Best PC games list of all time

[Jayman1000]

I am sick of tired of mainstream superficial games created by greedy marketing folk and businessmen. So I created this best of the best list of my all time favourite PC games I have played in my life. I am posting it on Civfanatic because I was so disgusted about CiV and because I hope that others may use it for inspiration to catch up on IMHO some of the best games ever created.

I can't promise I haven't left some games out, but this is a pretty complete list for me. This is LE creme de la creme.

The Witcher 1
Space Rangers
Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Might&Magic VI: Mandate of heaven
Frontier Elite II
Frontier First Encounters
Elite: Dangerous
Emperor: Battle for Dune
Dune 2000
Portal
Portal 2
X-COM: UFO Defense / UFO: Enemy Unknown. (the original, not the modern remake)
Halflife
Halflife 2
GTA 1-4(+hopefully 5)
Garry's mod
Planetside 2
Port Royale
EVE
X: Beyond the Frontier
X3: Albion Prelude(with community mods)
Europa Universalis 1-4
Crusader Kings 1-2
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim(50+mods)
Fallout 3
Divinity: Original Sin
World of Warcraft Classic
World of Warcraft Burning Crusade
Age of Empires 1-3
Assasins creed 1-2
Mount & Blade: Warband
Total War: Shogun
Total War: Rome 1
Total War: Shogun 2
Medieval II: Total War
Borderlands 2
Divine Divinity
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
Divinity: Original Sin
Diablo II
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Sid Meier's Civilization 1-4
Civilization II: Test of Time
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri + SMACX
Sim City 1-4
Dragon Age: Origins
Far Cry 1
Far Cry 3
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat Mod
Battlefield Bad Company 2
State of Decay
Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle
Unreal Tournament 1999 GOTY

 

[bhsup]

Not including any you've already included on your list.

X-COM: UFO Defense, aka UFO: Enemy Unknown. (this is the original, not the remake)
Mass Effect 1-3
Civilization II: Test of Time
Pong
Master of Orion
Panzer General
Gunship 2000
Genghis Khan II

 

[Jayman1000]

Not including any you've already included on your list.

X-COM: UFO Defense, aka UFO: Enemy Unknown. (this is the original, not the remake)
Mass Effect 1-3
Civilization II: Test of Time
Pong
Master of Orion
Panzer General
Gunship 2000
Genghis Khan II

Oh Civilization II: Test of Time, I think that was actually what I meant for my list.

About X-COM you're absolutely right, the original version (which was what I meant for my list) is called UFO: Enemy Unknown or X-COM: UFO Defense. 'X-COM: Enemy Unknown' is the modern version which I didn't like.

 

[sophie]

I don't really understand. At least half of the games you listed there could be identified as "mainstream".

 

[warpus]

Sim Ant
Sim Earth
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Space Quest 2
Transportation Tycoon
Star Control 2
Gunship 2000 (YES! bhsup *h5*)
Scorched Earth

 

[Jayman1000]

I don't really understand. At least half of the games you listed there could be identified as "mainstream".

Well they could, but... I posted how I was sick of superficial mainstream games. I mean if a highly popular game is really awesome (like Borderlands 2 to name one) I don't consider that a superficial mainstram game. You know, I think generally mainstream games are superficial, but no rule without exceptions right?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Planescape: Torment
Battlefield 1942
Myth II: Soulblighter
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Diablo II
Medieval: Total War
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Grand Theft Auto III
Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
Unreal Tournament
FTL: Faster Than Light
Battlezone (1998)
Portal
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
Interstate '76
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Dungeon Keeper
Bubble Bobble
Worms
Doom
Disciples II

In pretty good order.

 

[Jayman1000]

Planescape: Torment
Battlefield 1942
Myth II: Soulblighter
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Diablo II
Medieval: Total War
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Grand Theft Auto III
Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
Unreal Tournament
FTL: Faster Than Light
Battlezone (1998)
Portal
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
Interstate '76
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Dungeon Keeper
Bubble Bobble
Worms
Doom
Disciples II

In pretty good order.

Day of the Tentacle... totally forgot about that, but that was a SWEET point and click game for it's time. Man... the memories. Oh and Unreal Tournament! that would be the GOTY 1999 edition for me. Sweet sweet memories there too...

 

[bhavv]

Seriously how could you all be so quick to forget the amazing Limbo of the Lost?

Hang your heads in shame!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

X3 Terran Conflict.

 

[Quintillus]

It's an egregious error that Deus Ex has been left off the list. Otherwise, most of the games I'd nominate are already mentioned, although at least one Railroad Tycoon should probably be there.

I'm kind of confused too, though. There's 58 games in the OP, not counting lines that mention more than one game. And in some ways it does read like a who's-who of popular mainstream games. Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield... it's hard to get more mainstream, at least my number of people playing. At least one very mainstream Activision series is noticeably missing, and I could see Bobby Kotick being considered greedy. But many of these games will show up on mainstream best-games lists, too.

