We continue Top 100 Week here at the Opinionated Gamers today by sharing some of our all-time favorite games that missed the cut for yesterday’s aggregate list.  As mentioned yesterday, 19 different OG writers submitted their all-time Top 100 list, and we compiled the results to present 63 games yesterday that appeared on at least 5 or more of those lists.  We crowned Can’t Stop and Puerto Rico as the champions, each appearing on the favorites lists of over 60% of OG participants.  Today we will tell you about some of our Top 100 games that did not make the cut for yesterday’s write-up due to a lack of love among our fellow writers.  Here you will hear about personal favorites of each of us and why we just can’t get enough of these games!

Talia Rosen: My favorite games that missed the cut for yesterday’s lists are

• Longer high-conflict games like War of the Ring, Twilight Struggle, Nexus Ops, Root, and Dominant Species
• Classic German-style games like Stephensons Rocket, Lowenherz, and Caylus
• Children’s games like Igloo Pop and Survive
• Pattern recognition games like Geistesblitz, Uluru, and Jungle Speed

My personal Top 100 reflected my eclectic (some might say idiosyncratic or bizarre) taste for a wide variety of styles of games.  I have a penchant for longer, higher-conflict games that is not shared by most of my fellow OG writers.  I’ve long championed games like War of the Ring and Dominant Species with little success in these quarters.  I just adore two-vs-two partnership Nexus Ops and four-player free-for-all Root.  At the same time, I can’t get enough of old-school classic German-style games, particularly the sheer brilliance of Stephensons Rocket.  I also have a total soft spot for the ahead-of-its-time gameplay of Survive and the frenetic-nature of games like Geistesblitz and Uluru.  My desert island Top 100 is ultimately so different from yesterday’s picks, but variety is the spice of gaming joy, right?

Larry Levy:  One of my all-time favorite games missed the cut and I wasn’t particularly surprised it did.  It’s Tikal and not only is it 25 years old, it has a reputation (mostly undeserved, IMO) as a title that is hugely prone to AP.  But almost all of my games have taken 2 hours or less, so with a little focus, AP just isn’t a problem.  That leaves you with a wonderfully thinky, highly thematic, very interactive, and completely gorgeous game.  I think it’s just as good today as when it came out in 1999 and I absolutely love it.  But sadly, it’s rarely played these days and I was the only person to put it in their top 100.

Tikal is one of only five games I rate a perfect 10.  Three of the others (Through the Ages, Puerto Rico, and Princes of Florence) made the list, but the fifth is Borderlands, a game of conquest from Eon in the 80’s and I’m even less surprised about its exclusion.  I’m actually not certain if Borderlands holds up that well today, but man, did we play the crap out of it back in the day!  Extremely innovative when it was released, but yeah, that was a long time ago.  Still, I’d jump at the chance to play it again.

Of the other games in my all-time top 10, only Goa made the list.  That leaves Ora et Labora, Stephenson’s Rocket, Lowenherz, and Automobile on the outside looking in.  Both Stephenson’s and Automobile just missed, as a total of 4 people listed them.  Going a little further down my list, two games I was a bit surprised didn’t get more support are The Voyages of Marco Polo and Navegador, two terrific titles from the previous decade.  Alas, both narrowly missed making the list.

Nate Beeler: Plenty of my favorite games didn’t make the cut yesterday. I just want to call out two of them that I won’t get to talk about otherwise this week. Loopin’ Louie is to me the single best dexterity game that has ever been made. Protect your chicken tokens from the crazed Louie and his flip-flopping bi-plane by booping him up with your paddle and trying to get him to land onto one of the other players’ coops. I’ve played so many different sets and versions of this game, and they’re almost all fun (the lone exception was a bumble bee themed version that was so poorly made you could just hold your paddle up and be safe). It’s a great game for folks of all ages that rewards smart play.

My other joy that won’t get mentioned this week is Cosmic Eidex. It’s a three player only card game with special player powers that just gets everything right. It’s such a mind bender, and it requires multiple player aids to understand, even well after you’re a seasoned Cosmic Eidex player. Never mind that, though–it’s worth the effort. It’s so incredibly good.

Brian Leet: I can hardly fault anyone but myself for failing to vote and thus having favorites miss the cut. With that said, I suspect these titles wouldn’t have made it in any case. I would have certainly included the best games of the past decade in Clank: Catacombs, Dune: Imperium Uprising, Star Wars: Rebellion, Inis, Pax Pamir 2, and Root – and If I’d extended out to 100 I suspect I would have boosted many of Talia’s picks (sorry for being absent, Talia!). I certainly would have been another vote for War of the Ring and Twilight Struggle as well.

What’s your favorite game that didn’t show up on yesterday’s list?