PC Advisor's 32 best PC games
- Thread starter st3lt3k
- Start date
Dyret
Super Carrot!
Yes, games a lot of people play a lot must suck!
If usage = quality, AOL must have been the greatest ISP ever in its day. He didn't say WoW was a bad game, just that he doesn't feel it deserves the #1 slot.
I'm gonna go grab some popcorn, it's only a matter of time before someone gets offended by misintrepreting a comment about something else on a subject that is subjective by definition.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
That's not a very good example, though, because AOL probably was the greatest ISP of its age. Nothing else came close to it in terms of service area, pricing or capacity.
I'm not a fan of World of Warcraft, but I can see it getting that ranking for all sorts of reasons - from sheer popularity to how well designed and maintained it is to the fact that it's the only thing keeping serious PC gaming alive at all right now.
st3lt3k
Rear Admiral
US PC chart for week ended September 27, 2008
World of Warcraft definitely has a presence on the top 10 PC games chart ending September 27, 2008:
1. Spore
2. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
3. Civilization IV: Colonization
4. Crysis Warhead
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. World Of Warcraft
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
9. LEGO Batman
10. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
Spore regains top spot of US PC chart
World of Warcraft definitely has a presence on the top 10 PC games chart ending September 27, 2008:
1. Spore
2. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
3. Civilization IV: Colonization
4. Crysis Warhead
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. World Of Warcraft
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
9. LEGO Batman
10. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
Spore regains top spot of US PC chart
DaveO
Rear Admiral
My attempted and obviously completely missed point was justification for the #1 spot. I find it disturbing(but not surprising) that a pay to play game like WoW is #1 for a site that promises 'Expert Advice You Can Trust'. The last thing I need is to pay for their sort of advice when any decent Google search will likely find better sites that offer better advice. The biggest lesson folks is rely on more than one source for your information before making a decision.
P.S. - Out of the top 10 titles above, the only one I'd care to try would be Lego Batman.
P.S.S. - Can any one lay bets that the other Wing Commander games were excluded because they are considered DOS(and thus forbidden) titles?
EDIT - I just confirmed zero DOS titles. Treating an important era like it does not exist does not sound like journalistic integrity or in-depth research.
P.S. - Out of the top 10 titles above, the only one I'd care to try would be Lego Batman.
P.S.S. - Can any one lay bets that the other Wing Commander games were excluded because they are considered DOS(and thus forbidden) titles?
EDIT - I just confirmed zero DOS titles. Treating an important era like it does not exist does not sound like journalistic integrity or in-depth research.
Mace
Vice Admiral
Wing commander 4 WAS a DOS title.
The special DVD-version ran on windows, and if you bought Kilrathi Saga you could use the patch supplied to upgrade it to a windows version.
Also:
Command and Conquer: Red Alert, was also a DOS title, with an included windows 95'version.
TIE Fighter was a pure DOS game.
Yes, the fact that the pricing scheme involves helping pay for the bandwidth and servers means that it must automagically suck! I've seen the light and I'll be reformatting for DOS tonight, never to turn back- death to any studio that makes a game with network connectivity!
Farbourne
Rear Admiral
A lot is in your definition of the word "best".
If you're talking about best graphics, most capabilities, and most realism, then any "best N games" list is always going to be about 90% games from the last couple of years, because there's no way the old classic 2D SimCity or Civ2 can compete with their shiny, 3D modern counterparts. Computers, ancillary hardware, and algorithms are so much better now, and there's so much more money that flows to the gaming industry, not to mention a lot more talent numbers wise (the number of universities that offer game design majors is way bigger now than it was in the early 90s).
I, on the other hand, would define "best" according to more time-insensitive criteria. How popular was the game relative to other games of its day? Did it invent/launch a new genre, or sub-genre? Did it push the boundaries of game capabilities, and do so by doing something new successfully? Was it a quality game, or did it suffer from gameplay imbalances or a plethora of bugs?
By my definitions, WoW would make a list of "best", because of its popularity, support, quality, and the fact that, while it didn't invent the MMORPG, it certainly showed the world how profitable and successful one could be. But a lot of classic games would make my list as well--certainly several of the Wing Commander games, Civ II, Warcraft II, Master of Orion.
