Top 10 PC games ever

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Posted on 28 May 2010 at 12:13

Although originally conceived as a business machine, the humble PC has become one of the best gaming platforms in the world, changing the range of titles available to match current demand and technology.

Originally, games on the PC were mostly puzzle games, with the likes of Lemmings taking up people's time, before it evolved into flight sims and adventure games, such as those made by Lucasarts. Then, the PC kicked off the 3D gaming resolution and invented the market for dedicated 3D hardware. While games consoles have picked up a lot of ground, the PC continues to be successful with first-person shooters and online multiplayer games.

Picking 10 of the best from a few decades' worth of games was never going to be easy, and there are plenty of stunning games that didn't make the list. However, these are our absolute favourites.

World of Warcraft (2004)

There were MMOs before and after it, but World of Warcraft (WoW) remains the best-loved and the most-played, with more than 11m subscribers in the game world. On the face of it, it's a pretty typical role-playing game: there's the fantasy world, the standard range of class types (fighter, wizard, etc.) and races (elf, human, dwarf and so on).

But, playing it reveals something much more than this. The world is lush and beautifully created, and the developers put a lot of effort into making sure that the game could be picked up by both casual gamers and hard-core MMO fans. Key to this is that quests play a large part of levelling up, removing much of the need for grinding (repeatedly performing some dull task to get experience points). It's also relatively easy to recover from damage and even death, so that the game doesn't feel overly harsh when you play it.

WoW isn't always perfect and there are foibles, but they're forgivable foibles. With new content and expansion packs released at regular intervals, there's always a reason for experienced players to carry on.

Beyond that, can you think of any other game that's got an entire South Park episode devoted to it and a brilliant The Onion parody (The World of World of Warcraft)?

Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996)

Command and Conquer: Red Alert is one of the greatest real-time strategy games ever created. Its plot centres around Albert Einstein travelling back in time to remove Adolf Hitler from time, thus creating a parallel universe where the Allies must battle the Soviet Union.

The game was remarkable on several fronts. For starters, the single-player missions (where you could play either side) start with live-action intros. Then there's the clever way that the game's balanced: each side has its strengths and weaknesses, rather than identikit ranges of troops like other RTS games of the time.

Then the control system was way ahead of its time and you could group units together, accessing them by pressing the associated number, and queue commands up. This let you very quickly devise a cunning and devious attack without having to micro-manage the action.

Involving and thoughtful single-player missions made the game fun to play by yourself, but with LAN and internet play, you could battle your friends for hours and hours and never get bored. EA has since released the game for free, so get downloading.