11. X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)
Attention everyone who wouldnt vote for X-COM: youre dead to us. In fact, were going to start it up right now, name a recruit after you, then send you alone and unarmed into an alien base swarming with Chryssalids. There, in the moments before youre stung and reduced to a drooling zombie incubator out of which a fully formed monstrous alien will soon burst, you will experience the suspense that made this one of the greatest PC games of all time.
10. Fallout 3 (2008)
Bethesda make their games with refreshingly little regard for what games are supposed to consist of: a series of carefully judged challenges and rewards. Instead they make a place, and expect you to figure out how to survive there. Thats especially well suited to the awful wasteland of the Fallout series. Leaving the safety of the vault puts you in a nightmare of ash and ruin so boundlessly harrowing that we were earnestly joyful to come across a radio signal, tune in, and hear a human voice.
9. Thief II: The Metal Age (2000)
There are compelling arguments for the other games: Thief 1s weirdness, Thief IIIs stand-out levels. But theres more focus on stealing in Thief II, and while we adore the world, the story and characters, were in it for the glint.
8. Planescape: Torment (1999)
The smartest RPG of all time, with one of the finest stories told in gaming. Being the Nameless One is a chance to revel in cynicism, sarcasm and dark humour.
7. Fallout (1997)
It kicks you out of a safe, sheltered Vault life and into a harsh, deadly world full of brutal humour, great choices, and memorable locations and characters.
6. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
It gives you a massive fantasy world, gorgeously rendered and freely explorable, but it doesnt guide you through it. The arguments youre drafted into, the settlements you stumble across, the Dark Brotherhood: all distract from the central plot, but all add immeasurably to the experience.
5. Rome: Total War (2004)
Perhaps its something to do with the way the ancient era was depicted, or perhaps its down to the dramatic twist of the factional civil war within the Roman empire, but this remains the finest of the Total War games. Glorious, visionary, elegant.
4. Half-life (1998)
It takes you on a journey, and holds your attention completely from start to finish. The finest example of gripping narrative through play rather than exposition. This is gaming as story rather than story in games.
3. Team Fortress 2 (2007)
Its remarkable enough that TF2 can have nine classes and still make them all so different to play. That they all tessellate so satisfyingly, that their tools are expanding over time, and that each new map gives them all a new part to play, is a genuinely incredible accomplishment.
2. Half-life 2 (2004)
Valves masterful sequel was a turning point for the linear first-person shooter. It was the game that did everything so right that it diminished the accomplishments of every other contribution to the genre, and it seems to challenge anything that followed to do things differently or perish. Character, setting, physics, combat, puzzles: its nothing less than an object lesson in great design.
