Resident Evil 4 Is #1 Best PC Game of 2023 in Metacritic Rankings

[Tsing]

Resident Evil 4 won't be out until next week, but it appears that Resident Evil fans will have a pretty good time with the game. The first reviews for Capcom's latest survival horror remake began rolling out today, and the majority of them appear to be quite positive, with some critics describing it as one of the best and satisfying remakes ever, featuring superior visuals, gameplay mechanics, and more. And while some of the tougher critics have claimed that the remake can't hold a candle to the original, which remains one of the greatest games ever made, that hasn't stopped Resident Evil 4 from being ranked the #1 best PC game of 2023 so far on Metacritic, where the game currently sits with a 92 Metascore. Resident Evil fans who want to get in some shooting practice with Leon ahead of the game's release on Friday, March 24, can grab the Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Demo, a free trial that offers what Capcom has described as a thrilling slice of the game.

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[Zarathustra]

I guess this is hwy I don't pay much attention to game journalism.

Most of what gets attention in journalism is completely and totally irrelevant to me.

I recently heard a mainstream news report on gaming, and they talked about the following titles, none of which I have ever heard of, or have any interest in:

• Hi-Fi Rush
• Metroid Prime Remastered
• Some new Zelda game
• Fire Emblem Engage
• A new Kirby title
• Hogwarts Legacy
• A Space For The Unbound
• SEASON: A Letter To The Future (A bicycling photography game???)

And I'm not sure if it is ME who is out of touch when it comes to gaming, or if it is journalism.

I mean, sure, Metroid was great on the 8bit Nintendo in 1986. That's the only Metroid I've ever played or ever will play. Same with the Zelda franchise. I played the original Zelda and Link on the 8 bit Nintendo, but I'll likely never play anything in the franchise again. Same with Kirby. I vaguely remember a Kirby game on the NES, but I didn't even know this was a franchise. I just thought it was one oddball title with a pink blob.

Hogwarts Legacy I ave at least heard of, though it is not for me. I'm in the "too old for Harry Potter" age bracket. The rest sound stupid at best.

I've also never played anything in the Resident Evil franchise. It seems completely uninteresting.

In 2023 I am looking forward to:
- Starfield
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (if it ever comes out in spite of the war in Ukraine)
- The Outer Worlds 2 (if it stays on time)
- Atomic Heart (Interested, but concerned about rumors of data harvesting in game)
- System Shock (Remake)
- Countr-Strike 2? (Maybe, I am kind of over Counter-Strike at this point, but I'll still probably buy and try it)

I can rather easily list the only games of any relevance to me since 2010, and they are as follows:
2022 - Dying Light 2
2021 - Far Cry 6
2020 - Doom Eternal (haven't gotten around to it yet, but I will at some point)
2020 - Cyberpunk 2077
2020 - Black Mesa (for old times sake)
2019 - Borderlands 3 (Sort of, I played it, but it wasn't a favorite)
2019 - The Outer Worlds
2019 - Metro Exodus
2019 - Far Cry: New Dawn (This one was actually kind of bad, but I forced myself to finish it)
2018 - Far Cry 5
2017 - Prey
2017 - Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (Sort of, played it, but I wasn't a huge fan)
2017 - Player Unknowns Battle Grounds (Briefly, it was less bad in beta than the final product)
2017 - Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
2016 - Far Cry: Primal
2016 - Doom (Sortof. Probably wouldn't have played it if it didn't come nearly free in a bundle)
2016 - Deus Ex Mankind Divided
2016 - Homefront: The Revolution
2016 - Sid Meier's Civilization VI
2016 - Dishonored 2
2015 - Fallout 4
2014 - Far Cry 4
2014 - Wolfenstein: The New Order (Sort of, played it, but I wasn't a huge fan)
2013 - Metro: Last Light
2013 - Bioshock Infinite
2012 - Far Cry 3
2012 - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (sort of. I have played it at least)
2012 - Borderlands 2 (Sort of, I played it, but it wasn't a favorite)
2012 - Dishonored
2011 - Red orchestra 2
2011 - Deus Ex: Human Revolution
2011 - Portal 2
2011 - Homefront
2010 - Singularity
2010 - Sid Meiers Civilization V
2010 - Metro 2033
2010 - Bioshock 2
2010 - Fallout New Vegas

And that's pretty much it. Games are one of my few remaining hobbies, and if it isn't on that list, in the 14 years covered since 2010 (inclusive) I didn't play it, or even have any interest in it at all.

