Top 111 PC Games, #50-41

50. 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.

49. Caves of Qud (Freehold Games, 2024)

An ambitious and unique roguelike that spent nearly eighteen years in development, Caves of Qud is certainly a unique take - set in a bizarre world of pollution, mutations and cyborgs where fresh water is a scarce commodity, it's certainly a unique world to behold.  This gets reflected in its character editor, too, allowing you to have all sorts of bizarre physical traits like multiple limbs, fire projection, psionic powers, claws for tunneling through earth and so forth.  You also have to manage relationships with different factions (often feuding or even outright at war with one another) and, in addition to the main questline, a whole slew of randomly generated areas and quests can be undertaken.  Like any roguelike you inevitably face danger and overwhelming odds, and extreme caution is your only friend - try to bum-rush everything and you'll be lucky to last a day.  It's also surprisingly user-friendly as roguelikes go, presenting all its mechanics and intricacies with a very intuitive keyboard and/or mouse setup and online help for every topic imaginable.

48. Toonstruck (Burst Studios, 1996)

I've played more than a handful of point-and-click adventure games that operate on cartoonish logic, but it always felt rather out of place when they were trying to build a serious atmosphere and story.  Toonstruck definitely broke that mold by putting the player in, well, a cartoon.  Bright, colorful and slightly off-kilter environments, professionally animated characters voiced by big-name actors like Tim Curry, Tress MacNeille, Dan Castellaneta and April Winchell, and starring none other than Christopher Lloyd, digitized and superimposed atop the action like Roger Rabbit in reverse.  There's a lot of genuine talent and brilliant humor on display throughout; it's just a shame that it ends on a very abrupt cliffhanger and, owing to copyright issues, the second part of the story has yet to be released.

47. Sam & Max Hit the Road (LucasArts, 1993)

One of the many LucasArts point-and-click adventure games that surfaced in the 80s and 90s, and still regarded as one of the best in the genre even today.  Sam and Max was nothing short of hilarious with its kitschy American setting, irreverent protagonists and some surprisingly good voiceover throughout adding to the ridiculous scenarios.  They worked in quite a few minigames too - some required to progress while others are just for fun.  As popular and successful as it was, it was little surprise that people were pining for a followup; however despite numerous attempts one never actually came to be until 2006, when Telltale Games got ahold of the license and produced three episodic sequels.

46. Blood (Monolith, 1997)

The Build engine may have looked just a bit dated by 1997, especially since Quake was the hot new game on the market, but Blood proved that superior design could more than make up for older tech.  Blood is a master class of horror elements, with a grim, creepy atmosphere and enemies like giant spiders, gargoyles, cultists and flame-spewing cerberus dogs, all with the same immersive and surprisingly realistic level design that made Duke Nukem 3D work so well.  The weapons are equally inventive, with mundane options like a shotgun and tommy gun taking a back seat to weapons like a flare gun or a spray can/lighter to ignite enemies, a voodoo doll that inflicts extra damage to undead/magical enemies (but will damage you if you stab it when no enemies are onscreen) and a crazy-looking skull staff called the Life Leech that doubles as a stationary sentry gun.  The game was exceptionally tough (not aided by a bug that would cause the difficulty level to cycle every time one loaded a save), but the sheer inspiration behind its design is something that must be seen.  Oh, and grab the Deathwish map set too, which is a fantastic fan-made addon that rivals, if not surpasses, the main game in quality.  It's just a shame the sequel (Blood II: The Chosen) was such a mess.  As for the sequel's expansion pack... well, "avoid at all costs" is about the most apt thing that can be said for that.

45. Heroes of Might and Magic III (New World Computing, 1999)

An offshoot of the Might and Magic franchise that eclipsed the original series in popularity, Heroes takes the fantastical science-fantasy worlds of its parent franchises and adds a touch of 4X strategy and tactical combat - gathering resources, upgrading your towns, vanquishing groups of monsters or enemy armies in turn-based battles, and working toward trying to be the last one standing, all while upgrading your heroes with new abilities and equipment to better support their troops.  3 is the one that took the format to perfection, though, building upon its predecessors with multiple map types and goals, substantial rebalancing and new units to create a wonderful and engrossing experience.  Avoid the HD remaster, though, as it's missing quite a bit of content; just grab the Complete release off GOG and install the fan-made HD Patch instead.

44. Torchlight II (Runic Games, 2012)

There are quite a few Diablo-styled action dungeon crawlers on the PC, but for my money, one of the absolute best is Torchlight II.  Created by a team partly made up of former Blizzard North (Diablo I) staff, Torchlight 2 takes everything that made Diablo a hit and cranks it up to eleven.  Combat is fast and frantic, the four playable classes in the game can be customized in any way the player wishes, and online multiplayer (sorely missing from the first game) is now back in full force.  The game even has full support for player mods which can even be used in online games, though all players must have the same set of mods installed in order to play together.  Some other clever tweaks, like each player finding separate loot drops and being able to send your pet back to town with a haul of items to trade in for cash or potions, also make sure that the action remains constant throughout.  Torchlight II is just pure fun.

43. Worms: Armageddon (Team-17, 1999)

Just one game in the long-running Worms turn-based warfare strategy series, and the one widely regarded as the best in the franchise.  Unlike many of its sequels, it gives players the option to have teams larger than four worms (six or eight, depending on the number of players in the game), allows for custom team voices and terrain to be imported and has just the right blend of weapons, gadgets and options to make for lengthy, yet engaging online battles - from airstrikes to poisonous skunks to flamethrowers to Street Fighter style martial arts, you won't be wanting for ways to lay down the pain.  Not to mention that it's always more fun dropping a concrete donkey on a bigger group than a smaller one, of course.  A standout in the turn-based artillery combat genre.

42. Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game (Interplay, 1997)

Drawing heavy inspiration from their earlier hit "Wasteland" (with the license having fallen to EA years prior), Fallout's creators set out to create a bleak post-apocalyptic landscape for the player to explore, and did so admirably, combining a grim atmosphere with a sly sense of humor throughout.  What really sold the game, though, was the sheer amount of thought put into its story and design - rather than encourage the player to just mindlessly blast everything as so many RPGs of the time were wont to do, the player is given many choices to deal with every questline put before them - a combative approach, stealthy approach and even pure diplomacy will work in almost any situation.  Hell, it's even possible to complete the game without firing a single shot or witnessing a single death.  The first in a great series of games.

41. 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.

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