What are the best PC games of all time?

Cafe Society
21
  1. Wing Commander 2
  2. Doom
  3. Duke Nukem 3D
  4. Aces High
  5. Far Cry
  6. IL2
  7. Freespace 2
  8. Zork 3
  9. Descent
22

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.

23
  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.

24

No, that would be “what are the most notoriously poorly officiated games of all time” [sub]Bitter? Me? Nah, I’ve moved on. It was over twenty years ago, after all, why should I—FUCK YOU DENKINGER!! AAARRRGHHHH!!![/sub]

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!”

25
  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.
26

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

27
  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.
28
  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.
29

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.

30

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.

31

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

32

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)
  5. Prince of Persia (2 was great also)
33

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

34

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?

35

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.

36
  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
37

  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.

38

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

39

I prefered X-Wing to Tie Fighter.

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

40
  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)
  8. Moria
  9. Strategic Conquest
    #2, 4, 7, 8, and 9 almost caused me to flunk out of college.