I don't get the Japanese games. They are completely irrelevant and uninteresting to me. I also don't get most things non-First Person, and fantasy genre and I have outright "eww" responses to things like Final Fantasy.

The thing is, I'm a member of many PC Gaming groups and forums. Most people there talk about and are interested in the same games I am. Yes, they are also interested in the Hogwarts Game which I am not, and also many are into those "Call of Modern Battlefield" titles which I am not. I als0 expect to hear people talk about Fantasy games like World of Warcraft and the like, which I am also not into. But for some weird reason the games that I am into, and that everyone I talk to are into, generally get very little coverage.

Instead the media talk about things like Final Fantasy, Pokemon Go, this Hi-Fi Rush game, Animal Crossing, etc. etc.

It's just so weird, because whenever game segments come up in the news, I almost expect to know what they are going to talk about, because, hey, this is kind of my hobby, and then with very rare exceptions they just come out of left field with all these weird casual and/or japanese titles, and completely neglect to cover all of the "real" games.

 

[MadMummy76]

I never actually played the original RE4, but I did try RE7, and it was one of the worst gaming experiences of my life, everything I hated in RE2 and RE3 dialed up to 9000, and nothing that I actually liked about the early ones, which were already kind of borderline games for me. I never finished any of them, they are way too tedious, slow and frustrating.

Hogwarts Legacy I ave at least heard of, though it is not for me. I'm in the "too old for Harry Potter" age bracket. The rest sound stupid at best.

I'm not in the age bracket either, and never even saw the movies let alone the books. I still enjoyed the game, but yet to finish it, It's been weeks since I last played it. I love the visuals and the mechanics of the game, the attention to detail and stuff, but the story failed to draw me in, so I have no real motivation to keep coming back to it. When I do launch it I enjoy it, just getting hyped up enough to launch it is the problem.

I can rather easily list the only games of any relevance to me since 2010, and they are as follows:

I've played a lot of the same games with a few exceptions. Then I also played some games not on your list.

2023: Nothing so far, looking forward to Starfield and Test Drive Solar Crown, and the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, not much else. I was kind of interested in Diablo IV, but looking at beta gameplay turned me away. I'd also play Last of Us on PC if it had a realistic price tag, say sub $40.
2022:

Marvel's Midnight Suns - Weird game mix of an RPG and a turn based arena fighting strategy game, it was better than I expected.​

Train Sim World 3 - I'm a fan of train sim games since the og MSTS in 2001, but this is a bad cash grab, worse than TSW2 in almost every way.​

Gran Turismo 7 - The disappointment of the decade is putting it mildly.​

2021:

Far Cry 6 - Not the worst game I played, I actually enjoyed it more than FC5​

The Ascent - indie cyberpunk ARPG, balance issues forced me to quit playing it despite loving the genre​

Outriders - Probably the worst game I have ever played, it offers nothing of value.​

2020:

SnowRunner - Off road game, that you either hate or love. Perfectly playable with Keyboard so it is easy to get into, hard to get out of​

Train Sim World 2 - actually the best entry in the train sim legacy series, too bad they de-listed it when TSW3 launched.​

Cyberpunk 2077 - One of the best games I ever played, despite its flaws, goes on my top 10 list.​

AC: Valhalla - I re-discovered the series with Odyssey which I loved, this is not as good, but I still enjoyed it very much.​

Star Wars Squadrons - Not the spiritual successor to X-Wing / Tie Fighter, poor game design, even worse campaign.​

Mafia Definitive Edition - Graphically and mechanically stunning remake, that botched the easiest part the story which they should not have touched​

The Last of Us Part 2 - I loved this game, it just nailed me to the screen well into late nights, another top 10 game.​

XCOM: Chimera Squad - Horrible little woke experiment​

C&C Remastered collection - Not really a remaster, just badly upscaled cutscenes and a mild graphics overhaul, otherwise contains even the bugs of the original . I love the games to death, but feel like this was a waste of my money.​

​

Heck it turns out I played more games than I thought, will have to resume this list later because it is getting late. TBC with 2019

 

[hubaduba]

Never played a RE game; the survival horror thing doesn't appeal to me. If I have a gun in the game, there had better be ammo.

