Your Three All-Time Favorite PC Games

[KG Erwin]

As of now my top three all-time faves are SPWaW, PureSim Baseball and Birth of America 2. Note I did not say "wargames" as I included a PC baseball game. All of these I have at least a 5-year history of owning, but I never tire of them. The key to each one is their replayablity, plus the number of possiblities offered up. Two of the three are fully customizable, which is very important to the value of a game (to me, at least).

Honestly, I think that the ability to give a game your own personal touch is a very important factor, as it adds to the uniqueness of the game experience. When I worked with some of the SPWaW OOB teams many years ago, I felt a sense of being "on the inside", so my history with it has a definite personal imprint. I know of many individuals who have the same feeling towards the "old warhorse". This is why I really hold no strong desire for it to be upgraded, as it is a timeless classic. If it's ever to be redone, it would have to be "from the ground up". In other words, a brand new game.

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

As of now my top three all-time faves are SPWaW, PureSim Baseball and Birth of America 2. Note I did not say "wargames" as I included a PC baseball game. All of these I have at least a 5-year history of owning, but I never tire of them. The key to each one is their replayablity, plus the number of possiblities offered up. Two of the three are fully customizable, which is very important to the value of a game (to me, at least).

Honestly, I think that the ability to give a game your own personal touch is a very important factor, as it adds to the uniqueness of the game experience. When I worked with some of the SPWaW OOB teams many years ago, I felt a sense of being "on the inside", so my history with it has a definite personal imprint. I know of many individuals who have the same feeling towards the "old warhorse". This is why I really hold no strong desire for it to be upgraded, as it is a timeless classic. If it's ever to be redone, it would have to be "from the ground up". In other words, a brand new game.

I am shocked, shocked I say, that you listed SPWaW as you favorite - none of us saw that coming.[:D][&o]

My favorite 3, after much anguished thought:

1. SPWAW
2. Civilization IV(all expansions)
3. Heroes of Might and Magic IV(tied with Baldur's Gate 2).

[Ketza]

The games I had the most fun with back in the day are the ones that come to mind. Those games that kept me up til 4am.

Seven cities of gold. Apple version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_ ... ideo_game)

Sword of Aragorn - Apple version

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Aragon

Civilization IV and several of its fan generated spin offs like Revelutions.

[Sarge]

1) Strat O Matic baseball
2) HPS Campaign 1776
3) is a toss-up..... Tillers Campaign Series or HPS F&IW

[Titanwarrior89]

WitpAE
Spwaw
GG War in the East

Had to change it....noticed PC games.

[sullafelix]

Red Baron II

SSG wargames from the 90's - They were all the same engine, so in effect were the same game in different eras etc..

Age of Rifles - Oblivion - It's a toss up.

I picked only games that I kept coming back to over and over again. There are plenty of games that I really like but they didn't have the staying power of the above mentioned.

[KG Erwin]

What I find odd is that several of you join me in picking SPWaW as one of your all-time faves. Matrix Games has had several failed attempts at coming up with a successor to this game, but why is that? I honestly have no idea.

It would seem that a modernized tactical game with SPWaW's depth would be a natural choice, but so far they have come up empty. I have some suspicions as to why, but I won't speak of it any more. Let me leave this subject by stating that at one time many years ago, SPWaW was Matrix' flagship game. The ownership of the source code was bought up by Matrix, and the development of the game as it now stands was done by fans of it with assistance from Mike Wood, who was one of the original programmers. This is how the Enhanced Version came to be. It was a strange series of events, and I still don't understand what happened to this day why Matrix decided to wash its hands of it.

[ezzler]

X com - all versions {including the latest}
Championship manager/football manager - all versions
Civ 1 2 3 { not much impressed with 4}

In single games the longest and most hours played on the harddrive would be
Railroad tycoon
Civilisation
Harpoon

[Missouri_Rebel]

(1) Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord-
simply because it was one of the first computer games that I owned and a game that I had spent countless hours in PBEM. I still remember the screenshots that Fionn put up. I was hooked from that point. Battlefront was the first forum I ever joined and my original member number was under 100, if that tells you anything. Of course these days I much prefer Achtung Panzer over the CMx2 games.

