40. Starcraft (Blizzard, 1998)
Starcraft was definitely a game-changer at the time it launched, tearing down the fledgling real-time strategy genre and rebuilding it from scratch. No longer content to have two largely-identical factions battling it out for dominance, Starcraft had three, and despite all playing very differently from one another, it was surprisingly well-balanced. Zerg are individually weak but cheap and fast to produce and excel in swarming and harassment, the Protoss have quite powerful but costly units and require careful micromanagement to use effectively, and the Terrans fall somewhere in the middle, using their versatility and resilience to their advantage. It also came with a fantastic map editor that allowed for not just custom maps, but event triggers, full unit stat tweaking and even scripted events that allowed for the creation of entirely new
styles of gameplay and even simulating other genres like RPGs.
A fantastic game in 1998 and still fun today.
39. Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams (Origin Systems, 1991)
The second and ultimately last of the Worlds spinoff of the great Ultima franchise, with a planned third entry (based around King Arthur) canceled owing to low sales of the first two. Shame, that, as Martian Dreams is one of the best games in the entire series. Set in a fictionalized Victorian era on Mars, it has the player and a number of real-life historical figures unearthing the remains of a long-lost civilization on the red planet, and having to endure a lot of surprisingly realistic obstacles - low oxygen, radiation and an ever-constant struggle against limited supplies. While it is frustrating to navigate at times, the tale told here is a creative and memorable one, and proof that Ultima remains an important milestone for both design and storytelling in video games.
38. Age of Mythology: Retold (Ensemble Studios/World's Edge/Tantalus Media/Forgotten Empires, 2002/2024)
Age of Empires was a fairly realistic take on real time strategy and city building games in antiquity, so why not make a more fantastical version with mythological creatures and powers from the ancient gods? That's exactly what Ensemble Studios did with Age of Mythology - a game that has you take command of ancient civilizations, as well as pray to the gods to purchase hero units inspired by the legends and God Powers that can turn the tide of battle - whether calling down Zeus's lightning, summoning more resources to gather, forcing all combat in a zone to stop temporarily, or even reviving dead units to fight once more. Lots of fun!
37. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Lucasarts, 1992)
A high-quality adventure from Lucasarts, Fate of Atlantis sees Indiana Jones take on another globe-spanning adventure to thwart the machinations of the Nazis. Many of the game's puzzles are randomized each playthrough (so you can't just thoughtlessly blast through the whole game with a guide), but in addition to that, there's actually three ways to experience it - Wits has Indy go solo and solve much harder puzzles, Fists puts a lot of focus on a fist-fighting minigame and knocking out foes, and Team has Sophia accompany you as a sidekick throughout the adventure, with most puzzles requiring clever teamwork using each character's talents. The overall story remains the same regardless of your choice, but it definitely gives it some replay value.
36. Simcity 4: Deluxe Edition (Maxis, 2003)
Simcity 3000, while solid enough, wasn't as big a leap over 2000 as many fans hoped; it had some new features, yes, but they mostly felt superficial and didn't really add a whole lot to the core gameplay over 2000. So when it came to making Simcity 4, they knew they had to go bigger to make it stand out. Much bigger. And they did - this time around you build up not just one city, but an entire geographical region, sculpting landscapes, building towns and cities on them and connecting them together so that they can all trade resources and collectively thrive. The Rush Hour expansion only makes things better, giving you a ton of new transport options to build (monorails, elevated rails, toll roads and water ferries among them) and even letting you take control of vehicles yourself to complete randomly-generated missions for a boost in approval, money, rewards or to just explore your city. The game also accepts mods, and there's quite a few high-quality ones to choose from - improving existing buildings, adding entirely new ones, fixing a lot of baked-in bugs and even making fundamental changes to core gameplay elements are all represented. You can even import your created characters from The Sims and have them live in your new cities too if that's your thing. Really, the only downsides to SC4 are its high system requirements (even with a beefy machine, performance isn't always great either) and the fact that this is the last great Simcity.
35. Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (Looking Glass Studios, 1993)
The followup to the groundbreaking original game, which definitely tried to up the ante, taking place across numerous worlds rather than one big, sprawling dungeon. Each has a pretty distinct feel to it, with some fairly similar to Britannia and others just downright bizarre, but all with one thing in common - they're under the thumb of the megalomaniacal Guardian, so it becomes a matter of rallying what resistance you can to try and turn the tables on your persistent and powerful foe. The game plays much as the first one did, though it wasn't as well-refined owing to being developed under heavy crunch. Even with that, though, Labyrinth of Worlds is nevertheless a worthy sequel that's still well worth playing.
34. Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment, 2001)
33. Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006+)
Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress (yes, that's its full title) has always been a legendary name among PC gamers despite being in a constantly unfinished state for over fifteen years, and even after getting a paid Steam release in December of 2022, it's still very far from done. But it is at least considerably more accessible now, with a window and icon based user interface, tile graphics instead of just ASCII characters, Steam Workshop modding support and some quite excellent, moody music and ambient sound on top of everything. Gameplay-wise it's a bit hard to describe, but I think an apt description is "Simcity plus the Sims, only much more complex". Basically, you generate a world and its complete history, then start out with a small caravan of dwarves and try to set up a colony, building and maintaining every imaginable thing you'll need to that end - workshops, meeting places, stills to brew liquor, bedrooms, blacksmiths, fields to farm, traps to deter invaders, a trading post and so forth, and you give your dwarves jobs to carry out each of these tasks as needed. You're also constantly beset by all manner of hazards from both within and without, from goblin raids to illness to subterranean horrors to fits of murderous madness, and you just try to survive as long as you can before things get into a downward spiral and your fort collapses in spectacular fashion. There's no concrete win condition and all manner of things can and will go cataclysmically wrong, but as the game's motto goes - Losing is Fun!
32. AM2R (Some awesome fans, 2016)
Nintendo's Metroid series is one that has been oft-copied, but puzzlingly sat idle in Nintendo's own hands for nearly a decade. AM2R is a stellar fan-created remake of Metroid II for the PC, combining excellent visuals and audio design, spot-on controls and polished gameplay on par with the top games in the franchise. Naturally, Nintendo quickly became green with envy for said fans doing something better with Metroid than they had in years and had it pulled from the internet, once again reaffirming their philosophy that "If people can't play high-quality fan games or even our old games that were good, they'll just have to buy our new games that aren't so good instead". Which just seems like terrible business practice to me, but oh well. If you can get your hands on this piece of forbidden treasure, you should, because AM2R is a game with more polish than most professionally released games, and perfectly captures that feeling of isolation in an eerie alien world that the classic Metroid games provided.
31. Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula (Binary Systems, 1989)
The followup to the legendary space exploration title, though despite a three-year time gap it's not a huge leap in technology - the game does load a bit faster and have more detailed graphics but still runs on the same engine as the original. They do change up the gameplay a fair bit, though - as the title implies, this game is less focused on exploration and hunting for minerals and more on trading - captured life forms and trading various goods across star systems are your primary source of income as you venture through a new region of space, searching for the secrets of a nebula that drives humans who enter it mad. The funny dialog remains on point, though, and it provides another fun space exploration adventure that holds up remarkably well despite the limited technology. Sadly it was also the last Starflight game...
Starcraft was definitely a game-changer at the time it launched, tearing down the fledgling real-time strategy genre and rebuilding it from scratch. No longer content to have two largely-identical factions battling it out for dominance, Starcraft had three, and despite all playing very differently from one another, it was surprisingly well-balanced. Zerg are individually weak but cheap and fast to produce and excel in swarming and harassment, the Protoss have quite powerful but costly units and require careful micromanagement to use effectively, and the Terrans fall somewhere in the middle, using their versatility and resilience to their advantage. It also came with a fantastic map editor that allowed for not just custom maps, but event triggers, full unit stat tweaking and even scripted events that allowed for the creation of entirely new styles of gameplay and even simulating other genres like RPGs. A fantastic game in 1998 and still fun today.