 

[DrezKill]

Never ever cared for the RE games. I tried to play a few, definitely not for me. I just could NOT get into them, and I hated many aspects about them, such as the extremely limited resources you have to scrounge for (like ammo and health packs), the horrible controls, their pacing and flow, even need to spend a resource just to f*cking save the game. I don't play horror games, and survival-horror games are even worse. Zombies have also been overdone to death. The most time I spent with an RE game was the original version of RE4 on Gamecube. When it came out I kept hearing it was the Resident Evil game for people who don't care for the RE series, a more action-focused, better-controlling game. Still wasn't for me, and while it controlled much better than the RE games that came before, the controls were still @ss. I played through the first disc before I finally just stopped playing it (not even sure how I got that far). I played some RE5 in co-op with a friend, that was okay I guess. I know it was the co-op experience carrying that one. I watched a friend play through most of Code Veronica, that was more interesting than playing the game myself.

I do have friends that play them (or at least some of them), and they really liked the remakes of RE2 and RE3, so they are very interested in the remake for RE4. I did hear the RE2 and 3 remakes were well done, so I guess people are expecting the same from 4. I tend to hear most fans listing 4 as their favorite in the series, so they must have high hopes for this remake.

I played the demo for it. Yyeeaahh looks like it's gonna be more of the same sh1t I don't care about with RE games. Also I see that they still want to continue a tradition of not having great controls. With a f*cking mouse I struggled to get head shots at very close range. The game just feels so off.

Most of what gets attention in journalism is completely and totally irrelevant to me.

No doubt due in large part to our age. If I recall correctly you are in your 40s, and I too have over 4 decades of life behind me. I've been gaming since 2nd-gen, as I am a lifelong dweller and explorer of the 3 corners of the video game universe (arcades, PCs, home/hanheld consoles), but I see what today's "gamers" are like, and what/how things are marketed to them, and I realize that the video game industry has become quite unrecognizable to me. I'm just like "what the f*ck."

I did try RE7, and it was one of the worst gaming experiences of my life, everything I hated in RE2 and RE3 dialed up to 9000, and nothing that I actually liked about the early ones, which were already kind of borderline games for me. I never finished any of them, they are way too tedious, slow and frustrating.

Hahahahahahahaha wooooooow.

mainstream news

When has that ever been good for anything, especially video games? If you want decent video game news and coverage, you need to go to a real video game news site. Let me know when you find one, cuz they don't seem to exist anymore, and magazines died out eons ago.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I was late to the party with the RE games and despite friends who were into them the first time around telling me I'd like them, I never got into them. I did begin getting into them eventually with the remakes but mainly because I really liked the quality of graphics and audio. So far, I've gotten all of the remakes and enjoyed them to varying degrees. However, at this point, I'm getting a bit burned out but we'll see. I did replays of 2,3, and 7 last year when they rolled out those updates. I enjoyed the village/monsters dynamic of RE8 but was totally burnt out by the last two parts of that game (the factory and wannabe military missions) and the DLC felt like it should've just been an included side mission somehow.

I'll probably still get this one but it'll be far down the line, maybe at the end of summer or early fall. I'm still playing Witcher 3, really want to get back to Hogwarts and Dead Space, and that's not even including that I'd like to do replays of HZD and GOW, plus I'm hoping the Miles M. goes on sale sometime so I can pick it up, and then there's always RDR2 that I can never seem to get very far into before getting sidetracked by something else but is finally playable in 4K at max settings by all my rigs and looks great to boot.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I guess this is hwy I don't pay much attention to game journalism.

Most of what gets attention in journalism is completely and totally irrelevant to me.

