My Top 10 PC Games of All Time

10.) Halo: Combat Evolved PC

In a desperate attempt to keep a conquering alien race called the Covenant from finding Earth, you--a cybernteically enhanced soldier representing the peak of human military evolution--and a ragtag group of Marines flee to a distant uncharted system where you unexpectedly stumble across Halo, an enormous alien artifact in orbit between a gas giant and its moon. Your objective: Uncover Halo's horrible secret, and destroy mankind's nemesis - the Covenant. [Microsoft]

9.) Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The game is set in 2027, 25 years before the first game in the series, at a time when multinational corporations have grown in power beyond the control of national governments. The game follows Adam Jensen, the newly hired security director at Sarif Industries, a growing biotechnology firm. After terrorists brutally attack Sarif's Detroit-based headquarters, the mortally wounded Jensen is forced to undergo radical life-saving surgeries that replace large areas of his body with advanced prostheses. Returning to work, he becomes embroiled in the global politics of the human enhancement movement in the search for those responsible for the attack. A central theme to the game is the rise of corporations in globalization, espionage, human survival, poverty, and the ethics of advancing humans with artificial replacements for body parts. (Source: Wikipedia)

8.) Dragon Age: Origins

BioWare has described Dragon Age: Origins as being a "dark heroic fantasy" story told on an epic scale with mature themes.

The game is set in Ferelden, one of several countries that makes up the mythical continent of Thedas. The game opens with an animation which details the origins of demonic creatures called the darkspawn, that dwell within the Deep Roads, an underground highway system created by the dwarves long ago, deep beneath the surface of Thedas. Every few hundred years, the darkspawn swarm the surface world in a movement known as a Blight. Beginning with the first Blight, Thedas relied on the legendary order of warriors known as the Grey Wardens to drive the darkspawn back. Dragon Age: Origins begins on the eve of Thedas's fifth Blight.

The player begins the game by completing one of the six origin stories corresponding to the race and background of the character he or she created upon choosing a new game; the choices are Human Noble (for Human Warriors or Rogues), Magi (for Elven or Human Mages), Dalish Elf or City Elf (for Elven Warriors or Rogues), Dwarf Commoner or Dwarf Noble (for Dwarven Warrior or Rogue). The origin section introduces the players to the mechanics of the game and the fictional world through a personalized context. The origin story determines the biography of the character and how NPCs react to the player for the rest of the game. For example, elves are often viewed as second class citizens by humans, while mages are treated with suspicion and fear, while the human noble is treated with respect. While exploring Ferelden, the player will be presented with the opportunity to partake in numerous side-quests to flesh out the Dragon Age mythology, acquire powerful equipment, and earn experience points. Potential companions with their own special combat specialties and back-stories will also present themselves and offer to join the player's quest. (Source: Wikipedia)

7.) Diablo

The game starts when the player's character arrives in Tristram. The labyrinth under the Cathedral descends from a simple dungeon to catacombs to the dark caves and finally the fiery pits of Hell itself, each full of the undead, monsters, and demons. Leoric has been re-animated as the Skeleton King, and the hero must kill him so he can be released from his curse. The hero must also kill Archbishop Lazarus, and eventually fight Diablo himself.

At the end of the game the hero kills Diablo's mortal form, leaving Diablo trapped in a soulstone once again. The hero then drives the soulstone into his own skull in an attempt to contain the Lord of Terror. Diablo II continues the story, with Diablo having possessed the warrior hero who killed him. (Source: Wikipedia)

6.) Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic

The story takes place approximately 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire. Former Jedi Darth Malak, a Dark Lord of the Sith and Darth Revan's former apprentice, has unleashed a Sith armada against the Republic. Malak's aggression has left the Jedi scattered and vulnerable; many Jedi Knights have fallen in battle and others have sworn allegiance to Malak and Revan.

The game opens with the player's character—the player can choose a face and be male or female (canonically a male)—awakening aboard the Republic ship, Endar Spire, which is under attack by Malak's forces. The player's character gradually gathers companions and pieces together their past while attempting to stop Malak. While taking refuge at the Jedi Academy on Dantooine, the player's character learns to be a Jedi, discovers a "Star Map", and learns of the "Star Forge", the probable source of Malak's military resources. The player's character and their companions search planets across the galaxy—Dantooine, Manaan, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, and Korriban—for more information about the Star Forge. Through the course of their travels, the player will eventually discover the character's true identity - the brainwashed Darth Revan, whom the Jedi Council on Dantooine took in and subjected to memory modification so that he would no longer be a threat to the galaxy. Darth Revan had been injured when attacking a Republic planet because Darth Malak turned his guns on his former master. Because Bastila Shan was aboard Revan's ship with a Jedi strike force, she was able to heal him and bring him to the Jedi Council on Dantooine. Her actions lead to the force bond between her and Revan, which plays a role later in the game. (Source: Wikipedia)

5.) Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

The campaign storyline of StarCraft II takes place four years after StarCraft: Brood War, and features the return of Zeratul, Arcturus Mengsk, Artanis, Sarah Kerrigan, and Jim Raynor. It also features new characters such as Rory Swann and Tychus Findlay. In StarCraft II, players revisit familiar worlds, like Char, Mar Sara, and Tarsonis, as well as new locations, such as the jungle planet Bel'Shir and New Folsom. The Xel'Naga, an ancient space-faring race responsible for creating the Protoss and the Zerg, also play a major role in the story.

