The 5 best classic PC games everyone needs to try
There has never been a better time to play games on PC. Not only do PCs get the lion’s share of the best new games, but PC gamers also have a back catalog that makes even the most stocked console library look underwhelming. For a few years now, we have been making lists of the best PC games.
(Among our staff, this is the hardest and most hotly debated of all our “best of” lists.) That list includes the 12 best modern PC games; Those are the games we’d recommend if you just got a new PC and want to see what it can do. However, the list is never complete, as it does not include any multitudes of the incredible best classic PC games that gamers can and still enjoy.
1. System Shock 2
System Shock 2 paved the way for the genre-blending first-person games that are common today, completing the formula before anyone else attempted it. The premise was simple: You found yourself alone on a space station, where you were clearly the only thing left alive. Well, the only organic thing. The evil Ai Shodan wastes little time establishing himself as his formidable opponent.
Along the way you pick up elements of the backstory through audio logs and transform yourself from any DPS/combat focus into a pure hacker who can infiltrate any system. System Shock 2 was ahead of its time, tense, smart, and just as great soon after it was released in 1999. – Ryan McCaffrey (read our review)
2. Half-Life
Half-Life brings a whole new level of storytelling to the still youthful FPS genre. Instead of dropping the player into monster-filled levels, Half-Life slowly tweaks its situations with in-engine cutscenes, expository dialogue, and deliberate-yet-relentless pacing. You play Gordon Freeman, a mild-mannered nuclear physicist at the Black Mesa Research Facility, who gets caught up in a teleportation experiment that goes awry.
Before long, you’re battling an invasion of hostile extraterrestrials – as well as soldiers whose job it is to clean up the mess by eliminating any moves, friend or foe. Overseeing the proceedings is a mysterious G-Man who bears a striking resemblance to The X-Files Cigarette Smoking Man, and whose presence adds a frisson of government paranoia to the experience.
3. PLANESCAPE: TORMENT
Unlike the classic, fellow heroes of Baldur’s Gate II, Plainscape: Torment is a solitary, personal journey to uncover the lost memories of a man who lived and died untold lives without recollection.
Set in a surreal otherworldly world of multiple planes and bizarre creatures that defy traditional fantasy tropes, Torment is one of the strangest and greatest videogame stories ever told. Focusing more on dialogue and choices than battle, Torment encourages you to uncover its world through exploration, conversation, and clever, choice-filled quests.
4. Overwatch
With an amazing lineup of memorable characters and carefully balanced abilities, Overwatch is a shooter that almost perfectly bobs and weaves between having the quick-fix adrenaline hit you want after a long day of work, and thoughtful, strategic The multiplayer experience becomes the focus of a long evening out with friends.
It may not have the most exhaustive list of maps and modes, but the offerings grow with every new seasonal event, and what already exists offers nearly endless opportunities for exhilarating, coordinated play.
Overwatch won our 2016 Game of the Year award, and Blizzard’s trademark polish and commitment to community should keep it something we’ll revisit regularly for years to come.
5. SPELUNKY 2
Spelunky 2 isn’t a sequel—or, at least, I wouldn’t use that word. It’s something different, like many modern games that blur the lines between remaster, reboot, remake, and reimagining. It guarantees new words. The early stages of Spelunky 2 are very similar to the original Spelunky, just a little prettier.
Imagine someone is using tracing paper to recreate a favorite painting, adding their own flourishes and modifications. Once again, you start out in a cave full of spiders, skeletons, bats and gold statues, which lay eggs for you to set off your deadly trap. Except now, things are so different.
also read : top 5 Best Action-RPGs, According To Ranker in 2022