I recently heard a mainstream news report on gaming, and they talked about the following titles, none of which I have ever heard of, or have any interest in:

I've come to realize in the last 3-5 years that thanks to mobile gaming, there's a gigantic market outside of PC gaming that gets far more coverage. For decades we've seen the battle of PC vs console, which is still there, but even that is beginning to pale in comparison to the revenue in the mobile sector, hence a lot of stuff we've never heard about. Some of the mobile stuff cross-pollinates over to consoles, especially Nintendo, but PC enthusiasts seem less likely to buy into them with their desktop gaming.

 

[Brian_B]

I've come to realize in the last 3-5 years that thanks to mobile gaming, there's a gigantic market outside of PC gaming that gets far more coverage

This is absolutely true.

Here is an interesting read:

Mobile gaming rakes in far more money than PC and console

Games played on iPhone and Android represents 61% of the overall gaming market, according to two market analysis firms. And mobile's lead over PC and

www.cultofmac.com

Gaming even makes Hollywood look small.

Buried in the linked story a few links is this (the colors suck, but you can suss it out if you squint). This was as of May '22.

Two more points that make this even more staggering:
Apple, alone, only accounts for about 25% world wide of mobile market share, but is 67% of revenue: which means Apple, alone, is pulling in ~$91B in revenue on that, which is more than both PC and Console and Handheld -- combined.

And that's before you consider the $336B+ in mobile ad revenue - the number in that graph above is just app purchases and in-app spending.

This is a large part of of how Apple is the world's most valuable company. And just as sobering - "Services" revenue is only about 20% of Apple's total revenue.

 

[Zarathustra]

I've come to realize in the last 3-5 years that thanks to mobile gaming, there's a gigantic market outside of PC gaming that gets far more coverage. For decades we've seen the battle of PC vs console, which is still there, but even that is beginning to pale in comparison to the revenue in the mobile sector, hence a lot of stuff we've never heard about. Some of the mobile stuff cross-pollinates over to consoles, especially Nintendo, but PC enthusiasts seem less likely to buy into them with their desktop gaming.

I still don't consider **** like Farmville, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go or even Animal Crossing to be "real games". Even mentioning Mobile crap like that in the same breath of "real games" seems denigrating to real gaming to me, especially since many of them have taken what we all hated about microtransactions and loot crates in PC gaming and turned it up to 11, making it their only reason for existing.

Maybe we need new terminology to distinguish between these things, because right now it is all lumped together in one big group, and that is not doing anyone any favors.

I don't mean to take away from the mobile gaming industry. It is certainly its own thing with all kinds of revenue, but it is not the same as what we traditionally consider to be gaming. We should have terminology to distinguish these things from each other.

 

[Uvilla]

I still don't consider **** like Farmville, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go or even Animal Crossing to be "real games". Even mentioning Mobile crap like that in the same breath of "real games" seems denigrating to real gaming to me, especially since many of them have taken what we all hated about microtransactions and loot crates in PC gaming and turned it up to 11, making it their only reason for existing.

Maybe we need new terminology to distinguish between these things, because right now it is all lumped together in one big group, and that is not doing anyone any favors.

I don't mean to take away from the mobile gaming industry. It is certainly its own thing with all kinds of revenue, but it is not the same as what we traditionally consider to be gaming. We should have terminology to distinguish these things from each other.

I tend to agree. How about screen greasers, for mobile games.

 

[Zarathustra]

I tend to agree. How about screen greasers, for mobile games.

I don't want it to be demeaning in any way. Its a big market (judging by the chart above apparently the biggest market in games today)

I just feel like they are distinct categories that are very far from each-other and have very little overlap in the way of fan bases. There should be more clarity in terminology.

Buried in the linked story a few links is this (the colors suck, but you can suss it out if you squint). This was as of May '22.

Two more points that make this even more staggering:
Apple, alone, only accounts for about 15% world wide of mobile market share, but is 67% of revenue: which means Apple, alone, is pulling in ~$91B in revenue on that, which is more than both PC and Console and Handheld -- combined.

And that's before you consider the $336B+ in mobile ad revenue - the number in that graph above is just app purchases and in-app spending.

