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You know that stereotype of the total loser from high school – busted glasses, craggy acne canyon of a face, every spoken word followed by a refreshing mist of saliva – who goes on to become rich and successful beyond your wildest dreams? Well, that’s the gaming industry’s past ten years in a nutshell. No longer is gaming that shameful hobby you mumble in between “hanging out” and “…uh, other stuff.” Now, it’s just something everyone does. With the exception of a few stragglers and the occasional re-emergence of Jack Thompson, gaming has finally arrived.

In that spirit, we thought it’d be fitting to spotlight some of the games that helped put our favorite past-time on top of the world. So, without further ado, we present the 30 best PC games of the past decade!

2001

Max Payne

Oftentimes, the best games aren’t the most polished or the most innovative. Rather, they’re the ones that take established formulas, sprinkle in a couple new “I can’t believe no one ever thought of this before”-type ideas, and mash the “blend” button until both old and new are inseparable. Max Payne’s pioneering usage of scripted levels and cinematic storytelling techniques not only made it more than just another third-person shooter, but helped pave the way for today’s tightly scripted shooter juggernauts. Along with a Big Gulp-sized dose of slow-mo, those things ensured that Max Payne was both an innovator and a damn fun game in its own right.

Black & White

Bless Black & White’s heart, it tried. It reached for the sun, only to come plummeting back down to earth. The end result was a god game not quite worthy of the divine praise it initially received. However, in spite of some repetition and less-than-stellar questing, Black & White was still chock full of great ideas, from an almost-entirely gesture-based interface to what was, at the time, perhaps the most comprehensive morality system ever seen. Also, the game’s cow people were only slightly terrifying, which is a pretty big accomplishment when you’re dealing with cow people.

Civilization III

Times change. Civilizations rise and fall. The game called “Civilization,” however, remains a constant. Keeping with this trend, Civilization III made small tweaks to an already fantastic formula, adding standouts like city zones, culture victories, and an in-depth transportation system.

2002

Battlefield 1942

Games before Battlefield turned the clock back to WWII. Games before Battlefield did their fair share of multiplayer shooting. Battlefield, however, made those games look like 12-year-old birthday party paintball matches. With vehicles of all shapes and sizes, 64-player matches, and positively gigantic maps, the game lobbed a grenade at our previous conceptions of what war games could be and walked away from the explosion in slow motion. On top of that, it lacked just enough realism to still remain fun as all get-out, which is nice since it turns out that we take to actual plane flight like a duck to piranha-infested waters.

Grand Theft Auto III

Sirens blaring. People screaming, The sound of your own heart pounding through your chest. Everyone remembers their first GTA rampage not only for all the excitement, but because GTA III allowed you to do it. You were the bad guy in a city where nothing was off-limits. The missions weren’t bad either, but you’re not even listening to us anymore because you’re remembering the time when you outran the military going backward in a beat-up ice cream truck.

Warcraft III

With a single-player campaign that blurred the line between RTS and RPG, and Blizzard’s trademark dedication to multiplayer excellence, Warcraft III was a fantastic game in its own right. However, it also served as the extremely fertile soil that nurtured a number of long-lasting mods, including the maniacally addictive Defense of the Ancients, which has been used as the basis for multiple full games including Demigod, League of Legends, and Valve’s upcoming DoTA.

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written by Admin