Top 111 PC Games, #100-91

100. Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Tale of Orpheo's Curse (Viacom New Media, 1994)

A tie-in to the Nickelodeon horror anthology show, which plays out much like an episode of it, even featuring the Midnight Society for the framing device around the story (with the player telling the Tale of Orpheo's Curse in hopes of becoming a member).  The game itself is also a surprisingly good point-and-click adventure, with environments rendered from still photos and CGI, a lot of bizarre sights to see and some eerie music making for a creepy and tense experience.  Even the acting in-game is surprisingly good and the puzzles actually make sense, so it's a good experience despite being a horror themed title for kids.  Sadly it hasn't resurfaced on any digital platforms owing to licensing issues, but if you can find a copy it's a pretty fun adventure.

99. Simcity (Maxis, 1989)

The story of Simcity is a famous one - Will Wright developed "Raid on Bungeling Bay" for the Commodore 64, but had more fun designing maps and upgrading the editor than playing the game itself.  Said maps were surprisingly intricate and realistically designed - there are plane runways and seaports, networks of roads and buildings, rivers and inlets, radar dishes tracking your movement and even boats ferrying supplies between the islands, so it helped the game feel more dynamic and alive than most top-down shooters.  Eventually he expanded that into a full-fledged city planning and building simulation, and the end result was SimCity.  It doesn't sound like a particularly fun game on paper - constructing your metropolis while managing crime, pollution, traffic, sim health, entertainment and land value - but its addictive design and random disastrous events like fires, floods, tornadoes and monster attacks kept it fresh and engaging.  It has also since been made open-source (albeit under the name "Micropolis" due to copyright concerns) and ported to just about every platform imaginable, so you have no excuse not to check it out in some form!

 

98. MegaRace (Cryo Interactive, 1993)

The FMV game genre had a resurgence in the 90s with the advent of CD technology, allowing developers to record and encode videos (usually in very low quality) and stick some gameplay on top of them to create "interactive movie games" (also generally of very low quality).  MegaRace stands out from the pack, though, on the merits of its strong presentation.  While the game itself is a fairly standard combat racer, having the player destroy all the other cars on the track before time runs out, it's wrapped in a dystopian space-age game show hosted by sleazy corporate stooge Lance Boyle (played by Christian Erickson).  Through that, it paints a picture of a zombie-like populace permanently enamored by trashy TV, though with a consistently sardonic and humorous tone that makes it quite an enthralling one to experience; not completely unlike Robocop.  The great soundtrack by Stéphane Picq is certainly worth a listen in its own right too.

97. Diablo (Blizzard Entertainment, 1997)

Warcraft and Lost Vikings were fairly popular games in their time, but Diablo is the game that really put Blizzard on the map.  Taking the concept of games like Rogue, adding an action bent and dousing the whole thing in a heavy grim atmosphere, it definitely awed people at a glance. It only became more immersive thanks to its fantastic soundtrack and a surprisingly good story with some high quality voice over, and the fact that you got a random shuffle of quests, items and spells each time you played lent it quite  a bit of replay value. It had an official (though non-canon) expansion in Hellfire as well, adding in several new quests and three new playable classes (though you do have to do some file-editing to make them all accessible). While largely overshadowed by its sequel these days, Diablo is a historic game that is not to be missed.

96. The Incredible Machine (Jeff Tunnell Productions, 1993)

A puzzle game built on a great concept, having you solve various objectives using a collection of parts, each with unique properties and applications, to construct elaborate Rube Goldberg devices.  So something as simple as "guide the mouse to the mousehole" can involve pulleys, rope, balloons, scissors, pipes and a springboard, and that's just one of hundreds of scenarios spread across the series.  The first game later had an expanded release (The Even More Incredible Machine), two sequels that got expanded versions themselves, and a spiritual successor (Contraption Maker) that added even more goals to complete and parts to experiment with, so fans of logic puzzles had quite a lot to enjoy from this series.

95. Kingsway (Andrew Morrish, 2017)

Roguelikes are definitely a hallmark of PC gaming, bringing a unique brand of challenge and staggering replayability that few other genres can even hope to match.  I'm not the biggest fan, that said - they generally have to have a pretty unique hook to hold my attention for very long.  Kingsway is one that certainly has a unique presentation, putting you at the helm of a Windows-95-esque operating system to travel about the world, manage your inventory and stats, accept quests (via a messaging app) and even play background music on a Winamp look-alike.  Combat similarly has enemies pop up in windows that constantly move about the screen, with you having to hit buttons to attack, defend and use abilities, as well as evade their attacks (in the form of a popup that flies across the screen or arcs, simulating things like firing arrows or thrown bombs).  A clever idea that's executed well, and the end result is some good tongue-in-cheek entertainment.

94. One Must Fall: 2097 (Diversions Entertainment, 1994)

Fighting games were definitely the hot genre throughout the '90s; Street Fighter II was a huge hit in the arcades, so everyone was trying to make their own similarly-styled fighters to cash in, sometimes quite successfully (Mortal Kombat and King of Fighters being two prominent examples).  The PC didn't get too many well-received fighters of its own, but One Must Fall: 2097 definitely stood out from the pack.  It had style to spare with its anime-inspired characters and story and smoothly-animated combatants, and quite a bit of gameplay variety - there were ten robots to choose from, each with their own sets of special moves and flashy combos, and your choice of pilot would tweak their parameters, changing up how they play.  There were stage hazards too (like jets that fly overhead and bombard the arena with bullets), which definitely kept you on your toes.  The game was released as freeware in 1999, so you can check it out for yourself at no cost.

93. Horizon's Gate (Rad Codex, 2020)

A game that has been described by many as "Final Fantasy Tactics by way of Uncharted Waters", and upon playing it, I can confirm that is indeed the case.  You build a character, take part in turn-based battles both on foot and by sea, unlock new classes as the game progresses, and can basically explore, trade or become a privateer at your leisure, taking part in ship battles or legitimate business to earn loot for later upgrades.  Inventory management and item manipulation is simple as can be too, using a keyboard-and-mouse interface that reminds me a bit of the classic Ultimas.  It's certainly not the deepest example of anything it attempts to be, but it is a lot of fun, and really, that's what I come to a game for anyway.  Sacrilege, I know.

92. Ys III: The Oath in Felghana (Nihon Falcom, 2005)

A remake of 1991's Wanderers from Ys, though it did away with the controversial rework into a sidescrolling platformer design and went back to the more fast-paced action Ys became known for.  They take the same engine from Ark of Napishtim and rework it substantially to further emphasize the combat, with some downright crazy, fast-paced platforming and combat that requires well-timed dodges, strikes and effective use of all your moves to survive, and actually encouraging you to blast through enemies as quickly as possible with cumulative attack, defense and experience bonuses.  And of course, the game's music is simply phenomenal, with a hard rock/metal bent to typical fantasy soundtracks.

91. Claw (Monolith Productions, 1997)

Claw (also known as "Captain Claw") was a sidescrolling platformer on PC - a pretty rare sight in the time period it came out in, particularly as 3D games like Tomb Raider,  Mario 64, Spyro and Banjo were rapidly becoming the new standard.  That doesn't mean Claw is a bad game, though - it's quite well-made with its fluid animation, responsive controls, colorful stages and multiple paths and secrets to discover in every level.  There was even a DVD release later on that added animated cutscenes between levels and improved the visual quality, which was a nice bonus for those with the hardware to run it.  The game sadly hasn't ever been released on any digital storefronts so it's a bit hard to find nowadays, but if you can track down a copy, give it a go - it's solid platforming fun.

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