What are the best PC games of all time?

[RickJay]

It's been awhile since we had this thread, so let's do it again. Nominate your top best PC games of all time! For the sake of having a few rules:

1. We're limiting this to games that have appeared as titles on a home computer, not a console. Ports from consoles, however, are okay.

2. Games should be considered in historical context. How did the game compare with games at that time? How did it influence game development?

3. Don't combine game titles. SimCity is four separate games, not one; if you want to pick one, pick the one you think was best.

4. It is fair to consider the impact of follow-up expansion packs (as opposed to sequels) in judging a game's quality. Hey, support counts.

5. Nominate up to 15 titles, but no fewer than 5. No ties. You must rank them.

For my money, I'm picking:


1. Civilization II
2. TIE Fighter
3. World of Warcraft
4. Wing Commander
5. Total Annihilation
6. X-Com
7. Jedi Knight
8. SimCity
9. Doom II
10. Empire
11. Pirates!
12. Red Baron
13. The Incredible Machine
14. Diablo
15. NHL 98

[RickJay]

Crap, how did that happen? Can a moderator spin that post off into its own Cafe Society thread, please?

[SkipMagic]

'Tis split.

[zamboniracer]

Rick, perchance did you mean to ask what were the best KC games of all-time? The answer is Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, of course. ;)

As to the OP, does anybody have the time to do a position by position comparison of the worst team in history candidates? That be interesting, in a perverse way of course.

[Stonebow]

1. Tie Fighter
2. Starcraft
3. X-Com
4. Civ II
5. Warcraft 2
6. Doom
7. Diablo
8. Darklands
9. One Must Fall 2097
10. Jedi Academy

[The Batman]

12. Civ II
11. Quake II
10. Homeworld
9. The Sims
8. Shogun: Total War
7. Baldur's Gate II
6. Falcon 3.0
5. World of Warcraft
4. Diablo
3. Doom
2. Age of Empires
1. Alpha Centauri

[glee]

1. Civ 4
2. Heroes of Might and Magic 3

[D_Odds]

1) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
2) Planescape: Torment
3) No One Lives Forever 2
4) Sid Meier's Pirates! (original)
5) Dungeon Keeper 2
6) Deus Ex

Game developers, unlike Hollywood producers, tend to have a much better grasp on creating sequels. They better know how to improve the aspects that make an original good while correcting the original's deficiencies. It's not perfect (Deus Ex II, Serious Sam 2), but developers do have a better record.

[thwartme]

1. Doom.
2. Myst
3. Hi Opal!

That is all.

thwartme

[Grossbottom]

1) Planescape Torment
2) Medieval: Total War
3) Ultima VII
4) System Shock (original)
5) Fallout II
6) Tie Fighter
7) Civilization IV
8) Master of Orion II
9) Thief: The Dark Project
10) Deus Ex

Honorable mention to Morrowind for world design, even if the unmodded gameplay sucked.

[Omniscient]

For my money, I'm picking:


1. Civilization II
2. TIE Fighter
3. World of Warcraft
4. Wing Commander
5. Total Annihilation
6. X-Com
7. Jedi Knight
8. SimCity
9. Doom II
10. Empire
11. Pirates!
12. Red Baron
13. The Incredible Machine
14. Diablo
15. NHL 98

Lemme just say that I find it utterly shocking and dumbfounding that Pirates! made the cut but none of the Myst series made your list. Dumbfounded I tells ya.

My list:

1) Civ IV
2) Myst
3) Warcraft
4) SimCity 3000
5) TIE Fighter
6) Age of Empires

[Scumpup]

1. Duke Nukem 3-D
2. Redneck Rampage
3. Half Life
4. Mech Warrior
5. Snood

[Parthol]

1. World of Warcraft
1a. Star Control II
3. Ultima IV
4. Heroes of Might & Magic III
5. Master of Orion (original)
6. Civilization II
7. Ultima V
8. The Incredible Machine
9. Starcraft
10. Half-Life (original)

(I'm disallowing games I worked on, since that seems like cheating. But someone already mentioned System Shock and Thief, so I'm happy. Now, if one of the 17 people who actually played Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri wants to speak up, it would really make my day! :) )

-P

[CandidGamera]

What the hell? Ignoring Civilization, for two of its sequels? There are sometimes reasons to do that, but not here.

Civilization.
Master of Orion II.
Railroad Tycoon.
Starcraft.
Planescape : Torment.
X-Com.
TIE Fighter.
Diablo.

[Trion]

The only thing I see missing here is Zork.

[Stonebow]

What the hell? Ignoring Civilization, for two of its sequels? There are sometimes reasons to do that, but not here.


Now, Civ 1 was a great game, and gets extra points for original concept...but the franchise owes an incredible amount of its success to the advancement of the GUI that begins with II.

[E-Sabbath]

Freedom Force, for doing the, for years, impossible, and putting a superhero game on the PC.
(El Diabloooo!)
Wing Commander: Prophecy may, and only _may_ be better than TIE Fighter.
Sam And Max Hit The Road or Grim Fandango for the best Adventure game... or Day of the Tentacle or Starship Titanic
Zork/Advent/Colossal Caves

[Kiros]

Always hard to pick between classics (which defined the genres) and new stuff (which is better in a lot of cases, but rarely groundbreaking). My list, which is pretty obviously skewed towards strategy and RPG games:

1. Diablo - the sequel was better... but this was the game that was responsible for almost an entire decade of clones at this point... and the sequel might be the ONLY one that was better. On top of that, it foreshadowed a lot of modern internet gaming with the introduction of Blizzard's battle.net; there had been gaming over the internet before, but this was a HUGE step.

2. Civilization IV - I thought about I or II here, because they were each groundbreaking in their own way, but IV is nearly a perfect conclusion to what the others started. Once some of the early memory issues and minor bugs were quickly patched... there just isn't much that this game gets wrong.