At the conclusion of Brood War, Kerrigan and her Zerg forces became the dominant faction in the Koprulu Sector, having annihilated the United Earth Directorate's Expeditionary Force, defeated the Terran Dominion, and invaded the Protoss homeworld of Aiur. However, after the conclusion of Brood War, Kerrigan retreats to Char, despite having more than enough power to crush all remaining resistance in the Koprulu Sector. In the four years leading up to the events of StarCraft II, she has not been seen or heard from by any of the other characters.

Arcturus Mengsk has been left to rebuild the Dominion, and is consolidating his power while fending off harassment from rival Terran groups. Mengsk has become power-hungry, declaring Jim Raynor an outlaw and showing little desire to protect or aid the colonies under his jurisdiction. Valerian Mengsk, a character introduced in the novel Firstborn, will play an important role in Dominion politics, due to his position as heir apparent to the throne. Meanwhile, Jim Raynor, whose role in the events of StarCraft and Brood War has been marginalized by the media under the Dominion's control, has become a mercenary who spends his free time drinking in Joeyray's Bar. Chris Metzen, Vice President of Creative Development at Blizzard, has emphasized that by the events of StarCraft II, Raynor has become jaded and embittered by the way he was used and betrayed by Arcturus Mengsk. Other new characters to the series include Tychus Findlay, an ex-convict and marine who becomes a member of Raynor's crew, and Matt Horner, Raynor's second in command, a character originally featured in the novel Queen of Blades.

Following the fall of Aiur and the death of the Dark Templar matriarch Raszagal, the Protoss have retreated to the Dark Templar homeworld of Shakuras. There, Artanis, a former student of Tassadar, is trying to unify the Khalai Protoss and the Dark Templar, who have nearly separated into warring tribes as a result of centuries of distrust. Zeratul, tormented over the murder of his matriarch, has disappeared to search for clues to the meaning of Samir Duran's cryptic statements regarding the Protoss/Zerg hybrids in Brood War's secret mission "Dark Origin". (Source: Wikipedia)

4.) Fallout 3

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a war over resources that ended in nuclear holocaust in 2077. The setting is a post-apocalyptic, retro-future, covering a region that includes Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland. The game's landscape includes war-ravaged variants of numerous real-life landmarks such as the White House, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery and the Washington Monument. The area that the game is set in, known in-game as the Capital Wasteland, holds a number of small settlements of the descendants of survivors from the Great War. Many inhabitants were killed during the nuclear holocaust and the Wasteland is now little more than a barren land nearly devoid of healthy water, food, plant and animal life due to the extreme radiation levels. However, there is a small settlement in the north part of the Capital Wasteland where plant life is abundant.

The player begins the game inside Vault 101, where they believe they were originally born, before venturing out into the Capital Wasteland and facing its many dangers. The Capital Wasteland is home to a number of mutated species of creatures such as two-headed cattle called Brahmin, radscorpions, molerats, and mirelurks. Many of these creatures are generally hostile to the player and will attack on sight. The Wasteland and the city proper is home to several hostile groups, including super mutants, feral ghouls, raiders, slavers, mercenaries, and robots. Of note are the various Vaults—underground structures designed as shelters to protect inhabitants from the dangers of nuclear war (and also for more sinister purposes). In the Washington, D.C. area, many of the roads are blocked off with giant piles of rubble. The player can navigate around the city using a system of underground metro tunnels that connect with other locations (loosely based on the real-life Washington Metro).

Because the game takes place following a nuclear war, cultural advancements have stagnated and, as a result, the game contains a 1950s utopian theme as evidenced in-game through posters and billboards with music from the time period. This suggests that the game is meant to depict (in that time period) what the United States would have been like after World War II, and thus, advertisements and general living styles are dated back to the '50s. (Source: Wikipedia)

3.) Half Life 2

Half-Life 2 presents a dystopian alternate history of Earth, where the resources of the planet, including the human race itself, are being harvested by an oppressive multidimensional empire, known as the Combine. The game is set around the fictitious City 17, somewhere in Eastern Europe, roughly 20 years after the events of Half-Life.