This certainly explains why so many of the big game companies are increasingly wanting to move to these light games based around loot boxes, trading marketplaces, microtransactions, and NFT's. Developing a blockbuster AAA game is a huge project, requires lots of talent and is very costly, in some cases reaching the levels of producing a blockbuster film.

A mobile game takes comparatively very little effort, and seems to pull in even more money.

It's actually kind of disgusting that the market is letting them get away with getting so much revenue with so little effort.

This - in my mind - explains the likes of Square Enix moving in the direction they are moving. Who doesn't want to slack off and reel in the cash?

It makes me concerned for the future of "real" games. How long until one studio after another just drops off and starts making NFT games because its easier and makes more money? IMHO, this is the real threat to gaming. Not hardware costs or anything like that. Not the studios going out of business or disappearing, but games slowly becoming increasingly bland and all microtransaction-based NFT nonsense.

It might pull in the mindless sheeplike masses, but if that happens I'll just stop playing games. There is nothing about that stuff that appeals to me.

If I were king for a day, I'd ban loot boxes, game marketplaces and micro-transactions, advertising and data collection in games, or any "purchasing virtual items with real money" as all it is doing is distorting the market, addicting young kids and the feeble-minded into throwing real money after stupidity, and overall just negatively impacting everything, but that isn't likely to fly.

 

[Brian_B]

I don't mean to take away from the mobile gaming industry. It is certainly its own thing with all kinds of revenue, but it is not the same as what we traditionally consider to be gaming. We should have terminology to distinguish these things from each other.

I don't see that it matters. It's not like gaming platforms are a zero-sum choice. And if anything, having all those "other" things in the pool helps reduce the stigma that gamers had to endure for a long time. I don't see any drawbacks at all really to having it included, and including it makes the overall game "pool" look bigger, which helps it draw more investment and attention in general.

If you segregate it out, then the PC gaming pool starts to look awfully small - which means fewer AAA games, less investment and interest, fewer developers, and fewer games -- and we are already seeing the effect of this. I don't want to accelerate it any more than it's already occurring.

This F'n crap with insane hardware costs isn't helping anything at all either. I can't believe nVidia doesn't see that it's shooting itself in the foot here.

 

[Zarathustra]

I don't see that it matters. It's not like gaming platforms are a zero-sum choice. And if anything, having all those "other" things in the pool helps reduce the stigma that gamers had to endure for a long time. I don't see any drawbacks at all really to having it included, and including it makes the overall game "pool" look bigger, which helps it draw more investment and attention in general.

Maybe I am just crazy, but I kind of miss the stigma.

I liked being somewhat of a counter-culture figure

If you segregate it out, then the PC gaming pool starts to look awfully small - which means fewer AAA games, less investment and interest, fewer developers, and fewer games -- and we are already seeing the effect of this. I don't want to accelerate it any more than it's already occurring.

The truth is PC gaming is a larger market than it has ever been. As annoying as the "PC Master Race" kids with their RGB lighting and questions about "will this bottleneck" are, they represent an absolute renaissance in PC gaming. It's just that Mobile has grown even faster.

I find this infographic rather interesting:

As you can see PC gaming is the biggest it has ever been. It's just that mobile has REALLY grown.

This F'n crap with insane hardware costs isn't helping anything at all either. I can't believe nVidia doesn't see that it's shooting itself in the foot here.

I honestly don't think they care. They have moved on to being a crypto-mining (at least when the market is strong) and AI company. Gaming is just a cash cow they hold on to on the side.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I liked being somewhat of a counter-culture figure

I feel the same. Even among PC gamers, I've always been within my own niche but now between consoles and mobile, I feel more like a niche within a niche within a niche. Pretty sure I fell off the counter at this point.

 

[MadMummy76]

Two more points that make this even more staggering:
Apple, alone, only accounts for about 25% world wide of mobile market share, but is 67% of revenue: which means Apple, alone, is pulling in ~$91B in revenue on that, which is more than both PC and Console and Handheld -- combined.

