SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Your top 5 pc games ... EVER

1 - Operation Flashpoint
Bought this in 2001, always playing it and can't see myself stopping one day, even when more modern versions exist, the good old OFP remains my favorite.
The mission editor that is totally beginner friendly is powerfull enough to allow more advancer mission makers to create wonders, actually learning the OFP specific scripting language for it is easier than one could think.
Along the billions of addons and mods, this mission editor is the primary reason i never ceased to play with OFP.
Check the OFP boards there are always mods and addons being develiopped even now.

2 - Ghost Recon, the 1st one
With expansions this is the masterpiece of tactical combat, basically everything i feel not good in OFP, Ghost Recon does it nearly perfect. I am always playing it regularly with again the tons of mods it never gets old for me.
I have long dreamed of a game with the epic scale of OFP and the map details , advanced ballistics, replay functions, very immersive firefights and AI that actually goes for cover and use suppression fire of Ghost Recon.
Unfortunately it seems i will wait a very long time.
But Ghost Recon is fortunately there, and it is there to stay on my hardrive, be sure to check GhostRecon net for mods and everything.

3 - Unreal Tournament the first one
The first arena based games i ever played, i bought it in 2000, additional content, maps, mods, campaigns by billions, Unreal Tournament kept me occupied for years with its excellent AI.
The favorite of mine was a total conversion of Unreal Tournament named Infiltration that basically included everything a realistic commercial combat simulation should have but does not, it was realism to its finest, and is always unmatched regarding this even by today supposed realistic combat sim.
If i remember well, the lead coder of Infiltration is currently working on the "Ground Branch" game

4 - Thief 2
I liked Thief 1, but most missions were not that fun or immersive to me, with some few exceptions tough (the cathedral mission, wow), when i discovered Thief 2 i was amazed and liked it from A to Y , i just didn't liked the last mission as the ambiance was very weak with all those robot factory i couldn't care about.
The vast interest of Thief 2 (and Thief 1) is not on the stealing things, but on the stealth system, my personnal challenge was to never be seen, i never caring on getting all the loots, i just enjoyed trying to "ghost" each levels.
There are a lot of fan created mission that are of very high quality that continue to be released, sometime even more interesting than the original campaign.
Be sure to check the unofficial expansion pack "Thief 2X " created by very talented people, voices, sounds, map design, features etc .. everything is better than the default campaign.

5 - winSP : MBT
I have always been fan of wargaming, but unfrotunately most of them were limited to a specific situation or specific time.
With this free game made upon the Steel Panther 2 engine, it changed everything for me, an insane amount of country equipment, tanks, planes, troops trying to catter for realism, all of this accodring to the year you select, as the game has hugely comprehensive datas from the second half of 20th century to today when creating your army.
Very fun in PBEM, it remains interesting even in solo with campaigns, hundred of standalone missions, editor, random battles etc... This game is a wargamer heaven , it does everything i hoped.
Can't believe even today that it is free, link to their website if you are interested in downloading it.
But be sure if you can afford to get the CD version, this one is not free, but you could get more features (don't worry the free version has already an insane amount of them) and nice touches.
I was sad in the past, as it was a DOS game that always froze on my computer randomly at some turns, so i was overjoyed to see that this window version was made, it was finally a very stable game for my computer.

Special mentions because i can't do only a top 5
------------------------------------------------

-- Delta Force 1 and 2
These are the 2 games that forced me , usual offliner, to play online, because the concept was so awesome in its time, and the AI so ridiculous that i needed to see what it was online.
As the public novalogic servers for both games while powerfull were all ruinied by rampant and obvious cheating without novalogic doing anything, it was fun only online when playing on community servers. There it was extremely fun i even joined a combat squad on those 2 games in which we had battles with other squads.
It was the game that pushed me into OFP, as everything i found could be better and more realistic, OFP delivered.

-- Red Storm Rising
A perfect example of a masterpiece of modern submarine sim, may not be as realistic and deep as Dangerous Waters or Sub Command , but it has this much more interesting dynamic campaign that is a pleasure to play.
It may be 20 years old, but i play it from time to time in DOSBox and always enjoy the hunter/hunted games when you are trying to escape torpedoes while trying to get a good firing solution yourself while navigating as stealthly as you can.

