EPTCane's top 5 PC games (that always get left out of best games lists)
What with the shitty top games lists I see floating around these days, I decided to right an injustice or ten by making a list of games that should be on any respectable top 50 or top 100 list, but regularly aren't because those lists are always a popularity contest penned by veritable children. You might argue that I'm not making an actual top 5 list, and I might argue when it comes to debating the best PC games of all time that people under the age of 24 should not be allowed to form opinions. Let's just call it completely uneven in my favor and get on with the show.
1.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qvDnXEu.png)
What's that? Never heard of it? Yeah, say hello to exhibit A of the case against popular opinion. Sacrifice was the Okami of the year 2000 -- the "game of the year that nobody played". A game of almost unidentifiable genre, set in a weird but fascinating world, starring a morally ambiguous non-human protagonist, a multi-faceted story written by the lead designer of StarCraft, and featuring the voice talents of Jennifer Hale, Tim Curry, and The Brother From Everybody Loves Raymond, Sacrifice was promoted by IGN saying "Sacrifice shines like a freaky star in a field of overused ideas and clones. Go get it." Naturally, Sacrifice was - as any industry veteran can tell you - destined to take the world by complete obscurity.
This is why we can't have nice things.
There's a lot of reasons the game didn't do that well. For starters, the game was somewhat of the Crysis of the day: a gorgeous beast that required another gorgeous beast to even run it properly. This was a technological hurdle not everyone could overcome.
Secondly, the game was weird. Weird genre, weird control scheme -- and don't even get me started on Tim Curry. The game pretty much pioneered the mouse-based gesture system that Black & White later took the credit for, and in many respects it feels very much like World of Warcraft. But this was a new thing at the turn of the millennium, and people don't like things that are different.
It also failed because it's a 3rd person over-the-shoulder real-time strategy role-playing game.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2S96D.png)
Thanks, Torg!
Yet Sacrifice has aged incredibly well. As a result of the graphical requirements the game looks very good even to this day, with detailed animations and cool looking spell effects. The sound design is brilliant, with every creature having its own voice and personality, and with spell effects being recognizable and pleasing. The control scheme is now something that everyone and their dog have tried, because everyone and their dog played World of Warcraft, and everyone (sans dog) played Black & White.
The game has a new life on GOG.com, and it is the one game I will tell you to buy. I might not ever get my beloved Sacrifice sequel, but I can at least feel like I'm doing some good in the world. Go to GOG.com. Buy the game. You are the reason Call of Duty is a fucking annual franchise. Fucking... just... try something outside of your comfort bubble you plebeian pusbagle.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Eb6m23u.jpg)
I confess there were moments when I lost sight of any greater purpose and the power alone seemed purpose enough.
2.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Rts40Kg.png)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is arguably the best 4X game of its time. With its incredible customization, fascinating future technology based on modern day scientific predictions, and a story that takes humanity through the technological singularity and into cosmic transcendence, it was still pushed handily aside by its more basic contemporaries because people gravitate towards what they know: home. Earth history and civilization is much more tangible to most people, and its appeal is much more universal.
I truly do understand why it didn't fare as well as the other Sid Meier games. I just wish people were more open to new settings and experiences.
The gameplay, the science, the customization, the unique factions with their recognizable and charismatic leaders, and the setting of Alpha Centauri being humanity's last hope after Earth has been rendered mostly uninhabitable all help make this game a fascinating place to be. It really is a shame that we haven't had another one.
If I may be so bold, my dear video gaming industry: take a chance. Give us a sequel or a modern-day mod of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Hell, you tried it with Colonization and we all loved you for it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IuB9r5K.jpg)
Every playthrough of this game gives you a new story to tell. New conflicts, new narrow victories, new crushing defeats that make you reach for the reload button and stopping yourself just in time because damn it if you're going to let that cockbundle Yang get away with taking your best goddamned outpost. You will see that fucker's brain holster in the scope of your brand new Resonance Laser Rover by the end of the goddamned century.
I have more I could say, but really, what's the point? It's Civilization In Space. It has immense unit customization and major faction differences, solid systems of warfare, and fascinating areas of futuristic scientific research. You can even customize your own factions using the editor. Like most games on this list, its sheer depth makes it a lengthy process to get into, but experienced divers always find it enriching and rewarding.
Always out-shined by its contemporary competition, and absolutely a cut above all of them.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VSPfGy8.jpg)
In one moment, Earth; in the next, Heaven.
3.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F6c9ybw.png)
Oh, Tim Curry. You're just going to keep coming up in my reviews, aren't you?
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a character study wrapped around a supernatural evil disguised as a murder mystery. Made by the revered Jane Jensen before she lost her fucking marbles and started making puzzles that require you to put tape above a hole in a fence and then scare a cat to make it run through the hole to make the tape catch some cat hair so that you can use it to make a mustache to disguise yourself as someone who doesn't have a mustache, this is the Sierra "Quest" game that stands out to me for its scope, atmosphere, and exceptional storytelling. You play-- no, you know what? I'm not done yet.
What the fuck, Jane Jensen? Did you completely lose your goddamned mind in some horrible Yithian brain experiment gone wrong? You put tape on a hole and scare a cat through it to acquire cat hair that you fashion into a mustache so that you can disguise yourself AS SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T HAVE A FUCKING MUSTACHE
Hey everyone, whatever happened to adventure games? It's so weird that they died out, isn't it?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9aj0eTB.png)
Anyway,
What, you need more?