This just proves what I always thought secretly: Apple users aren't very bright.
There should be a registry of offenders who spend on mobile games, but if you get clean and don't have dark thoughts for a year it is expunged

 

[MadMummy76]

I was late to the party with the RE games and despite friends who were into them the first time around telling me I'd like them, I never got into them. I did begin getting into them eventually with the remakes but mainly because I really liked the quality of graphics and audio. So far, I've gotten all of the remakes and enjoyed them to varying degrees. However, at this point, I'm getting a bit burned out but we'll see. I did replays of 2,3, and 7 last year when they rolled out those updates. I enjoyed the village/monsters dynamic of RE8 but was totally burnt out by the last two parts of that game (the factory and wannabe military missions) and the DLC felt like it should've just been an included side mission somehow.

I got both RE2 and RE3 remake, I played RE2 for 4 hours, but gave up when I was forced back into the same police station for the nth time. I can only take so much tedium. RE3 I just have, I barely even started it yet.

 

[Zarathustra]

This very chart that I referenced illustrates how reporting on gaming just does not match my lived experience.

If you follow the PC gaming light blue section, the first highlight is Doom. I agree with Doom being an important part of PC gaming, but come on. What about everything that came before it? Sierra Games adventure games? Sid Meier's Civilization? These were huge. How about LucasArts? Maniac Mansion? Day of the Tentacle? Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? I mean, come on. What about X-Wing and Tie Fighter? And how about the important titles that came after? Quake? Quake II? Duke Nukem 3D?

The next highlight they have in PC gaming is 2000s' the Sims. This is exactly what I am talking about. A casual non-game being highlighted when there were a ton of games that practically defined gaming of the era that are not mentioned. I'm talking Half-Life, Deus Ex, Counter-Strike and the like. Same with World of Warcraft. Why mention that, but not Crysis? or Far Cry? The next PC gaming highlight thye have is Minecraft. Come on! Another "toy" game when there are absolute giants that defined not just PC gaming, but gaming in general at the time that are completely unmentioned.

I guess I feel like gaming was my subculture. At least from the late 80's through the mid 2000's. They did get Doom right, but ever since that point they seem to almost intentionally be trying to erase what made my subculture my subculture, and instead fill it with everything that watered it down. I was in t e thick of gaming for all of those years, and I don't even recognize the story they are trying to tell.

I guess I feel like in their telling of it, my experience is being erased from my own story.

My gaming timeline of important and influential titles would look something like this: (significant and really influential things bolded and italicized.)
(This list is not all inclusive, leaving out lots of stuff as I go along. In order to make it manageable I am only mentioning the most significant stuff)

Early 1980s:
Atari games like pong, Space invaders, etc.
Some early Sierra games on the PC (Mostly Kings Quest?)

Mid 1980s:
All 8bit NES all day. Ice Climbers, Super Mario, Castlevania, Metroid, Link, Zelda, etc. You name it.

Late 1980's / Early 1990's:
More Sierra Games: (Kings Quest, Police Quest, Heroes Quest / Quest for Glory, Leisure Suit Larry
LucasArts adventure games: Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle,
Lucasarts Space Simulators: X-Wing, Tie-Fighter
Commander Keen
MechWarrior
Sid Meier's Civilization
Wolfenstein 3D
Wing Commander series.
1993 Dune 2
1993 - Wing Commander Privateer
1993 - Doom
1994 - WarCraft
1995 - Doom II
1995 - Command & Conquer
1995 - MechWarrior II

---- Industry changing introduction of the 3DFX Voodoo 1 here -----

1996 - Quake
1996 - Duke Nukem 3D
1996 - Command and Conquer Red Alert
1997 - Quake 2
1998 - Star Craft
1998 - Half Life (Changed FPS games forever, by introducing story, changing gaming forever.)
2000 - Counter-Strike (Half Life Mod)
2000 - Deus Ex (Built on story elements and added RPG elements to FPS, further changing gaming forever.)
2004 - Half Life 2
2004 - Far Cry
2006 - Half Life 2 Episode One
2007 - Half Life 2 Episode Two
2007 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadow of Chernobyl (Built upon story & RPG and added open world.)
2008 - Far Cry 2 (Built upon story & RPG and added open world.)
2008 - Fallout 3 (Built upon story & RPG and added open world.)
2008 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Clear Sky (Built upon story & RPG and added open world.)
2009 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Call of Pripyat (perfected the S.T.A.L.K.E.R open world model)
I guess in my retelling of the history of PC gaming, and maybe even gaming overall it is a story of gradually resulting in FPS. There were a lot of distractions along the way, but the story of gaming is the story of FPS.