-- Silent Hunter and Aces of the Deep
Can't separate them, as they allowed me to play Axis or Allies subs, allowing for more variation in situation.
Even if not as pretty of their modern versions and even if i have to use DOSBox nowadays, i continue to enjoy them regularly. How sub gaming was done right.
Oh the memory of nights spent at hunting cargo ships...

-- 688 Hunter Killer
For me it was a shock when i discovered this, i always wanted to play a simulation taking place on modern subs after playing so much those Silent Hunter an Aces of the deep. As Red Storm Rising while more interesting on a single player point of view, was very limited in the simulation itself.
688 was nearly all i asked, and it had a mission editor. Really too bad it never had a true dynamic campaign and neither of both modern sequels featured any :/
Jduging how much fun i had with subsims that featured one, i can only dream of how great sonalyst product would have been with dynamic campaigns.

-- Swat 3
The demo of the game has been the demo that stayed for the longer time on my hardrive. I just couldn't stop playing it.
When the game became available in my country i bought it immediately and never regretted the decision, a formidable tactical combat game with a huge amount of mission, with a very lot fo replayability.
Free upgrades featuring a bazillon of new content were made for original customers to get on par with each re-release of Swat3 (Elite Edition, then GOTY) .
Even today i have fun playing along the excellent AI, on those very well thought map allowing for very different approaches.
It had one of the best online system, with excellent chat rooms to join a running game or discuss things, certainly the most excellent coop game ever made.
Don't know if there is always an online activity anymore as Sierra has closed several of their old game online support.

-- Master of Orion 1 & 2
4X done right. Plain and simple.
These 2 games i play regularly thanks again to DOSBox, while the 1st game has simple graphics, its gameplay mechanics are different enough from its sequel and always interesting to keep me playing it.
The 2nd opus had a more involving research system, less automated that allowed for more variation of your game style, along the very good race customisation system.
Both masterpieces of the 4X genre.

-- Alpha Centauri and expansion
My favorite Civ-like game witout any contest even now.
The futuristic setup was original and very interesting as the background of the game was very well developped (there were novels wrote of it too). It place you after the usual end of a civ-like, when you launch your own spaceship.
The AI was not very great at tactics, but the diplomacy system was so great that it made the AI "alive", you didn't have to force yourself in roleplaying your enemies reactions, because it was done in a very well thought way.
One of the few civ-like in which big weapons were really devastating and not just adding "pollution".
Fantastic game.

-- Age of Wonders Shadow Magic / Heroes of Might and Magic 3 / Disciples 2 Dark Prophecy
Those 3 are based on the same HOMM well known heroic fantasy game concept, you lead a kingdrom, explore and expand , while your enemy do the same same, sometime there are quests to do , object to get, heroes to level up, troops to hire etc..
Those 3 games are always on my harddrive and i replay them from time to time when i miss them.
Extreme replayability, very interesting gameplay the 3 games despite having similarities have a gameplay different enough to all be worth of playing, they do not feel as duplicate at all.
Fun, interesting and challenging, those games are the finest of their genre.

EDIT : how could i forgot :

-- Orbiter
Free software, but the most realistic space simulation i ever saw.
I just discovered it a year ago, but since then i spent lot of my nights taking off from KCS in Cape Canaveral, flying around with various kind of ships, going in Orbit, catching a space station and docking to it, then trying to re-entry and land safely in Cape.
When i saw the difficulty of this that sounded so simple in theory but thanks to the realism of the simulation was complex, i had a more profound respect to every of the people that do this for real.
Difficult at first, but don't despair in front of the apparent complexity, once reading some of the very very good tutorials you can get the hang of it and quickly enough do those impossible flights and be the astronaut you always dreamed about when you were a kid.
My first travel to the Moon was really memorable. but my first successfull space station ISS catching and docking gave me a feeling of achievement i never ever felt in any kind of games on my PC.
Recently after finally figuring out some addon MFD, i managed to reach Mars (thanks to the time acceleration as the thing in real time would have took really very long :D )

You can get Orbiter on its main website, check Orbit Hangar for thousand of addons and explore the Orbiter forum for tutorial and help.

I can't thank enough Dr Martin Schweiger, Orbiter author, that basically allowed me to be the nearest i will ever be to achieve this old childhood dream of going to space.
Orbiter is nearly the real deal.