Of course, as someone just pointed out, there is now a whole generation of gamers that don't remember DOS, don't know their Extended Memory from their Expanded Memory, wouldn't know what a DMA conflict was if it bit them, have never used a joystick to play a PC game, and don't realize that console games didn't used to come on DVD's and CDs, but rather on little cartridges that you had to periodically blow into to make the game run. So my list probably wouldn't be too popular in a modern gaming magazine or website, unless it was labeled as a "classics" or "nostalgia" piece...
(Total aside, but a friend of mine the other day was lamenting the death of the joystick game for PC. I pointed him here to the CIC, and specifically to Standoff, and he was overjoyed).
If you're talking about best graphics, most capabilities, and most realism, then any "best N games" list is always going to be about 90% games from the last couple of years, because there's no way the old classic 2D SimCity or Civ2 can compete with their shiny, 3D modern counterparts. Computers, ancillary hardware, and algorithms are so much better now, and there's so much more money that flows to the gaming industry, not to mention a lot more talent numbers wise (the number of universities that offer game design majors is way bigger now than it was in the early 90s).
I, on the other hand, would define "best" according to more time-insensitive criteria. How popular was the game relative to other games of its day? Did it invent/launch a new genre, or sub-genre? Did it push the boundaries of game capabilities, and do so by doing something new successfully? Was it a quality game, or did it suffer from gameplay imbalances or a plethora of bugs?
By my definitions, WoW would make a list of "best", because of its popularity, support, quality, and the fact that, while it didn't invent the MMORPG, it certainly showed the world how profitable and successful one could be. But a lot of classic games would make my list as well--certainly several of the Wing Commander games, Civ II, Warcraft II, Master of Orion.
Of course, as someone just pointed out, there is now a whole generation of gamers that don't remember DOS, don't know their Extended Memory from their Expanded Memory, wouldn't know what a DMA conflict was if it bit them, have never used a joystick to play a PC game, and don't realize that console games didn't used to come on DVD's and CDs, but rather on little cartridges that you had to periodically blow into to make the game run. So my list probably wouldn't be too popular in a modern gaming magazine or website, unless it was labeled as a "classics" or "nostalgia" piece...
(Total aside, but a friend of mine the other day was lamenting the death of the joystick game for PC. I pointed him here to the CIC, and specifically to Standoff, and he was overjoyed).
Dyret
Super Carrot!
Err, a Google search can find anything these days, so why bother reading magazines at all?
MMORPG's are the big thing on the PC now, and WoW is the best of them, I don't see how having to pay for it makes it any worse.
I don't care all that much for WoW myself. A friend nagged me into trying out the free trial and joining a guild with a bunch of kids from my hometown, and it turned out to be good fun. Killing forest critters for XP, chatting about upcoming parties, getting better gear and joining up with random people to do quests. All the usual MMORPG stuff, only well designed. I didn't find myself buying it though, but I can certainly see why others would.
Mace
Vice Admiral
Well, Taken into consideration popularity of the games, and groundbreaking;
I'd Make this list:
- Prince of Persia (fluid animation, immensely popular)
- Wolfenstein 3D (introduction of Raycasting to give a 3D feel, like it's predecessor catacomb abyss, but infinately more succesfull)
- King's Quest I(classic sierra point-and-click interface)
- DOOM(True 3D enviroment for the levels, and multiplayer)
- Duke Nukem 3D(internet networking multiplayer, and "rooms above rooms")
- Quake (REAL 3D engine all the way)
- 7th Guest(interactive puzzlegame, widely sold and immensely popular)
- Carmagedoon(go evywhere, really, really everywhere)
- Test drive(popular Pc racing game that could run on every PC
- Wing commander I(story telling, space combat with interaction and multiple story parts)
And so many others...
All these games were groundbreaking in a way, and originally designed for the PC
And please don't blame the younger generation that they couldn't configure the memory settings manually, they never had to, and even if they did knew, it's about playing the games in this case, not technical skills required to set them up, you don't need combat tips from a grease monkey, right?
I'd Make this list:
- Prince of Persia (fluid animation, immensely popular)
- Wolfenstein 3D (introduction of Raycasting to give a 3D feel, like it's predecessor catacomb abyss, but infinately more succesfull)
- King's Quest I(classic sierra point-and-click interface)
- DOOM(True 3D enviroment for the levels, and multiplayer)
- Duke Nukem 3D(internet networking multiplayer, and "rooms above rooms")
- Quake (REAL 3D engine all the way)
- 7th Guest(interactive puzzlegame, widely sold and immensely popular)
- Carmagedoon(go evywhere, really, really everywhere)
- Test drive(popular Pc racing game that could run on every PC
- Wing commander I(story telling, space combat with interaction and multiple story parts)
And so many others...
