Saturday, March 23, 2024

Top 10 Great PC Exclusive Games

10 Great PC Exclusive Games

Big PC exclusives are a rarity these days. It’s typical to hear some industry expert or the other sounding the death knell for the PC gaming industry. Whether one agrees or not with their views there is no doubt that the number of PC exclusive games are reducing day by day. Nobody can really dissent about this trend, because really we have no argument against it.

Everyone is trying to milk the most out of a potential franchise and we all know consoles sell bucket loads of copies compared to their PC counterparts. Perhaps PC gamers should just be thankful that publishers are still making PC versions of our favorite games. Anyway no point dwelling too much on the past, so on to the list:

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Crysis PC Exclusive 1. Crysis:

What caught my attention when Crysis was first announced was not the fact that that it was going to be by the team that brought us Far Cry or its claim to be able to render photorealistic graphics but that it was going to be a PC exclusive at least at that time. To my great surprise it still is! Crysis is the kind of AAA big budget PC exclusive game the likes of which we almost never see these days.

Though I personally I didn’t enjoy it as much as the studios previous game Far Cry, it was a well intentioned graphically breathtaking and mostly fun shooter provided you had a rig that was up to the mark. Crytek studios took a huge gamble with Crysis building what was a technically brilliant but highly demanding PC shooter with hardware requirements that only a very small percentage of the PC gamers would have matched.

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Still it must have been a moderate success because they recently announced a successor to Crysis which will also be a PC exclusive for the moment and they have promised to optimize the game well enough to run on lower end PCs. Lets hope it sees more success this time around and Crytek doesn’t gimp the experience too much to cater to the lower end PCs.

Sacrifice PC Exclusive 2. Sacrifice:

Sacrifice is one of the most unusual, unique and incredible PC games I have ever played. The game is best described as real time strategy/third person action game hybrid.

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As a player you played a wizard named Eldred who through the course of the game would be able to serve as one of the five gods. You could cast spells while you were in the battlefield in addition to being able to summon an army of beasts who would do your bidding. As the game progressed, certain gods would start becoming hostile towards you as you started pledging your alliance to a certain god over another.

These alliances also then determined the ending of the game. Sacrifice had some beautiful visuals for its time, a brilliant orchestral score that still manages to haunt me, a great cast of characters and a wicked sense of humor prevailing throughout. Fast paced gameplay, good replay value and an intense multiplayer experience made Sacrifice a great overall package.

Dungeon Siege PC Exclusive 3. Dungeon Siege:

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Dungeon Siege is one of the first action RPGs I ever played. Before I tried this game Diablo was the only game I had played that was in a similar vein to Dungeon Siege. Somehow I never got drawn into Diablo like Dungeon Siege. Chris Taylor, the games’ designer and his team at Gas Powered Games chose not to invest too much into the games’ story but rather into creating an RPG with a robust party system, ravishing graphics and intuitive, fast paced and incredibly addictive game play.

The game featured a wide variety of environments from dungeons and lush green forests to snow clad peaks, icy caverns and desert areas, each and every one of them always managing to look refreshing. Aurally also the game excelled with a beautiful soundtrack and excellent ambient effects.

Also one of the things I grew very fond of was the pack mule that one could use to hoard stuff and the amusing way in which it was never afraid to deliver a nice kick with its hind legs when it was in danger.

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Stalker PC Exclusive 4. Stalker:

I first heard about Stalker way back in 2001 when I had gotten my first PC, back when it still had the subtitle Oblivion Lost (which I think sounds way cooler than what it ended up with). It’s one of those titles that had terms like ‘vaporware’ and ‘stuck in development hell’ regularly attributed to it. 6 long, long years I waited for it to arrive. While Stalker didn’t disappoint it did fall slightly short of the developers own ambitions.

Graphics that might have been revolutionary at the time didn’t seem quite so in the current generation. And the side quest system was riddled with bugs. What it did manage though was to render a genuine post-apocalyptic landscape, huge open levels and combined with those ominous sounds of mutants and the Geiger counter continuously ticking to create one of the most atmospheric games I have ever played.

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Stalker also had some pretty good AI which tended to be a bit weak indoors but functioned well outdoors. A prequel to this game, Stalker: Clear Sky which is arriving soon (shockingly only a year later) holds great promise.

Audiosurf PC Exclusive 5. Audiosurf:

Audiosurf is a charming casual game that I discovered through its demo that I came across on Steam Valve’s digital gaming service. It essentially involves you driving a spaceship thingy on a dynamically generated track based on the song you select. Your goal is to hit various colored blocks laid out on the track, cluster together the same colored blocks and try to rack up some high scores.

