[JKoenig]

On today's thirteenth anniversary of
Garry Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue, your failure to include a chess
program among the “10 Greatest PC Games . . . Ever” is surely a glaring
omission. True, Deep Blue was a purpose-built super computer, but
the last ten years have witnessed a proliferation of increasingly
powerful PC chess games that have constantly pushed both hardware and
programming to their limits. Of the multitude of chess games extant,
the most notable over the years has been Fritz. First introduced in
1991 as an “expert-level” program--hardly challenging for a
world-class player--it progressed to version 5 where it achieved
grandmaster playing strength. Further refinement saw version 10
soundly defeat then World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik in 2006 using
standard match-play rules with off-the-shelf PC hardware. Today, the
best PC chess programs reign supreme as the most powerful chess
players on the planet, and nowhere has the march of digital
technology been better demonstrated than the development of these
programs. In fact, I would argue that no PC program has contributed
more to both gaming theory and application.

[karmaker]

The title should be more like: Ten Best PC Games of Their Time

[vonrosen1]

What happend to AGE OF EMPIRES???

[TechieXP]

Myst? I remember Myst appearing on other systems and I didn't like either one of them and I love adventure/rpg type stuff. Sim City should have been 2nd as it is the longest running PC game i can remember. The best scheme I came up with was to replace all the roads with railroad tracks. I had zero pollution except where industries and power plants were. The Sims should be 4th...
Doom? Leisure Suit Larry was way more fun to play.
What about Need for Speed, GTA...?Madden? NBA Live? none of those suck at all.
Some of those you have I never even heard of.
RPG - Final Fantasy? Even before WOW, what about Age of Empires which is what the first WOW reminded me of.
First Person Perspective? What was that one shooter where you flew around in a spaceship and other could play too? It had a bunch of crazy controls but was fun. I hope someone has an idea what i am talking about.

[TechieXP]

I FOUND IT. It was Descent 3...that was the most exciting arena based in the 90's...before 1/2 Life and many others came along. The game offer shellar graphics for its time, full surround sound, full 3D realism and the action was fast. Play as a team or play as eah others enemies.

[cystarkman]

I think Final Fantasy wouldn't make the cut, its a console and not a PC game

But, RPG, the earliest really large PC one I remember would be The Faery Tale, it was on the Amiga. Bards Tale was around then also, had character levelling and all that. That would be about 87.

I contrast this to the graphic adventure such as Larry/Kings but bravo yes.

Decent was some good stuff eh.

With the sports one. I'd have to say California Games on the C64 (HyperOlympics in the Arcade before it also) really showed that mashing buttons somehow equalled a sports game.

[Number3124]

Where is Marathon on that list? You know, Bungie's revolutionary shooter. One of the greatest story lines in game history. Some of the best weapons and game play of its time. Ringing any bells?

[TechieXP]

Yes you are correct. FF did appear as a console game first. However starting with Final Fantasy VII (7) it was ported also for PC and I think at this point they are up to FF XI.

Another cool PC game I'd like to add was made by Rage Games..the game was call Flashpoint. I remember it was in the box for free if you purchased the ATI All-In-Wonder cards that features the Rage chipsets. The 3D graphics was stellar and the game play was pretty awesome. I would compare the play similar to Halo...which I am also surprised didn't make the best PC game list as Microsoft did port it to PC.

And what about tycoon games like Railroad and Rollercoaster Tycoons. Simulations are very big hits. SimCity which I am glad was mentioned is one of the longest run sim games ever.

[10Handicap]

My favorite game was Lemmings (1993 - Psygnosis). A brilliant game of logic and perception, it challenged the player through 120 puzzle levels of increasing complexity. Each level produces a save code so that one can pick up where one left off. It did not require extraordinary hand-eye coordination or keyboarding skills. The names of the levels, e.g. Nightmare on LEM Street, were often funny. In Windows95/98 I had to create a DOS boot diskette with the Sound Blaster drivers then use the original game diskette to run the game but now there is a free emulator for WindowsXP (perhaps for Vista too) available on the Internet and my son uses it.

Finally coming to the end of the final level was the highlight of my limited gaming career!

[tonyp33]

Awhh yeah... TradeWars was awesome!! There's actually an official new browser based remake underway at http://www.tradewarsrising.com

It's pretty cool, check it out if you're into old school classics like that... It's all browser based now!

Tony.

[Dena1i89102]

I couldn't agree more with 10Handicap. Lemmings was certainly deserving of mention on this list.

However, you must recall that all of the iterations of the Lemmings genre were originally written for the Amiga whose graphics which were far, far advanced over the "PC" at that time (actually 1991). After all, the "PC's" back then were barely capable of handling games like Pong and Hitchhiker's Guide. And the attempts to later port Lemmings to "PC's" was miserable to say the least.

So, maybe, the author - and obviously many other readers - don't consider Lemmings a "PC" game.

It's obvious that the author and other readers don't consider the Commodore 64 to be a "PC" either. Apparently anything that doesn't run off an Intel or AMD chip doesn't qualify as a "PC" in their brainwashed short memory minds.

[Majamba]

it seems that misses a whole bunch of games

not to mention the first game that started all the rts Dune 2

also classiscs computer rpg games such as Baldur Gate, Nwn, Kotor and Diablo

red alert my favorite

i think that he should have mentioned total anhilation or supocom instead or starcraft

Half life or Counter Strike and so on

Fallout Series

Lame

[Xiores]

While I agree with most of
the list, I find it hard to believe that
Sierra's "Tribes 1 & 2" were not included. They were two of the first orginal online games and had a massive
following.
In fact, they are being played to day on the net by die hard fans...

[Relentless]

Where the heck is counter strike at

[MarioJP]

in today's pc games you can build a really cheap pc and run the latest games no problem even not worrying about upgrading for a good while. Thanks to these cpu's and gpu's packing serious amount of horsepower for less.

I can run all these games and don't have to worry about upgrading for a while whats more it is cheap to upgrade

[oldschoolh4ck3r]

For Sierra not to have a game on this list is a shame. They helped pioneer PC gaming!

[MarioJP]

what do you expect pc world trying to mimic other game review sites??. PC world is not sutable for gaming period. Their articles are baised and have no clue what they are reviewing. I don't even pay attention to their articles anymore since i automatically assume "oh its pc world of course" they think they know it all but they don't. They are far better sites when it comes to game reviews. Gamespot is one of them.

PC world has become a joke. In fact they should change it from "PC to Macworld".

[davereanv]

Very disappointed that BattleZone II which is one of the older games and one with a great following was not included. It was one of the first with great graphics, plenty of action and requires good strategy. Has excellent replayability because the BattleZone community developed a multitude of new maps. I have been playing it for over 18 years and have not tired of it yet.

[gav6791]

Trade Wars 2002 looks to me like a knock off of the 1982 Apple II game "Taipan", by Art Canfil, based on the China sea trade of the 1800's. Obviously this is a PC list but leaving out the Apple II games of the 80s seems pretty foolish. The original Castle Wolfenstein, Lode Runner, etc.

[TechieXP]

What's so funny about this article? Yesterday MSN was advertising it as if it was actually credible.
I think you should have did the top 20 games...and at least the ones on top are ones that have successful sequels.
The Sims and SimCity was a definite good choice. But what about Madden, NFS, Descent 3, GTA and so many more.
And since PC stands for Personal Computer, other systems would have also been fair to include. Atari, Coleco and even Apple has some pretty cool games.

The Leisure Suite Larry series, Pitfalls, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Age of Empires. Board games like Monopoly and Scrabble....
Most of teh games I never even heard of...