All time popular

This gets harder every year. Every year new games are released, old favourites are replayed, obscure indies capture our hearts, and games that we once knew are updated until they’re unrecognisable. We’re fickle, argumentative people in love with the most dynamic gaming platform on the planet, and we’re only allowed to pick 100 games?

It should be the top 1,000, the top 10,000, to fit every single game we all love. But it’s not. As much as the games change, our task remains the same. Boil down decades of sims and shooters, roleplaying games and real-time strategies, into the top 100. The best games on PC. Those that you must play, now.

Our international team of writers were asked to put forth their ten favourite games, in order. Those individual lists were then collated, a mega-list was formed, and each contributor was challenged to defend their love. Disagree with their choices? Look out for the beginning of the PC Gamer Readers’ Top 100 soon on the site. You’ll soon know the pain of having to choose. Until then: that Grand Theft Auto IV, eh? What a game.

20. Grand Theft Auto IV

Release Date: 2008
Last year: 15

Graham: I can’t stand Grand Theft Auto’s cruel, dull missions, so I used to be reliant on its buggy multiplayer if I wanted to have fun messing around in Liberty City. Thanks to a persistent modding community turning the game into a giant toybox, that’s no longer true. Now, when I visit the city, it’s packed with cars that can travel at infinite speed, and I’m a superman who carries a gravity gun. That the best way to enjoy this game has changed so much two years after its release is the perfect example of why PC gaming is great.

19. Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45

Release Date: 2006
Last year: New entry

Tim S: Quake 3 re-imagined by Remarque or Solzhenitsyn. An ecstasy of brutal fumbling, wild SMG fire, and cold, calculating elimination. What’s not to like?

18. Ultima Underworld II

Release Date: 1992
Last year: 90

Tony: It wasn’t just the graphics. You could pick stuff up. You could throw it. You could cast spells, repair your armour and fly. You could talk to the monsters. Wonderfully, richly, impossibly interactive, UUII was a game from the future. It took history a long time to catch up.

17. Max Payne

Release Date: 2001
Last year: New entry

Chris: Right when you start, you discover Max’s murdered wife and child in his own home at the hands of drug addicts. Has there ever been a beginning of a game more powerful or emotional? Exceptional noir writing and a gritty NYC underbelly setting made Max Payne one of the greats.

Rich: Nothing like trying to gracefully launch Max into a room, guns blazing, only to have him dive headfirst into a doorjamb and very slowly rub his hair down the wood as he floated to the ground. Get up, try again, get it right, and you feel like king of the underworld.

16.Release Date: 2010

Last year: New entry

Craig: Training? Pah! My tactics? Wild and confusing. I’m more of a hands-on kind of manager, giving people calming talks, asking for their advice, before taking my team on a long, unbeaten run in Europe. I’ve no idea about football anymore, but there are enough switches to flick so that doesn’t matter.

Rich: After years of playing it safe and managing with a steady hand, I decided to go full-on mental in FM2011. I started insulting and praising players in the same breath, I changed my assistant manager’s registered name to ‘Wiggles’, and I brought in half of the Slovakian national team. All turned out to be good decisions, and all explain why I love managing footballs.

15. Audiosurf

Release Date: 2008
Last year: 92

Craig: Man up, everyone. Favourite song to surf? I’ll start: Girls Aloud’s ‘Biology’. It makes a super bouncy, fun track to dodge blocks to.

Graham: That was mine as well.

Rich: I like the songs that no one else is cool enough to like.

Craig: Ah, ‘Sound of the Underground’.

Tom: I like Feist’s version of Sea-Lion Woman – gentle opening, then bumpy with hand-claps, then batshit with a twisting guitar solo.

Cooper: Listening to music is fun and all, but if only there was a way to… play my music. Oh, there is? And it’s psychedelic euphoria? Awesome, sign me up. Audiosurf makes a game out of your MP3 library, creating interesting, unique experiences for each song. The ability to “surf” every single song (and compare stats on an online leaderboard) makes it one of the most replayable games of all time, and adds incentive to getting into new bands. Actually, I wonder what sort of level Willow Smith’s ‘Whip My Hair’ would make…

Josh: The faster, the better. I’ll toss in any punk rock I can find.

14. The Last Express

Release Date: 1997
Last year: New entry

Richard: It’s the eve of World War I, and Robert Cath is up to his ears in murder and intrigue on the Orient Express. Arguably Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner’s magnum opus, it’s one of the most atmospheric games ever made, notable for its use of real-time action and incredible attention to detail.

13. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Release Date: 2005
Last year: 96

Craig: Splinter Cell: Convicton came pretty close to digitally heisting my heart in the action-spy genre I love, but while the action is sharper, more brutal, it misses Chaos Theory’s wonderful characterisation of Sam: he threatens a man with death if he says “monkey” and has funny little chats with his boss. And the wonderful, tactile co-op is still the best of its kind.

92. Red Faction: Guerrilla

Release Date: 2009
Last year: New entry

Tom: The hostage rescue side quests made it for me. You’re charged with breaking into an EDF base, untying the three captured rebels inside, and driving off with them alive. But these hostages can die. It’s not game over, it just sucks. That makes me genuinely care about their survival, and I’ll rip buildings apart to make sure they get out alive.

