Best FIRST game...

[TDav540]

I'd say Aerial Assist was the best game because it integrated the concept of teamwork better than any other previous game. Although there have been many great ones, this was the most exciting in my opinion.

[JesseK]

Best autonomous for me is 2007 (2015 is a close second, but I want to see how it plays out). IMO, that's the last year where FRC's autonomous was harder than VRC & FTC. Every year since then, teams could dead reckon with mere encoder feedback (or nothing) in order to get major points. There has been very little incentive in recent years to attempt the harder auto routines since they give so little extra value (overall field success relative to available resources) for the average team. 2007 required any sensor system that could deal with an inconsistently-located scoring goal using hardware that was difficult to integrate with the sensors which would make the task easier.

Best Champs Teleop: 2014, by far. Alliances that were mature enough capability-wise to play the entire game DID play the entire game. Scores were through the roof and the matches were very intense. Driver practice/skill was as important as strategic decisions, as there were very few catch-up mechanisms built into the game (no end game!). My team really struggled since we couldn't get around a double-team, but the matches were still a lot of fun to coach and we were able to put up some big scores.

For me, best all-around is 2013. It was fun to build, fun to test, and fun to coach. The matches were pretty intense as well, with a good blend of offense, defense, HP interaction and strategic game play.

[Koko Ed]

Ranking games my years in FIRST (excluding this year):
2013 ULTIMATE ASCENT - Insanely exciting and fun.
2012 REBOUND RUMBLE - Technical issues and the nightmarish Eintsien aside this game was a blast to watch and the endgame was the best FIRST ever had.
2004 FIRST FRENZY: RAISING THE BAR - The best variety of robots I've seen and the robots never looked more athletic. Some of my all time favorite robots came from this year. Autonomous was useless.
2006 AIM HIGH - Fun game with the best autonomous FIRST ever had because it was so important to win it (at least until 25's alliance disproved that on Einstein in the semis)
2010 -BREAKAWAY - Pretty cool game. The endgame was pretty awesome. 469's robot made it a must watch moment.
2014 ARIAL ASSIST- Better game than it gets credit for when you see it played by team that know what they're doing. The penalties ruined alot of it.
2008 OVERDRIVE - Fun game when played well. Unbearable to witness when not.
2003 STACK ATTACK- Two completely different games in one. The main game no one could really play because it was impossible to protect your stacks outside of making a backdoor deal with the other alliance and too many points were given to the brutal king of the hill endgame that made teams ignore the main part of the game and made people be violent to one another.
2007 RACK AND ROLL - The Rack had to be the most destructive field element in the history of FIRST. If you got your robot snagged in it you could waste a good amount of time trying to safely remove your robot from it or risk damaging your robot trying to get out. Teams were very very violent that year as the championship elims shown.
2011 LOGOMOTION - Not a truly bad game but the endgame was so frustrating.
2005 TRIPLE PLAY - Given that my team won our first regional ever playing this game I should love it but it never really clicked with me. I'm not sure why.
2009 LUNACY - It was like watching snails joust. Better to watch on field level than up in the stands.
2002 ZONE ZEAL - The only game that got considerably worse during the elims which was basically a race to the goal and them a couple minutes of tug of war.

[Qbot2640]

Reserving my comments to the four recent games since I've been involved:

1 - Rebound Rumble - Easy to follow / straight-forward auto / excellent end-game...AND I LIKED THE COOPERTITION BRIDGE! ...There...I said it!

2 - Aerial Assist - Again, fun to watch / exciting matches / Negative: too destructive and match outcomes dependent upon major foul points

3 - Ultimate Ascent - Negatives: Complex from a viewer standpoint / Horrible real-time scoring / End game did not "mesh" well with the rest, and was too difficult to do well

4 - Recycle Rush - Negative: All or Nothing Autonomous means that any unplanned "dead robot" will result in zero points. Only the very best teams will have a potentially "game-changing" auto.

[David8696]

For me (note that I'm a strategist), it's Aerial Assist, followed closely by Ultimate Ascent. It seems to me that they've been the most exciting when played at a high level; Einstein last year was one of the most unbelievable series of matches I've ever experienced.

[Jon K.]

My favorite by far is 2005. It was simple and easy to explain to spectators, and still had a challenge to it. Plus you still had the element of suspense when teams got to 15+ tetras on the center goal. You never knew if you were going to knock the stack down. It was like a giant game of Jenga in the last few seconds.

[Oblarg]

Minus the problems with reffing, I'd say Aerial Assist is my clear favorite. After that, Overdrive or Ultimate Ascent.

[pandamonium]

2005 - Tough Challenge, good strategy, switch to 3v3
2007 - AMAZING for Strategy
2006 - I really liked the way they did different periods.
2013 - Pyramids!?!?!
2012 - interesting
2010 - Soccer and 469 + 1114 How did that alliance loose!!!?!?!
2014 - Really good set of matches on Einstein
2011 - Best Auto End game was worth way too much points
2008 - So Confusing
2009 - I never really liked bumper cars.

[c.shu]

I guess I'm the only one here that preferred 2010 Breakaway over the rest. I don't mind a little physicality in a game, I think it adds to the excitement for the spectators.

[Jared Russell]

I have participated in every game since 2001, and here are my thoughts on the games that I have observed.

Ultimate Ascent (2013) and Rebound Rumble (2012) were heads and shoulders above the games that came previously (or since). Excellent mix of scoring challenges, a good offense-defense balance, linear scoring, a nice mix of autonomous challenges, fun to watch, AMAZING endgames, some mobility challenges to consider (going under/over obstacles), worthwhile vision challenges, relatively easy to explain. Oh, and relatively open parts utilization rules compared to prior seasons. Some nits to pick (like the Coopertition Bridge aspect in 2012, and the fact that climbing should have been worth more points in 2013), but all around excellent games.

