[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: Microprose
Year Released: 1987
Synopsis: It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since we first
played through Sid Meier's Pirates!. Standing as one of the singularly
most innovative and all-encompassing game experiences, the original
Pirates! maintained it's position as one of the most beloved games of
all time. Fortunately, an exciting remake a few years ago introduced a
whole new generation to the joys of virtual swashbuckling. Players
choose whether to serve a European nation or whether to engage in a life
of piracy and have to build their fortunes amid the turbulent waters of
the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries. Engaging in
ship-to-ship combat and boarding actions, dueling with a whole cast of
villains, trading goods and recruiting sailors at exotic ports, seeking
out lost treasures and rescuing your kidnapped family members, romancing
governors' daughters, this game really has it all.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Year Released: 2002
Synopsis: If true addiction has ever had a name in the offices of IGN, it's name was [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
No other game has inspired so many editors to give up their Friday
nights in search of the perfect match in Stalingrad, Wake Island, or at
the Battle of the Bulge. When you leave the office on Saturday morning
and the sun is starting to come up, you know you have a good game on
your hands. BF 1942 was that game. It was the perfect blend of action
and strategy across large maps filled to the brim with different types
of vehicles and weapons. There's huge amounts of fun to be had whether
you're playing a serious match or just screwing around having jeep races
between capture points. No, the game was not perfect, but it ushered in
a new era of large team-based first-person shooters and showed how much
fun the chaoticly comic nature of a video game battlefield could be.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: Looking Glass/Irrational Games
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 1999
Synopsis: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and Irrational Games' [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
excelled in many ways, but perhaps the strongest was the genuinely
frightening atmosphere and that pervaded throughout every polygon.
Pitted against a seemingly ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence with a
singularly haunting speaking voice, your character had to escape the
clutches of monstrosities and altered crewmates aboard the space vessels
Rickenbacker and Von Braun. The game, like many others on our list,
emphasized player choice over strict, predetermined progress. A widely
varied and upgradeable skill set, as well as a large range of weapons
and tools were at the players' disposal. It was a game that demanded
precision as well, where player decisions had noticeable and lasting
repercussions, since items degraded quickly with use, ammunition was
difficult to come across, and there were multiple ways of tackling
nearly every obstacle. System Shock 2 wove together compelling
storytelling, oppressive atmosphere, a wide range of abilities, and
addictive first-person RPG gameplay to create an experience impossible
to forget, and still remains one of the most cohesive, affective games
out there.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Studios
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2006
Synopsis: If there's a modern game that shows the potential for tactic heavy strategy titles, Relic's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
is it. This is about as complete an RTS game as we've seen in history
and will probably be the benchmark to which other new RTS titles are
compared. There's very little wrong with the game at all. It provided a
stunningly exciting and interesting campaign nearly the entire way
through, offered a wealth of skirmish and multiplayer fun, and did so
with two very unique sides where none of the units ever become obsolete
on the battlefield. Add masterful production values, sound composition,
and brilliant visual effects and you've got one hell of an entertainment
piece. While a lot of the ideas in Company of Heroes have been taken
from other games, they've all been polished so bright and shiny that
most strategy gamers will keep wanting more.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: LucasArts
Year Released: 1998
Synopsis: It may be hard for the younger crowd to believe but
there was a time when LucasArts was known as the industry's best
adventure game developer. With a roster of superlative titles, the
company had already cemented it's reputation in the annals of gaming.
Then they went one step further with a game that many consider the
greatest adventure game of all time. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
succeeds on a number of levels. On the surface, there's a tremendous
concept for the world that involves a Dia de los Muertos aesthetic and a
bureaucratic take on the afterlife. These are merely backdrops however
for a compelling story full of memorable characters and a series of
challenging puzzles that are so well integrated into the plot that you
almost forget that you're playing a game. Great music and genuinely
funny humor round out the package nicely. Even if you don't normally
like adventure games, you'll love this one.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2006
Synopsis: The Elder Scrolls series has always delivered something
unique to players: choice. The games aren't MMOs, but basically the
single player equivalent; open worlds where you can follow a main story,
or get lost in a titanic amount of side quests and hidden content.