3. Starcraft - I really wanted to put one of the Warcraft games here (either II or III), but SC has one big thing going for it: it introduced three playable sides that were non-symmetrical and well-balanced. Add the international longevity of the game and the myriad player-spawned mods of all shapes and sizes (from gimmicks to RPGs and everything in between), and this gets a slight edge over War3 for the "Blizzard RTS" spot.

4. Unreal Tournament - Everyone tends to have their own individual preference as to which is the best FPS deathmatch type game. I'll take my UT (and later UT2004) over your Half-Life, Quake, Doom, etc. any day of the week, but there's definite room for movement there since they're all great games. I just love the way UT plays as a multiplayer bonanza.

5. Heroes of Might and Magic II - This was a sort of hard pick with the number as well. The first was a good enough game to get the series rolling, but the second was a huge step forward and defined everything that game after. III and IV were both great games in their own right - and you'll hear myriad arguments over which style of play and game is the superior one. So I went with II, which established HoMM as the premier fantasy turn-based strategy game while putting down the foundations for everything that game later in the series.

6. Neverwinter Nights - On its own, this is a very good game. It shipped with the best and most accessible approach to computer D&D gaming that we've seen, IMO, one that even reached out to RPG fans who would normally never go near something D&D based. What really makes NWN shine, though, is the expansions and the community-created modules, which combine to make this one of the rather more ridiculously forever-playable games that we've seen.

7. Everquest - This spot was competition between EQ and WoW, of course. For all that WoW used the Blizzard and Warcraft brands along with ease of entry to expand the reach of MMOs beyond what anyone thought possible... I just think what EQ did in 1999 (and particularly with the first two or three expansions) was at least as impressive with a far stronger aspect of community, especially when EQ was developing a lot of these concepts that WoW would later refine (extremely well). For half a million or more online RPG gamers, their first year or two in EQ is something that will absolutely never be replicated in terms of the feelings of actually being in another world, with vibrant settings and communities.

8. Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven - This is the "old school PC RPG" spot. A couple more Might and Magics could have gone here, or a few Ultimas, or maybe a Wizardry. None of them have aged especially well... and yet they're all still fun to go back and play for those of us who remember doing it the first time. Mandate of Heaven was a classic Might and Magic game with a strong story (continuing after the events of HoMM2), entertaining quests, and what were cutting edge graphics at the time (1998). Just a very fun game to play.

That's all I'm gonna list - keeping in mind that I could extend it to at least 20 just with variations, sequels, and prequels of the eight I've put down here.

[Miller]

1. Civilization 4
2. Planescape: Torment
3. Fallout 2
4. Deus Ex
5. Half Life 2
6. Master of Orion II
7. System Shock
8. Ultima: Underworld
9. Sam and Max Hit the Road
10. Doom

[stpauler]

1) Oregon Trail
2) American McGee's Alice
3) Doom
4) Mah Johnng (the "fake" one where you make matches and pull 'em off in pairs).
5) Mine Sweeper
6) Myst

[Quartz]

1. Wing Commander 2
2. Doom
3. Duke Nukem 3D
4. Aces High
5. Far Cry
6. IL2
7. Freespace 2
8. Zork 3
8. Descent

[DocCathode]

Beast- This is a classic from the 8086 days. It used colored ascii characters. There was only one screen. You were the keeper, who had to move walls to crush the beasts or contain them (if a they couldn't move for a few seconds, they exploded). There were game variations involving eggs and superbeasts. It was a massive amount of creativity and fun packed into a tiny program.

Fool's Errand- (the creator and rights holder explicitly allows free download at his site or Underdogs) Based on the Tarot, this was a series of unique puzzles. Solving a puzzle gets you a map piece. When the map is assembled, you must use clues to solve several over-arching puzzles and win the game.

Heaven And Earth- A collection of 12 different puzzle categories, a pendulum game, and a card game. The first puzzle game to really utilize the computer by creating objects that can not exist in real space.

Zork- Infocom definitely deserves an entry. This classic is as good a contender as any of their other games.

Adventure- The very first text adventure.

Archon Ultra- You know that scene in Star Wars when Chewie and Threepio play chess? Dragon, phoenix, banshees. The original was great. This updated version was even better.

Alone In The Dark- A great mix of puzzle solving and action. The polygons were bad graphics even at the time. But, the atmosphere is fantastic and the details are wonderful.

Doom- Yes Wolfenstein came first. But, Doom was a revolutionary game.

[Agnostic Pagan]

1. Shogun: Total War (since it was the first. I would add Medieval and Rome also if we were allowed.)
2. Age of Empires
3. Master of Orion
4. Descent: Freespace (I haven't played Freespace 2 yet, so might get bumped in the future.)
5. X-Com
6. Rogue - the best ASCII game ever
7. Zork
8. Ur-quan Masters (Star Control II)
9. Empire
10. Diablo

Honorable Mention: Madden Football (2003) - awesome console game. Not so awesome on the PC.

[Morbo]

Rick, perchance did you mean to ask what were the best KC games of all-time? The answer is Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, of course. ;)

No, that would be "what are the most notoriously poorly officiated games of all time" Bitter? Me? Nah, I've moved on. It was over twenty years ago, after all, why should I---FUCK YOU DENKINGER!! AAARRRGHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

Anyhoo, I must chime in here and mention Rise of the Triad (ROTT). It was the first PC game to allow network play through TCP/IP, and was also the first to stream "taunts" through the function keys. IIRC, you had "Behind you!" and "LAAAA LA LA" (to use as you were running away) and...damn, I wish I could remember more.

