What about Myth and Myth II? For me, it’s a tie between those two and Starcraft. Starcraft has better replay value but Myth looks so good. The only people I know who have heard of it are Mac users although the CDs are dual platform and compatible with PCs. Is it because the games just had poor support for PC play?
Myth was pretty hot when it first came out, but aside from the excellent (for the time) graphics it offered, the gameplay wasn’t that amazing. I guess some people just felt too limited by it.
I also forgot Grand Theft Auto. GTA 2 was fun, but basically more of the same.
I’ve enjoyed all the Mechwarrior games, although I was a little upset when Activision lost the rights to it.
My favorite PC game is Half-Life
This game brought me back on playing PC games, and it’s the best FPS of all time (and yes, I’ve played Doom, Quake II, and Unreal Tournament, the three other best FPS IMO).
As for a RPG it has to be Planescape: Torment. I just hated that I couldn’t finish it because it got stucked in a crucial part every time i tried to get through. Damn!
the one that brings back memories is Wizardry. Long nights in high school playing with a friend or two. Incredible game. I remember finishing it, then ordering Knight of Diamonds. Every day I’d wait like a puppy dog for his master by the window for the UPS truck.
M.U.L.E.
As others have said, Autoduel was awesome and definitely needs to be updated.
My all time favorites, though, are the gold box Buck Rogers RPGs. Great storyline with just the right ammount of camp, brilliant strategic combat- the grenade and beam weapon combinations made this game much more strategic than the AD&D gold box games, ship to ship combat, the entire solar system is your map wich zooms in to planetary level or first person view depending on where you are… I recently replayed these games and they still hold up.
The Sims is the best “free form” type game out there.
There was an old shareware game with ASCII graphics in the 80s where you played the stock market and launched satellites, trying to build a communication “bridge” for your company, but I don’t remember the name of it…
The Sims?
barf
Yes, The Sims. The Sims is the only truly innovative idea in computer gaming in years, and the disdain that it is held in by “hardcore gamers” due to the fact that isn’t all about large breasted women with huge phallic guns killing things is a sad comment on the state of computer gaming and is one of the main reasons I am a proud console gamer.
You just made my day man, I had thought I was the only one that loved that game. I played it endlessly back in the day, but never finished it. I’m downloading it now!!
Ugh the sims drove me nuts… I don’t need a game in which I have to remember to pee and sleep.
right now I play mostly diablo2 and galactic battlegrounds
all time favorites are monkey island and zork series games
populous/ undiscovered worlds. Ora tanka!
spider solitaire and freecel
rollercoaster tycoon and it’s various expansions are enough to make you completely lose entire weekends!
and an honorable mention to leisure suit larry 
My favourite PC game is still Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (aka SMAC), although Civilization and Civilization II were thoroughly enjoyable too. (I’m disappointed with Civ 3, but that may be because my expectations were set too high.) Unfortunately few of my friends have the patience to play SMAC with me, but sometimes I’ll be able to talk them into playing Age of Empires II (with or without the Conquerers expansion) for an hour or two, which is fun despite its lack of depth - but only in multiplayer. Diablo and Diablo II also somehow managed to keep me interested for a long time.
I’ve played and enjoyed lots of other games, but these are the ones that have remained installed (and played) on my computer for a year or more - not many games last more than a day or two on my machine.
Honourable mentions in no particular order: Dungeon Keeper II, Syndicate, Master of Orion I & II, Sim City 2000 (can’t even remember if I tried 3000, but I’m eagerly awaiting Sim City 4), Lemmings, The Incredible Machine, and X-COM.
Don’t lump all of us hardcore gamers in this bunch. I love The Sims and own every expansion except the most recent. I can’t wait to try The Sims Online. I have also most recently played Mafia, Warcraft III, NOLF2 demo, Divine Divinity and The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring preview build. And that was just this week.
And as a hetero female, I certainly couldn’t care less about large breasted women with huge phallic guns.
Sorry if this has been mentioned already (my eyes glazed over at seeing so many titles mentioned again and again) but there’s actually two NEW games I really like (despite being a traditionalist)…
Medieval Total War: It’s essentially 12th century Risk made realistic. Honestly, the depth it can go to (although occasionally a little abstracted) is fantastic. All the generals have vices and virtues, so your incestuous king can go slaughter the Margrave of Tuscany in battle and then fend off a coup d’etat from his closest generals. And you can pick which side you want to win. It’s great!! Oh, and the 3D battles with thousands of troups in aren’t bad either.