Deciding which game in the prodigious series to squeeze onto our top 25
list was a heated subject, literally. Scalding coffee was being flung
around for fifteen minutes straight during the meeting. "Arena
forever!," "Morrowind is way more interesting than Cyrodiil!" they
shouted. While they're all great games, the most recent entry, Oblivion,
wound up taking the Elder Scrolls crown, since it brought along one
feature the series had always lacked: accessibility. Though such a
statement will likely cause the hardcore to shatter their teeth in
frustration, such design and interface changes as Oblivion employed
sliced up the unwieldy Elder Scrolls of the past into much more
digestible chunks of RPG goodness. Hate on the auto-leveling all you
want, Oblivion ranks in as the most important of the series, and among
the titles most worthy of recognition in PC gaming.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Year Released: 2004
Synopsis: You'd have to have been living in a cave on Mars for the last five years not to know about Blizzard's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
The company, widely known as the creators of one of the industry's
leading RTS franchises proved that it could crush the competition just
as easily in the world of online RPGs. The subscription numbers (and
server queues) alone are more than enough evidence of the title's
success but if you need further proof, you only have to consider the
inviting design, stylish graphics and richly storied, quest filled game
world to see why it's inclusion on our list of the best games ever is a
foregone conclusion. While it doesn't eliminate the grinding and
downtime that are part and parcel of the MMO experience, World of
Warcraft hides them better than most games and also offers up enough
rewards to keep us questing long after we should have gone to bed.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2003
Synopsis: World War 2 shooters had been done to death when Infinity Ward honed the genre to razor sharp perfection with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
From the initial paratrooper drops in the hours before D-Day to the
final struggle for Berlin, gamers were instantly transported to a world
that was at once both thrillingly cinematic and eerily real. The game's
realistic AI and squad based combat makes you feel more like part of an
actual unit rather than a one-man killing machine. Add in some of the
best sound design we've seen and Call of Duty is one of the most
convincing and exciting simulations of FPS warfare we've ever seen.
Better still, the game offers up a wide range of multiplayer battles
that are still our first choice when it comes to online action.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Year Released: 1995
Synopsis: There are a few iconic genre games that are hard to
pass over when it comes to a top 25 list. We had to pass some of them
over this time around in the hopes of adding newer, sleeker models, but
we had too much trouble passing some of them up. One we couldn't
overlook was [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Not only did it really begin the move to multiplayer over the Internet,
but really helped drive the RTS genre home as not only viable, but
hugely successful. Besides that, playing Warcraft II today is still
pretty enjoyable thanks to stylized cartoon graphics and wonderful, if
simple by today's standards, sound. While a bit goofier than your
average RTS, the world is still vibrant and units well realized. Who
knew that a war between Orcs and Humans, a war that had raged through
countless pieces of fiction, would spawn into a gazillion dollar
franchise in a completely different genre series. There are so many good
memories with this game that all three of us PC editors insisted it be
somewhere on the list.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2000
Synopsis: Ion Storm's first-person RPG gave the player power. Not
just in the form of deadly weaponry, which was certainly present, but
also over the game itself. In each expansive level multiple routes to
the end were available. With hacking skills you could take control of
security bots to wipe out enemy patrols, or if concentrated more on raw
firepower, you could blast your way to the end instead. With an
intriguing science fiction storyline, vivid characters, plenty of ways
to augment your character skills and armaments, and some really great
level design, this game was as entertaining as it was thought-provoking.
