DescentBB

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To save people from having to click through, here's their list (with a few of my own comments):

#10: Trade Wars 2002
- Great choice, I loved this game back in the day. Epic text-based struggles against live players!

#9: Myst
- Sequels lost my attention, but my wife and I really enjoyed working our way through through that whimsical world.

#8: The Sims
- You gotta be kidding me...

#7: StarCraft

#6: Rogue: The Adventure Game\"

#5: M.U.L.E.
- Really? I played this for a while when I was younger, never really understood the appeal.

#4: SimCity

#3: Sid Meier's Civilization
- I enjoyed this one as well, though I wouldn't put it this high.

...Getting the impression that the author of this list really loved his 80's and 90's sim games...

#2: Doom
- Classic shooter, although it doesn't come close to matching Descent IMHO.

#1: World of WarCraft

This is a bad list.
The Sims isn't a game. It doesn't even simulate anything properly.
Doom is a milestone in graphics. Then hackers and 3rd party companies made it better by using the engine.
I want to say more, but I'll just bang my head on my desk instead.

LOL, to actually believe this is definitive? hehe. There is no science that could nail this down. the parameters in themselves are too subjective. I'm with you Octopus.

still. it would have been nice to have had Descent recognized. At least Quake didn't make it!

Where's Halo on that list? All I know is that amongst all of my peers Halo is WAY more popular than any of those games...

I agree with the comments already made. The Sims should never have made it, neither should MULE or ROGUE. Sim City, Doom 2, Warcraft, Descent definitely should be on there. Command & Conquer as well.

As for Myst, I'd take that out and stick in Buried in Time. It wasn't as popular (any of you play it?) but it was 100000x better than Myst and scenes from that game still stick in my head today.

Another one that could have made the list is Subspace. Hellishly addicting and had a MASSIVE following, especially when Descent 1 hit its first low point in '97-98.

One other one I might put on there is Mechwarrior although it'd probably be somewhere between 11-15. I might even stick Stellar 7 before it as it was a true pioneer.

Oh, and Wing Commander!!! Htf is that not on there?!?!?!

Phantasmagoria was another ground-breaker, albeit a slightly deranged game.

And finally, where in the EFF are the classic Sierra games (QFG, Police Academy, KQ) and the LSLarry series. How about DOTT ...or Full Throttle!! And the others in that genre. Oh man the nostalgia is killing me. Those games rocked. I didn't read the actual page so maybe it excluded the RPG types like this but then again, isn't The Sims a sort of RPG? Any of those classics crushes the Sims series.

#6: Rogue: The Adventure Game\"

Rouge was grand. You can STILL play nethack, you know. It's probably the most complex and in-depth game ever created.

That list is crap. Descent should be #'s 1-9 and #10 should be begin2.exe

d0ggY wrote:The Sims should never have made it, neither should MULE or ROGUE.

Eh... it's not a list about the ten most fun PC games of all time. He defines "best" in terms of influence, innovation, replayability, and design -- and most of those games score really high in at least a couple of those categories.

Rogue or one of its early derivatives (like nethack) fits on a top-10 all-time PC game list. It, quite simply, spawned the genre of PC-based D&D-ish RPGs. And there are still a lot of people who play roguelikes 25 years later. Influence, innovation, replayability, design... check.

The Sims? That one's on the bubble for me. I can see the point about it bringing a massive number of women into gaming, but I just don't see how it's innovative or truly interesting. I don't think it's fair for me to say "I don't get this game, so it can't possibly be top-10"... but I wouldn't have put it on my own top-10 list.

I don't know jack about MULE.

EDIT: oh, and Descent was innovative, well-designed, and has pretty good replay value, but IMO the learning curve was just a bit too high. You can go to the store and pick up any number of games based on DooM, but how many years has it been since there's been a new Descent-style game? Descent's problem has always been that it's too advanced to have a huge following, and therefore, to have a huge influence.

As with all articles written by MSN, this one is crap. You should have just skipped over it. The guy who wrote it is having a slow work day and has no clue with regards to gaming.

I don't see why \"Elite\" was not included in many of these lists myself. Elite was a pioneering game in many respects.

To see what Elite is/was, check it out here:

\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)\"

It was originally out on the Commodore 64 and a few other extremely early home PCs.

\"Top ten furniture dollies of all time.\" That's a list I'd like to see.

Lothar wrote:oh, and Descent was innovative, well-designed, and has pretty good replay value, but IMO the learning curve was just a bit too high. You can go to the store and pick up any number of games based on DooM, but how many years has it been since there's been a new Descent-style game? Descent's problem has always been that it's too advanced to have a huge following, and therefore, to have a huge influence.

Got that right!

Elite usually does figure on the old-timers' lists, yeah... myself I hardly remember a thing about it. I was something like 3 or 4 when I saw the game.

Lothar spoke well. I think the author of the article is more considering pioneer and heavily influential titles, which doesn't treat Descent very well because it didn't really start anything. MULE still comes out of the blue, but I've heard of Rogue for sure (spawned the Diablo series for starters, and they're popular enough for it to count for something).