Next I put Aim High (2006). It was a simple high volume shooting game, and the first time the vision challenge was worthwhile.

FIRST Frenzy (2004) was a nightmare to explain, but it was a fantastically intricate challenge with many ways to score and led to highly varied designs.

Triple Play (2005) had an elegantly simple game mechanic (tic tac toe) and was always exciting to watch (though they should have done something different with the endgame).

Breakaway (2010) was a great idea, but would have been executed better with more lenient robot rules regarding ball possession.

Rack N Roll (2007) too often degenerated into a defense-fest, but it was a nice scoring challenge and a really interesting endgame. Would have been better with linear scoring and some sort of mechanism for limiting defense.

Overdrive (2008) was exciting to watch, but a little too simplistic for my liking. Would have been better with an additional game piece or a more heavily emphasized endgame objective.

Aerial Assist (2014) was awesome during Championship eliminations, and painful to watch just about any other time. The rules led to too much referee subjectivity, the autonomous challenge was such that you were better off not to try than to try and fail, and 4 out of 6 robots had no offensive objective at any given time, leading to scrums. I maintain that the game would have been MUCH more interesting if the truss had been only 18" off the ground

Logomotion (2011) remedied the defense balance of 2007, but maybe a little bit too much. The endgame challenge was the worst that FIRST has ever given us, and the scoring system was terrible. The IRI rule changes made the game a little more palatable.

Stack Attack (2003) had the original autonomous mode, and some interesting strategic aspects due to the nontraditional scoring mechanism, but was once again totally broken by having too much defense (and said nontraditional scoring mechanism).

Zone Zeal (2002) was a stump pulling contest.

Lunacy (2009) was like watching children play rugby.

Diabolical Dynamics (2001) is alone at the bottom because without robots interacting, who cares?

(I will not rate Recycle Rush until after the season, but you can probably infer my opinion from my ranking of similar games...)

[Addison4300]

I've only done 1 other competition which was Ultimate Ascent in 2013. It was outstanding and changed my outlook on how I was going to plan the rest of my life. So I'd have to say Ultimate Ascent.

[jman4747]

2011 best endgame, 2009 best feild... or perhaps...

Seriously, 2013 easy. Best field, main game, game piece, best rule set, and best overall. The Frisbee shooter is still the coolest thing in our shop, and the ammo doesn't wear out or deflate. 2012 for best endgame and 2nd best field, balancing on the bridge was incredibly fun.

[Billfred]

My list goes as follows:

2004 (FIRST Frenzy: Raising The Bar): Yeah, it was my rookie year so I was easily impressed--but the diversity of viable robots is unparalleled today, and those ball trays were just dope.
2012 (Rebound Rumble): This and Ultimate Ascent duke it out for the #2 spot, but I'm going to give it to Rebound Rumble. Both had exciting autonomous and teleop strategies, but Rebound Rumble's endgame was more consistently thrilling top to bottom while Ultimate Ascent could easily end with nobody going past Level 1 on the pyramid.
2013 (Ultimate Ascent): See above.
2006 (Aim High): Best autonomous mode they've ever done. The endgame wasn't too thrilling, but the action was great from start to finish.
2014 (Aerial Assist): This game would've been better with improved implementation (refs were overloaded for sure), but I still enjoyed it greatly. Lots of action, easy to track two balls, tons of strategy plays. You could explain it in a tweet.
2009 (Lunacy): Super fun engineering challenge. Human players might've been a little strong in the game, but the strategies to score while you protect your neck were very exciting.
2008 (FIRST Overdrive): Still a very enjoyable game, but I think Aerial Assist did launching exercise balls better and Rebound Rumble did limited human player control in autonomous better.
2011 (Logomotion): Slide this one notch up if you're playing under IRI rules. The game concept was fun, but the minibots just got out of hand. When you're expecting to smoke two $30-something motors every single match just to have a hope at winning, there's a problem.
2007 (Rack 'N Roll): Some cool elements here, but the dedicated rampbot with nothing to do until the last 30 seconds harmed it. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (And this was also the year BaneBots gearboxes came in the kit. Remember that saga?)
2005 (Triple Play): This was the first game I ever coached in. From the driver station or from the stands, it was murderous to tell who was winning at a glance.
2010 (Breakaway): Low scores, 99% of robots look the same due to high bumpers and limited ball control, few hangs and all of what, two suspensions all year? I watched the eliminations at IRI and didn't get thrilled. Next.

[artK]

My favorite games (that I attended an event for) are listed below. I personally like games where all the robots can contribute equally (or close to it) to the completion of the strategy.

2014: I loved the roles that each robot took in an alliance took to make it score, and the strategy was open enough that a non high-scoring alliance partner could still contribute to the game.
2010: Similarly, at least in what I can remember from this game, match strategy was how all the seemingly similar robots could differentiate themselves.
2013: Again, all the robots on an alliance could do different things, and could still pull off a win, but the minimum you needed to do this year to be competitive was higher that the last two years.
2011: This game was alright, but for the most part, the third robot (even on Einstein alliances) would almost exclusively play defense, and maybe would have one of the minibots.
2012: I never liked this game, as soon as I saw the kickoff, I knew the game sucked. The coopertition bridge can go rot in some unpleasant place. I don't even remember what a third robot could do other than drive on the wide configuration so the triple balance was easier. Even Einstein was a disappointment.

Based on this, I think this year could be a good game, but will probably depend on how deep the field is.

[indubitably]

I've only been around since 2008, but from what I hear and watch from the past years, my favorite all time games are:

2014
2005
2007
1999
2013

Least favorite are:

2002
2010
2009
2004
1995