Of course it's hard to come up with a list people could agree on. In part due to different tastes, in part due to not having played all the games, in part due to coming up with the best 58 games is a lot of games to come up with (my list would probably be 5-10).

Another question is whether you're debating the best games in a historical sense (i.e. best relative to their peers at the time), or the best ones overall. Some games were really good when they came out, but aged poorly. Civilization is a good example. From a historical context, Civ 1 is almost certainly the most important game in the series, and thus arguably the best. But today, most people will go with one of the subsequent games as the best in the series (which one varies). Neither answer is wrong, it's just different criteria.

I'll comment on a few anyway:

Halflife/Halflife 2 - I'm split on these. They're good games, but I kind of feel like they do better in the historical assessment than they are today. They're still good, but they aren't as memorable as some others (such as Deus Ex) IMO.
GTA 1-4(+hopefully 5) - Were 1 and 2 really that good? I haven't played them but I thought III was when the series really took off.
Port Royale - I like this game, but I wouldn't put it in a best-of-all-times list (well, I might if it included 58 games, but not if it had 10). Definitely better than Sid Meier's Pirates (mid-2000s), and probably better than its sequels, too, which I haven't bought after reading reviews. But the economics part gets boring after awhile, the events eventually become repetitive, and while the combat is fun, you eventually reach a point of being unchallengeable except by multiple military fleets at once. It definitely had promise to go from good to fantastic; it's unfortunate the sequels didn't follow through on that.
Europa Universalis 1-4/Crusader Kings 1-2/Age of Empires 1-3: Similar to GTA, were EU1/2, CK1, AoE1 really that great? I've played EU2, of those, and while it got me into the series, there's a huge gulf between it and even EU3.
Mount & Blade: Warband: I really liked this one when trying it earlier this year.
Total War: Rome 1: Should be "Rome Total War"! Probably the best of the series, a good nominee.
Sid Meier's Pirates!: The original or the remake? I haven't played the original, but wasn't impressed by the remake. Sid's done better.

 

[Iranon]

Most that would make it on my top 10 list haven't been mentioned yet.

Dwarf Fortress
Nethack
Aurora
Ultima 7: The Black Gate
Star Control 2
I Wanna Be The Guy
Master of Magic

 

[tetley]

Is this PC as in personal computer, or PC as in IBM PC, x86? I will assume the former. A few I feel are left out:

Wizardry
Command and Conquer
Heroes of Might and Magic
MUD
Chess (I argue this is a PC game because of the AI. It was one of the first AI's written. We were able to create an AI that beat the world champion)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Civilization II: Test of Time

Sid Meier's Civilization II

These two are at the top of my list.

As for the rest previously listed, I've never even heard of most of them.

My first computer games were for the Amiga: Shanghai (aka mah-jongg), Ports of Call, Zany Golf, and Ishido. I still miss those, since I have never found satisfactory substitutes elsewhere.

I first learned to play Civilization on my Amiga, as well as the first Sim City and the text-based games such as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Deadline, various Zork titles, Planetfall, and so on.

During the past several years, I've been doing most of my gaming with Big Fish Games and Hoyle games.

 

[tetley]

MUD is a text-based game. Zork is somewhat of a predecessor to it. Take Zork, add some internet and make a MMORPG out of it, that's MUD.

 

[bhsup]

Well, it's a -type- of game rather than a game itself. Er, unless there was actually an original MUD that was just called MUD, which may well be the case, I suppose. But yeah, MUDs rock. I used to be an avid player on The Two Towers and Nanvaent years and years ago. Haven't visited either one for over a decade now. Tried others, but those were my two main ones.

 

[tetley]

There were types of MUDs as well, depending on the default driver you loaded. The biggest & most popular (and probably the first) was LPMud. I don't believe Two Towers was an LPMud. None of the MUDs out-of-the-box would I classify as top-10 material--it was the ability of the head wizard to expand on it, similar to Nethack's open-source style. I would argue that what the wizards did was part of the game, which is what makes MUD definite Top Ten material.

 

[Tahuti]

In no particular order

Little Big Adventure
Little Big Adventure 2
Rise of Nations
Morrowind
Oblivion
Skyrim
Deus Ex
Deus Ex: Human revolution
Dragon Age: Origins
Fallout
Fallout 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Half Life
Half Life 2
Half Life 2: Episode 2
Europa Universalis III
Europa Universalis IV
Crusader Kings II
Hearts of Iron II
System Shock 2
Blitzkrieg
Sim City 2000
Sim City 4
Civilization III
Civilization IV
Doom
Doom 2
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
The Witcher
The Witcher 2
Divinity: Original Sin
Beyond Good & Evil
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Rayman 2

 

[illram]

Not mentioned yet, but noteworthy classics that consumed countless hours of my life (in addition to several games mentioned above):

The Secret of Monkey Island 2
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Ancient Art of War at Sea
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 1
Quake
Quake II
Master of Orion II

 

[Fippy]

I think it's missing..The Longest Journey (Part 1), my favorite adventure of all time.
Also Gabriel Knight 1 & 2.