Top 10 Best Computer Games
Computer games come and go, following fashions and trends that reflect a lot about science, technology, and cultural aspects of the decade that produced them. Some games, however, have what it takes to stand the test of time. Here are the top ten best computer games of all time. What makes them stand out enough to belong on a list of this sort? The answer to that question most often involves a compelling narrative, believable characters, and addictive gameplay. Graphics are important too, but what matters most in a gaming experience is the ability of the game to immerse you in a fictional world.
1. StarCraft
Developed and published by Blizzard Studios in 1998 but based on the game engine used in WarCraft II, StarCraft has spent more than a decade as one of the most played Internet strategy games. Designed as a real time strategy game, StarCraft set up a game scenario involving three very different races of creatures. Each race has access to a distinct levels of technology and possesses a different biological structure. The Zerg, for example, are an intelligent race of insect-like beings that approach the world from an organic point of view. They rely on mass numbers to win battles.
The Protoss, in contrast, use advanced technologies. In the middle are the earth residents, or Terrans, who rely on military resources more advanced than the Zerg but less advanced than the Protoss. No race has any complete advantage over the other such that StarCraft becomes a battle of wits, in which each race struggles to best adapt its resources and lifestyle into a strategy that can ultimately win the game.
Through Battle.net, a maximum of eight players can come together in multiplayer mode. StarCraft uses an innovative means of sharing its plot with players – information is presented by means of missions briefings and conversations among characters. Additional information is also available in the game’s instruction manual.
2. Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings
Published by Microsoft and developed by Ensemble Studios, this sequel to the original Age of Empires was one of the earliest examples of a real time strategy game that used advanced tactics and action. Unlike the scenarios posed in StarCraft, in Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings, all the combatants are human and as such share certain biological and technological capacities. Each is from a different culture however, which causes some differences in technology to exist. Cultural factors also play a role in decision making and tactics, such that each empire has distinct advantages and disadvantages that players must account and compensate for.
Widely acclaimed to this day for its innovative resource model, Age of Kings forces players to take infrastructure into account when making decisions. There are thirteen civilizations players can choose from, all of them set in the Middle Ages of actual Earth history. Each player does his best to perform the essential functions of building cities, collecting resources, forming armies, and finally, battling enemy armies for dominance over territory. Five different war campaigns can be played, all of them based on actual historical scenarios.
3. Fallout
Developed and published by Interplay, Fallout stands apart from other computer games for its high quality narrative, something not seen often enough in today’s games, combined with characters that were so believable that they began to seem real as the game wound on.
The frame story centered around a post-apocalyptic future in which you live in an underground fallout shelter. The nuclear holocaust has come and left its devastation eight decades earlier, and ever since then, your community of a thousand people has lived in a subterranean cavern – except for scouts who never returned, nobody has ventured to the surface in all that time. Now, the time has come. An emergency drives you to the surface to find survivors, if any exist, but what do you find except radiation, mutant creatures, and a world gone mad with violence? The goal in Fallout is to make it back to the shelter alive, and with the vital equipment needed to restore water supplies to the underground community. Fallout is one of the best pc games ever made.
Note, quite a few people will suggest Fallout 2 over Fallout as a “better game.” Fallout, however, was the start of it all and while it’s not as “good” in some ways as Fallout 2, it was the start of everything.
4. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Developed by Bioware and published by Interplay / Black Isle Studios, this sequel to the original Baldur’s Gate was heavily anticipated online and at industry events for two full years. Both games are based on the popular Dungeons and Dragons style of simulation.
What makes the Baldur’s Gate games stand out are their characters. You won’t find a cardboard cutout villain here, but a complex character with motivations of his own and actions that grow organically from the game’s fascinating narrative frame story. But as sinister and threatening as the villain is, the game is kept from being completely dark by the existence of hilarious and charming side characters like Boo, a hamster who accompanies one of the main fighters on his missions.
Baldur’s Gate II will keep you guessing and fighting for a long time – some players estimate that there are at least 200 hours of gameplay, but that’s probably a conservative figure because it comes from people who are more or less experts at playing this type of game. The average player can probably get at least double that, which means that the game is an excellent bargain delivering a quality, yet low, per hour cost. Baldur’s gate has been rated as one of the best rpg games.
5. Half-Life 2
Developed by Valve Software and published by Vivendi, Half-Life 2 fits into the world of games with a “first person shooter” interface in which the player looks down a gunsight. There’s no sense of omniscience, or superintending a whole world here – you are in the thick of all the action. Set in a city of the future, you’re trapped in a science fiction dystopia where shooting, running, and vehicle combat skills become paramount. But Half-Life 2 is ever so much more than a mere shoot ‘em up game. You also have to be able to solved puzzles based on physics and use scientific literacy skills to the utmost.