In single player mode, the game was fantastic as well. great "boss" bad guys ("They'll bury you in a lunchbox") and great weapons - the flamethrower was a personal favorite - it would send a wall of fire at the bad guys, turning them into charred skeletons, which would stay upright for a second before tumbling to the ground with a little xylophone music. What else...ah, the "Excalibat" was a great one - it would fire glowing baseballs at the bad guys.

Another innovation was that the bad guys would occasionally pretend to be dead, then get back up when your back was turned. They would also steal your weapon if you got too close. ("Gimme that!")

And of course, they had the bloodiest (at the time) deaths. "Ludicrous gibs!"

[Waverly]

1) Castle Wolfenstein – has anything been more duplicated? The first of its kind, from the FPS style to the shareware marketing of the initial levels.
2) Scorched Earth – [one of] the most played DOS games of all time. Nowadays it could be written on someone’s lunch hour, but it was fun at the time.
3) Zork – Before there were immersive adventure and RPGs, there was Zork. To the best of my knowledge, the best and most widely distributed text based game.
4) Bard’s Tale – Better than most of the TSR games that game after it, Bard’s Tale was the first time I felt I was playing an RPG in front of a cathode tube.
5) Baldur’s Gate II – Even better than BGI, which won’t make the list, it is simply the best RPG yet. Since no one uses turn based AD&D rules anymore, isometric views, or interactive parties, I doubt there will be anything like it again.
6) Diablo – I played it, and didn’t particularly like it. But I can’t argue with its influence. True RPG’s have been on the wane ever since, yielding to simpler action adventures.
7) Decent – Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s the first game I remember that was suitable for a LAN party. Even the first few shareware levels could be networked.
8) Civilization – the first, and still the best, of its genre.
9) Planescape: Torment – The second best RPG of all time. Another relic from a genre that doesn’t quite exist anymore.
10) Doom – The gold standard for FPS’s. Far Cry, No One Lives Forever 2, and others are arguably ‘better’, but not when each is considered relative to it’s own point on the timeline.

[BobLibDem]

Civilization 3
Civ II
Civ I
Myst 3
Myst 2
Myst 4
Myst
Fallout
Chip's Challenge

[control-z]

1. Day of Defeat - 9 times out of 10 for years, this is what I play.
2. Doom - Violent, tons of monsters, great atmoshpere.
3. Quake2 - This was much more polished than Quake, had a good single-player experience, and introduced me to CTF and Jailbreak.
4. Half-Life - From the intro on, an amazing single player experience. Not to mention the multiplayer TFC, Day of Defeat, Counterstrike, and many other mods.
5. Civ4 - Almost perfect strategy game.
6. Knights of the Old Republic - Best RPG and best Star Wars game I've played for a long time.
7. Unreal Tournament 2004 - So many multiplayer game modes, tweaks, and variety.
8. TIE fighter - Most excellent Star Wars space combat.
9. Transport Tycoon - I never mastered this game, but I still play it.
10. Grand Theft Auto 3 - Such great atmosphere and freedom.
11. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion - A vast living breathing world and a huge amount of freedom to explore and do what you want.

[even sven]

1. Deus Ex- Honestly, no modern games have come close to fulfilling the promise in it. We got a taste of the future of gaming in the year 2000.

[E-Sabbath]

Alone in the Dark was really the first 3-D polygon skeletal animation game for the PC. The graphics were only bad because they weren't sprites. The animation, though, was beautiful.

[Snarky_Kong]

Glad to see lots of people picking Deus Ex.

1)Deus Ex
2)Baldur's Gate 2
3)Myth 2:Soulblighter
4)Civ 2
5)Fallout 2
6)Minesweeper

I'm wondering if you guys haven't played the first 2 Myth games or just didn't think they were anything special? Killings zombies with dwarves tossing moltov cocktails is one of the best moment in gaming in my opinion.

[Bippy the Beardless]

If we take into account the relitive age of the products then
Civ I,
Lemmings,
and Castle Wolfenstein
should probably be in the list.

[MaxTheVool]

I'm old school:

1. Tetris (how can no one else have mentioned this? perhaps the greatest simple game ever designed)
2. Nethack
3. Wasteland (most fun I ever had playing an RPG)
4. Loderunner: The Legend Returns
4 (tie). The Incredible Machine (these two allowed puzzle building and torturing one's friends)
6. Prince of Persia (2 was great also)

[Snarky_Kong]

I'm old school:

1. Tetris (how can no one else have mentioned this? perhaps the greatest simple game ever designed)
2. Nethack
3. Wasteland (most fun I ever had playing an RPG)
4. Loderunner: The Legend Returns
4 (tie). The Incredible Machine (these two allowed puzzle building and torturing one's friends)
6. Prince of Persia (2 was great also)

Was tetris originally on PCs? I wasn't sure so I didn't name it.

[Bippy the Beardless]

Tetris was an arcade game modified for the PC and every other platform out there, maybe one of the greatest games of its time, but not sure it could be called a PC game any more than Space Invaders, Pacman or Pong.

Wan't nethack more of a mainframe game that got converted over to PCs like Zork was?

[QuizCustodet]

Here are my choices - to avoid boring you all to death, I've commented only on the top three and the three (Dark Forces, Aliens vs Predator, Betrayal at Krondor) that I haven't seen commented on elsewhere.

1) Deus Ex - narrow winner over Civ II because I was astonished throughout at the cleverness and non-directiveness of the game.

2) Civilization II - always my favorite of the series. I don't enjoy the detailed combat required in III and IV, though if I could have Civ II style combat with the culture and diplomacy options from the later game I would die happy.

3) Pirates! - probably the game I most enjoyed playing, ever. There's a joy to buccaneering that's hard to match - and you never forget the time you sailed into a near-abandoned port to find the Treasure Fleet at anchor.