Look, it's an adventure game from back when adventure games were good. Not Grim Fandango good, nor even really Monkey Island good, but definitely a solid Full Throttle. The atmosphere is fascinating and some times dark, the supernatural element is introduced slowly over time, and midway through the game a big paradigm shift takes place sending you across the globe to Germany to confront your family's oldest legacy.
It's a fascinating story with some good characters voiced by Luke Skywalker, Worf, and the wife from King of Queens. I only wish the other two games in the series were worthy successors.
Fucking cat hair. Jesus.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/K8csFNr.png)
Interlude
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dd7JVqM.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EusnaX3.png)
4.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gmG6GPR.jpg)
The Ur-Quan Masters is a fanmade port of the 1992 game Star Control II. As the developers were kind enough to release the source code, the game has been updated to play beautifully on modern computers, and retains a big and dedicated fan base to this day.
The game is a space opera presented through the eyes of a multifaceted experience: An arcade space combat game akin to Spacewar, a scavenging and exploration game with arcade-like adaptations of elements from Elite or Starflight, and a role-playing game with diplomacy features reminiscent of Mass Effect. The face of the galaxy changes as the game goes on, with the rise and fall of alien nations providing the backdrop for the war against the Ur-Quan.
And when you start playing it, you usually emerge from your mancave some time later to discover that your mother got remarried and your sister had a kid. His name is Jake, and he's like four.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/G8ti9me.gif)
The game starts with Earth enslaved, and the former Alliance broken and scattered. Basically Babylon 5 was destroyed and the Shadows won. You control a ship that is wholly unique in the galaxy: It's a Precursor starship, a relic from the oldest species in the galaxy that disappeared ages ago. As the last hope of the Alliance, you fly this Deus Ex Machina across the galaxy to reunify the Alliance and take the fight to the Ur-Quan.
And then it turns out that the Ur-Quan are in fact a fractured race, and that the enslavers are only trying to protect you.
And then it turns out that the Ur-Quan have the most fascinating and terrifying backstory you've ever heard in your life.
And then it turns out that there are self-replicating drones threatening to devour the entire galaxy.
And then you realize you aren't even halfway through the fucking game yet!
It's fun, it's quirky, it's small in gameplay but immense in scope, and the galaxy is so big that you will never explore half of it in a single playthrough. And you might not stop until it's done.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pb2UhcK.jpg)
This sounds all too familiar... yes, the nightmare begins again.
5.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ap2z814.jpg)
- "What? This isn't obscure."
Fuck you, it's Torment!
- "This game is always featured on top games lists."
Fuck you, it's Torment!
- "It's overrated and the combat is average."
Fuck! You! It's Planescape Motherfucking Torment!
I can't even begin to talk about this game. It's the one title I mentioned during the wedding proposal disguised as a retrospective review of Chrono Trigger that I claimed I could never talk about because I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to stop.
It's not that it's a great game. It's not that it's a masterpiece in storytelling, or a beacon of light in an otherwise mundane world of mediocrity. It's not that it has Yakko fucking Warner voicing your snarky sidekick.
It's that Torment is the game that forever spoiled me on video games. It shows what can be done with the medium while letting the player set the pace and the tone, and even decide the ending. The story is epic, the setting is epic, the level of detail is epic, the narrative is epic, the combat is pretty crappy and the ending delves into the very nature of what it means to be human. It is a stunning work of art so rich in atmosphere that you find yourself wondering what the hell happened to gaming in general since its release.
It has forever raised my expectations in regards to what video gaming can truly deliver.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PF7KCGU.jpg)
But the game is universally considered a landmark, a great achievement in gaming even if the gameplay itself is only average. It's up there with Deus Ex and Thief 2 and UFO: Enemy Unknown and fucking Half-Life.
So why am I talking about it here?
Because it has a 7.3 on IMDb. It has been excluded from Best Of lists on more than one occasion.
Fucking sacrilege.
This is the problem with Top X Games of All Time lists. This right here. This is why we never take them seriously, why we always have our comments, our corrections. Every single pubecomber of an editor out there will always drop the ball on this kind of stuff, some times more astronomically badly than others.
Just stop. Stop making Best Of lists. It's a losing proposition. Someone always has a valid correction or complaint, and I detest the implication that your list has any objective value or claim to accuracy. Alpha Asshats like myself will always pick it apart with reckless abandon, and we'll start using the word "motherfucking" like normal people use a space bar. Even as I write this, I know some other Asshat-in-training will want to punch me for not including his personal favorite obscure gem in this little round-up. Which one is it: Below The Root? Ultima Underworld? Dune 2? Starflight? Elite? Quest for Glory IV? Wing Commander: Privateer? I could go on for another half hour.
On the bright side, I did get to talk about Sacrifice. That's always nice.
As I pen this, I find myself wishing more than ever that there was more variation in the triple-A gaming industry. Between all the remakes, sequels, and brand name requirements, publishers have been extremely reluctant to take any chances out of the (very justifiable) fear that more promising gaming companies will fail and fall.
The good news? We are slowly making progress.
With recent popular budget titles such as Portal and the trailblazing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon proving not only that smaller budget titles can become wildly successful, but more importantly that there is a niche to fill there as gamers want cheaper titles that simply bring back the joy of playing video games. This is where publishers and creators can truly push the envelope, take some chances, and test the waters with new ideas before committing to full triple-A releases. I hope that this is the route we are taking, because the world needs and deserves more Sacrifice. It well and truly does.
