The 20 Most Influential PC Games: 20-11

Posted Feb 4th 2009 3:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Features, Adventure, FPS, MMO, RPG, RTS, World of Warcraft

There have been thousands of PC games released in the past few decades but let's be honest: Most of them are not that original. Oh sure, some are professionally made and even entertaining to play but in the end very few bring anything new to the table.

There are some games, however, that attempt to break the envelope of normal gameplay and take things in new directions. Sometimes these games are big hits. Other times the ideas are used and refined by other titles even if the original game wasn't a sales success. These titles influenced many other titles since their original release.

Big Download has decided to give our picks for the top 20 most influential PC games of all time. These selections are not necessarily the best selling games ever made or even the best from a developer's point of view. However they all have elements that were original and/or popular enough to see their designs used in many other games. We are counting down from 20 to 11 today. Be here on Thursday when we reveal our selections for the top 10.

Click on the image above to continue reading about the top 20 most influential PC games (20-11)

Gallery: Top 20 Most Influential PC Games: 20-11

Tags: baldurs-gate, battlefield-1942, counter-strike, featured, myst, rainbow-six, starcraft, system-shock, team-fortress, thief, world-of-warcraft

3 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

How do Zork and Tetris not make this list?Posted at 6:52PM on Feb 5th 2009 by Craig

I didn't think Tetris originally came out on the PCPosted at 1:05AM on Feb 9th 2009 by Strategy_Panda (Pot & Spoon 4 Life)

Normally, I try not to let internet babble irritate me. I understand that most people don't realize that games go back more than five or six years. But this blatant disregard for history in this post severely pissed me off:

"The result was Myst, the 1993 game that pretty much invented the "point-and-click" puzzle adventure game genre."

Um, no? Not even close? Sierra has been churning adventure games since Kings Quest in 1984, followed by Space Quest in 86 and Police Quest in 87. Now these first were not "point and click" due to the mouse being a rarity at the time. But KQ4 (88), SQ3 (89), and (PQ3 (91) all supported mice, and thus were "point and click." Not to mention over at LucasArts, who started with Maniac Mansion in 1987 and followed it with all the other SCUMM games like Monkey Island, which all had moust support.

Thus there were a whole legion of point and click adventure games before Myst hit the scene in 1993. I understand that the game was popular, but it did not invent the genre, no more than WoW invented MMOs. This kind of mistake really ruins the credibility of this story. Especially since NONE of the above mentioned games made your list, despite being the games that build up the core of both Sierra and Lucasarts, two of the big name PC game makers for a long stretch. Neither are high fliers now, but once they were.Posted at 8:11AM on Feb 9th 2009 by lebkin