4) Baldur's Gate II
5) TIE Fighter
6) Starcraft
7) Knights of the Old Republic
8) Half-Life
9) System Shock II (I never played the original, so I can't judge how it compared)
10) Planescape: Torment
11) TESIV: Oblivion (This may well move up the list as I get more of a chance to play with it - I've not even beaten it once yet. After a mere 60 hours.)

12) Alien vs Predator - the atmosphere in the Marine campaign was just too perfect for this game not to make the list. It also gets high marks from me because it was the first FPS that I played to include weapon stoppages. I just about died the first time my pulse rifle jammed while an Alien was running towards me.

13) Dark Forces - I thought that Dark Forces was a big step forward for FPSs at the time it was published - particularly the branching story-line.

14) Grand Theft Auto

15) Betrayal at Krondor - I may be biased, as a big fan of Raymond E. Feist. The storyline was interesting, but I think the main virtue of the game was in capturing the 'feel' of Midkemia.

[Grey]

1. CIV I : Simply since it was the first of the line
2. MOO II: Better than Master of Orion I
3. Europa Universalis II.
4. Planescape
5. Baldur's Gate II

[Bobotheoptimist]

1) BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception - CGA graphics, limited battle, but between fights you could invest in the stock market and make millions. Twisted I was back in the 80's.

2) Pirates - Stayed up 'til the wee hours playing this on my old 8088, too

3) M1A Abrams - Another oldie

4) Wizardry 7 Crusaders of the Dark Savant - the best turn-based ever!

5) Civilization - nothing needs said

6) Castle Wolfenstein - ditto

7) Doom - first game I played on a Linux box.

8) Tie Fighter - TFC!

9) Doom II

10) Duke Nukem 3D


There were a couple of others back in the early/mid 90's, like that vampire-cyberpunk thing that my souped-up 386 couldn't handle.

[KarlGauss]

I admit that I don't have a huge amount of experience or exposure, but IMHO nothing else I know is as fun as IL 2: The Forgotten Battles (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/il2sturmovikforgottenbattles?q=il-2)

[Zebra]

I prefered X-Wing to Tie Fighter.

X-Wing is probably my all time favorite. (along with many of the ones already mentioned)

[Sublight]

1. The Sims 2. The Sims was great and revolutionary, but The Sims 2 stood out even more.
2. Sim City
3. Civilization II
4. Civilization I
5. Unreal Tournament
6. Pirates! (the original. The recent re-release just updated graphics and interface, and that's all it needed)
7. Tony LaRussa Baseball (2? 3? it was the version that was out in 1993)
9. Moria
9. Strategic Conquest


#2, 4, 7, 8, and 9 almost caused me to flunk out of college.

[Ellis Dee]

Wow, are these ever tough to rank. I stuck with best-in-genre for the most part. My criteria are skewed toward successfuly implementation, as opposed to popular appeal. Anything groundbreaking or innovative received a boost onto or up the list, as did games with customizable content.

10. Stunts The most fun driving game on a computer I ever played.

9. 4D Sports Boxing Most satisfying punches ever, on par with Fight Night.

8. Links Golf The definitive golf game on the computer.

7. X-Com Best turn-based strategy game ever.

6. Lemmings Innovative, fun, and highly addictive.

5. Dynamix Football Pro Later became Frontpage Sports Football Pro, this series was far superior in the late 90s than any console football game to date. ESPN's now defunct 2k franchise, as well as Madden, is but a shell of a game in comparison. Nothing before nor since has approached the perfection of Dynamix when it comes to football games.

4. Doom II So good. Too good; I still have my own custom audio wad file, with soundbites mostly from Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Aliens, and Predator, plus a few other random sources toseed in. This game ruled.

3. Populous II Way ahead of its time, this was the precursor to the entire RTS genre, and it allowed serial cable links for head to head action. It isn't built on a traditional RTS paradigm, as such a thing was yet to exist. It is unique in its greatness.

2. Starcraft (Broodwars) Best traditional RTS game ever. While Warcraft was phenomenal, and AoE was great, Starcraft was the ultimate game, made even better by the introduction of medics.

And the greatest game ever made is...

1. Star Control 2 Bar none, the best computer game ever made. Immersive content, non-linear storyline, vast game universe, diverse encounters, engaging arcade-style melee action, this game has it all. One of the pioneer greats in the adventure RPG genre.

[Revedge]

In no particular order:

Railroad Tycoon

Civ 2

Leisure Suit Larry

The Seventh Guest

Myst

Doom

ChessMaster 2000

Links

Sim City

Descent

Wolf Pack

Solitare

[Uzi]

In no particular order:

Wing Commander (all of them)
Mechwarrior 2 (What the hell, I liked most of them)
Unreal
Far Cry
Duke Nukem 3D
Doom
Half-Life
Blood
Redneck Rampage (come on! Someone make a sequel alreadyRedneck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_Rampage) ).
Serious Sam 1&2
Ultima Underworld
Ground Control (not the second one which is crap)
First couple of Star Wars FPS's, and the first couple of Jedi series
Heavy Metal FAKK 2

[Critical1]

tough call on some of these

1 Tribes 1, hands down the most fun I have ever had in an fps, while Wolfenstein was the orignial every single fps that followed was nothing but a clone until T1 came out. full 3d environment and team on team battles with deployables made this game infinitly replayable. (hell I still play, the master servers went down but you can still find agame if you google for the master server someone else is hosting.

2 Everquest, (pvp) while broken and lacking in all things resembling customer service throughout its entire history this game had me hooked for years.

3 Grand Theft Auto, I dont think I can really choose between the 3d releases (3,4,5) all simply amazing in the most nonlinear mission based game ever. you can literaly complete most of the game in anyway you see fit.

4 Pirates of the Carribean...I know what youre gonna say, "that game was so frakin Buggy it was unplayable" thats beacause you didnt find the mods that the game community made for this game. absolutely amazing.

