This was a challenging list for me to come up with, as I've never really been a die-hard PC gamer by any means. However, I was always fascinated by how different its library was from what I had gotten used to on consoles - for the most part, games on computer platforms, particularly in the '90s era, were a very different experience in that they had so much more ambition to them. Like most of the best-known console developers, they were always pushing technology to its limits, but they also had to contend with a huge variety of different hardware setups and operating systems, which made their games considerably more difficult to develop and run. Still, it was all worth it to play some very in-depth and interesting experiences that consoles simply couldn't deliver, whether due to a more limited player interface or just not having the technological capabilities computers could provide. And of course, it is quite nice to still be able to play nearly all of them today, even if many do require fan patches or virtual machines or some other emulation option in order to run on modern hardware. Still, with things like DOSBox and PCem or a little fan-patching for newer Windows stuff, a lot of them are still very playable.
The only criteria I chose for this list is that all of my picks must have been designed with a computer platform as its primary release (and have a release gap of at least three months between any console ports), or be PC-exclusive. Oh, and they have to still be fun to play today, too.
As ever, keep in mind that this are my personal picks and no-one else's. Oh, and these are by no means the only PC games I like. Trust me, I had no shortage of trouble sticking to my rules and narrowing this down to only 112!
But I did list off a few honorable mentions if that's your sort of thing.
112. The 7th Guest (Trilobyte, 1993)
One of the earliest games to be an exclusive CD-ROM release, the 7th Guest was also famously lauded by Bill Gates as "the new standard in interactive entertainment". Kind of funny in retrospect, but it remains an amusing artifact of the time period it came out in with its CGI-rendered environments and tons of grainy FMV and cheesy acting to convey its grimdark edgy storyline. The core gameplay is also fairly basic, having you wander about a mansion and solve various logic puzzles in order to view the next story scene - some are fairly standard like sliding tiles, chess puzzles or evenly dividing up a cake, while others are notoriously tricky. One particularly famous one is the microscope puzzle, which is actually a clone of Ataxx with amazingly aggressive AI. Trilobyte would make a few more attempts at the format with a direct sequel (The 11th Hour) and a kid-friendly spinoff called Clandestiny, though neither achieved the same level of success as their first effort. In fact their last game to be released before their shutdown in 1998, Uncle Henry's Playhouse, is one of the biggest commercial flops of all time, selling only
27 copies in North America. It also had a remake in 2026 with VR support, so in spite of its checkered past the legacy of The 7th Guest lives on.
111. Alone in the Dark (Infogrames, 1992)
A rare example of a 90s western-developed game that made a big splash in Japan; in fact, nearly all of the tropes defined here (tank controls, fixed camera angles, limited items and tons of inventory puzzles) would later become popularized by Capcom's Resident Evil series, which would go on to become one of the most successful horror franchises of all time. Alone in the Dark wouldn't fare nearly as well, though, with each game in the series seemingly just getting worse and worse. The original was still a fun one though, with some creepy moments even with the comically crude 3D models, a clever storyline steeped in the Lovecraft mythos, and plenty of traps and horrors waiting to kill you.
110. Atomic Bomberman (Interplay Productions, 1997)
Now
here's an oddball game attached to a well-known intellectual property.
Atomic Bomberman is an officially licensed Bomberman game, though it
wasn't developed by Hudson Soft - instead, Interplay took the code base
from Super Bomberman 3, gave the game an odd CGI art style and a techno
soundtrack and added numerous voice quips by the likes of Charlie Adler
and Billy West (including a number of
very profane ones buried
on the disc, most likely so they wouldn't alienate a younger audience
with a T or M rating). It's also notable for the fact that it lacks any
kind of single player campaign - all you get is multiplayer versus mode
against up to nine other humans or bots, both locally and over LAN or
dialup. Definitely one of the more obscure and bizarre Bomberman games,
but hey, it's pretty hard to mess up a classic.
109. Wolfenstein 3D (iD Software, 1992)
While not the progenitor of the first person shooter genre, Wolfenstein 3D was definitely the one that popularized it. An innovative ray-casting engine allowed for 3D visuals to be displayed at relatively high speeds on computers of the time, and despite its bizarre blocky rooms and lack of floor and ceiling textures, it managed to convey an oppressive and confining atmosphere. The gameplay is a bit more methodical than most '90s shooters - rush in and fire away and you'll probably get taken out quickly, particularly as your ammo stock is quite limited. Instead it's a better idea to pick enemies off one-by-one and lure them into narrow bottlenecks when you have to take on a large group. Each stage also has plenty of hidden secrets, and the numerous player mods and games derived from its engine ensure it has plenty of replay value.