1992 - Wolfenstein 3D started it.
mid 1990's - The Dooms and the Quakes refined it (With Duke Nukem in the for fun too)
1998 - Half-Life revolutionized it, and became a true turning point in games.

--- 1999 - FPS Gaming splits in two, single player and non-deathmatch multiplayer---

Single Player
2000 - Deus Ex added more story and RPG elements
2007-2009: Several games almost simultaneously take the Story + RPG FPS genre and add open world.

This leads the way to a long line of story based FPS games with RPG elements, set in open worlds. Many of them, I mentioned in a previous post.

Multi-Player
1999 - Team Fortress
2000 - Counter-Strike
2003 - Call of Modern Battlefield and successors which are largely Counter-Strike clones. (not my cup of tea, but certainly huge)
2004 - Counter-Strike: Source
2004 - Red Orchestra Combined Arms UT mod.
2006 - Red Orchestra Ostrfront 41-45



Anyway, long story short. PC Gaming is my story. It has been my hobby, and I have been at the center of it, modifying PC's going to competitions, running some of the largest game server communities on the east coast of the US, and I feel in the modern retelling of PC gaming, they have erased me from my own history, replacing the very core of PC gaming with such foolishness as "The Sims", "Minecraft", "World of Warcraft" and by now probably "Fortnite."

I hate it. Someone needs to get out there and tell the REAL narrative.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

RE3 I just have, I barely even started it yet.

Watch out because 3 ends up playing more like DLC for 2 than anything. I was kind of annoyed with that.

Yeah, they're not for everyone and I've even got numb with them over time. I liked 7 just because of the story. At the time Breaking Bad was so huge, never watched nor wanting to, and I found it hilarious how they managed to cram Walter W into a RE story with a touch of Deliverance. I liked Village for the monster aspects, that old-school wolfman, witches, and creepy village touch.

 

[MadMummy76]

I hate it. Someone needs to get out there and tell the REAL narrative.

I only started gaming in the late 80s on Commodore 64, that was everything I known until I played Test Drive III on the neighbor's laptop in DOS. This was 1990, a new PC cost something like a year's salary for the average worker. My parents had well paid jobs, but not that well. But then I figured out Test Drive 1 and 2 is available on the C64, all you need is a disk drive for it (until then I only had a Tape player) So for a while that kept me occupied. But **** some composers made amazing music on the C64 using a few simple synthesized waveforms.

Like the Navy Seals theme song and everybody knows Last Ninja 2 or one of my lesser known favorites Lethal Zone

On PC when I finally got access, the most influential games to me were these. And consequently if I were asked to list t he best games of all time these would make up that list:

