In your opinion, how good is KSP?

[Eric S]

I'd say something in the top 50, due to the sheer amount of game's I've played over the years. The poll really depends on the age of the person and the amount of exposure they've had to other games.

And their taste in games. It's easily my favorite game of all time, but then again, I've been a fan/follower of space exploration for almost 50 years. KSP isn't close to perfect in its execution (it's not horrible, either), but it's spot on when it comes to concept and scope. And to be honest, if I had designed and written something in the same category, it wouldn't have been as much fun.

[Red Iron Crown]

Best ever for me, it's like it's been specifically designed to push all my gaming endorphin buttons. Even with its bugs and flaws, I've still put more time, thought, and energy into KSP and derived more enjoyment from it than any other game.

[Torquemadus]

No video game has ever equalled the awesomeness of Advanced Lawnmower Simulator!

[Robotengineer]

Top ten. Then again, I haven't played that many games.

[regex]

Echoing some earlier posters I'd say top 20, just on the sheer amount of time I've put into it. The graphics are pretty crappy, it obscures or considers irrelevant vital information and the UI design leaves a lot to be desired, the game lags due to poor choices in optimization (seriously, rendering a planet inside another planet...), and career mode feels like it was assembled from random game mechanics instead of actually designed from the ground up as a coherent system.

Given all that it should be pretty telling that it's still in my top 20 and I'm still playing it 2 years after buying it.

[Tex]

In my opinion, it's definitely realistically in the top 10. I find that picking out the "best game ever" has all sorts of rules and a bunch of quirky elements to the choosing process that make it hard for me, especially, to pick. I rank it in my top ten, certainly, along with things like Minecraft and COD Black Ops and Rust, but these are all from different genres, so I tend not to give them point values.

[SpacePi]

Well, considering I only have ~30 games on steam, I don't have much experience with anything else. I have loved astronomy since I was 4(I think) and this has given me a chance to see what being an aerospace engineer is very roughly like. So it'd probably my #1 atm, but Elite Dangerous looks awesome, but I don't have a computer capable of running it.

[WinkAllKerb'']

After playing thousand of videogames thoose last 'years' it's simply just one within my favourite. I can't really rank due to the amount of /played.

Edited May 24, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[LittleBlueGaming]

I've really just started, and unfortunately I'm limited to which/how many mods I can run with my toaster...

That being said, I have a feeling that KSP may even overtake League of Legends and Minecraft on my enjoyment factor and number of hours played. There are tons and tons of games I haven't played, haven't been doing much gaming in the last decade, but I expect KSP to end up in my top 5.

[Frybert]

For me I would have to say just barely out of the Top 10. Maybe around 11 or 12. This is do mostly because of the amount of games I have played. If we were talking about games released in the last 10 years, or had I simply gotten into video games 10 years later, this would definitely be Top 10.

[TheMoonRover]

Top 5 for me. I'm unusual in that I only really play older games, KSP being the exception. I usually play PS1 and PS2 games on my PS2, or on an emulator on my PC. IMO that's the era when the best games were made. As for computer games, just KSP (~6 mods), Nitronic Rush (heavily modded), and very occasionally I dabble with Minecraft.

Edit: ONE-HUNDRED-AND-EIGHTY (posts)

Edited May 24, 2015 by TheMoonRover

[Mitchz95]

While it remains my favorite game by far, the quantity of bugs and other minor grievances (water lag, ugh) prevent me from calling it the best game ever. Definitely top ten, however.

[Lord Aurelius]

It really depends on what metric you're using. From the standpoint of number of hours of enjoyment, KSP is definitely in the top 10, but sandbox games tend to take as much time as you can give them since there's no way to really finish the game.

But taking a step back and looking at the whole spread of games, KSP is merely a good game at this point. It has a brilliant concept, but the game itself still has a substantial number of bugs and balance issues, and career mode is still a mess (not to mention how boring the planets are for the most part once you actually get to them). Hopefully this will improve with future updates.

I've played many other games that were a much more coherent experience that score significantly higher IMHO. My vote for best game of all time would be something like the Ocarina of Time. Amazing graphics (for the time), gameplay and story in a highly polished (and relatively bugfree) package. KSP has gameplay for the most part, but not much else. A game like Skyrim is an easy top 10 as well. Huge open world (with lots of cool stuff to find) and an epic story help offset the bugs (plus there's usually workarounds via the console or with bugfix mods). Just Cause 2 is another top 10 for me, a huge open world where you can do random crazy stuff, an amazing game engine with minimal bugs, and just enough story to explain why you're doing random crazy stuff and provide some awesome side missions (if I can't have a great story, then I'll take one that's forgettable and doesn't get in my way).

As you can see, I tend to prefer games with a good story, of which KSP has very little so it doesn't rate as highly for me as some other games. I really hope we get an epic campaign/story mode at some point.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[Merinsan]

I like KSP. It's fun. I'm spending a good deal of time on it lately also.

But I can't say it's the best game ever.

For one, there is no story there, or even a real objective.

Secondly, the amount of times the game crashes is making it much less fun for me lately.

[KSK]

I've been playing games since the days of my trusty ZX Spectrum. KSP isn't my favourite game of all time - I doubt I could pick one absolute favourite game - but it's definitely in my top ten.

[Aghanim]

I love KSP because it works on Linux and I love sandbox games, especially with physics. But in terms of time played Dota 2 is much higher because my IRL friends plays it, while I already do my best to convince them to play KSP and almost everyone say it is too complicated...

But in KSP there is no such thing as trashtalking by foreign players, or by your own teammate, or losing, or more trashtalking, or needing to use internet, and KSP can be paused, can be saved, can be reloaded, and I'm not punished by disconnecting.

