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For me, Acquire is the game missing from the top 10 list. I'm sure it has been a mainstay of gaming groups for many years and is still good value today.
Do you play the Special Powers variant? It really is a spectacular game with those 5 extra tiles for everybody.
What is that?
The version published by Avalon Hill in 1995 contained some additional Special Powers "tiles" (more like very small cards made from thick cardboard - they do not get played on the board like other true tiles, so I'll substitute the word "card" for the rest of this discussion). There were 5 different cards, and every player got a copy of each one at the beginning of the game. Each of these "cards" could be used once, so upon using a card, it had to be surrendered, leaving you with only those cards you had not used. Each card gave you a special power to use immediately. Several of the cards (maybe all of them) had a requirement related to the portion your turn at which it could be played - if you went past the applicable point in that turn, you could not use that card. This isn't a big deal, as the timing constraints all make sense and keep the cards from breaking the game, but you did have to familiarize yourself with said constraints.
You could only play one card per turn.
I've looked on BGG for the rules of that version with no success, and my copy is in storage, so I'm working from memory here:
A) One card (played at the end of your turn?) allowed you to draw 6 tiles at the end of your turn, bringing your total to 11 instead of 6. You did not draw tiles at the end of subsequent turns until your total was again <6.
B) One card (played before you bought stock?) allowed you to buy up to 5 shares of stock instead of the usual limit of 3 shares.
C) One card (played before you bought stock?) allowed you to acquire up to 3 shares of stock free of charge
D) One card (played before you placed your first tile?) allowed you to place 4 tiles on a turn instead of one (this was obviously the "mega-turn" enabler, as you could start-merge-start-merge in one turn). All effects of tile #1 had to be resolved before placing tile 2, and so on.
E) One card (played before you bought stock?) allowed you to trade 2 (matched, obviously) shares of an existing chain for 1 share of any other existing chain. You could do this up to 3 times with any source pair traded for any end result share (e.g., 2 Luxor for 1 Continental, then 2 Worldwide for 1 Continental, then 2 Imperial for 1 American).
Play of this card did not invalidate your buy phase, so you could then buy stock, up to the normal limit of 3 shares.I feel these cards really made the game better - allowed for come-from-behind possibilites, kept you in the game if you were out of money (Card C), let you rush a chain if you were behind in ownership (and were willing to pay the price) and in general made the game a lot more interesting, and fun. Acquire is really one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it really suffers 2p; it needs 3 minimum, and 4 is better.
Edited for this note: This version of the game was vastly inferior in several ways. The board was flat cardboard instead of the more compact plastic version with the raised frames that hold the smaller plastic tiles in place, and the board takes up almost double the space on a table. The true "tiles" (A-1, A-2, etc.) are printed on thick cardstock, and when played just sit on the board. They can become dislodged if the table is jarred, or when playing outside in the wind. Finally, and most tragically, the colors of red used for shares of the two red chains (Imperial and Tower?) were virtually indistinguishable. It was so bad that I took a copy of one card for each of the 7 chains to a color copier and altered the colors (the reds pretty drastically). I then printed all new shares on heavier paper, laminated all the sheets, and cut out the 175 shares.
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Topic: Top 100 Games: People's Choice @ Tom Vasel (Read 29849 times)