Gaming The 50 Best PC Games of All Time: The Top 10

Thank you for sharing your personal highlights, I sure added some to my "to Play" list

I'll try some of yours, maybe you can try a genre called RTS?
If you don't like it, you could write about your experience, these personal views are interesting and amusing (at least I think so)

Yes, that would have been nice.

League of Who? never heared of it. Just as a slight reminder that these list are, indeed, very personal. When I think of E-sport, I think of Starcraft.....hold on, where was that?

Hahem I briefly had the same thought but we're probably doing him injustice there.

I suppose it comes down to personal preferences. I personally don't like medieval stuff, scary stuff, sneaky-sneaky stuff, but that's me. (and kicks into this list quite a lot).
I'm sure there's people out there that are bothered by not having any JRPG's on here

 

Well done Bit-Tech. For me, these lists have served has a nostalgic call to play some of them again; I've taken note and I'll play a few ones that I haven't tried yet; and there are those few titles that I didn't like and you showed me a different point of view, maybe they'll get a second chance with me.

A few oldies I'd like to mention, they're just special to me:
- Little Big Adventure
- Transport Tycoon Deluxe
- Alien vs Predator
- Final Fantasy VII

 

Got to agree with some elements - Witcher 3 I have finished the main game after 115 hours and am about to try the two expansions.

No spoiler but damn - the last part of the story .........

Thief 2 is still an outstanding game - worth it just for the voice of Garrett.

 

In my opinion any list of this kind should encompass most, if not all the genres. There is so much more to gaming than just FPS and RPG.

I don't mind seeing Witcher and the likes on the list even though RPGs aren't really to my taste (I only really played Eye of the Beholder I and II, and I dabbled with Skyrim until I figured out how to create those grand soul gems by killing necromancers and using that altar thingy in the woods and got me a 100+% chameleon suit which allowed me to roam freely and "cheat" the system). What I would like however is more diversity in a list like this.

You and me, we brought up RTS (C&C), I also like turn-based grand strategies (Hearts of Iron series, Master of Orion, Colonization), planning (SimCity and all the "Tycoon" games, Buyy Aldrin-s Race into Space), tactical/RPG hybrids (Jagged Alliance), simulations (flight, naval, car ...), puzzles (The Incredible Machine) ...

Gaming is ***so*** much more than what kids see these days ... Like how there is way more to literature than Harry Potter and 50 Shades of whatever. This website should encourage people to try out diverse stuff by picking the very best of gaming from all genres.

 

I kind of want to publish my own 50 list. Let's just say it'd skew much more heavily towards strategy and FPS. Maybe I'll do just the list tomorrow, in the comments here.

 

Ok, so since so many people have been asking for it, here's the complete list of 50. And by the way, this was a total *pig* to get formatted correctly, vBulletin totally doesn't respect tab/comma separated data.

Code:

Position	Title				Release Year
50		Bulletstorm			2011
49		Miasmata			2012
48		Condemned: Criminal Origins	2006
47		The Sims			2000
46		Saints Row IV			2013
45		Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast	2002
44		The Stanley Parable		2013
43		Company of Heroes		2006
42		Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag	2013
41		Grim Fandango			1998
40		Dwarf Fortress			2006
39		Her Story			2015
38		Max Payne 2			2003
37		Planetside 2			2012
36		Dungeon Keeper			1997
35		Far Cry 4			2014
34		Elite Dangerous			2014
33		Alien: Isolation		2014
32		ArmA III			2013
31		DIRT Rally			2015
30		To the Moon			2011
29		The Walking Dead: Season One	2012
28		SWAT 4				2005
27		"Papers, Please"		2013
26		Bioshock			2007
25		Plants vs Zombies		2009
24		Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare	2007
23		Hitman: Blood Money		2006
22		Batman: Arkham Asylum		2009
21		The Secret of Monkey Island	1990
20		Unreal Tournament		1999
19		Amnesia: The Dark Descent	2010
18		Grow Home			2015
17		Day of the Tentacle		1993
16		Crusader Kings II		2012
15		Total War: Shogun II		2011
14		The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim	2011
13		Left 4 Dead 2			2009
12		Dishonored			2012
11		Doom				2016
10		Dark Souls			2012
9		XCOM: Enemy Unknown		2012
8		Portal				2007
7		Thief II			2000
6		Deus Ex				2000
5		Minecraft			2011
4		System Shock 2			1999
3		Mass Effect 2			2010
2		Half Life 2			2004
1		The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2015