Ultimately, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
stands out for accommodating player desires for complex ways to control
their gameplay experiences, instead of being forced along a linear
path. An unforgettable experience.
source:pc.ign.com/
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: Microprose
Year Released: 1987
Synopsis: It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since we first
played through Sid Meier's Pirates!. Standing as one of the singularly
most innovative and all-encompassing game experiences, the original
Pirates! maintained it's position as one of the most beloved games of
all time. Fortunately, an exciting remake a few years ago introduced a
whole new generation to the joys of virtual swashbuckling. Players
choose whether to serve a European nation or whether to engage in a life
of piracy and have to build their fortunes amid the turbulent waters of
the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries. Engaging in
ship-to-ship combat and boarding actions, dueling with a whole cast of
villains, trading goods and recruiting sailors at exotic ports, seeking
out lost treasures and rescuing your kidnapped family members, romancing
governors' daughters, this game really has it all.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Developer: Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Year Released: 2002
Synopsis: If true addiction has ever had a name in the offices of IGN, it's name was [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
No other game has inspired so many editors to give up their Friday
nights in search of the perfect match in Stalingrad, Wake Island, or at
the Battle of the Bulge. When you leave the office on Saturday morning
and the sun is starting to come up, you know you have a good game on
your hands. BF 1942 was that game. It was the perfect blend of action
and strategy across large maps filled to the brim with different types
of vehicles and weapons. There's huge amounts of fun to be had whether
you're playing a serious match or just screwing around having jeep races
between capture points. No, the game was not perfect, but it ushered in
a new era of large team-based first-person shooters and showed how much
fun the chaoticly comic nature of a video game battlefield could be.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Developer: Looking Glass/Irrational Games
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 1999
Synopsis: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and Irrational Games' [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
excelled in many ways, but perhaps the strongest was the genuinely
frightening atmosphere and that pervaded throughout every polygon.
Pitted against a seemingly ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence with a
singularly haunting speaking voice, your character had to escape the
clutches of monstrosities and altered crewmates aboard the space vessels
Rickenbacker and Von Braun. The game, like many others on our list,
emphasized player choice over strict, predetermined progress. A widely
varied and upgradeable skill set, as well as a large range of weapons
and tools were at the players' disposal. It was a game that demanded
precision as well, where player decisions had noticeable and lasting
repercussions, since items degraded quickly with use, ammunition was
difficult to come across, and there were multiple ways of tackling
nearly every obstacle. System Shock 2 wove together compelling
storytelling, oppressive atmosphere, a wide range of abilities, and
addictive first-person RPG gameplay to create an experience impossible
to forget, and still remains one of the most cohesive, affective games
out there.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Studios
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2006
Synopsis: If there's a modern game that shows the potential for tactic heavy strategy titles, Relic's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
is it. This is about as complete an RTS game as we've seen in history
and will probably be the benchmark to which other new RTS titles are
compared. There's very little wrong with the game at all. It provided a
stunningly exciting and interesting campaign nearly the entire way
through, offered a wealth of skirmish and multiplayer fun, and did so
with two very unique sides where none of the units ever become obsolete
on the battlefield. Add masterful production values, sound composition,
and brilliant visual effects and you've got one hell of an entertainment
piece. While a lot of the ideas in Company of Heroes have been taken
from other games, they've all been polished so bright and shiny that
most strategy gamers will keep wanting more.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: LucasArts
Year Released: 1998
Synopsis: It may be hard for the younger crowd to believe but
there was a time when LucasArts was known as the industry's best
adventure game developer. With a roster of superlative titles, the
company had already cemented it's reputation in the annals of gaming.
Then they went one step further with a game that many consider the
greatest adventure game of all time. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
succeeds on a number of levels. On the surface, there's a tremendous
concept for the world that involves a Dia de los Muertos aesthetic and a
bureaucratic take on the afterlife. These are merely backdrops however
for a compelling story full of memorable characters and a series of
challenging puzzles that are so well integrated into the plot that you
almost forget that you're playing a game. Great music and genuinely
funny humor round out the package nicely. Even if you don't normally
like adventure games, you'll love this one.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2006
Synopsis: The Elder Scrolls series has always delivered something
unique to players: choice. The games aren't MMOs, but basically the
single player equivalent; open worlds where you can follow a main story,
or get lost in a titanic amount of side quests and hidden content.
