50. Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Firaxis Games, 2005)
The Sid Meier's Civilization franchise has always been a popular one, and many fans consider IV to be the pinnacle of the series. It isn't hard to see why, either, as it takes everything great about its predecessors and polishes it to perfection, adding in a few new mechanics without disrupting the balance (particularly the Beyond the Sword expansion, which adds in many new units, buildings, randomized events and roads to victory). It's also highly customizable, with the player able to tweak just about every element of the game to their liking with easily-editable XML files and a publicly available SDK. But beneath it all, it's still good ol' Civ - build cities and armies, research new technologies, build world wonders, and reach one of the win conditions before your opponents do. Plus, it has Leonard Nimoy doing the narration; you can't argue with that kind of awesome.
49. Lode Runner On-Line: The Mad Monks' Revenge (Presage Software, 1995)
Lode Runner was a fast-paced puzzle platformer from 1983 where the player must maneuver around a maze avoiding enemies, collecting all the gold and escaping up the ladder that appears once it's all collected - a bit like Pac-Man in premise. Besides avoiding enemies, you can also dig holes to temporarily trap them or fall through one yourself to reach buried gold pieces or make a quick escape to a lower level, though you also had to be careful not to trap yourself in the process. Mad Monks' Revenge is an update of 1994's Lode Runner: the Legend Returns, rewriting it in 32-bit code and fixing several of its bugs, adding new features like keys, doors, bombs and vanishing blocks and enabling two player co-op, and a level editor allows for not only custom stages, but branching paths through said stages. A fun, addictive little title; so much so that it's gotten a full fan-remake that adds even more features (including co-op for up to four players!).48. Fallout 2 (Black Isle Studios, 1998)
The
original Fallout definitely had charm to spare with its open-ended
character development, multiple ways to complete objectives, heavy world
lore and a wry sense of humor despite itself, but Fallout 2 took all of
that and expanded upon it tenfold. Bigger guns, new monsters, a wide
variety of recruitable characters, and tons of new locations to explore
and characters to interact with - some lovable, some you just love to
hate. There's also a reworked Perk system and a very handy new feature
in the form of a drivable car, which makes transportation around the
landscape more convenient and gives you plenty of extra carrying
capacity to boot. A stellar RPG experience from beginning to end and,
again, one of the finest games in the CRPG genre.
47. 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.
46. 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.
45. Betrayal at Krondor (Dynamix, 1993)
A groundbreaking and influential title in the genre, Krondor was based in the same universe as Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar novels and made a strong attempt to replicate their style, with in-depth descriptions and well-written prose for even the most mundane of interactions. It also featured open-ended exploration with quite a lot of hidden secrets and side-quests to experience, tactical turn-based combat, and is among the earliest games I know of to do away with a traditional experience system, instead giving each character a variety of skills that must be improved either through use or training with various NPCs. It later had a spiritual successor of sorts (Betrayal in Antara) and an actual sequel later on (Return to Krondor), though the original team was involved with neither game and the quality definitely suffered as a result.
44. Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000)
Ion Storm was a company as well-known for the names on its payroll as for its comically extravagant office space and outlandish development costs. But despite some questionable management decisions, they managed to turn out several high profile titles in their short existence. The one that easily stole the show was Deus Ex - a cyberpunk tale set in a world where every conspiracy theory imaginable is real. It was also an early example of a game where one's choices actually matter, with significantly different play styles depending upon the player's choice of skills, story events changing based on choices and even three different endings. A compelling dark tale in a surprisingly credible dystopian future, there's a good reason that it's the centerpiece of a meme: "Every time someone mentions Deus Ex, someone reinstalls Deus Ex. "
43. Diablo II (Blizzard Entertainment, 2000)
The followup to Blizzard's mega-hit Diablo, the second game in the franchise upped the ante in almost every way. Featuring faster gameplay, a choice of five new classes (seven in the expansion) each with their own variety of skill sets and equipment choices, and of course a plethora of new quests, items, bosses and challenges to undertake. It also featured multiplayer for up to eight simultaneous players, who could choose to tackle dungeons, gain levels or just duke it out in battles to the death. Other new features, like "Rune words" and the ability to combine items and reroll equipment properties would also become staples of other games in the genre. Once again, a major hit for Blizzard that continues to be fun even today. There are even a few killer fan mods available for those tired of the stock game.
42. 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.
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.
