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... what would it be and why?

This is a slightly different question than "what is your favorite game". For me, my favorite game is Shadow of the Colossus because I think it is one of the most finely crafted games ever made and is an incredible experience to play from start to finish, BUT having played through it to the end, I don't feel a need to come back to it with any regularity. If a game is going to be the only game you play for your life, it has to have amazing replay value. It needs to be a quality game, but it also needs to be something you can really devote yourself to.

There are a few games that I still play regularly even though years have passed. Street Fighter II Turbo, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, Cybernator, Grand Theft Auto III, Pac Man, Tetris... these are all good candidates. I think if I had to pick one game though (and I'm kind of going out on a limb here because it is a newer title) that game would be Minecraft.

If there is any game released in the last decade that I can see myself still playing another decade from now, it would be Minecraft. It's one of those games where the more time you spend with it, the better it gets. Oddly enough, this is kind of because Minecraft is "broken". The criteria for success in Minecraft cannot possibly be enforced by the game. A game needs to have a goal, which Minecraft does (the goal is to be creative and stay alive), but most games have some way to enforce this goal, which Minecraft does not. Most every other game I have played has a definable criteria for success and a built in mechanism for identifying that you have succeeded and thus beaten the game. Minecraft doesn't have this, and that is precisely what I love about it. Is success building a fortress? Maybe. Is that all you want to do in the game? Then yes. But maybe you want to build a log flume ride, or a glass room behind a waterfall, or carve a bust of your face into the side of a mountain, or maybe you want to make a pig riding rodeo. When your goal is only to create, then you define your own criteria for success. The game does not need to enforce the rules for success, you can make them up and enforce them yourself. This is why Minecraft would be my choice if I had to pick just one game to play for the rest of my life.

Poker

I don't think there is any game that would fit the bill for me. If I couldn't play anything but one game for the rest of my life I would just switch to a new hobby

There just ISN'T any game that can stay that interesting for that long. Not for me anyway

hmmm my favorite game of all time would be Link To The Past. But could that satisfy me to play just that and nothing else? I don't know. Street Fighter II is very high up there, and has a lot of replay value. But I'd probably pick something that has less story and focuses more on high score. So it would probably be either Galaga or a puzzle game (Super Puzzle Fighter II comes to mind right away).

I think I might kill myself if I had to play one game the rest of my life (same goes for listening to one album). Part of the joy in gaming for me is the diversity. If I was forced to stick with one, I wouldn't be escaping to a fantasy, it would just be living it.

Perhaps I should have added some "trapped on a desert island" scenario, or "life in prison with one game allowed per prisoner".

The question is just about what game do you think has the most replay value that will last for years? The hypothetical situation is just there to tap into that, I don't really expect anyone to actually commit to a single game forever.

For me it would be Europa Universalis II on PC because for over a year this was the only game I played save for matches of Smash Bros on N64 with friends. The ability to play as any country in the world from the Hundred Years War up until WWI (with mods) offered endless possibilities.

There areno set criteria for each campaign, you just did whatever you wanted. I sometimes go for historical campaigns where I try to keep everything as close to the historical narrative as possible through effective use of diplomacy and war or send my country on a completely different path. I've conquered the Mediterranean as Venice, colonized Canada, Chile, and New Zealand as Sweden, and dismantled the Austrian and Ottoman empires as Russia in control of half of China.

Even though the game is ten years old and a sequel has been on shelves for years now the online community is still producing new maps, events, etc to give the game flavor.

noiseredux wrote:hmmm my favorite game of all time would be Link To The Past. But could that satisfy me to play just that and nothing else? I don't know. Street Fighter II is very high up there, and has a lot of replay value. But I'd probably pick something that has less story and focuses more on high score. So it would probably be either Galaga or a puzzle game (Super Puzzle Fighter II comes to mind right away).

I'd probably go with this. Puzzle games tend to have nigh infinite replay value, so I'd be pretty happy being stuck with something like Puzzle Fighter, Tetris Attack, Yoshi's Cookie, etc.

Nethack. I don't believe this requires explanation or qualification.