Deciding which game in the prodigious series to squeeze onto our top 25
list was a heated subject, literally. Scalding coffee was being flung
around for fifteen minutes straight during the meeting. "Arena
forever!," "Morrowind is way more interesting than Cyrodiil!" they
shouted. While they're all great games, the most recent entry, Oblivion,
wound up taking the Elder Scrolls crown, since it brought along one
feature the series had always lacked: accessibility. Though such a
statement will likely cause the hardcore to shatter their teeth in
frustration, such design and interface changes as Oblivion employed
sliced up the unwieldy Elder Scrolls of the past into much more
digestible chunks of RPG goodness. Hate on the auto-leveling all you
want, Oblivion ranks in as the most important of the series, and among
the titles most worthy of recognition in PC gaming.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Year Released: 2004
Synopsis: You'd have to have been living in a cave on Mars for the last five years not to know about Blizzard's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
The company, widely known as the creators of one of the industry's
leading RTS franchises proved that it could crush the competition just
as easily in the world of online RPGs. The subscription numbers (and
server queues) alone are more than enough evidence of the title's
success but if you need further proof, you only have to consider the
inviting design, stylish graphics and richly storied, quest filled game
world to see why it's inclusion on our list of the best games ever is a
foregone conclusion. While it doesn't eliminate the grinding and
downtime that are part and parcel of the MMO experience, World of
Warcraft hides them better than most games and also offers up enough
rewards to keep us questing long after we should have gone to bed.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2003
Synopsis: World War 2 shooters had been done to death when Infinity Ward honed the genre to razor sharp perfection with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
From the initial paratrooper drops in the hours before D-Day to the
final struggle for Berlin, gamers were instantly transported to a world
that was at once both thrillingly cinematic and eerily real. The game's
realistic AI and squad based combat makes you feel more like part of an
actual unit rather than a one-man killing machine. Add in some of the
best sound design we've seen and Call of Duty is one of the most
convincing and exciting simulations of FPS warfare we've ever seen.
Better still, the game offers up a wide range of multiplayer battles
that are still our first choice when it comes to online action.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Year Released: 1995
Synopsis: There are a few iconic genre games that are hard to
pass over when it comes to a top 25 list. We had to pass some of them
over this time around in the hopes of adding newer, sleeker models, but
we had too much trouble passing some of them up. One we couldn't
overlook was [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Not only did it really begin the move to multiplayer over the Internet,
but really helped drive the RTS genre home as not only viable, but
hugely successful. Besides that, playing Warcraft II today is still
pretty enjoyable thanks to stylized cartoon graphics and wonderful, if
simple by today's standards, sound. While a bit goofier than your
average RTS, the world is still vibrant and units well realized. Who
knew that a war between Orcs and Humans, a war that had raged through
countless pieces of fiction, would spawn into a gazillion dollar
franchise in a completely different genre series. There are so many good
memories with this game that all three of us PC editors insisted it be
somewhere on the list.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Developer: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Publisher: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Year Released: 2000
Synopsis: Ion Storm's first-person RPG gave the player power. Not
just in the form of deadly weaponry, which was certainly present, but
also over the game itself. In each expansive level multiple routes to
the end were available. With hacking skills you could take control of
security bots to wipe out enemy patrols, or if concentrated more on raw
firepower, you could blast your way to the end instead. With an
intriguing science fiction storyline, vivid characters, plenty of ways
to augment your character skills and armaments, and some really great
level design, this game was as entertaining as it was thought-provoking.
Ultimately, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
stands out for accommodating player desires for complex ways to control
their gameplay experiences, instead of being forced along a linear
path. An unforgettable experience.
source:pc.ign.com/