And nobody asked for this but plenty of people complained about the age of these games (and this is kinda what I get paid for)... so here's a histogram showing the distribution of release dates:



EDIT: To try and eliminate bias those release dates are release dates for version 1.0 of the retail PC game; not the console release date, or the date it was in Early Access, or the date that the publisher finally released a patch to make the game actually work properly, or the date it was re-released on Steam, etc.

So, yes, Rick is biased towards newer games since 32/50 on his list - 64% - were released in the last 9 years.

I would have added metacritic scores, but this was more than enough procrastination in work. I have an XLSX if anyone is so inclined as to volunteer for the task...

 

Thank you for confirming my assertion. Thing is titles that defined gaming were released before 1990, and titles defining gaming genres as we know them today were released before 2000.

There are very few exciting things coming out as of lately as perfectly exemplified by your #1 pick - its creators went to huge lengths to create a sandbox which you enjoyed for what, a tad over 100 hours? Myself, I've sunk hundreds of hours (who knows how many 8-10 hour gaming sessions went into it?) into each of the likes of Pirates! (the 1987 PC version, and easily further 100+ into the 2004 version), Jagged Alliance II (and more into original Jagged Alliance, Deadly Games and one of those total conversion packs for JA2: Wildfire(, Panzer General (and its various offsprings) etc.

Heck, I've spent more time than your did with your #1 pick with Baldur's Gate (I, II and the tower expansion thingy) because I wanted to "game the game" and create the most uberpowerful character party possible and aside from a handful of minor quests there is nothing sanbox-y about those games (one has to adhere to the path set by developers) and I wouldn't even consider the series for my #1 pick, ever.

People have spent days on end with simple concepts such as Pong or Tetris or modern titles such as CS, WoT etc. Going by these metrics even your #1 pick for "The 50 Best PC Games of All Time" Witcher 3 looks like abysmal failure.

It's your list, fine; our point is that these are hardly "The 50 Best PC Games of All Time". No offense!

 

To be clear:

I didn't put that histogram together to prove or disprove anyone's point of view; I did it for fun, because once in a while it's fun to play around with different data.

An objective assessment of that data says that yes, the data is biased towards "newer" games but only if we're defining "newer" as "released in or after 2007". Going by the chart then more than 50% of the data appears in just two categories/bins, so that's the only objective interpretation of "newer" you can draw from this data. "Newer" to some might mean games released since 2010 or 2012; if you change that definition then the bias goes away. When we're talking about a constantly evolving medium like video games, "newer" is a highly subjective term: 10 different people will give you 15 different answers.

All this data is in any case based on a subjective opinion and we only have 50 data points to work with - statistically speaking that's a pretty crappy sample size, and remember that our participant count in this instance is n=1. If you had 50 people pick their top 10 games and fed in the year of release (and maybe a few other data points like demographics and metacritic scores) then we'd have a much more interesting data set to work with. Again, if anyone would like to put in the legwork to collate such a data set then I'd be more than happy to look at it .

TL;DR: The chart was a bit of fun because I was bored and procrastinating in work, try not to take it too seriously.

 

Yeah, before clicking on the list I immediately thought of Day of the Tentacle, expecing it to be on the 10 list. BLC later shows that it ended up at number 17 ahead of Secret of Monkey Island at 21, which isn't incredibly bad.

