The playthrough of GTA that was supposed to happen last month still hasn’t got going and I may put it on hold for a while. I did manage to get the DOS version of the game running in 3dfx mode on my Voodoo 3 which took some trial and error. Oddly the trick was to run it from Windows 98. I then realised I couldn’t get CD audio in Win 98 without another audio cable. By the time that was sorted I was in the middle of moving house. I only managed about an hour on the game before moving and have spent nearly every spare minute since unpacking. I’m still not quite done but have got far enough along to break off for a quick request from the other day.
That request was for one more years worth of the PC Gamer Top 100 which gets us up to the year 2000. In terms of PC gaming, I was quite definitely looking back as much as forward at this point. 3D videogames and slot games online had taken over more or less killing off my favoured genre of adventure games and I’d started to look around for the more obscure titles I’d missed along the way. Out of the new titles here, there are only a few I’ve actually played. The biggest shock for me is that one of those new titles is Ultima Ascension which got panned by nearly everyone but obviously not PC Gamer. Ultima Online makes a return as well so not all that bad a year for Origin after all. There is a lengthy preview for Ultima Online 2 in the same magazine which I’ll take a look at later this week. For now here is PC Gamers best of the best for 2000:-
Thanks for this. PCG Top 100s are always an amusing read.
Hi Pix. How many games from this top 100 have you played?
Also some interesting points:
-Ultima Ascension got 64% yet is rated 97th best game ever
-The picture for Shogo Mobile Armor Division is actually of Shogun Total War
-Magic Carpet 2 got something like 40% yet is rated 90th best game ever
-Expansion packs are sometimes rated together and sometimes not: case in point you have Jedi Knight/MOTS but no Diablo/Hellfire and no GTA 1/2/London
-Some games appearing in the margin are not games from the Top 100, like X:BF and Sin – a deliberate ploy to throw punters off?
-MechWarrior 2, 3 and Mercenaries are bundled together, but MechWarrior 1 is not included (while something as old like Populous 1 is included elsewhere). Falcon 4 does not include Falcon 3, SimCity 2000 does not include SimCity 1, Championship Manager 97/2000 does not include Champ Manager 2 (though Champ Manager 97 runs on same engine and is considered a minor update!)
-Railroad Tycoon is included but is not bundled with Railroad Tycoon 2 – even though by their methodology sequels are meant to be bundled together. Same for Warcraft 1 (not included with Warcraft 2) and Earth 2140 (not included with Earth 2150)
-How is Force Commander in the top 100?
-Delta Force 2 is from 1999 and not 2000. Doom 1 is not from 1994. ADF is not from 1998. Flight Unlimited 3 is not from 2000.
-Theme Park is bundled with Theme Hospital, which doesn’t make much sense. Alpha Centauri might as well be bundled with Civilization, and that will make much more sense.
-Rollercoaster Tycoon screenshot is for some reason in black and white.
Doesn’t seem to be a very reliable list!!
I’ve played somewhere around 60% of them, if I have to have finished it maybe drop that to around 45-50%. There are games on there I’m still intending to get to 20 years after the fact. Can’t say I’m massively keen on this list either though, the whole notion of putting entire series in there (or not) arbitrarily doesn’t make all that much sense to me. This top 100 must have 200-300 games in it. Just pick the best one and leave the others out I’d say.
To be fair to PC Gamer, it’s near enough impossible coming up with these top 100’s. Got to be especially difficult when you presumably have a whole team choosing that all disagree with each other. If I were to do a list like this it would probably end up full of adventure games.