• 1990 Stunts - Made by DSI, who were later bought out by EA and changed its name into EA Canada (now EA Vancouver)
• 1992 Dune II - The game that created the RTS genre.
• 1994 Cyberia - The mood of the game is so great, it still gives me shivers when I think of it, even if it's technically just a Virtua Cop clone.
• 1994 Tie Fighter - should be taught in game design school
• 1994 Doom II - Doom 1 never meant much to me, but the second game's level designs are next level, and so much darker.
• 1995 Need for Speed - Made by the developers of Stunts, the game that re-defined driving games.
• 1995 Transport Tycoon Deluxe - The fact that I'm still playing this game (with a few mods and upgrades) 28 years later speaks for itself
• 1995 Command & Conquer- The game that popularized RTS
• 1997 Carmageddon - The first racing game that had dynamic damage model
• 1997 Terep2 - OK, not really a game, but a tech demo demonstrating soft body physics, that instantly made carmageddon's primitive deforming polygons obsolte
• 1998 Half Life - everybody mentions this as the game that added story, but it is just a d@mn good FPS to me, barely noticed any story
• 1999 System Shock II- An anomaly, a game so ahead of its time that I played and loved it not knowing its genre. an immersive sim.
• 2000 Deus Ex - The definitive immersive sim, the only game that could surprise me even after a dozen playthroughs.
• 2000 NFS: Porsche Unleashed - by Eden games, remember the name, showed that racing games can be about more than just driving
• 2001 Max Payne - If you ask me to name a masterpiece this would be my first choice., a flawless game if there ever was one
• 2002 Mafia City of Lost Heaven - GTA but serious, GTA but the story matters and it is completely grounded and believable.
• 2003 Deus Ex Invisible War - the hated sequel which imo is still better than Human Revolution or Mankind divided, also the first story driven game I know of where you can choose to play with a male or female character. Many think it was Mass Effect that did this first.
• 2003 C&C Generals Zero Hour - The peak of RTS games, I still enjoy this game even today in small dozes
• 2004 Far Cry - Only remembered for it's graphics, but I think the gameplay is also revolutionary, semi open levels where you can seamlessly get in vehicles, you can also attack from multiple angles, or use different tactics, without the game holding your hand and offering the choices on a silver plate.
• 2005 Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - the best game in the series, less guided missions, with great story and immersion you truly feel like a CIA operative
• 2006 Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - modders paradise, without mods it is bland, with mods it can be so much more. The first fantasy RPG I played.
• 2006 Test Drive Unlimited - Also by Eden games, the best **** racing game ever, because it presents it as a lifestyle not just a sterile thing
• 2008 GTA IV - the best GTA yet, great ahead of its time graphics, physics, shooting and mayhem, fun side characters it's all downhill from here on
• 2008 Mass Effect - Not revolutionary in of itself but the game has shown a new path, that nobody else else was able to follow By the end of the game the crew felt like family.
• 2008 Mercenaries 2 World in Flames - An amazing dare I say best sandbox game ever, some modern games came close, but still fell short of this high watermark. Calling it GTA in south america is a disservice to the game. This is a mercenary sim, where you can level cities, call in airstrikes, or ally with North Korea, or the US, or both.
• 2010 Mass Effect 2 - I must mention this because this game is as close to perfection to me as Max Payne, but in a more interactive way. Max Payne is not your story, just a story. This is yours whatever you make of it. It's a huge leap from the first game, streamlined, less clunky, with satisfying gun mechanics and bossfights.
• 2011 Dragon Age 2 - Everybody hates DA2, except me. You'd think I'm trolling, but I honest think this is the best Dragon Age game.
• 2013 Beyond Two Souls - A year of two story heavy games, you'd expect me to mention TLOU, but this game had a much bigger effect on me. Maybe because I was going through a very rough time at the time of playing, but this game broke me emotionally. I was never so invested in a story, it is a roller coaster, a very underrated one.
• 2014 Alien Isolation - The only true alien game, that lives up to its namesake. Games where the alien is cannon fodder are meaningless.
• 2015 Mad Max - A very satisfying open world game, where I enjoyed even the repetitive tasks.
• 2016 Call of Duty Infinite Warfare - The best story driven FPS, change my mind, I bet you can't
• 2017 XCOM2: War of the Chosen - The most lasting game outside of Transport Tycoon. I play it regularly still today.
• 2017 Ghost Recon Wildlands - to me the modern spiritual successor of Mercenaries 2, it doesn't offer quite as much freedom, but the improved graphics and shooting mechanics make up for its deficiencies.
• 2018 Assassin's Creed Odyssey - I hated the first AC games, this was my attempt at revisiting the franchise and it turned out great. Beautfiful vast open world, with great sneaky mechanics and ship to ship naval battles, and not a world breaking but decent storyline.
• 2019 Terminator Resistance - A pleasant surprise, an unapologetic old school game in a modern woke world, by a small studio.
• 2020 The Last of Us 2 - The subject of much controversy, to me the best ever console game, brilliant mechanics, animations, and a story that went just as I was writing it in my head while playing often into the night.
• 2020 Cyberpunk 2077 - A beautiful but often broken, flawed game. I have a love hate relationship with it.

That about concludes the games I find most memorable. I'm sure i missed one or two along the line, that will come banging at my head later, but c'est la vie.