Freedom Force: This is just because I love comics and the X-Men - you can skin the characters and give them custom powers and essentially recreate any X-Men characters you care to mention. I think it’s superb if just for that reason. The actual game, before you add in all your X-Men / Avengers whatever, is pretty entertaining too… ‘The source of this vilest villainy lies within the PUMPHOUSE!!’ Sorry, that has to be the best line ever declaimed by a patriotic American.
As far as the past goes, I loved…
Frontier: First Encounters (I was too young to play the other two)
Return to Zork (I loved dropping all my possessions and killing everyone… since the Reaper only took what you had, if you dropped it and picked it up, you could murder who you wanted without reprisal!!)
Sim City and Sim City 2000 (I have the latter on my iPAQ and it works just as well!!) Sim City 4 looks like it should be a much better sequel to 3000 than 3000 was to 2000.
Transport Tycoon, because I’m a pedantic Virgoan who loves a well ordered railway network. : D
YDKJ quiz games, Sam and Max / Day of the Tentacle etc.
for all the reasons already mentioned.
Where in the World / Time / USA / Europe / UK / Space etc. etc. etc. is Carmen Sandiego… I had a REAL obsession with everything Carmen. Memories. I loved the TV show. We only ever got the first two series in the UK and I WANT TO SEE THE REST even though I’m 19 and doing a degree. No no no, get a grip, James.
Sim Life, Sim Ant. I thought these were really interesting games, purely because you could guarantee they’d never appear in any shape or form ever again.
disappears to order Carmen DVDs
-James
More votes for;
- Heroes of Might and Magic II
- Sim City 2000
- Transport Tycoon Deluxe
- Civilization II
- Rollercoaster Tycoon
… and Rollercoaster Tycoon II is out in a couple of weeks so excuse me if I don’t post here/eat/drink/sleep/wash/go out for several months.
1830 (a smilie to anyone who knows what this is about!)
Heroes II and III (especially multiplayer)
Civ 2
Pool of Radiance 1 (gave me the biggest shock I ever had in any game)
1 Ultima Online
2= Total Annihilation
2= Age of Empires 2
2= Warcraft 2
5 Monkey Island 2
6 Elite
7 Populous
8 Myst
9 Nascar
10 Air Warrior 3
If you forced me to pick a RTS, I’d probably have to go with AOE2. I loved TA, but the units in AOE are a little more varied.
I can’t believe I am the first to mention UO. Sure it was a little buggy and PKing sucked, but the game was groundbreaking in so many ways. I lost a big chunk of my life to that game. (Actually to each of the games on this list).
I can not believe that no one has mentioned Loom. It has to be one of the most fun and orginal games ever. One of the main reasons we first got a CD-ROM drive.
Others on my All-Time List:
Masters Of Orion (Can’t wait till Nov 26th for MOO3 to come out)
Star Control II
X-COM
Wing Commander 1 & 2
Wing Commander: Privater (the first)
Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Pretty much all of the early LucasArts/LucasFilm Games adventure games: Indy3, Monkey Island 1 & 2, DOTT, Sam & Max, Zak Mckracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Full Throttle, and probably more that I can’t remember at this time.
I also really liked Super Hero League of Hoboken.
There are many more games that were really good, most of them have already been mentioned.
grand theft auto 3 is the greatest video game of any kind.
Back in the mid-80s when I was in high school everyone used Apple II+ machines ('cause that’s what the school had in the computer labs). There was a game going around for that platform called Taipan that hooked me like no game before or since. The idea was that you were the captain of a trading ship, sailing from port to port, buying and selling, etc etc. You might encounter pirates on the high seas, you might pay tribute to the local diety to prevent encounters with pirates on the high seas, you might trade in opium to make higher profit margins, running the risk of confiscation and fines if the local authorities caught you, you could purchase more guns or a bigger ship if you made enough money… you get the idea. the interface was balky and the graphics were laughable, but I dunno, that game had something that didn’t let go of you.