Essential PC games

[Nonary Game]

Some excellent PC games you need to play:

Deus Ex
Team Fortress 2
Portal series
Battlefield
Starcraft II (optional)
Recettear
Age of Empires series
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2
Planescape: Torment (I'm hailing this as the best RPG ever made)

Mind, these are just examples.

 

[Fishin]

Also yeah what Firestorm said; keep an eye out for sales and grab whatever looks interesting, you can get some pretty amazing deals especially on Steam. Mass Effect II came out around a year and a half ago and it was on sale a couple weeks ago for $10. There should be a big summer sale on Steam in a week or two, though other sites have their own sales too.

 

[vonFiedler]

Recommending essential PC games is daunting as shit not just because of the sheer number of games you should play, but because most of them you all but can't. Here is a list of games I have to get very creative to make work that would all be worthwhile ideas otherwise;

Knights of the Old Republic
Deus Ex
Diablo 2
Starcraft
King's Quest 6
Oregon Trail 2

Dragon's Age Origins is a worthy replacement for KOTOR, but really there is one current game everyone should have; The Sims 3. Even if you didn't like either of the other sims games, the sequel is that much better. It's one of the biggest time-passers ever.

I'd recommend Half-Life 2, but just get the Orange Box. No better deal in gaming history.

 

[cookie]

oh man how did i miss deus ex: has the biggest replay value of any fps-esque game, and i say -esque because you can get through the entire game without using a single weapon. It's perhaps the only game I've ever played that's set in the future but still feels realistic, so you can easily see this as the future.

deus ex 2 is "okay" but has two problems:
1. is a sequel to deus ex, which already set the benchmark sky-high
2. the developers listened to a small section of fans who weren't representative of the general audience, so they added retarded things like universal ammo.

overall deus ex 2 felt dumbed down and I'm pretty sure this was because it was designed with consoles in mind. Deus Ex was made for PC and then adapted to PS2 far later. That being said, I still enjoyed it because it still had many of the cool things I enjoyed about the first: not being restricted in options on how to complete levels, augmentations and sci-fi stuff that's still firmly rooted in the present day. I'm really psyched for Deus Ex 3.

 

[DrCrashMD]

I would recommend Civ 4 as well, so much better than Civ 5.

 

[Xaqwais]

I'll second Cave Story. A beautiful game emulating the style of SNES games but taking liberties where needed. The gameplay, music, story, and art are all amazing. It plays very similar to Metroid, so if you like those games, it's perfect. It's free to download and its 4-6 hours to beat the game's normal difficulty run on a first play through

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

minesweeper

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I'll third Cave Story, absolutely, and also second Nonary's suggestion of Recettear. It was a fun little game, and much better than I expected it to be.

 

[Darkamber8828]

Duke Nukem Forever was released in North America just yesterday. lol

ahahaha very funny.

wait

HOLY WHAT

EDIT: thirding fourthing Cave Story.

Recettear is also quite good.

And if visual novels count, everything from Key.

 

[Charro]

yesterday? D: fuck I thought the date was june 18 p_p!

Oh I forgot to mention, I downloaded Cave Story yesterday xD, I'm enjoying it by the time.

Ok, so much to play p-p I missed 20 years of games.

Not gonna try Age of Empires, Starcraft and similar, because I have played AoE a lot with my friends back in the day, and I'm a little tired of strategy (and race games), I know they're great games but that's a no for now

 

[DrCrashMD]

Spelunky too. A fun indie title with great atmosphere, music, replay value - and it's free. Get it.

 

[Renosaur]

I recommend getting Elder Scrolls IV for the PC simply because the modding community on the pc is large and you'll never get bored of it.

Also here is a link my friend gave me that sells game online http://www.ozgameshop.com/
My friend preordered BF3 for pc for $45, you can also get MW3 for $55 and other big games coming out this year. Note that these prices are for preorders, they'll rise when the games are actually release.
I haven't personally tested out this site but my friend has if you guys are interested

EDIT: also minecraft which was already mentioned, it's $20 now in alpha version but there's a free browser version on site if you want to kinda try it before you buy it (although it isn't exactly the same, you will still be able to play with others)

 

[Every1XplodeNOW]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Play it at 3 in the morning with all the lights off with headphone on. It will make you shit bricks.

 

[gingbino11]

Rome: Total War is one of the best RTS games out there, and has a lot of replay value.

Also seconding Civ IV, Oblivion and Minecraft.

 

[EricaHartmann]

Recettear is so fucking awesome for its price. Hilarious characters and while the dungeon crawling is meh, its damn cheap. One of the best buys i've ever made on Steam.

Pretty much every Blizzard game should be bought and played. While you might not be into the RTS side of it apparently, the custom maps and just dicking around with friends makes it more than worth it. I remember nights when we would be up until 5 am playing X hero siege on War3. Just chatting, raging at each other for stealing items etc.

