The concluding part of our Top 100, containing every entry between 50 and 1.
The first part, containing entries 100-51, can be found here.
50
Unreal Tournament 2004
2004
Unreal Tournament is more than FPS deathmatch. It comes laden with extras: vehicles, alternative fire-modes, objective-based play, even a futuristic take on rugby called Bombing Run. And with the mod support, you'll never run out of things to play - even for the original (and best) version.
Tom: "It just bristles with vicious, oddball weaponry. Even its shotgun is a ricocheting shrapnel-belcher. The glob-spitting Biorifle and the Shock Rifle's connecting fire-modes make it the most satisfying and intricate competitive game out there."
49
Star Wars: Tie-Fighter
1994
Set shortly after the battle of Hoth, TIE-Fighter lets you release your inner bad-ass. Flying the far-cooler-than-an-X-Wing ships, many missions had you working for the Vader himself. Get hold of the special edition for the improved graphics.
Tim: "Grip the shaft. Don the mask. Breathe heavily. Yes, there's something deeply sexual about becoming Lord Vader's right-hand pilot. Deeply sexual, and fun."
48
Warcraft III
2002
Everyone thinks Blizzard make cartoon games. That's not entirely true. Behind the hand-drawn animation of this RTS is the dark tale of a prince driven mad by his own shortcomings, and his descent into genocide.
Tim: "Warcraft III's highlights are in its multiplayer matches. Alongside the standard RTS base building and resource collecting, you have to level up your heroes and hunt down the enemy's. It leads to fantastic Benny Hill-style chases as hordes of skeletons rampage after over-sized cows."
47
Beyond Good & Evil
2003
Sure, you beat stuff with a stick, but beautiful heroine Jade is far more interested in capturing bads in a photograph. A fantastic action-adventure game wrapped ina remarkable story, with a pig that'll make you cry.
John: "Jim and Cobbett pestered me to play this for the longest time, and I thought they were made. They weren't. And so what if I cried a bit when Pey'J got into a bit of bother. DON'T JUDGE ME."
46
Guild Wars
2005
What do we like to do in MMO games? Punch each other in the face, and accompany our friends on epic adventures and last-ditch assaults. Guild Wars boils off the fat of massively multiplayer games, leaving pure fun. The world-instancing can make it feel like the game's treating you and your chums as true heroes.
Kieron: "Guild Wars is a gamer's game, all pure interactions and room for personal expression and strategy. You don't have to pay a subscription fee either, which makes it a sensible gamer's game."
45
Far Cry
2004
'Club Tropicana, Trigens are free. Fun and sunshine, there's a gun for everyone.' Releasing the FPS from its murky corridors, Far Cry's mutant-infested islands gave us a minor revolution of AI, freedom and, most of all, foliage.
Comments
23 comments so far...
ta56636 on 13 Aug '07 said:
Nice list... not that I agree with most of it - but that's the point; right?
However I'm not sure that Peggle should be in there, not because it not a good game, it obviously is, but it just too different a type of game. How do you compare it, to, say, TA. If you include that, were are all the other little 'puzzle' games: tetris, Armadillo Run etc.
maugrim2712 on 13 Aug '07 said:
WOW no.1? No way, it may be super popular but it's not actually that great a game. Deus Ex all the way. Nice to see Thief: Deadly Shadows in there, i think it gets overlooked a lot, the 2 previous games were also excellent.
Christopher Low on 13 Aug '07 said:
Where is GT Legends ?
Graham Smith on 13 Aug '07 said:
It didn't place.
SleepySheep28 on 13 Aug '07 said:
Not a fan of WoW either, but you cant deny the number of hits its got, biggest ever onlinr game i think
and where was Ghost recon or Stronghold.. 
Anonymous on 13 Aug '07 said:
WOW should definitely not be allowed anywhere near the top 100 as MMORPOROROORGYs have done obscene amounts of damage to PC gaming. all those people who would have been happy to play new games now don't bother buying any because they are too busy wasting time in WOW. everyone who plays WOW: you have RUINED IT. RUINED IT!
Christopher Low on 13 Aug '07 said:
The best racing simulation ever seen on the PC fails to make it into the PCG Top 100 ?
Zael on 14 Aug '07 said:
I can't beleive this is done by video game experts. I loved WoW played it for 3 years but it is not no.1 Its sad to think that an extremely well polished game can beat original ideas, brilliant storylines and novel like atmospheres and characters.
Its like a cold hard corporation beating the small homely shops. It's like the "Da Vinci code" beating Shakespere or "Great expectations" I really hope that when devs look at world of warcraft they won't say to themselves ok lets just make this game very well polished and give them the same thing to do over and over again with a reward at the end.
Although my favourite genre, in no way should an MMO be no1 game of all time.
zipdrive on 14 Aug '07 said:
1) Why is HL in here? Wasn't it declared at the start that only one game per franchise/series would be entered?
2) I collected some statistics about myself regarding this list...
Games not tried:
(games on this list I haven't had the chance or will to try. I may have played another game from a specific series) 31
e.g. WoW
Games tried, but not played: (games in this category were given a go, maybe through a demo, but no great time investment) 19
e.g.: M2:TW
Games played, not completed: (these games I either gave up on or just hadn't had the time to finish) 14
e.g. Oblivion
Games completed: (I either finished these games, or, if they don't have an ending, played the heck out of them) 35
e.g. HL2
what is your score?
PCG The_B on 14 Aug '07 said:
It's every PC Game ever, so they probably could have been options. They just weren't of what the writers thought were amongst the best 100 games ever. There are thousands upon thousands of games to consider. Masq got in, and Toribash was also considered.
