There’s already a thread for “underrated games” and I’m sure the archives have an old video game thread here, but I’d like to start one just for PC games.
What are your FAVOURITE PC games of all time, with the following rules:
Name as many as you want.
They have to be PC games - that is, games designed for and played on a home computer. Could be Intelsoft, Macs, Amigas, TI-99/4As, whatever works for you. Just don’t include console games, please.
You can use whatever criteria for greatness or coolness you want, but if you’ve been playing PC games for a long time, try to get some from different eras. Don’t just grab the ones you’ve been playing over the last year.
Autoduel is my single all-time most favourite game. I spent many late nights playing it on an Apple IIe. A few years ago, I bought an old Commodore 64 for the sole purpose of playing Autoduel. Recently I found a PC version of it, too.
Other favourites include X-Com, the Ultima series (Well, 1-5 anyway. I never played any of the later games so I can’t comment on them), and Sim City.
Thief Gold and Tyrian both come to mind. I’ll probably still be playing the Thief series until the day I die. Mmm…Thievery mod for Unreal Tournament (http://www.ttlg.com/thievery)…
Mac:
[ul]
[li]Seahaven Towers; quite similar to, and possibly the inspiration for, FreeCell, and somehow much cooler[/li][li]Scarab of Ra;(“You are mauled by a lioness . . .”)[/li][li]Earl Weaver Baseball[/li][li]Sim City series[/li][li]various Tetris versions[/li][/ul]
PC:
[ul]
[li]Miller Associates APBA Baseball for Windows; the main reason I put VirtualPC on my Mac[/li][li]FreeCell[/li][/ul]
Thief series
System Shock series
Doom (just the first one)
Tetris
SimCity (all of 'em)
The Sims
TIE Fighter
Angband
The classic Infocom games especially:[ul]
[li]Zork series[/li][li]Enchanter series[/li][li]The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy[/li][li]The Lurking Horror[/li][/ul]
Fallout - This game changed everything. It used to be that we would accept a game like Diablo as an RPG, and even be excited about it. But Fallout drove RPG expectations to the moon. Now others have followed in the excellence of Fallout, and it has become very clear that Diablo is merely an action game. Fallout 2 - Slightly better than Fallout. Planescape: Torment - So far, the greatest CRPG ever made. Again, it raised the bar so high that even Baldur’s Gate II was only almost as good, and only Arcanum threatens to surpass it any time soon. Nethack - Admittedly, I like ADOM better overall. But Nethack is the standard by which any new Rogue-like game will be judged for a long time. However, saying this is practically trolling for flames from Moria sub-nerds. Turrican 2 - The only shoot-em-up game I can stand at this point in my life. I just don’t get into them, but somehow, magically, this one keeps my interest.
Although, possibly, Baldur’s Gate II kicks out NHL 98. I don’t know; still in the process of completing it. There were a few questionable design choices (IMHO) placed at the end of BG1, so we’ll see if they can maintain high quality throughout the entire sequel.
Only one game has been truly addictive around here, and that’s Grand Theft Auto. It’s so bad that when I went out for drinks with a few friends, I had to resist the urge to steal a parked police car…
Has to be…
Decent: Freespace. Such a killer game. Not the usual Decent(doom style). It’s set in actual space, and users battle other ships. Its really rad.
I don’t play PC games anymore, but there was one I absolutely loved as a kid. It was a math game for the TRS-80 where you were a cowboy in a shooting match with the computer. You had to solve the math problems that came on the screen in a certain amount of time or you were shot by the computer.