During Half-Life, the scientists, including Gordon Freeman, at the Black Mesa Research Facility, accidentally caused an interdimensional instability known as a resonance cascade and later as the "Black Mesa Incident", when an experiment on an alien crystal sample went wrong. Alien creatures, such as the Vortigaunts and headcrabs, from the borderworld of Xen, flooded into the facility. Gordon fought his way through them and the government cover-up response combat units, making it to the Facility's Lambda Complex. There, the Lambda scientists helped Gordon teleport to Xen, where Gordon destroyed a large alien entity keeping the rift open. Gordon was then suddenly extracted by the mysterious G-Man, who had been watching Gordon over the course of the game. Impressed with his ability to survive against all odds, the G-Man offered him a job before placing him into stasis, which Gordon had no option but to accept.

Some time after the ending of Half-Life, the instability at Black Mesa had attracted the attention of the Combine empire, and they invaded Earth. Humanity surrendered at the conclusion of the resulting "Seven Hour War". City 17 became the home of the gigantic Combine Citadel, and Dr. Wallace Breen, the Administrator of Black Mesa who had negotiated the surrender, was appointed representative and Administrator to supervise the survivors on behalf of the Combine. Unable to breed due to a Combine suppression field, humanity matured. The Combine implemented a brutal police state of Civil Protection officers and Overwatch soldiers by recruiting and biologically assimilating humans and other species. Meanwhile an underground "Lambda Resistance" of humans and Vortigaunts, now working together, was formed, and saw Freeman as a savior who would lead them to freedom. (Source: Wikipedia)

2.) Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Command & Conquer: Red Alert takes place during an unspecified period in the 1950s of a parallel universe, which was inadvertently created by Albert Einstein as a result of preventing the horrors of World War II.

Starting off in 1946, at the Trinity site in New Mexico, the opening to Red Alert shows Albert Einstein as he is preparing to travel backwards through space and time. After his experimental "Chronosphere" device is activated, he finds himself in Landsberg, Germany, in the year 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand, and this somehow eliminates Hitler's existence from time - or at least, stops him from becoming the genocidal dictator known to our history - and Einstein is returned to his point of origin.

With the threat of Nazi Germany having been successfully removed from history, the Soviet Union began to grow increasingly powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Had Adolf Hitler risen to power, Nazi Germany would have emerged as a force standing in the way of Stalin's own ambitions of conquest. Instead, left unweakened, the USSR proceeds by seizing lands from China and then begins invading Eastern Europe, in order to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the nations of Europe form into the Alliance, and start a grim and desperate guerrilla war against the invading Soviet army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight out a devastating conflict for control over the European mainland, in what has become an alternate World War II.

Allied ending: Following the siege of Moscow, an Allied platoon discovers Stalin buried alive in the rubble of the Kremlin. Before they begin to remove the debris from the fallen leader, General Stavros stops them. He convinces them that they saw nothing and orders them to leave the premises. Stavros then stuffs a handkerchief down Stalin's mouth before covering his head with a large stone and walking away. This outcome forces Kane - who was using the Soviet Union to get to power - and his Brotherhood underground, leading to the events of the first Command & Conquer. Alternatively, this ending paves the way to the sequel Red Alert 2.

Soviet ending: As the Soviets celebrate their victory in the newly-captured Buckingham Palace, Stalin commends the Commander for a job well done but then cynically says "I will see to it personally that you are very well taken care of." (implying he will have him/her disposed of), while drinking a cup of tea, only to suddenly realize the tea has been poisoned by Nadia. A disgruntled Nadia proceeds to gun him down as the poison overcomes his body. Following Stalin's death, Nadia tells the Commander that the Soviet Union is now under the rule of the Brotherhood of Nod, who plan to return to the shadows again and re-emerge in the 1990s, leaving the player as the puppet ruler of the USSR, ready to do the Brotherhood's bidding for "the foreseeable future". She is betrayed and shot in the back by Kane, who reveals himself to be the true mastermind. (Source: Wikipedia)

1.) Starcraft

StarCraft takes place in a science fiction universe created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney for Blizzard Entertainment. According to the story presented in the game's manual, the overpopulation of Earth in the early 21st century has caused the international government to exile undesirable elements of the human race, such as criminals, the cybernetically enhanced and genetic mutants to colonize the far reaches of the galaxy. An attempt to colonize a nearby solar system goes wrong, resulting in humanity's arrival in the Koprulu Sector. In the distant Koprulu Sector of the galaxy, the exiles form several governments, but quickly fall into conflict with each other. One government, the Confederacy of Man, eventually emerges as the strongest faction, but its oppressive nature and brutal methods of suppressing dissidents stir up major rebel opposition in the form of a terrorist group called the Sons of Korhal. Just prior to the beginning of the game, in December 2499, an alien race possessing advanced technology and psionic power, the Protoss, makes first contact with humanity by destroying a Confederate colony world without any prior warning. Soon after this, the Terrans discover that a second alien race, the insectoid Zerg, has been stealthily infesting the surface of several of the Terran colonies, and that the Protoss are destroying the planets to prevent the Zerg from spreading. With the Confederacy threatened by two alien races and internal rebellion, it begins to crumble. (Source: Wikipedia)