As for stats:
Games not tried:
25
Games tried, but not played:
8
Games played, not completed:
(I'm terrible for this) 28
Games completed:
33
Christopher Low on 15 Aug '07 said:
My own impressive record with respect to the PCG Top 100 is as follows:-
Not played: 81
Played demo: 6
Played, not completed: 4
Completed: 9
shed on 15 Aug '07 said:
I was going to say I can't believe you haven't played 81 of that list Chris but that got me interested enough to work out my own stats. What surprised me is there's an awful lot there I haven't even touched either:
Not played: 65
Played demo: 11
Played, not completed: 7
Completed: 17
I also expected the 'played but not completed' mark to be a lot higher. Maybe this shows that all the games I never bothered completing aren't much cop anyway
Jezcentral on 16 Aug '07 said:
No Starcraft? Eh? You wot?
I know Starcraft is an old game, but it's the second best selling PC game of all time (behind The Sims), and they've taken 10 years to come out with a sequel because the original has lasted so long. It's still being played (and not just in South Korea). How could it not make the Top 100 games? Did the piece of paper they wrote the word "Starcraft" on get blown under the table when they were shuffling through the other papers?
J
Anonymous on 23 Aug '07 said:
Yeah..I just deemed it worth registering for the first time to also say "No Starcraft?"
As they said, it's their opinion, but no Starcraft, Doom, Castle Wolfenstein, etc
Valiant effort though. Quite a few on their I haven't tried, so I'll look them up. Thanks.
FAXA on 13 Sep '07 said:
Don't agree what so ever. But then again its their opinion - not mine. But I do agree with WoW at number 1 though, there is so much to do and if you actually read the quests you are given there is a story to allot of them (not the ones where some chef guy wants you to go bring him 10 tiger meats and 5 hot spices). And there is such a variety of animals to kill, places to see, dungeons to explore and treasures to loot.
Morcrid on 23 Sep '07 said:
WoW #1? it's a good game and all, alot of ppl do play it... but best of all.... i don't think so.
1st of all i don't care who you are if you can't reconize StarCraft as one of the top 25 at lest, then the list is truely flawed. *hence the top spot WOW lol. WoW is a great game, but not ground breaking and not original. Example: Everquest is not better then WoW now, but it was ground-breaking. I would put Everquest way above WoW, even though WoW is clearly better now thanks to other mmorpgs.
on a side note* i belive all mmorpgs are just "Virtual Skinner Boxes". see website for meaning (http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html).
Where's the creativity in somthing like that?
Anonymous on 5 Nov '07 said:
I simply had to make an account here, for one reason: Dues Ex at Number 2.
All hail Ol' JC
Waldino on 3 Apr '08 said:
System Shock 2 is 23?!?!?!?!
-Questioning top 50 list-
Only reason I won't complain further is because Deus-Ex is 1st (ignoring WoW).
humorguy on 23 Dec '08 said:
I was reading 50-1 and thinking 'this is much better than the crappy PC Zone Top 100!', then as I continued reading I thought 'Wow! PC Gamer really knows it's stuff!'
- But then I saw they had listed Half Life 1 AND 2, when that shouldn't be allowed, and then, horror of horror - WoW was number 1! Above X-Com, above the Half life's, above System Shock 2!
So I went back to what I was thinking before I started reading - how dumbed down PC games are now - how they have sold out to the publishers and how any morality has left gaming media to leave it bereft of any meaning - and I realised it was the Number One reason for the state of PC gaming today.
Thanks PC Zone and PC Gamer, for bringing my hobby down to it's knees, and probably, in a couple of years, killing it off entirely!
samwyze55 on 4 Mar '09 said:
It's a sad day when I walk into a game store and find every pc game (except WoW) in the bargain bin. Only console games line the shelves anymore
=(
thanks for reminding me of some great oldschool pc titles tho. Thief ftw
games like Silver and Dungeon Siege are worth looking up as well =D
Armoreska on 15 Dec '09 said:
Not played: 50
Played just demo: 0
Played, not completed (or not played a lot): 10
Completed (or played to death): 40
excluding the games of the series included, like I never played Medieval
fav games ever: HL series, Rome Total War, TOCARD2, N
classicmints on 31 Mar '10 said:
Besides for it being the most boring game of all time, one of the most unoriginal, it is also the lamest rpg ever made. Sure its a landmark to the gaming industry but so was Sid Meiers Pirates! and you don't see that ranking number one on a bunch of lists. Seriously, Oblivion and Fallout 3 were extremely superior games and both of them were ranked lower than WoW? Get the hell out of here. All that is PC Gamer sucking up the worst thing that's happened to gaming since D&D...oh wait a minute, haha. Isn't WoW kinda based off of D&D? Wow man, pretty pathetic. Personally, I'd rank Devil May Cry 4 over WoW and DMC4 was a pretty lousy game. Also, Deus Ex played terribly on the PC and Company Of Heroes was just another tired, boring strategy game. Idk if it was just me, but the controls on the PC for Vice City were dreadful. I think its time we all got a top 100 list that's worthy of being viewed by the public. PC Gamer, keep your opinions to yourself because you obviously have no idea of what a top ten game is...besides for Half Life 2 and Oblivion. And Oblivion was obliviously ignored by the fools at PC Gamer for the top three!
Fave Games: Final Fantasy VIII, Oblivion and Fallout 3 <3
TheDarkFragment on 21 Jul '10 said:
Where thef**k is Halo?!?