(2) Achtung Panzer: Operation Star- An excellent overlooked game

(3) Tie between Forge of Freedom and WW1 Gold. I've spent way more time in FoF though. WW1 Gold is massive and quite impressive considering the sheer size of the boardgame they were trying to recreate. It has a great look and feel, even with its warts.

[Chickenboy]

Master of Orion 2
Doom
WiTP:AE
Civilization

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Master of Orion 2
Doom
WiTP:AE
Civilization

[:-] I think that math was not one of your best areas of education CB [:-] The title says 3....THREE...games. Not 2 nor 4 but 3. [8|]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Master of Orion 2
Doom
WiTP:AE
Civilization

[:-] I think that math was not one of your best areas of education CB [:-] The title says 3....THREE...games. Not 2 nor 4 but 3. [8|]

warspite1

Hey CarnageINC go easy on the guy...he's from Minnsoda so he can't help it okay.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Master of Orion 2
Doom
WiTP:AE
Civilization

[:-] I think that math was not one of your best areas of education CB [:-] The title says 3....THREE...games. Not 2 nor 4 but 3. [8|]

warspite1

Hey CarnageINC go easy on the guy...he's from Minnsoda so he can't help it okay.

The scary thing is I'm from the next state over, North Dakota....[X(]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC




[:-] I think that math was not one of your best areas of education CB [:-] The title says 3....THREE...games. Not 2 nor 4 but 3. [8|]

warspite1

Hey CarnageINC go easy on the guy...he's from Minnsoda so he can't help it okay.

The scary thing is I'm from the next state over, North Dakota....[X(]

warspite1

Yes, but unlike Chickenboy I suspect you have at least rudimentary knowledge of numeracy [:)]

[berto]

[*]John Tiller's American Civil War series
[*]John Tiller's Campaign Series
[*]War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition

[wodin]

Elite BBC B
Over Flanders Field Phase 3
Close Combat 2


Elite and CC2 are dear to my heart and had the biggest impact on me gamingwise out of all games.

It's very hard to choose three games to be honest.

Contenders where...

Panther Game series
WW1Gold
SPWW2 (Steel Panther game)
Achtung Panzer
Steel Fury
Combat Mission BB
CMx2 series
Steam and Iron
Red Orchestra
Crusader Kings 2
Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue
Flight Commander 2
Gunship
Sensible Soccer Atari ST and Amiga

[terje439]

Civilization (the original, think that is the only game I've played 40hrs straight...)
Football Manager series (although I feel the later ones are getting too detailed, so you cannot play a season in one day anymore)
Steel Panthers (yup, the original one, where things worked ^^)


Terje

[Rtwfreak]

1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
2. Master of Magic
3. Civilization II

It's pretty much a clean sweep of Civilization type games. They were the best made of all and brought a whole new meaning to strategy.
But, 3 games is hardly enough to represent the greatest games of all time so there has to be honorable mentions.

1. Norbsofts Gettysburg series
2. Galactic Civilization II series
3. Warlords turn based series I - IV
4. Origional Combat Mission series
5. Steel Panthers series
6 Panzer Command Osfront
7. HOMM II-III
8 Medieval Total War origional
9 Tropico

[Matto]

- Total War games (Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2 Fall of Samurai ... I hope for AACW or Victorian Era)
- JT Campaign Series (playing it more then 15 years!)
- AGEOD games, Pride of Nations especially

[berto]

ORIGINAL: berto

[*]John Tiller's American Civil War series
[*]John Tiller's Campaign Series
[*]War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition

I'll add one Honorable Mention: Scourge of War

Fantastic concepts there, and devs/modders dedicated to Getting It Right. If they can hone the execution of those concepts to (near) perfection, SoW makes my top three (probably bumping JT ACW).