#10: "Trade Wars 2002"
Released: 1990. Developer: Martech Software. Publisher: Martech Software.
For a surprising number of people, "Trade Wars 2002" (TW2002) is the greatest PC game they've never heard of. This epic text-based space strategy game hails from a somewhat secret world of Bulletin Board System doors -- early online games played on dial-up BBSs, which peaked in the 1980s and 1990s. Of the thousands of BBS door games programmed over the years, none has had the staying power of "Trade Wars 2002." Long after the BBS era, the turn-based trading game continues to thrive thanks to Trade Wars Game Server, which hosts stand-alone games of TW2002 over the Internet.
#9: "Myst"
Released: Sept. 24, 1993. Developer: Cyan. Publisher: Brøderbund Software.
It's hard to find a game simultaneously as successful and as misunderstood as "Myst." Cyan's landmark adventure is both revered and reviled in different quarters of the gaming industry. As the un-"Zork" (serious theme, no inventory) and the anti-"Doom" (serene pace, nobody dies), "Myst" seriously challenged the gaming status quo of the early 1990s.
This dark-horse title from the forests of Washington represented everything that twitch gamers hated, and everything that hard-core adventure fans resented. Nevertheless, it sold 6 million copies.
In a 1994 piece on "Myst" in Wired, Jon Carroll wrote, "The reason for all the success was stunning in its simplicity: Myst was good. Myst was better than anything anyone had ever seen. Myst was beautiful, complicated, emotional, dark, intelligent, absorbing. It was the only thing like itself; it had invented its own category."
#8: "The Sims"
Released: Jan. 31, 2000. Developer: Maxis Software. Publisher: Electronic Arts.
"The Sims" is, in essence, a virtual dollhouse. But it's a virtual dollhouse that sold 16 million units -- more than any other PC game in all of human history. Clearly Will Wright's versatile people simulator qualifies as a crazy-big smash hit.
"'The Sims' tapped into some of our most fundamental instincts," says Chris Sawyer (designer of "RollerCoaster Tycoon"), "People enjoy being creative and making something their own, and people enjoy looking after things and seeing how they grow and develop over time. So it had a much wider audience than most other games, appealing to all ages and genders."
#7: "StarCraft"
Released: March 31, 1998. Developer: Blizzard Entertainment. Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment.
Unlike any other real-time strategy (RTS) game, "StarCraft" seems to have carved out a unique niche for itself.
Fans still cling faithfully to Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" killer a decade after its release, thanks to its balanced races, clever unit design, popular multiplayer modes and compelling storyline. At 9 million copies and counting, it's the largest-selling RTS game of all time, and likely the best.
#6: "Rogue: The Adventure Game"
Released: 1984. Developer: A.I. Design. Publisher: A.I. Design.
Originally developed in 1980 for Unix mainframe systems, "Rogue" eventually found its way to personal computers, including the IBM PC in 1984; the image shown here is from that version of the game. An ASCII-character-cell classic, "Rogue" not only spawned a genre known as roguelikes, but also mothered the action role-playing game (RPG) -- which is slightly ironic, since "Rogue" is turn-based.
Released: 1983. Developer: Ozark Softscape. Publisher: Electronic Arts.
The Atari 8-bit computer platform left a rich legacy of early computer games. Of those, "M.U.L.E." stands out as the most important and influential. This strategic masterpiece from Dani Bunten Berry introduced the Atari generation to dramatic competition through economic cunning, demonstrating that players need not blow each other away to have a good time. As members of a motley crew of aliens vying for economic supremacy on a distant world, players have to draw on both instinct and intellect to survive.
#4: "SimCity"
Released: 1989. Developer: Maxis Software. Publisher: Brøderbund Software.
The first entrant in the long-running Sim series, "SimCity" made waves as a versatile "software toy" with no preordained goal or purpose other than to accommodate user creation and experimentation. You can play it as long as you want, as many times as you want, and it never gets old. That's because you create the game as you go along.
"'SimCity' was one of the first games where a few very simple subsystems (crime, property value, traffic, etc.) combined to make an interesting and challenging experience," says Soren Johnson, lead designer of "Civilization IV"). "Even playing on a black-and-white Mac with a tiny screen, I felt that there truly was a whole city inside my machine -- one which relied on my judgment to succeed. I could fit all of the game-play concepts in my head at once, which encouraged me to experiment frequently to discover how to create the best Sorenopolis.
Released: 1991. Developer: MicroProse Software. Publisher: MicroProse Software.
Few games are as addictively fun and as endlessly replayable as "Civilization," a turn-based historical strategy game that invites players to guide the development of a civilization over the course of millennia.
In creating "Civilization," Sid Meier somehow distilled, condensed and codified the rules of humanity's post-agricultural development into a 3MB IBM PC computer game that was a treat to play. For that achievement, many critics (including me) recognize Sid Meier as one of history's greatest software designers and rank "Civilization" high among the world's greatest computer games.
#2: "Doom"
Released: Dec. 10, 1993. Developer: Id Software. Publisher: Id Software.
The release of "Doom" was a watershed moment not only for PC gaming, but for video gaming in general. Id's archetypical first-person shooter triggered a sea change in a PC game industry previously dominated by plodding strategy turn-fests, brainy simulations and stilted PC action titles. In contrast, the first of a new generation of fast-paced, smooth action games, Doom changed the rules, pushing PC hardware to its limits. With "Doom," PC gamers could experience gameplay, graphics and sound that were clearly superior to anything available on home game consoles of the day.
#1: "World of Warcraft"
Released: Nov. 23, 2004. Developer: Blizzard Entertainment. Publisher: Vivendi Universal.
If you resist the notion that "World of Warcraft" (commonly abbreviated "WOW") is one of the most amazing PC game ever, take a peek at this chart compiled by MMOGChart.com. WOW currently boasts 11.5 million subscribers worldwide -- at its peak, 8.5 million more subscribers than the second most popular paid massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.
The consistency, imagination and epic reach of WOW's game design is breathtaking: Its art direction is top-notch; its living, breathing world is immense, detailed and varied; its musical score is awe-inspiring (hear WOW music for yourself); and its balance and learning curve are ideal, drawing players ever deeper into a world that they may find hard to leave.
Most notably, WOW's simple and powerful user interface is an elegant work of unsurpassed genius, envied and copied by designers of games both online and off. Even Microsoft Windows could learn a thing or two from Blizzard's user interface. That's heavy praise -- but don't you think that the greatest PC game of all time deserves it?
MMOs with far fewer players still chug along after 10 years of service. With its population of 11.5 million and growing, "World of Warcraft" is likely to be with us for a very long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment