with observation, deduction, and most importantly, the Oracle's major consultations. After you've hit minetown, there's no use for all that gold anyway. Search for "Ellora the Elven Archer" for a series of posts by an unspoiled player who was all the way to Gehennom. (Unfortunately done in by the dreaded Cattus Keyboardus.)

  The RNG is a deadly foe, true, but the real key to success in nethack is A) minimize risk, and B) PREPARE TO BE SCREWED. To help avoid falling in a pit, try to walk on squares that you know you've walked on, or that you've seen monsters or pets walk on. When you fall into the pit, make sure you have already considered means to escape such a situation. Heck just writing the magic word, as laid out in the guidebook, would probably save you.

  * (magic cancellation might be a bit tricky to figure out, and isn't spelled out in the consultations. However, there is a strong, direct hint of its existence in one of the minor consultations.)

Re:Warhammer 40K: Dark Crusade

[Puff of Logic]

No Tyranids, not diggin' it.

My understanding is that they won't do Tyranids because they don't think the engine will be able to do them justice. Hopefully the next gen WH40K games will have an engine that'll do Tyranids nicely. Company of Heroes really opened my eyes as to what was possible in terms of RTS graphics and I'm looking forward to seeing that applied to the WH40K universe.

I would mod you up

[tknd]

If I had mod points.

For people that don't understand, Tetris DS is quite a different game than Tetris for old school gameboy. The reason being due to several small changes:

1. Shadow block - A shadow of where the block will fall is always shown. Sounds cheesy, but helps a lot given some of the other changes...
2. Hard drop - The block will instantly drop to the shadow if you press the up button.
3. Limited / Infinite spin - In certain modes (Wifi) there is limited spin which allows you to rotate the block for a short amount of time to keep it from sticking in place even though it touches other blocks. In other modes (non-multiplayer) there's infinite spin which has no time limit.
4. Hold block - You can place the current block into the hold queue by pushing the L or R buttons, the block that was previously in the queue will be swapped out--you can't swap out a block from the hold queue if you just placed it there. This is highly useful and allows you to do some pretty nasty things.
5. Shows next 6 blocks - You can see the next 6 blocks (in order) that you will receive.
6. T-spins - The game recognizes t-block spinning which can be used to put garbage blocks on your opponent similar or worse than a tetris.
7. Back-to-back tetris or t-spin - A bonus garbage row is sent to your opponent if you perform multiple tetris or t-spins with no other line clears in between.

Because of this, Tetris DS plays nothing like the original. The concept is the same - stack blocks and when a line completes it clears, but because of all the changes, the game is much more flexible and has a greater depth to it that doesn't involve just blocks falling faster and faster. For example, try mastering setups to perform double and triple T-spins, it's pretty tough and forces you to read your 6-piece queue ahead of time to determine how to construct the setup.

Re:NetHack

[hojita]

Nethack also wouldn't be as interesting, especially in the end game. It's partially because that part of the game ramps up the challenge significantly, but it's largely because this character that you've invested time and energy in is on the line and you're so close to the finish line.

Being able to save and reload may keep you from being frustrated, but it also keeps the game from being exciting.