5 at this point I think I am out of favorite all time pc games. I am heavily into pvp games of most types, so the huge number of great single players dont hold much interest.

[Argent Towers]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Marathon, Marathon II or Marathon Infinity. These games definitely belong in any discussion of the greatest computer games of all time, but unfortunately they are largely forgotten outside of a small group of cult people who keep the games going with new mods and levels. With Aleph One (http://source.bungie.org/) you can now download these games for free (and play them on a PC as well, even though they were originally for Mac.) It's a great FPS with an excellent sci-fi story. Definitely a predeccessor to games like System Shock and Deus Ex.

[Morbo]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Marathon, Marathon II or Marathon Infinity. These games definitely belong in any discussion of the greatest computer games of all time, but unfortunately they are largely forgotten outside of a small group of cult people who keep the games going with new mods and levels

[Humble plug]I'm pretty sure you'd know me by name.[/Humble plug] Didn't want to blow my own horn in this thread, but since you brought it up...and it's late and I'm surfing...

[Argent Towers]

Hmm...I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate...

[Morbo]

Seeing as how we're the only two people awake, I won't bother with the Quote tag...

Enable your email and we'll talk - I relish my .01 degree of anonymity - or check my user CP and you'll probably figure it out...

[Small Clanger]

Mentioned already:

Doom
Half Life
Quake II
Day of the Tentacle
X-Wing

And a new one for the list:

Dune 2. The first game I bought for the PC (about a hundred years ago). When I first started it up I was really disappointed with the graphics which were worse than on my Atari ST* but how addictive was that game!

*Which still works, while the old 486 is very, very dead.

[BadBadger]

In no particular order:

Doom - nearly said Wolfenstein but I think that this game just took it that step up

Baldurs Gate II - seminal rpg for me

World of Warcraft - the MMO. Agree that EQ paved the way though (and I'm slightly addicted to it)

Tie Fighter - what can I say?

X-Com - atmosphere was awe inspiring. Especially renaming the players to your friends and family and getting quite upset as your SO is melted..

Deus Ex - immersive story and wonderful atmosphere

Half Life - and the CS / DOD mods. Big leg-up to online gaming imo.

Sims - was just that much different.

Dune - the original on 286's. Corking strat game for the time.

Civilisation - the first of the real "time chewers" and accessible to all.

BF 1942 - it had planes and parachutes, tanks and lots of people running round like loons.

Populous - the original. Now that was good.

[Uzi]

Descent

Descent. That was a great game. 3D movement. Mineshafts all over the place. Remote control missles. I spent many an hour at that one.

[Martini Enfield]

I agree with every single one of the games mentioned here, and I'll add a couple of my own:

Their Finest Hour: The Battle Of Britain, 1940: An early one (1989) from Lucasfilm Games, and one of the very first Combat Flight Sims. It had a level of versimilitude unmatched until European Air War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Air_War), nearly 10 years later, and had a couple of aircraft that almost never get any screen time in modern WWII flightsims (as flyable aircraft), namely the He-111 bomber and the Ju-87B Stuka.

Red Baron: One of the first (and still one of the best, IMO) WWI flight sims. It came after Knights Of The Sky (which managed to feel more like you were actually in WWI somehow), but is still fondly remembered today.

Tropico: Come on, who hasn't secretly dreamed of being El Presidente of a Caribbean Banana Republic at some point?

FarCry: Sure, it has some technical issues, but if you could get it running properly, it absolutely blew the visuals of pretty much everything else out of the water- and it was a cracking game, too!

Command & Conquer I was never a Warcraft Fan, but C&C had it all- FMV, interesting personalities, cool units, and the whole RTS thing was still pretty new at the time.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. There's a reason this game is known as SMAC, besides the Acronym. Somehow, Sid combined everything that was right with Civ II and the add-ons with an Epic Space Opera, and threw in a lot of very deep intellectual and philosophical discussions on the very nature of what makes us human, and the possibilities of the far future.

Jagged Alliance 2: A Tactical RPG with a wry sense of humour, characters you actually genuinely liked and cared about (or disliked and hated), combined with lots of guns, shooting, and a surprisingly deep strategic element.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura: If you loved Fallout, chances are you'll like Arcanum as well. Set in a cross between Victorian England and The Forgotten Realms from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it had everything that made Falllout rule, plus it was bigger and arguably more in-depth.

Theme Park: The original, and the best, until Chris Sawyer ripped it off for Rollercoaster Tycoon. I'm still trying to work out how he didn't get sued over that.

[mr. jp]

The best is freeciv.

It is like civ2, but without the annoying micromanagement, and in addition it works as an online multiplayer game.

You can get it for free at:
www.freeciv.org

[HubZilla]

How far can we go back?

Zork I-III, the text adventure games

SimCity and MS Flight Simulator; I'm always the first to get each update. Plus, I'm weird, as I love the more current version over the past one(s).

[sturmhauke]

First, I must comment on other people's picks.

There's a reason the Warcraft-style RTS interface has become the standard - C&C's sucked. The build queue system was especially bizarre and frustrating. C&C may have kickstarted the RTS genre, but recently I was a tester on the new compilation DVD that includes every C&C game, and I hated the oldest ones. It didn't get tolerable until Tiberian Sun, and you'll notice that Generals uses the modern interface descended from Warcraft.

On the other hand, I'm very pleased to see Total Annihilation on the OP's list. While TA never had the mass appeal of some other RTSes, it was fairly popular in its day and I think one of the finest RTSes ever made. Units had truly long range power, in some cases reaching clear across the map. You could also set units' movement and attack AI to several different behaviors. The 3D physics engine allowed for choke points and cover created by terrain and wreckage. Firing from higher ground also gave an advantage. The interface let you queue just about every action in the game, making it easier to set up long term strategies without all the button mashing. On top of all that, when Cavedog was still in business they had a server called the Boneyard, with a persistent galaxy that players could fight over and gain rank. Higher ranked players could command more elite units with beefed up stats. I think I made it to 2nd Lieutenant on the CORE side, who were the "bad guys", generally somewhat slower and tougher than the ARM rebels. Finally, TA is really about the only RTS I can think of that's fully moddable. There are reportedly about 6,000 custom units out there, and a number of full conversions.