 

Star con 2? Descent?

To be honest I don't think that a list like this can even exist. How many games have been made on the PC platform? And how many different personality types exist in people which will help determine what game a person likes?
So subjective. Still made for an interesting read.

 

Dark Souls isn't 1993…

I think the problem you were having with the formatting is that it appears to be using 8 space tabs, where 4 is more common. Also, try using spaces instead of tabs.

Code:

Position  Title                           Release Year
   50     Bulletstorm                         2011
   49     Miasmata                            2012
   48     Condemned: Criminal Origins         2006
   47     The Sims                            2000
   46     Saints Row IV                       2013
   45     Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast        2002
   44     The Stanley Parable                 2013
   43     Company of Heroes                   2006
   42     Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag     2013
   41     Grim Fandango                       1998
   40     Dwarf Fortress                      2006
   39     Her Story                           2015
   38     Max Payne 2                         2003
   37     Planetside 2                        2012
   36     Dungeon Keeper                      1997
   35     Far Cry 4                           2014
   34     Elite Dangerous                     2014
   33     Alien: Isolation                    2014
   32     ArmA III                            2013
   31     DIRT Rally                          2015
   30     To the Moon                         2011
   29     The Walking Dead: Season One        2012
   28     SWAT 4                              2005
   27     "Papers, Please"                    2013
   26     Bioshock                            2007
   25     Plants vs Zombies                   2009
   24     Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare      2007
   23     Hitman: Blood Money                 2006
   22     Batman: Arkham Asylum               2009
   21     The Secret of Monkey Island         1990
   20     Unreal Tournament                   1999
   19     Amnesia: The Dark Descent           2010
   18     Grow Home                           2015
   17     Day of the Tentacle                 1993
   16     Crusader Kings II                   2012
   15     Total War: Shogun II                2011
   14     The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim         2011
   13     Left 4 Dead 2                       2009
   12     Dishonored                          2012
   11     Doom                                2016
   10     Dark Souls                          2012
    9     XCOM: Enemy Unknown                 2012
    8     Portal                              2007
    7     Thief II                            2000
    6     Deus Ex                             2000
    5     Minecraft                           2011
    4     System Shock 2                      1999
    3     Mass Effect 2                       2010
    2     Half Life 2                         2004
    1     The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt            2015

 

No Civilization, no Transport Tycoon, no Starcraft/Warcraft....

Planetside 2 better than Planetside 1? Really?

Best game ever - Witcher 3. ROFLMAO

 

Good spot, you are the only person who noticed that!

Hey, it's not my fault this forum software ignores what is considered to be an accepted standard everywhere else ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

No Civilisation, no Warcraft, no Starcraft. I know it was proclaimed as a personal list but there is a huge bias here towards first person style games, either shooters or RPG.

Witcher 3 better than Half Life 2? All credibility gone my friend.

 

Lol, hangten from Surrey has spoken, there can be no restoring Rick's journalistic credibility! You pompous arse. As though you've even one tenth of the credibility needed to assess a professional journalist's working standards and judgement.

Anyway, Rick, this was a great read. I'm more concerned with the quality and astuteness of the material than with whether or not I exactly agree with your choices (I hated Dark Souls, but eloquently appreciate what makes it such a good game) and this article was brilliantly written. I only pay intermittent attention to BiT's gaming article section, but since Joe left there's always been kind of a gap in the quality, quantity and thoughtfulness of the material there (don't hate me, staff dudes, it's true). This, though, reminds me of the stuff he used to write at his best moments; it's lengthy, articulate, balanced, personal and very well thought out. Well done.

Now to read the previous two articles...

 

I wouldn't even waste your keystrokes, the amount of butthurt in this thread is staggering .

 

I love lists like this. But what this demonstrates (as if we really needed another demonstration) is that tastes vary. Wow, do they vary!

Still lots of fun to read your opinions, though. Thanks!