Essential PC games

[Charro]

Just like Cowbell and his PS3 I recently got my first powerful PC (6 cores, lazer beams, coffee machine and all that shit) and as you should guess I have never ever played any pc game (besides Half-life and American McGee's Alice and Counter Strike, Age of Empires who doesn't count) so I want some recommendations, preferably from this generation.
The only games that I own are some that my girlfriend and I buy like Assassin Creed, Dead Space, Cod: Modern Warfare and Left 4 Dead 1 & 2
Probably gonna buy both Portal games tomorrow
So what games are a must have in any PC collection?

 

[Shiny Mew2]

Star Wars Battlefront 2.

 

[internet]

if you don't mind 16x16 textures minecraft is pretty neat

remove all your doubt about buying the portal games too. they're fucking amazing.

browsing on steam also works when finding games to play.

 

[masterful]

If you don't get Team Fortress 2 you are not a PC gamer.

 

[internet]

If you don't get Team Fortress 2 you are not a PC gamer.

seconding this

 

[Nietzsche]

Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2, obviously.

La Mulana's an amazing free game, but getting it to work right on Windows Vista/7 can be convoluted.

 

[cookie]

there are a lot of good pc games out there that are also on consoles, irrespective of the fact that keyboard+mouse is far superior to fucking controllers

if you like turn-based strategy and like the idea of building up an empire etc etc I recommend civ4. Don't bother with civ5.

 

[az]

keyboard+mouse is superior for something like, say, an fps or an rts

there are tons of games out across pc and console platforms that are much better served by a controller

portal 1 is worth picking up, especially now that it's dirt cheap. i'm also going to echo the "use steam" sentiment

also: minecraft

 

[Final Days]

I'm going to go ahead and repeat Swag, just because its that important.


Use Steam.


It will save you so much money

 

[masterful]

If you're into rts's, it doesn't get much better than Starcraft 2. I'm assuming your PC has the specs to handle it.

 

[Darkamber8828]

Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2, obviously.

Mass Effect is a fantastic series too.

 

[Flounder]

Far Cry 2 and Just Cause 2 are among some of my favorites.
Bioshock is also compulsory.

 

[sulam]

Top 5 PC games all time.

1. Counter Strike 1.6
2. Counter Strike 1.6
3. Counter Strike 1.6
4. Counter Strike 1.6
5. Counter Strike 1.6
Honorable Mention. Counter Strike Pro-Mod

 

[whistle]

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. I wasted four years of my life on this game. and of course Starcraft: BW and SC2.

 

[az]

oh oh oh dragon age: origins is pretty excellent!!

2 looks bad though, so let's just pretend there is no subtitle

 

[Firestorm]

Really you just find cheap stuff and buy it because it's so cheap. Like Fallout: New Vegas for $12.50.

http://direct2drive.tellapal.com/offers/615051861/interstitial/y0cGD

Use that link for 15% off, continue to store, click the big flashy button saying 75% off Fallout New Vegas.

 

[sax king]

ROLLER

COASTER

TYCOON (2)

Really, RCT 1 was amazing. Probably the second greatest game ever made. But then RCT 2 came out. It was the same formula of RCT1 just with all the problems fixed and with all the strong points of RCT1 made better. It's literally the greatest game ever. I've played it so much and I still do (and I'm in fucking high school). It changes over time. When I was in fourth grade, I'd just try to make a big coaster that worked. As long as I made one dollar on super easy mode, I won. But now I make super hard challenges, fun things to do, and money challenges. I'm currently debating whether or not to make a thread about it.

 

[ivar]

how bout some love for the old school? deus ex, system shock 2, black and white, fallout 2, baldur's gate II, full throttle? kotor is kinda old-school, too. you can get deus ex, kotor, fallout 2 for 10 bucks each off steam if you're into the whole pay for games thing, if you look around at used games stores you can probably find baldur's gate II for like a dollar, or just torrent it.

get the witcher 2, as well: never played it but it looks awesome

 

[Minwu]

Seconding all of the Source games mentioned. TF2 is only $9.99 on Steam nowadays, and at this point in time there's so much Steam content that it's basically a PC exclusive. It's a nice team-based online multiplayer game for friends. You can really find fun from it no matter what type of gamer you are. Portal 2 is also awesome for singleplayer and two-player co-op (although it's two different campaigns for both modes).


Try Quake Live for a deviant from CoD/CS-style shooters. It's a free, browser-based clone of Quake 3 made by the same developers.



Star Wars: Battlefront II is.. okay. Kind of a mixed bag. It's one of my most played games, with ~1000 hours put into it, so I know a lot about it. The PC version is definitely the definitive one. It crashes on map load on a lot of newer computers though. The online servers are laggy, and hit detection is terrible to the point where ultra-high-velocity shots like from the sniper rifle won't reliably register.... even in LAN games. The campaign is some mindless fun that lasts about two hours, but there are a ton of awesome singleplayer mods. I guess it's worth trying since it's so cheap. You might like it or you might not. Same for the first Battlefront (which has completely different gameplay). You may or may not get spawn camped for hours if you play online, lol. Pray for the good team every round.

 

[Venser]

Star Wars Battlefront 2.

Star Wars Battlefront II is great.

 

[Charro]

Too much to try D<
Thanks everyone, I totally forgot about TF2 I always wanted to play it

and yeah I like old school, probably even gonna download Doom and Duke Nukem someday (waiting for DN Forever too)

 

[Minwu]

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


Yes, get Doom and Doom II + Skulltag!!

 

[Tomahawk]

PO I rarely play PC games, I have played rome: total war though and its a cool game

 

[Fishin]

Whereas the PS3 has only around 5 years of games going for it, PC has decades, so it's a lot less easy to pick out a couple "must play" games. PC games I'd recommend:

Cave Story
Any of Blizzard's RTS games (Starcraft, Starcraft II, Warcraft III)
Portal
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Bioshock/2
The Witcher 2 (forget crysis, this is the game to get if you want to experience just how good PC graphics can be)
Mass Effect series
Recettear


The only one of those I'd call essential is Portal though, which isn't even PC-exclusive.

 

[Zacchaeus]

I don't even understand what you said about Age of Empires, but AoE 2 and 3 are great, and Age of Empires Online will be so awesome. If you refuse to get AoE games, you should probably explain why