108. Round 42 (Elven Software Company, 1986)
Computers in the '80s were mostly still thought of as "business machines" and as a result weren't really built for the kind of fast-paced action and animation seen in arcades and on consoles. Several games tried to replicate that style anyway with varying degrees of success, but one that really pulled it off was Round 42. Distributed as shareware, it ran in an obscure 160x100 CGA mode that allowed up to 16 colors onscreen at a time and much faster and smoother animation than would be possible at higher resolutions. You progress through 42 stages of increasingly surreal action, shooting down everything from birds to hopping faces to spheres. A fun little callback to simplistic Atari games with all the strange sights and bloopy sound effects, and just a damn good way to kill a few minutes even today.
107. Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity (ICOM Simulations, 1995)
Beavis and Butt-Head were a pretty big cultural phenomenon in the '90s, with an animated MTV show that was crude, tasteless, endlessly stupid and yet uproariously funny. They had a number of video game adaptations of varying quality, but this one surprised me when I saw it; after all, ICOM are best known for creating well-regarded 80's point-and-click adventures like Shadowgate, Deja Vu and Uninvited. They'd mostly lapsed into mediocre licensed tie-ins by the time the '90s rolled around, but Virtual Stupidity showed that they still had their talent. It captures the spirit of the show flawlessly (having Mike Judge writing and reprising his role as most of the show's major characters certainly plays a big part there), and even includes a couple of minigames to change things up or just provide a brief break from the main game. They even stuck in a few of the duo's famous music video commentaries as a very welcome bonus.
106. Commander Blood (Cryo Interactive, 1994)
The sequel to the 1988 cult classic "Captain Blood", a game as well known for its trippy writing and outlandish premise as for its exploration-driven gameplay. That definitely returned for the sequel, being amplified by the advent of CD-based FMV. A combination of CGI animation and practical effects are employed to portray all the strange alien locales and characters, and the absurd and flighty dialog only adds to the surreal mood. Top it off with a funky and original eurobeat soundtrack, and you get an unforgettable experience of pure spectacle. There was one more game in the series - Big Bug Bang - but as it's only available in French, few gamers outside that part of the world have experienced it.
105. Epic Pinball (Digital Extremes, 1993)
While I'm not really a big fan of video pinball games, a few have managed to grab my attention over the years due to their brilliant execution. Epic Pinball is definitely one of them; a huge mainstay on shareware discs and even having limited versions included with some OEM computers back in the day, it certainly impressed me with its high-fidelity and colorful graphics, fantastic music and the sheer variety it brings to the proceedings; the CD version of the game includes a whopping 13 tables to play on. They also match a variety of themes, from race cars to futuristic androids to a bizarre, threadbare table called the "Enigma" that awards bonuses based on a cryptic set of conditions. Good stuff all around, whether you're a pinball fanatic or not.
104. 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 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.
103. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness/Beyond the Dark Portal (Blizzard, 1995/1996)
The first RTS game I played, and it's still a surprisingly fun one today, establishing many staples of the genre despite its relative simplicity by modern standards. Choosing one of two factions (Humans or Orcs), you wage war across land, sea and air with a combination of melee units, ranged units and casters, with some clever tactics and well-placed spells able to turn the tide of battle. It's a bit unbalanced (particularly the Orcs' Bloodlust spell) and the AI is horrifically cheap, but still great fun to play with friends; I have still good memories of playing it over dialup. Nowadays the version to play is either the remaster or (for older machines) the Battle.net Edition, which adds in quick keys for rapidly selecting units and greatly improves the AI when engaging in battle (all units will attack instead of having to command them one by one...)
102. 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 core concept of randomly generated dungeon crawlers 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 voiceover, 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.
101. Sid Meier's Civilization II (Microprose, 1996)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a great concept turned into an excellent video game series - you start off as a small tribe, expand your territory, research new technologies to boost your peoples' health, happiness and military might, and ultimately strive to become the world's dominant force through conquest or winning the space race. Civ 2 lacks many elements of later entries that would become staples like culture, civilization-unique units and religions, but it's also proof of elegance in (relative) simplicity in that it doesn't need them to be a great game. It's also low-spec enough to be runnable on virtually anything; hell I still load it up in DOSBox on my phone and play it during breaks at work.
