Friday, January 10, 2003

[Colin Glassey] The Best PC-Computer Games Ever Here is my current list. It hasn't changed a lot in the last year. Master of Magic: everything and the kitchen sink. Great game. [Not really playable on current PCs. Free if you find the game file on the Internet. Nearly as good in the same vein are: Warlords 2, and Age of Wonders (a new game).]. Civilization: I still think the first version was the best. It was cleaner than the later versions. Understandable, addictive. [Not really playable on current PCs but Civilization 3 is close enough so you can get a good feel for the original. The game Alpha Centauri is nearly as good.] Planscape Torment: This game was like reading a novel, and it was a great story. The setting of the game was new, the character, an immortal yet not a god, was facinating. The other characters you could add to your party were wonderful with their own personalities. [Barely playable on current PCs. Cheap too. You can pick a copy up for under $10.] Ultima Online - 1998, EverQuest - 2000, Dark Age of Camelot - 2002. These are the three best online massively multiplayer games. When Ultima Online started it was the best game ever made. Sadly it quickly degenerated because the designers didn't fully understand what they had done and couldn't react to the flood of players. It had features which no other Online game implemented until the just-released Sims Online, five years after Ultima Online. [This game is still active and playable.] EverQuest, while I was playing it, was both a great game and a deliberatly frustrating game. Yes it is the most popular game (so far) but part of its popularity is due to the frustrating nature of the game design. You must be willing to devote a large piece of your life to the game and while this can be very enjoyable, like anything taken to an extreme, it rapidly destroys your life. EverQuest offers a lot but only to those who have 30 to 40 hours a week free of any other commitments. [This game is still active (its the most popular as of 1/2003).] Dark Age of Camelot is a great game. It is better than EverQuest in nearly every respect. It isn't a game that you are passionate about (ulike EverQuest) but it is a game that supports both casual play and serious play. Also it has a great deal of realism which adds value. To a limited extent you can learn some history and mythology from playing the game. [This game is still active and very popular.] Fallout One of the first games to offer players the chance to make moral choices. You can play a character who tries to make the world a better place, or a character who is evil and wreaks just about everything and everyone he comes in contact with. This is a game with real freedom. The setting (a post-nuclear-war) California is great. [This game is still playable on PCs. And dirt cheap.] Fallout 2 This game is like its predecesor, you have moral choices to make. Lots of them. Some are really hard. You interact with characters who have their own agenda and you need to figure out if you will help or hurt them. This game is huge, much bigger than Fallout. [Like Fallout, this game is still quite playable and dirt cheap.] Master of Orion 2 This is the best explore, research, manage your star empire, and destroy enemy races games ever done. Period. The design is clean, the choices are hard but fair, the random map makes each game a great new challange. [Still quite playable and very cheap to buy.] Jagged Alliance This is a game of small unit tactics with serious resource allocation issues to solve. You need to: manage battles to take over zones, manage your money so you have fighters, manage your equipment so guns don't jam and armor is not full of holes, and finally manage your fighters so that people who don't hate each other are not in the same place at the same time. Marred by poor graphics. [Unknown if it still plays on current PCs. Not for sale.] Jagged Alliance 2 This game more than doubles the complexity of Jagged Alliance. The fire fights are more complex due to night, height, and sneaking. The resource allocation game is more complex due to the large number of weapons and equipment which you must get to the right place at the right time and in good condition. Also you need to manage the towns you conquer so that your money keeps coming in. The random elements added to the game give it good replay value but the main reason why this is such a great game is due to all the elements which you need to manage. Everything makes sense but you can't do everything at once. StarCraft: The best real-time strategy game ever made (so far). The units are varied and interesting. Each of the three races has their own strengths and weaknesses. The scenarios are challenging and varied. StarCraft is a perfect game. WarCraft 3 while very good, is just not as good as StarCraft. Perhaps due to the limited number of missions? Perhaps due to the small number of units in WarCraft 3? Perhaps the hero units unbalance the sense of the game? Bottom line: StarCraft is still better than WarCraft. Deux Ex: An experience that still remains in my mind. First person shooters offer you the chance immerse yourself into a world different from the real world. A well done game gives you a reason to want to play. Deux Ex has a plot which offers all the player some facinating environments drawn from the real world but altered. This is a real role playing game as you can solve the problems offered by the game in different ways and your character attains new abilities as they find technology which enhances their bodies. Near-future science fiction done better than anything else before. Baldur's Gate 2 This is the finest game created so far. Just about everything in the game is perfect. The plot, the art direction, the variety of quests, the monsters you face (from Beholders to Dragons), and especially the characters you meet, both those that join you and your opponent: Jon Irenicus, voiced with real depth of feeling by the English actor David Warner. The music is also great (by composer Michael Hoenig). The settings, ranging from a haunted forest, to a Dark Elf city, to an under-sea palace, are fantastic and wonderfully drawn. 12:10:40 PM

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