I'm drooling over Supreme Commander, the unofficial sequel to TA by the same creator, Chris Taylor. PC Gamer asked him recently what he hopes to bring to the RTS genre with his new game. He replied, "Strategy." Strategy in the classical sense has only truly been represented in turn based games like Civ, where you have to think and plan in long term and global scales. Most RTSes, even TA (unless you include the defunct Boneyard), are more properly tactical games where you're only concerned with the demands of an individual battlefield. Battle for Middle Earth II tried to incorporate a strategic map, except they got it backwards and called it the tactical map and it was poorly implemented besides. If Taylor manages to pull it off with Supreme Commander, you will finally have a true Real Time Strategy where you can sit back and command the global theater of war, or zoom in and direct individual skirmishes, or anything in between. The screenshots and movies released so far show units on a realistic scale, with infantry and small vehicles all the way up to warships that are hundreds of meters long and take up more than a full screen until you zoom out. Of course, it could come out a horrible mess, but I don't think this one will.

Homeworld is pretty cool too. There aren't too many space based RTSes out there, but Relic came up with a great interface for handling true 3D space combat. Plus it has a soundtrack by Yes and a bunch of science fiction references sprinkled about. Homeworld is also highly moddable, but not quite to the same extent as TA.

As for the Civ series, I would currently rank them as II, IV, I, and III. Civ I was the innovator and very good, but I think II was superior in all respects while taking nothing away. III added some cool concepts like culture and national boundaries, but the new resource system was a bit screwy and the combat mechanics backslid into the "Phalanx defeats Battleship" situation of the original game. Civ II fixed that crap, I don't know what they were thinking for III. IV took III and transformed it from a mediocre into a good game, but as of yet it still hasn't captured hundreds of hours of my life the way that Civ I and especially II did.

So here's my picks for top games:

1. Fallout (I've gone on about that plenty of times in other threads)
2. Civ II
3. Total Annihilation
4. TIE Fighter
5. Knights of the Old Republic
6. Homeworld
7. Civ I
8. Fallout II (I thought the ending was much weaker than the original)
9. Warcraft II (orcs beat horrible Russian accents any day)
10. Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (especially because it ran on my XT but could easily compete with games for 386 machines)

[What Exit?]

Sid Meyer's Pirates was such a great game, I played it for years and on three different computers systems.
Warlords for the Amiga was incredible for its time.
Command & Conquer was quite a break through.
Star Fleet on the ancient Unix installs is one of the first computer games. Written sometime in the 70's I think.
Neverhood by Lucas Arts.

Jim

[Miller]

Jagged Alliance 2: A Tactical RPG with a wry sense of humour, characters you actually genuinely liked and cared about (or disliked and hated), combined with lots of guns, shooting, and a surprisingly deep strategic element.

"Elliot, you eeediot!"

<slap slap slap>


Ah, man, that was a classic. Wonder if it'll run on XP?

[Argent Towers]

Well, Dooku, I enabled my email, now tell me who you are.

[gonzomax]

Pool of Radience-which suffers because the old box game was best game ever
Civ3 every one gets better
Warcraft
Balders Gate 2 time consuming and challenging
Wolfenstein father of them all-graphics and weapons just improved
Sim City big fun
Rome total war
Age of Empires series that gets better
Final Fantasy keep on going
Links 386 at least you could putt this game

[Morbo]

Well, Dooku, I enabled my email, now tell me who you are.

You've got mail!!

[clairobscur]

A somewhat random list of games that I think were objectively great (so excluding some of my favorites), personnally enjoyed (so excluding objectively great games that I happen not to like that much) and moreso than other similar games (so excluding other games in the same serie, or very good games in the same category), and that I can remember right at the moment (so excluding many, many games) and in no particular order :

- Planescape : Torment
- Fallout II
- Blade Runner
- Master of Magic
- Civilization II
- Europa Universalis
- Master of Orion
- X-Com

[clairobscur]

- Master of Orion


That would be : Master of Orion II

[Miller]

Pool of Radience-which suffers because the old box game was best game ever

Wait, are you talking about the original or the remake? Because the only person I've ever heard of who liked the remake was the game's producer, and that was pretty much entirely out of a deep and abiding denial.

[Wakinyan]

1. Civ IV (I would like to say "the Civ series")
2. Close Combat II (I would like to say "the Close Combat Series")
3. Combat Mission 3 (I would like to say "the Combat Mission series")
4. Baldurs Gate 2 (I happy with this)
5. Unreal Tournament 2003 (?)

I've played a few more, but none of the others are worth mentioning.

[Jophiel]

1. Civilization II
2. Fallout
3. Pirates!
4. Paradroid
5. Medieval: Total War
6. Everquest
7. Zork
8. Cure of the Azure Bonds
9. Archon
10. Elite

Most of those are well known to everyone, but a few brief descriptions of ones not previously mentioned in the thread:
Paradroid was a Commodore 64 game (also on other systems) that was very simple game in theory that I nevertheless didn't beat until I downloaded an emulator a couple years back. You played an android control unit and had to zip around a spaceship, controlling the haywire robots running amok and neutralizing them them either via control or by shooting them with the lasers of your host android. You had to keep hopping from robot to robot and the act of controlling them was settled with a Boolean logic style minigame. My description doesn't do it any justice, but it was very addictive fun.