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Essentially you get to ride your entire music collection. The speed at which you move along this track is controlled by the tempo of the song you are playing. The tracks were a mix of psychedelic lighting, disco lights and colored fireworks like effects. It was real fun playing some older songs that I hadn’t heard in a while. In Audiosurf they seemed to take on a whole new lease of life. Plus at only 10 dollars, it’s a real steal.

Age of Mythology PC Exclusive 6. Age of Mythology:

Ensemble studios were pretty well respected strategy game developers before releasing this game, coming of the huge success of the Age of Empires series. Though Age of Mythology’s core game mechanics are very similar to Age of Empires, Ensemble decided to venture into a world of myth for this game.

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In the process they also managed to refine on their previous games and being a fictional setting also managed to give their creative talents full artistic expression as evinced through the colorful and interesting mix of units found throughout the game.

It was also their first game to use a fully 3D engine and they put it to good use with some beautifully rendered environments and units with nice animations. The effects of waves lapping up to the shore were particularly pleasant to watch. You also had the use of God powers like earthquake, meteor shower etc which were incredibly fun to use and accompanied by some stunning visual effects. It still stands today as one of the finest RTS games and its multiplayer and user created scenarios and maps gave it a long life.

No One Lives Forever 2 PC Exclusive 7. No One Lives Forever 2 A Spy in Harm’s Way:

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No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in Harm’s Way is great sequel to a great original FPS. It could best be described as a stylish spy thriller set in the 60’s.You played Kate Archer who reprises her role as an agent of the organization UNITY trying to the thwart the evil plans of another organization HARM. Besides being a first rate action game, it had a great personality and wry sense of humor.

The chatter between the guards in the levels was sometimes ‘laugh out loud’ stuff and it also had some of the funniest videogame villains of all time. For its time, it had a stellar graphics engine which it put to good use in rendering a wide variety of excellently designed levels.

The first level set in Japan with its lush waterfalls and beautiful water effects is truly memorable. The game had some truly wild set pieces as well. The one set in the middle of a twister I will surely never forget.

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The Longest Journey PC Exclusive 8. The Longest Journey:

I love a game with a strong story at its core. Adventure games of course lend themselves to this particularly well. The Longest Journey is not just one of the best adventure games but certainly one of the best games I have ever of played.

A memorable cast of characters populated its richly imagined worlds. All of the voice work involved was top notch with some extremely well written dialogs to match. The Longest Journey was a world intruded upon by fantasy but its people were very much grounded in reality.

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The game wasn’t afraid to be liberal with the cuss words. April Ryan, the character you played, also made comments about her own life from time to time. It was also a very polished adventure game with great production values, impressive cut scenes, well integrated puzzles, stunning art design and a constantly engaging storyline. The 25 or so hours I played the game I completely lost myself in its beautifully conceived world and its inhabitants.

American Mcgees Alice PC Exclusive 9. American Mcgee’s Alice:

Alice in Wonderland is one of this generation’s most popular pieces of adolescent fiction. McGee’s version of Wonderland however was something else completely. It was a completely twisted place as could be imagined only by McGee.

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It had some pretty incredible art direction powered by the then powerful Quake 3 engine. This was the journey of an Alice who is traumatized after the death of her family in a fire and her quest to save herself from falling completely into disarray.

Though the game didn’t attempt too many bold things in the gameplay department it was level design and textures that really managed to wow you level after level. In addition it featured an outstanding musical composition by Chris Vrenna which played a major role in helping the game achieve its surreal, grim ambience.

Black White PC Exclusive 10. Black & White:

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At its heart Black & White is essentially a God simulation game from designer Peter Molyneux. You play a God who is trying to win over followers to your side. You could achieve this basic goal either through gentle or vengeful means.

You always have 2 advisors, a saintly guy floating on a cloud and a devilish guy with horns doling out advice to you at every turn. They were an amusing addition to the game. The thing that really made Black & White stand out though was the creature that you got to control.

Your personality as a God was manifested in this creature. The Artificial Intelligence it exhibited was absolutely remarkable. A caressing approval and it knew it was doing something right. Slap it around and it knew you didn’t approve. Watching an AI character actually learn through this simple interface was simply awe inspiring. It was a game remarkable in its scope and depth with some spectacular graphics to match.

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    By Shantesh Patil

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