Again, strong characters make this one stand out. Both vocals and animation style are used to convey a heavy dose of emotion that makes you care about the situation you’re trapped in, and the other people who tangentially touch your life as you wander through the game play. The atmosphere is cutting and underpins every element of the storytelling, and clever, meaningful dialogue keeps you intellectually invested in the unfolding plot as you go along.
No list of top ten games would be complete without at least one entry that hearkens back to the ancient lands of Earth’s past. On this list, Rome: Total War acquits itself honorably in this category. Developed by Creative Assembly and published by famous game publisher Activision, Rome: Total War emerged in 2004 as the front runner in the “whole battle tactics” genre of computer gaming. As the third entry in Creative Assembly’s Total War series, Rome: Total War has the advantage of benefitting from the lessons learned in earlier incarnations of the series.
Real-time battles are played out on an overworld map, with an intelligent artificial intelligence engine challenging players every step of the way. Battles included sieges on cities that looked utterly authentic, and players literally had legions of soldiers to manipulate and play with. Widely regarded as one of the best computer games of all time, Rome: Total War offered addictive playing largely due to the amazing graphics and huge range of options and tactics available to the battle commander – you!
7. Star Wars: The Tie Fighter Wars
Just as with ancient history, no list of top ten games could be complete without at least one entry from the whole Star Wars range of games. LucasArts developed and published this entry into their catalog in 1994 and it remains their finest gaming effort to date. A space combat game, The Tie Fighter Wars developed flight mechanics and design of missions to a new high, far surpassing earlier LucasArts offerings like games based on Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing fighter.
Capturing both drama and action so that the game becomes more than mere flying expertise, The Tie Fighter Wars gives players the chance to see the world of Star Wars through the eyes of a “villain,” and in 1994, being able to play the bad guy was a novel experience. The graphics of the original game look a bit primitive to eyes accustomed to today’s far more elaborated game engines, but LucasArts helped fix that with their “Collector’s Edition” of the tame, which used graphics superior to the first incarnation, along with enhanced sound design.
The best proof that The Tie Fighter Wars deserves a place on an all-time top ten list of computer games? Other game designers keep imitating it!
Sid Meier’s Civilization series has consistently made top ten lists the world around, and for good reason. Offering complex strategy in a game format that was both beautiful to look at and graceful to navigate, Civilization had the added advantage of teaching players a little bit of history along the way. Now, with Civilization IV, developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games, Sid Meier has reached the crowning achievement of his career. Marketed as “6,000 years of fun packed into a single game,” Civilization IV gives players a more authentic foray into the past than ever before, right down to including authentic religions of the ancient world.
Since Civilization IV was a fundamental reworking of the franchise, it included vast improvements over the previous entries in the series. Foremost of these is an improved graphics engine that makes the past worlds you are building spring to vivid life right before your eyes, but just as important are management redesigns that make gameplay more intuitive. Just looking at the gameplay map now yields the player much more information than before and allows for better resource management and decision making.
Developed by Mythos Games and published by Micropose, X-Com: UFO Defense is one of those games that players consider an “oldie but goodie.” Widely regarded as the finest conceptual strategy game ever devised, X-Com: UFO Defense relies for a frame story on the favorite myth of the modern world: that a worldwide alien invasion is shortly to begin, and planet Earth must defend itself. The player in X-Com: UFO Defense is charged with heading up this vital mission to save the planet from the alien hordes shortly to arrive. This is even more of a challenge than it appears at first glance, because defense involves more than just flying your fighter up there to battle the enemy. You have to manage bases, conduct advanced research, and supervise battle tactics, as well as supervise personnel and juggle both workers and equipment so that resources are available where they are most needed. And you have to do all this without exceeding your budget from stingy governments who don’t seem to understand that the future of the planet is at stake!
The narrative of the game may be a familiar one, but the execution of it in X-Com: UFO Defense yields a tight narrative packed with terror.
Finally, every top ten game list must have a transportation simulation entry. In the world of transportation simulations, the grand master has to be Sid Meier, who also created the Civilization game franchise. In Sid Meier’s Railroads, you build and manage a transportation network primarily focused on trains. Released in 2006, Sid Meier’s Railroads integrates real time gameplay into scenarios that feature a selection of actual trains from Europe as well as North America. Features that make it stand out from the Railroad Tycoon series, Sid Meier’s first attempts at transportation simulations, include a better and more intuitive interface for laying track as well as full three dimensional graphics. This game also stands out from previous attempts because it is less focused on pleasing industry and more focused on providing a wonderful gaming experience for the end consumer.