Curse of the Azure Bonds was the next in SSI's Gold Box series of AD&D games. I thought the plot was better than Pool of Radiance's and Curse also fixed a lot of little issues that Pool had (such as introducing a 'Fix' command rather than forcing you to manually memorize a dozen Cure Light Wounds spells each time).

Elite was my first taste of massive interstellar world. Two thousand planets to buzz around (split between 8 galaxies) as you trade cargo, buy weaponry, engage in piracy and all the rest of the fun in 3-D vector graphics. Old hat nowdays but, on the Commodore 64, this was amazing in both scope and gameplay.

[Martini Enfield]

Ah, man, that was a classic. Wonder if it'll run on XP?

Guess what? It does!

I've got JA:2 and the expansion Unfinished Business running on XP with no problems at all.

There are also a couple of really, really good Mods out there for UB, notably SOG '69, which is a Vietnam War total conversion, and provides an excellent tactical Vietnam War gaming experience.

No Queen Deidranna or Elliot, though. ;)

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Wait, are you talking about the original or the remake? Because the only person I've ever heard of who liked the remake was the game's producer, and that was pretty much entirely out of a deep and abiding denial.


He means the original. Man, I spent MONTHS playing that game on the old NES. The first game I ever rented a few times in a row. He also says that the sequel is a decent game. The original took us tons o time to beat.


I downloaded the rom not TOO long ago and romped through it in a week, playing sporadically. Knowledge is power.


Don't let him snow you. He's barely played Age of Empires 3, even though I have it on my laptop (which apparently nobody on the Dope plays).

[gonzomax]

Wait, are you talking about the original or the remake? Because the only person I've ever heard of who liked the remake was the game's producer, and that was pretty much entirely out of a deep and abiding denial.
Actually I am a cheap bastard and If I buy it Im beating it.When I bought it I was disappointed but I kept at it. The only game I couldnt play was Myth.We tried and tried. Appreciated the graphics but just not enough. We were into Shingen the Ruler
Romance of the # kingdoms and Nobungas Ambition ,Ghengis Kahn etc. in the old days.

[RickJay]

Elite was my first taste of massive interstellar world. Two thousand planets to buzz around (split between 8 galaxies) as you trade cargo, buy weaponry, engage in piracy and all the rest of the fun in 3-D vector graphics. Old hat nowdays but, on the Commodore 64, this was amazing in both scope and gameplay.
"Elite" just missed my list.

I erred in not including "Knights of the Old Republic," just plum forgot it.

sturmhauke, I'm glad there are still TA fans out there; it was a great masterpeice of PC gaming.

Another very strong element of the game, I thought, was the unit balance; most RTS's I've played don't require a combined arms strategy, and allow for victory with one to three key super-units, unless you're playing a designed scenario that can't be accomplished without a particular unit type. TA (especially after the expansions) provided an RTS game where you had dozens of different unit types and had to use most of them to really master the game. It was the only RTS I've played where I felt immersed in actually fighting a war, utilizing combined arms to take and hold ground.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Dad, you tipe sooooo gud.

[Miller]

He means the original. Man, I spent MONTHS playing that game on the old NES. The first game I ever rented a few times in a row. He also says that the sequel is a decent game. The original took us tons o time to beat.

Heh. Which sequel? There were four in that series. I'll bet if I got up in my parents crawlspace, I could find a box with all the maps I made on graph paper for those games. And you could play the whole series with the same party! Man, I miss RPGs that let you import your character from the prequel. It used to practically be the industry standard. SSI did it with almost all their gold box games, Might and Magic did it, Bard's Tale did it (although they never released any of the sequels for the Mac, which was my computer back then, so that was a moot point), Wizardry did it, at least with the Cosmic Forge games. I'd kill to see a new RPG franchise with the same mechanic.

Actually I am a cheap bastard and If I buy it Im beating it.When I bought it I was disappointed but I kept at it. The only game I couldnt play was Myth.

I had the same problem with the first Myth, which I never got very far in, but the second one was much better. I don't recall exactly what they changed, but I played the hell out of the second one. My favorite level was one where you're in an abandoned city, defending a library against wave after wave of undead. You've got a bunch of archers and molotov-throwing dwarves, and they've got to cross a wide plaza to get to you. Frickin' awesome! By the time the level ended, you could barely see the flagstones, for all the bloodstains and scorch marks. I know that one runs on XP, too. Might be worth checking out, should be easy to get it cheap. (Or free, if you know a good abandonware site.)

[sturmhauke]

sturmhauke, I'm glad there are still TA fans out there; it was a great masterpeice of PC gaming.

Another very strong element of the game, I thought, was the unit balance; most RTS's I've played don't require a combined arms strategy, and allow for victory with one to three key super-units, unless you're playing a designed scenario that can't be accomplished without a particular unit type. TA (especially after the expansions) provided an RTS game where you had dozens of different unit types and had to use most of them to really master the game. It was the only RTS I've played where I felt immersed in actually fighting a war, utilizing combined arms to take and hold ground.
I meant to mention that but I forgot. There really were no super units. The Commanders were pretty powerful, but of course you couldn't go throwing your king in amongst the pawns at every turn. In one of the expansions, CORE got the massive Krogoth mech that could lay waste to a poorly defended base, but they were prohibitively expensive, extremely slow, and vulnerable to heavy artillery and certain aircraft. You couldn't fit them on a sea transport, and air transport could just barely lift them and struggle along, but I think there was a trick where you could put one on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Of course, the aircraft carrier was more vulnerable than the Krogoth.

The only real flaw in TA was in amphibious assaults. The sea transports had high capacity, but could only load and unload units one at a time by crane. This made quick landings on hostile beachheads impossible. Air transports could only carry one unit at a time, so you couldn't field a very large force. There were amphibious tanks, but they were slow and unable to fight while underwater, making them easy pickings for anything with torpedoes or depth charges.

