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Friday, April 10, 2009

3 PC Games You Must Play Before You Die

1. Starcraft



Starcraft is a real-time strategy game made by Blizzard. It was made in 1998, so it's a little over a decade old. Starcraft literally defines the genre. There's tons of RTS games but none of them can come close to matching up. Starcraft has perfectly balanced gameplay and, for the time at least, great looking 2D graphics.



Basically you have 3 different races. Terrans (the humans), the Protoss (an advanced alien race), and the Zerg (a race of violent parasitic aliens). They're all trying to beat the crap out of each other. The Zerg want to infest all of the Protoss and assimilate them into their own race to become "perfect". The Protoss don't like that very much. Meanwhile the Terrans are all fighting each other and generally being a pain in the ass to the Protoss. The Zerg, while trying to assimilate the Protoss, have also started munching on the Terrans as well. The Protoss keep blowing up Terran planets and killing millions of people in order to kill Zerg. So the Terrans get kind of pissed off at the Protoss for that.

The single player is great but that's not what makes this game what it is. The multiplayer is insanely fun and addicting. So much that Starcraft is literally a sport in Korea. We all know those damn Koreans are crazy enough as it is, but most of the population knows what Starcraft is and regularly watch professionals play the game on television. It's as big as football is in America.

)Starcraft 2 has been in the making for years. It looks great, but will it be as huge as the original Starcraft?)

Starcraft has been known to kill people, by the way.

So if you've never played Starcraft, I suggest you give it a try. Just make sure you take an hour or so break every 14 hours.

2. Myst



Myst is a first-person adventure game with beautiful pre-rendered graphics and the hardest puzzles you've ever seen in a video game. The visuals and beautiful ambient sound effects make it one of the most immersive games I've ever played. It's the kind of game you need to play in a pitch dark room with the lights off and a pair of high-quality headphones.

Myst was made by a small team of only around a half-dozen people. That's all it took to make a game back then. This game was released in 1993 for the Mac. It was later ported to Windows. To play the original today you'd need an old computer loaded with Windows 95. Thankfully this game has been ported dozens of times to different playforms; the Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo DS to name a few.



Myst is one of my old childhood favorites. It was the first PC game I actually owned. It was one of the most popular games available when it came out. It's spawned many sequels, although many of them weren't actually made by the original Myst team.

3. Unreal Tournament



Unreal Tournament is Epic Games' famous franchise. It's a revolutionary FPS, but still underrated.

At first glance the original UT is a pretty standard shooter. But you notice the differences when comparing it to others. UT is known for its incredibly fast paced gameplay. If you ever played multiplayed Quake or even Doom, you know what I mean. The classic FPS is very fast. Most FPS games today, especially on consoles, are much much slower in comparison. Some even focus on slow stealth gameplay.

If you can get manage to play UT without getting motion sickness and puking all over the keyboard, the game is very fun. There's a standard set of weapons that are all completely balanced. You've got your standard weak pistol and powerful rocket launcher, along with your one-hit-kill close range melee weapon, the Impact Hammer. Inbetween is the Shock Rifle and Sniper Rifle which require lots of accuracy. Then there's the chaingun, biorifle, and Flak gun, all which are fast firing weapons and don't stress as much precise aiming.



The maps and customization options are limitless. You can even make complete campaign adventures to play online with friends. You can customize your character model. You can play as a male or female, a giant demon creature or a robot, or make a mod to play as a naked guy if you want. Every UT sequel has stayed faithful to the original and, for the most part, stuck with the same set of weapons and options. Unreal Tournament 3, the latest game, is almost identical to the original but with updated features and graphics. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.


(How a first person shooter is meant to be played. Fast paced and quick.)

3 comments:

  1. The only one i havent played is Myst.

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  3. Myst was my shit!

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