Do you agree with this top 50 - from two decades ago?

[Alfador_VII]

I loved Sim City 2000 myself, not sure if it should have been Number 1 though

The cover is interesting though, I remember the Floppy Disks, also in nearly 20 years PC Gamer's price has only gone up from £3.95 to £5.99, which isn't too bad.

Interestingly, they just dropped cover CDs totally, and now give out Steam codes for games, or stuff for free games (like a TF2 hat, or currency/items for an F2P)

 

[Gavmando]

Holy shit nostalga-gasim!!!

I remember that actual magazine, and reading through it going, "Got that. Got that. Got that one too." Some great games in there.

Ahh the memories...

 

[s0p0g]

too many racing-games! (although Micromachines was awesome, if only because it was, you know, Micromachines!!)
no Myst? seriously? where's Myst, man??
SimCity es #1 huehuehue, and not oh-mah-gaawd X-Wing? come on, X-Wing, TIE-Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE-Fighter - most awesome timesinks of awesome awesomeness, ever (sure, you can waste your time in MMOs grinding the bejesus out of them, but that ain't fun. shooting cool Star Wars stuff, while Star Wars games still were super awesome, in space with quite some depth gameplay-wise WAS fun)
also, did i miss Wing Commander on that list or what? (yes, i like shooting stuff in space, sue me -_-" )
Shadowcaster and Wolfenstein 3D should've been higher, too
and Lemmings *grin*

some awesome developer: pleeeeaaaase (re)make a (new) X-Wing vs TIE-Fighter
and Microsoft, stop making shitty consoles with shitty rumoured always-on arghblarghl and one Halo after another, give us some new Freelancer with super-awesome single-player!! (i love you Juni <3 ) ("For Rheinlaaaaaand!" *BOOM*)

ahem. sorry, i got carried away a little *cough*
now, where did i put my joystick...

 

[CoL0sS]

First 10 are all great games, except I never even heard of Space Hulk and I wouldn't really place SimCity 2000 as my #1. A nice piece of history, thanks for sharing.

 

[Squilookle]

That is a downright stellar pick for the top 3.

Agreed that star control 2 should have been higher though.

 

[NoeL]

Wait, no Skyrim!?

This list sucks.

 

[Bvenged]

Wow, that's awesome! I love that it's "of all time" and yet back then, nobody had any idea that games would be so, so much better in 10-20 years time.

Bioshock, Skyrim, Dishonored, Battlefield, Planetside, StarCraft 2, Guild Wars 2, Xcom, FTL, Mass Effect, FarCry 3...

... and so, so much worse.

CoD, C&C4, RA3, SimCity (2013), Dead Island, WarZ, Halo 4, Steel Battalion on Kinect...

 

[havoc33]

Man, some real adventure classics in that list! Another World, Flashback, Monkey Island 1&2, Alone in the Dark... all still enjoyable games today.

And Doom was the first "grown up" game I ever played. Before that, I had only played my relatively child friendly games on the NES/SNES. It totally blew my mind.

 

[Kyrian007]

Right in my age group's wheelhouse. Yes, a good list but... Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 > Ultima 7? They were giving too much credit to its POV and not enough to gameplay, story, and depth. Seven should have replaced where 2 was on the list... or even better. Also, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat... the origin of my love for a genre that has basically died.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Flashback is on this list, which makes it a good list. Unfortunately this list was also compiled long before Dungeon Keeper 2, which ultimately makes it invalid as a list of the best PC games of all time.

 

[suitepee7]

top ten seem pretty solid, but lemmings should be higher IMO. also wasn't a version of worms out by that point? and xwing shoulda taken the top spot... jus sayin

 

[XzarTheMad]

Wow, this is brilliant! I probably would have put Star Control II higher than they did, but hindsight is weird like that I guess. Other than that, I remember playing probably half of these. Brilliant thread, OP. This made my day.

 

[Auron]

Also, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat... the origin of my love for a genre that has basically died.

So sad... What happened to Jane's combat simulations and microsoft anyway? I remember them being the last bastions of the flight simulators.

Games that have aged somewhat well:

Monkey's island
Monkey's island 2
Star Control 2 (get the ur-quan masters for free, it's the same game with a different name)
Day of the tentacle
Civilization for windows
Doom
Simcity 2000

Games that haven't aged as well, but are fun in retrospective:

Syndicate
Indiana jones and the fate of atlantis
Space hulk
X-wing
Alone in the dark 2

-------------------------------

Man, thanks for this trip down memory lane.

Space Hulk and X-wing have newer versions that are at least windows compatible, Fate of Atlantis had a bad interface? I don't really remember. Syndicate has atrocious controls for nowadays despite it's excellency. Sim city and Civilization are basically the same game with new stuff and prettier graphics since then. =p

 

[Auron]

Hm, Most Lucasarts adventures I remember had no death other than Maniac Mansion. I only played a few seconds of Fate of Atlantis though.

 

[spwatkins]

Who can forget Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker?

Seriously, X-Wing, Doom, and Sam'n'Max would still go on my top 50 list. Probably Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island if I had ever gotten around to playing them.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, it kind of shows how long the gaming journalists have been not getting it and largely going with what seems to be popular rather than going with what is actually the best.

To put things into perspective, Ultima 7 Part 1 and 2 is such a classic game that it's still played today and involves substantial numbers of fans working on preserving it, with programs like "Exult" existing specifically to run it on newer machines and bypass it's horrible memory management scheme (Voodoo, ugh...). In comparison most people have never heard of most of those games, or largely remember them for being experimental, like how you'd pay extra for a voice pack for "Strike Commander".

Just my thoughts, largely because I think you could have seen a lot of this at the time if you had been more objective. I mean when a game like "Micro Machines" makes the list, you have to wonder.

 

[XMark]

Haven't played X-Wing, but I definitely agree with SimCity 2000 and Doom being in the top 3.

I think everyone who's developing FPS games today should play some Doom and pick up some level design hints! Doom's levels are far more interesting than the usual linear corridor of scripted sequences that are the norm today.

Also, I think in some ways that SimCity 2000 was the best game in the SimCity series, with the perfect balance of simplicity and complexity.