[MartGonzo]

Best game ever, and may the kraken strike down any heretic who says otherwise

[Frostiken]

'Top 10'... 'Top 20'... doesn't mean much when you don't specify how many games you expect me to be comparing this to. People who haven't played a lot of games are obviously going to be able to place it higher.

I put 'Top 50' in part because I have played a huge collection of games, but mostly because the game is still flawed and showing no signs of improving in the flawed aspects.

When you look at the actual CONTENT of the game, you have:

1) A career mode that is grindy, unchallenging, and uninspired.

2) A science system that is just a button-clicking simulator and basically is designed to be abused.

3) An extremely lousy tech tree. It's terrible, everyone hates it, FIX IT ALREADY. Stop with the linear paths, it doesn't work and it makes it possible to 'tech yourself into a corner' if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

4) Planets that don't really have anything terribly interesting about them to see or do.

5) Very dated graphics. We don't even have clouds on Kerbin yet? Seriously? And the space skybox is still godawful. I swear to god we've been using this same skybox since like 0.15, making it probably one of the oldest graphics in the game.

6) Terrible sounds. The music slowly drives you insane because it's all of like five music tracks, and you'll spend 99% of your time listening to two of them. Without Chatterer the game just feels completely lifeless and dead.

7) Straight-up stupid development decisions. No delta-V and minimal build stats? Yeah, the 'Kerbal' method of running out of gas halfway to the Mun might have been funny in 0.18, but now it's just a timewaster and makes it much harder for new players to learn what they're doing wrong and how to fix it.

Is the game good? Sure. But it absolutely isn't greater than the sum of its parts, because I would say most of the fat of the game still feels like it's an alpha. And I don't mean in KSP's "alpha but not really an alpha" alpha, I mean alpha in the sense that the game is flat-out unfinished.

If the game concept itself wasn't brilliant and fresh and unique, I honestly don't think this game would even be in my top-100 as-is.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Frostiken

[Lord Aurelius]

-snip-

Very much this. I would have also added buggy, unbalanced, and unpolished to that list.

Unfinished is a very good description of the current state of the game. Hopefully these issues will be addressed in time and I can honestly put it in my top-10 list without reservations.

But despite these issues the concept is amazing and there's nothing else really like at this point so I still end up coming back to it frequently (and have to spend a bunch of time updating all my mods every time).

[Fengist]

4) Planets that don't really have anything terribly interesting about them to see or do.

^This. Once you get where you're going, there's really nothing to do except, go somewhere else and do.... nothing. Sorry, mining for ore isn't a valid excuse for immersion, science is pointless in a sandbox and the occasional buried anomaly isn't exactly stimulating.

In my YEARS and 1,000's of hours of playing, I've only been to 4 orbital bodies and I see no reason to go to any of the others. On each of the ones I visited I found exactly the same thing as the others... different graphics, different physics. While it was a challenge getting there, once I did, there was no point in being there. I can't even count the number of ships, rovers, stations, etc. that I've utterly abandoned once they reached their destination for lack of purpose.

7) Straight-up stupid development decisions.

^This. I didn't need a heat overlay. I didn't need heat gauges that crash the game. I didn't need a change to the atmosphere. I didn't need an engine nerf. To me, this equates to the old job security analogy. When you're in fear of losing your job as a dev, come up with pointless changes so that you have something to do then chuck it down the end users neck as an 'improvement'. It's like completely changing the icons on a well established game (DAOC) so that art majors can have a job. And the net result of these 'improvements' was to turn my machine into a Commodore 64 any time I launch a craft with 200+ parts.

While I still enjoy the building aspect of KSP I ask you to consider this... Two of my currently popular challenges involve flying or driving around lifeless, featureless planets. One of the biggest complaints about the ground circumnavigation challenge... it's boring. And after driving around Eve, the long way, I'd agree. Nothing, in over 5,000 km of driving, other than graphics glitches, even piqued my interest or gave me reason to stop.

I would say this poll depends on how long the individual has been playing KSP. If you're relatively new to KSP, it'll rank in the top 10. Once you realize there's no end game, it's uniqueness will fade.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Fengist

[Red Iron Crown]

I would say this poll depends on how long the individual has been playing KSP. If you're relatively new to KSP, it'll rank in the top 10. Once you realize there's no end game, it's uniqueness will fade.

Speak for yourself. I've been playing since late 2011 and still find it unique and compelling.

[Fengist]

Speak for yourself. I've been playing since late 2011 and still find it unique and compelling.

No offense RIC, but after almost 8,000 posts I'd venture to guess you find the forums more unique and compelling than the game itself.

[hellion13]

Been a gamer all my life starting with an old NES and a 13in black and white TV in the living room. After 2 deployments to Iraq over the course of 6 years, I got burned out real bad for shooters. Anything dealing with shooting and death really.

One day I found the Buzz Aldrin game and got hooked. Played it till there was nothing left to do(in one day). Shortly after, the roommate I had at the time shows me this clunky almost mini game that had a handful of parts and no real way to get to space. Hooked. Like pure heroin. Think it was a version before .16 dont really remember which one, only had the Mun and nothing else. Teach me to get burned out on video games.....

So to answer the question do I think this game is good? Yes. Hands down one of the greatest games to ever hit the human race. Screw the bugs, the glitches and crashes. A whole generation of kids are going to grow up with a working knowledge of basic rocket science and orbital mechanics.

Yes I think its a great game.

[Xannari Ferrows]

Kerbal Space Program to me is not a game, but a simulator. I do not have many simulators on my list, so obviously it is #1.

[Robotengineer]

I would say this poll depends on how long the individual has been playing KSP. If you're relatively new to KSP, it'll rank in the top 10. Once you realize there's no end game, it's uniqueness will fade.

IMO, the lack of an end game sets KSP apart from other games. How many other games have you logged thousands of hours in?