[Argent Towers]

I had the same problem with the first Myth, which I never got very far in, but the second one was much better. I don't recall exactly what they changed, but I played the hell out of the second one. My favorite level was one where you're in an abandoned city, defending a library against wave after wave of undead. You've got a bunch of archers and molotov-throwing dwarves, and they've got to cross a wide plaza to get to you. Frickin' awesome! By the time the level ended, you could barely see the flagstones, for all the bloodstains and scorch marks.

The Myth games are great - if you can play them right. Myth is one of the hardest computer games ever made. This is not an exaggeration, it's plain fact, the game is meant to be extraordinarily challenging. I think that Bungie created it in opposition to popular strategy games like Warcraft which enabled the player to continuously generate more troops, build fortifications, etc - in Myth you get a small number of troops at the beginning of each level, and that's it - except for rare cases when you are provided with reinforcements, you're stuck with the same, usually very small, group of soldiers from the beginning of each level.

For this reason, Myth is not really an RTS, it's more like a version of chess - you really, really, really have to think ahead, you have to see every possible move in advance, you have to retreat constantly. You will NEVER win in Myth by numbers, you will always be outnumbered, usually on a ludicrous scale. Therefore this game is intensely frustrating to many people.

[Daylon]

In no particular order -

Pirates! (original)
M.U.L.E.
Autoduel
Doom
Civ
Ultima III
F.E.A.R
Tetris
Half-Life
Adventure!
ZORK
Myst

my 2 cents

D.

[RickJay]

I meant to mention that but I forgot. There really were no super units. The Commanders were pretty powerful, but of course you couldn't go throwing your king in amongst the pawns at every turn. In one of the expansions, CORE got the massive Krogoth mech that could lay waste to a poorly defended base, but they were prohibitively expensive, extremely slow, and vulnerable to heavy artillery and certain aircraft.
I tried a lot of Krogoths against some skilled players. It did have its place, but it wasn't a panacea; the moment you revleaed you had one your opponent's usual repsonse was to come hunting to the Krogoth factory with air units. As part of a combined arms attack, they were great for punching through defenses, either making way for a larger mixed-unit force or killing AA defenses to allow air assauts.

The only real flaw in TA was in amphibious assaults. The sea transports had high capacity, but could only load and unload units one at a time by crane. This made quick landings on hostile beachheads impossible. Air transports could only carry one unit at a time, so you couldn't field a very large force. There were amphibious tanks, but they were slow and unable to fight while underwater, making them easy pickings for anything with torpedoes or depth charges.
I never saw this as a flaw, to be honest. I thought it SHOULD be hard to achieve a beachhead.

[The Long Road]

MOO2- hard decision between this one and MOO but MOO2 added some good options.
Panzer General
Gary Grigsby's Pacific War - one of the most indepth computer strategy games ever.
StarFlight
Pirates(original)
Railroad Tycoon
Crusade in Europe
Gunship
Red Storm Rising

Goddamn I miss the old Microprose days.

[lobstermobster]

mother fucking CHIPS CHALLENGE. I dont know about you guys, but this game is the most important in my world which is the only one i know. I think i'll play right now...

[Fish Cheer]

My Top 5 is Transport Tycoon Deluxe with the latest patch. Every six months or so I have a major relapse and play it for days on end. Ahh!

10. Stunts The most fun driving game on a computer I ever played. :cool:

[Uzi]

A couple of others I've thought of:
MDK and MDK2
Call of Duty

[Raguleader]

In no particular order

Wing Commander: Set the gold standard for space sims. Thrilling music, fun characters, and excellent gameplay. The sequel to this game, Wing Commander 2, introduced an excellent story to the gameplay of the first, as well as establishing the unfortunate tradition that you have to dispose of the carrier from the previous game at the start of the next.

System Shock (Enhanced CD version): The original FPS/RPG, where you played the hero in one of the most cliched sci-fi plots of all time: Man vs. Batshit Insane Supercomputer. You have to play the CD version to appreciate this game, with you running around recieving (or more commonly, finding) audio messages from other people trapped on the station (and later finding the remains of the people who sent the messages), all while the supercomputer Shodan, who has decided that she is a god and must eliminate Humanity so that her creations may flourish, constantly taunts and threatens you in her absolutley freaky voice. Her "Creature of flesh and bone" monologue is famous. The sequel would introduce, among other things, zombies with shotguns. ZOMBIES WITH FREAKING SHOTGUNS! :eek:

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters: one of the greatest PC games of all time, bar none. Amazing music, fun characters, excellent top-down ship combat, with things like gravity and inertia being modeled (the Gravity Whip is a time-honored strategy for allowing heavier, slower ships to gain speed to fight with smaller opponents, also, you could try and run your enemies into the planets and destroy them). In this game you had to rebuild the Alliance of Free Stars and defeat the forces of the Ur-Quan, and find a way to free Earth from the inpenetrable glowy-red Slave Sheild.

Matterhorn Screamer: In this game for the Commodore 64, you had to help Goofy climb a mountain without falling to his doom. This was my first computer game, thus being the first step on my way to being a computer geek, which, as I'm sure you all know, greatly benefited the computer gaming community as a whole ;)

[GuanoLad]

Okay, as not one single person has mentioned Secret of Monkey Island, I can safely say without any doubt that you're all crazy.

[Daylon]

Reading this series of posts brings back memories.. ELITE for c-64 - truly a great game...to this day I still remember watching the 2001: Space Oddessy-inspired starbase auto-docking station routine.

By "great" I try to think of the games that basically satisfy two criteria in my book. 1) they engrossed me for hours and hours of playtime 2) they were revolutionary, progressively different, or set milestones in their genre....

Good times, my friends...good times..

D.