Torchlight is a cheap game thats definitely worth buying, although you might want to hold off until the online version comes out later.

Audiosurf is a great indie game, it's just so hard to get bored with it if you have a good selection of music. I still play it every now and then to kill time or to take a break.

 

[mite b cool]

Deus Ex and System Shock 2

 

[Arch]

Cave Story
Cave Story
Cave Story
Cave Story
Cave Story

 

[ivar]

i dont mean to play mod but maybe it would be a good idea to merge the essential pc games, ps3 games into the 10/10 games thread. and maybe throw in a 'contemporary games' thread so we don't have a million threads on every new game that comes out/will come out.

just feels like anything i say in this thread can be said in the 10/10 games thread

 

[Eraddd]

Starcraft (not the second one). One of the most balanced games ever released. Each race has its own dynamic race, and builds, and almost no build is so unbalanced so as that most people stick with it.

Age of Empires 2. Great RTS all around. A bunch of civilizations with different perks, allow you to build your army and slaughter the opposition in almost a hundred different ways. Units range from siege machines, to suicide bombers, to footmen.

Half Life 2 + Episode 1 + Episode 2: I didn't really get into the Half Life hype when it first came out, but Half Life 2 blew my mind away. A balanced mix of slaughter, puzzle and strategy. Play around with the gravity gun, whilst blowing shit up. The story is also very well done, especially with the unknown backdrop of the entire story (such as who the G-man really is, and why is Gordon actually there).

 

[Daenym]

Plants vs Zombies

I don't really like TD games often, but this game just worked for me. Simple enough to learn, but you can make it as easy or hard as you want by how you pick plants. And the flavor text for the plants is just hilarious. It's also a nice casual game to play instead of the more involved, story-based games.

 

[Trax]

The Witcher - Polish made Action-RPG, not really one for younger players though and may make you want to punch something at a few points due to the difficulty refusing to be even remotely consistent (there are a few battles in the game that seem obscenely hard relative to the rest of it).

Warcraft 2 - Best RTS I've played (and I've played virtually every major RTS of the last decade and a half). Awesome single player mode, multiplayer is kinda dead now but it was great back in the day.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Really big relatively free roaming RPG, tons of fun and the best of the Elder Scrolls series by far.

Starcraft (not the second one). One of the most balanced games ever released. Each race has its own dynamic race, and builds, and almost no build is so unbalanced so as that most people stick with it.

Actually the balance was quite bad at first; took blizzard until around Patch 1.08 to get it right. Race balance isn't really a requirement of a good RTS (though it helps a lot), if everyone can play <overpowered race> then it's not as bad as in an RPG where you have to level a whole new character.

 

[Manafii101]

Cave Story - just go play it already

Starcraft II - great multiplayer especially if you play with friends and the expansion is coming out relatively soon

Dink Smallwood - THE oldschool 16bit action/adventure you wish you had played when you were younger. Incredibly humorous and witty, with an active and interesting modding community.

Prince of Persia Sands of Time - Probably one of the most influential 3D platformers ever, worth playing just for the gameplay. Some prefer it on console, but I find the wall-to-wall platforming much easier with a mouse.

Also agreeing that there should be one big games thread, not console specific ones.

 

[az]

EDIT: also minecraft which was already mentioned, it's $20 now in alpha version but there's a free browser version on site if you want to kinda try it before you buy it (although it isn't exactly the same, you will still be able to play with others)

minecraft has actually been in beta a while now!

also ugh deus ex, most overrated fps of all time?

okay no second most

 

[monkfish]

I am pretty bemused as to why you included Alice in the OP amongst the PC greats of HL, CS and AoE. Anyway have yall forgotten Knights of the Old Republic (man bioware are pretty fuckin good) and also Diablo 2? Two chronic RPGs! Also the nod goes to most of Bethesda's stuff (morrowind, oblivion, fallout 3)

Some from leftfield from me: the commandos line of games. Really enjoyable wartime strategy games that I would never have thought to look into if my friend hadn't leant me the original.

Prince of Persia (the 3D series). Sands of Time is probably the best/most polished but the other two are worth a look once you've completed it.

Black and White was so groundbreaking to me that I have to include it, I loved the freedom of the world and the conditional learning facility of the creature is still pretty unrivalled

 

[Improbability]

Theres not much I can say that hasnt been already said (and the ones already posted are all of amazing caliber). The only one I havent seen yet metioned was Age of Mythology. Pretty solid game, good fun and a relatively fresh addition to the series.
But oh my god KotOR; the building blocks of my childhood. Being one of the first rpgs i played seriously, my quality standards were as a result after that extremely high.