I do think WoW is given a bit more credit than it deserves, but a spot on the top 10 is likely fitting. I have mixed feelings about BOTH The Sims and SimCity appearing, considering they were pretty similar games in some ways, and SimCity didn't really wind up anywhere in recent times... but it did make its mark I suppose. Myst I'm not sure about; again it was highly innovative and a lot of people played it, but I thought Riven was a much better game all around. Then again, it only built upon Myst; it didn't really start anything in a big way by itself.

The pity about this top 10 is it does indeed have to leave out some games that many would feel deserve to be there - things like Zork, Star Control 2, Half-Life or Counterstrike for instance (perversely I've never played any of those games myself; I just know they're quite legendary and were landmarks).

Like some(if not all) software from M$, this article sucks It doesn't mention Descent or Operation Flashpoint which was the squad-based shooter. (With a sequel on the way which looks gorgeous!)

Actually I should point out that the author of that article is apparently from PC World. Do they have any affiliation with MSN?

Ok so if it's about innovation, pioneering, etc then what about one of the first Flight Sim games? Not sure which came first but some early ones were the MS Sim and Red Baron. Again, Wing Commander sticks in my head too.

And Doom should be replaced with Wolfenstein 3D as it really started it all. Although Doom was much better, it wasn't the true pioneer. The only thing it lacks on that list is replayability, in which Doom 2 should knock both out.

And finally ...Solitaire. Cmon now, it's the #1 all-time played game.

In the genre of flight sim games, where are the racing games? Need for Speed spawned a massive breed of games from Carmageddon to I76 to the basic racing games out today.

I still don't get why a classic Sierra game isn't on there. For me, Hero's Quest was the one that got me absolutely hooked on computer games.

Sirius wrote:Actually I should point out that the author of that article is apparently from PC World. Do they have any affiliation with MSN?

We should point out this thread to the author.

Yeah, everyone likes getting flamed.

No one's flaming the author... Just the article, and with good reasons.

dunno, this list of games says nothing to me. except probably civilization and simcity, wich both was unique and started new genres of games. i miss some games that really invented something new and had a lot of followers, like:

-castle wolfenstein : 3d-shooters (way before doom)
-dune 2 : invented the realtime strategy games
-elite : spaceshooter and trader
-ultima online : mmorpg

and lots more, my 5 cent.

I want my Commander Keen

You're moaning about a subjective list like it matters. Why bother?

Richard Cranium wrote:I want my Commander Keen

http://www.glenrhodes.com/flashkeen/tilepop.html

They should make a more objective list based on how many copies of the game were sold... or something like that.

Another one that could have made the list is Subspace. Hellishly addictive and had a MASSIVE following, especially when Descent 1 hit its first low point in '97-98.

Fixed that for you.

Top 3 random things:
1. Soda
2. Penguins
3. Gravity

If they did that, all that would show up would be things like The Sims, World of Warcraft, most of the other Blizzard games, Flight Simulator and maybe a couple others...

Descent didn't make the lost because the people who review games found it to hard and never really gave it the praise it deserved.

Descent created a whole new genre of games but never sold enough. 500,000 copies for D1 and D2 and 57,000 for D3 doesn't make it a big seller compared to Quake, UT, WOW etc. So it's no surprise to me it will never make the list.

Genre? There was what, D1, D2, D3, Forsaken? I can't think of any other 6dof shooters.

Octopus wrote:Top 3 random things:
1. Soda
2. Penguins
3. Gravity

1. Barbed wire

2. Mayonnase

3. Brake pedal

Sirius wrote:Genre? There was what, D1, D2, D3, Forsaken? I can't think of any other 6dof shooters.

Terminal velocity

Couldn't slide in TV?

Not that, I suppose, that necessarily makes the difference. If I recall you could still fly in pretty much any direction you wanted.

M.U.L.E. was the greatest game of all time and basically is the core to ALL the resource/quest games today.

most of you were not even a wet dream when we were playing it

BUBBALOU wrote:M.U.L.E. was the greatest game of all time...

Meh, it's subjective.

M.U.L.E. got about a 4.5 out of 10 for me. My brother and I played it for about two days before we got bored (I was in college at the time).

BUBBALOU wrote:most of you were not even a wet dream when we were playing it

M.U.L.E. was released in 1983.

Foil wrote:M.U.L.E. got about a 4.5 out of 10 for me. My brother and I played it for about two days before we got bored (I was in college at the time).

So that makes you like 50 years old or so now Foil

meh, I was busy playing Wizardry, Zork, and Tempest (arcade)

BUBBALOU wrote:So that makes you like 50 years old or so now Foil

You're making assumptions. Note that I didn't say it was new when we played it.

Duper wrote:...Zork...

Ah, of course! The Zork games (text-based classic adventure games, for those who don't know) were excellent, though they could be frustrating when you hit a puzzle you couldn't solve.

Here's one I still remember:
"My tines be long,
My tines be short,
My tines end ere
My first report.
What am I?"

A fork?

Perhaps a tuning fork. But yeah, it is a little cryptic...

...Zork...

I just thought I'd point out that these are available for free, and STILL just as much fun as they used to be.

http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html