@ Luke Maciak:
Let me go back and say apparently they are still active, I just don’t have a PC so I haven’t played recently. I know that Sony dropped them, but I also see that they just released an expansion and have been keeping updated. http://portalusgames.com/

I figured they were dead when Sony dropped them, but I hope they are doing good still. The game is so beautiful because in other games it always feels like you have to grind to a high level so you can enjoy the game. In PotBS you are always just enjoying yourself playing, when you upgrade a level — it’s exciting and you get access to new ships (in beta, it was cool because if you stole a ship you could sail it — doesn’t matter what level you are), but that only expands your ability to enjoy the game. It is so perfectly balanced that honestly you can just enjoy it.

I think it’s FTP, I would suggest giving it a day… just so you can see what I am talking about because it is so beautifully done that it’s hard to describe.

As for StarMade, I would say just be careful – Starmade will suck you in and 5 hours later after you have built a ship that can literally destroy planets (or better, absorb planets). You will have thought you have been playing for 30 minutes. If I can give you a tip though – while you are starting out, use build blocks and attach them to planets or better space stations, hold control and adjust the size and you can quickly “mine” tons of blocks at once.

Damn, that took a long time until Fallout appeared in the list!

In electronics the game I had the most fun in was X-Com, TFTD and even Apocalypse.
Closely followed by the Fallout Series but that saw dwindling interest/fun gained with every new title until I stopped (still have an uninstalled New Vegas here…).

Boardgames: Crimson Skies without a doubt.
Though there are many that I tried and Battletech is far more often on the table I absolutely love the effort and consideration that went into creating the world in detail.
Well, and I made an absolute bargain getting the boardgame for $3.80 and paying far more for postage :)

Other games: Shadowrun pen&paper.
Definitely the game I spent the most time on (that’s not on PC) and I nagged the folks at the german retailer so long and often with the appearance of SR3 that they later knew my phone number and name leading to statements like: Sorry, Pete. Next book is still not in, we’re having trouble with shipping from the printer. You’ll be among the first 50 to get a copy!
With the advent of the 4th edition I (we) reluctantly changed and then had even more fun with it, up to a point where we “modified” the dice system to make tests faster and battles that much slicker. 21 folks battling it out, took about 1.5h while more or less testing the new rules and adapting them :)

Best video game for me is EVE online, it’s the only game that gives me the shakes even when intellectually I know that I am relatively safe. Just something about risking your assets that could take days or even months to gain, that could be lost in a moment.

Talking about different gaming options, I’ve been having fun playing http://www.storium.com , it is sort of interactive storytelling game, sort of like Dungeons and Dragons, just without all the tedious dice rolling, you use your characters strengths and weaknesses cards to complete challenges the narrator gives you. It’s loads of fun.

Best video game ever for me is still Morrowind as well. Although, I have to say, I also enjoyed thoroughly the replayability of XCOMM Enemy Within.
For analog games, my favorite is still the AEG’s Legends of the Five Rings universe (RPG mostly, but even the arguably less than perfect CCG). They recently also edited “Love Letters” and adapted it to the L5R universe, which, I have to say, is a brilliant game.

i forgot about this whole non-electronic area…
there i’d have to say: Munchkin!

A really funny card-based RPG without numbers (well… mostly, one number per player is left). The Humor is great. The only Problem is that you have to have at least 4 Players. Because of that i can play it only 4-5 times a year.

I would say those games i still play all the time:
#1 Chrono Trigger
#2 Fallout 2 (and 1)
#3 UT2K4
#4 other RPGs (any Elder Scrolls since Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout 3)

In fact… i don’t even play current games any more. It’s not like i stopped playing. It’s not even like i would hate all current games. I just don’t care about them any more. (maybe that’s even worse)
I have tons of SNES-Games, i can play them on emulators on ALL my devices (PC/”Tablet” Asus T100, Smartphone, Wii, Archos Gamepad) this makes up for most of my gaming-needs. On my Desktop i tend to use other things more (ran around in Red Eclipse and Urban Terror for quite some time last year) and sometimes i just want to play a full-blown RPG and do so for some weeks.
What i currently still miss is some way to make DOSbox-Games or old Windows-Games work better with touch-input on my T100. To play more round-based RPG or Strategy-Games.
But since i now own a new BT-Mouse, it’s not that important anymore.

I can’t pick a “best game ever,” BUT the best game that I’ve played recently is Dungeons: the Dragoning.

Link.

DnD + Space + Awesome.

Best computer game for me right now is tied between Minecraft and Nethack.

Dominions 4

http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/

I don’t think mine have changed; Oddworld: Abe’s Oddyssey is still the first to come to mind, regarding video games. As for board games, I’m afraid I never had much of a company to play with, so I only know the more common ones.

For something completely different, one of the games I most fondly remember playing is what we called “Coin Game” (Jogo da Moeda, in Portuguese) and apparently the English call Spoof. I think it’s like Poker distilled to its simplest possible form – there’s no weird rules or combinations to remember, it’s purely based on trying to read the other person’s playing habits, and lots of luck!

It also helped that I was a kid and we played for money (the winner got the loser’s coins), so it also funded my arcade gaming :D

@ Travis McCrea:

Never played pirates, but it’s always nice to see an MMO that is not just reskinned version of WoW with voice acted / mo-cap cut-scenes. Was there any specific reason why it died, or did the player interest just dwindle after a while?

I think the big issue with MMO’s is that people usually only ever play one at a time. This seems to be true for both fee based and F2P games: it’s not really the money (though that plays a role) but the amount of time and effort you are expected to invest in the game both grinding for levels, and socially interacting with other players. The network effect always kicks in and people just loop back to WoW or Eve…

Also, Starmade looks amazing. I’m definitely checking it out. I’ve been waiting for a space sim in which you can actually land/explore procedurally generated planets and this seems exactly that, with some minecraft thrown in.