All these games were groundbreaking in a way, and originally designed for the PC
And please don't blame the younger generation that they couldn't configure the memory settings manually, they never had to, and even if they did knew, it's about playing the games in this case, not technical skills required to set them up, you don't need combat tips from a grease monkey, right?
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
you don't need combat tips from a grease monkey, right?
Unless that 'grease monkey' has already watched several pilots bite it flying the same crate...
I'm not a computer genius by any stretch, and I consider myself to still be 'young.' Nevertheless, I do find that I can date myself pretty quickly when talking about the trials and tribulations I suffered configuring my 'big 3' back in the day; Falcon 3.0, X-Wing and Wing Commander.
I think context has to be taken into consideration when looking at a 'X greatest games list.' The criteria is key. In my opinion, once a great game, always a great game, but everyone is different.
Farbourne
Rear Admiral
That thought leads to what, in my mind at least, would be a pretty good definition for a "great game".
If the game can be played 5 years or more later (assuming you can configure newer computers to actually run it), and it's still fun, then it was a Great Game.
DaveO
Rear Admiral
That was the point I was attempting to make is context and perspective. Ok, so WoW is #1 in terms of sales, participation, etc. But the important thing is that the road for WoW was laid by other games before it. Everquest, Asheron's Call, and even 3DO's Meridian 59 led to WoW's success or even being on the map. And a #1 list is always going to be in flux. Mine is based on what I'm playing, and I can't think of any normal person that would install 32 games. There is a history of RPGs at the following link: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070223a/barton_01.shtml
that I can guarantee has stuff you've never heard of there. I'm sure some digging would reveal the equivalent for other genres, but do yourself a favor and read about some of the history. I'm hopeful that you'll be thankful that you did.
that I can guarantee has stuff you've never heard of there. I'm sure some digging would reveal the equivalent for other genres, but do yourself a favor and read about some of the history. I'm hopeful that you'll be thankful that you did.
Mace
Vice Admiral
There is more then just RPG when it comes to comutergames, also you list initially pointed at PC games in general:
When you fill in a top 100 fav songs list you are entitled to list three entries or so, it's the way those things work.
as in groundbreakin games then we would have my list consist of:
- Pong
- Tetris
- Pacman
- Battlezone
- double dragon
- karetaka
- Dragon's layer
- Quake
- Dance Dance revolution
- guitar hero
And the most inluential game system of all time would be the atari 2600
When you fill in a top 100 fav songs list you are entitled to list three entries or so, it's the way those things work.
as in groundbreakin games then we would have my list consist of:
- Pong
- Tetris
- Pacman
- Battlezone
- double dragon
- karetaka
- Dragon's layer
- Quake
- Dance Dance revolution
- guitar hero
And the most inluential game system of all time would be the atari 2600
DaveO
Rear Admiral
Ok, so now that things have settled down a little bit shall we have a little bit of fun and add our submissions for worst game ever played? Now since Mace mentioned the Atari 2600, the ET game easily wins on that platform as the worst game. For the PC, I think the worst game that I played thru to the end was Descent to Undermountain. It was an Interplay RPG that had bad graphics, bad bugs(monsters were floating in mid-air after you killed them), and a lot of other broken things. I'm not sure how I motivated myself to finish it other than perhaps the curiosity on whether things would get any better. Hours of my life that no doubt could have been better spent. 
I would have put civ3 instead of civ4
between the bugs I ran into with 4 and the fact that I think it had less units available than stock civ3 I never could get into yet, yet I'm still playing civ3 (usually with mods though)
and did half life need to be on the list 4 times? CS, HL, HL2, and Orange Box
Orange box isn't even a game, it's simply a marketing package. Don't get me wrong, HL and HL2 were good, and I wasted a lot of time in college playing counterstrike, team fortress and later day of defeat, but Orange box definitely didn't need to be there
between the bugs I ran into with 4 and the fact that I think it had less units available than stock civ3 I never could get into yet, yet I'm still playing civ3 (usually with mods though)
and did half life need to be on the list 4 times? CS, HL, HL2, and Orange Box
Orange box isn't even a game, it's simply a marketing package. Don't get me wrong, HL and HL2 were good, and I wasted a lot of time in college playing counterstrike, team fortress and later day of defeat, but Orange box definitely didn't need to be there