11. Mount & Blade

Release Date: 2008
Last year: New entry

Evan: The progression of a campaign in M&B feels like one of those scenes from a movie where someone enters a street and starts walking toward the camera, inviting along butchers, housewives and other sidewalk-people to join their happy jaunt. The difference is: you’re a conquering swordsman or Robin Hooder, and you take that entourage of archers, pikemen and cavalry from castle to castle, liberating food from innocent farmers or slaying bandits along the way. Not to be overlooked for its graphics; it’s the joy of archery, the best sieging you’ll do in an action game, you can get married, and all while being a proper, open-ended RPG that makes you care about the troops you recruit in the same way that X-COM or Jagged Alliance might.

10 | The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings

The Witcher 2 is a third-person action-RPG that focuses on the story of Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher (monster hunter) who becomes embroiled in a conspiracy to kill kings, a peasant rebellion, and a cabal bent on seizing power and ruling the region (along with rebuilding his shattered memory).

The game features a great deal of swordplay, but use caution: Your foes gang up on you, flanking you and using all of their abilities against you. Your magic comes in handy, though combat remains difficult. And CD Projekt Red, the game's developer, has a 2.0 version in the works with better tutorials and also offers free DLC and no DRM (if you buy the Steam version, you have Steam's DRM). And it's coming to the Xbox 360 soon!

9 | League of Legends

Defense of the Ancients may have gotten its start as a humble WarCraft III mod, but League of Legends is where the peculiar mix of competitive roleplaying and tower defense arrived at maturity.

The appeal is in the huge array of selectable characters, all of which bring something different to the table. And being a "freemium" title with relatively spec requirements, it is open to pretty much anyone with a PC. Watch out though--League of Legends has a highly competitive community, and you will almost certainly be in for some hazing.

The best solution? Bring a friend and explore this highly popular game together.

8 | Plants vs. Zombies

You can now play Plants vs. Zombies on almost every gaming device, but it all started on PC. The desktop tower defense action tasks you with guarding your house from an encroaching zombie horde through the strategic use of adorable plants. PC games have access to the extra multiplayer modes that were introduced in the other versions, and the keyboard-and-mouse interface is still the best way to manage your foliage army (though the iPad version isn't bad either).

Ultimately, PvZ stands out from other tower defense titles because of it's charming style and catchy soundtrack. It's easy for a company to throw together a game like this with the same gameplay; it's hard for them to do it this skillfully.

7 | Rift

World of WarCraft has been the proverbial king of the hill for many years now, but that didn't stop Trion from going out and creating their own vision of what an MMORPG should be. Their "Dynamic Fantasy MMORPG" brings the world to life with the eponymous rifts from which monsters of all shapes and sizes are constantly menacing players and towns.

It's the first step toward creating a world that actually feels alive, rather than a simple series of quest hubs. Add in the ability to switch between multiple character builds with easy, and you have an MMORPG has quickly become a favorite among the genre's hardcore fans.

6 | Civilization IV

Why are we including Civilization IV, a game from the last generation, instead of Civilization V on our list? As of publication, Civ IV remains the superior turn-based strategy game of world exploration and domination, even if we prefer some of the changes in Civ V (like hex spaces over squares, single units per hex vs. unit stacking, interesting social policy trees and city states). But Civ V still has some issues with diplomacy and A.I. combat tactics that recent patches haven’t addressed. And Civ IV has real expansions that add greatly to the gameplay, not DLC money-grabs that add one new civilization or a couple of scenarios to the game. Add that the modders for Civ IV have produced far more interesting content than those still learning Civ V a year after launch and a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack and you can see why Civ V isn’t yes=t ready for this list.

5 | Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

The sequel to the iconic sci-fi strategy game pushes the genre forward once again. Set in the far future where three races battle for dominion among the stars, Starcraft 2 picks up several years after the events of Starcraft: Brood War. In the campaign, you play as Jim Raynor, the rebel captain fighting both the alien Zerg and the human Dominion. Over the several hour long campaign, you’ll employ a variety of units to take out targets, capture territory, and perform strikes against a corrupt human Emperor and an alien race that threatens to wipe out humanity.

Not only does Starcraft 2 feature three well-balanced, unique sides (each with their own strengths and weaknesses), but the campaign has a strong story that offers a surprising amount of choice to the player. From your ship, you can decide what units you want to upgrade, what missions to take, and what moral choices you make in your overarching quest.

Wings of Liberty is the first of three planned chapters -- a hell of a way to continue a franchise.

4 | Left 4 Dead 2

The team-based survival horror multiplayer game was pretty much invented by Valve when they released Left 4 Dead. The premise of both games is simple: You and three of your friends must fight your way through hordes of zombies towards a safehouse or extraction point. But if you stray too far from your friends, you might be picked off by a “hunter” zombie or strangled by a “smoker” zombie. There are few games out there that make you rely as heavily on your teammates, or are as genuinely frightening.

With the sequel, you get a new set of locations in the Deep South, a new cast of characters, and the addition of melee weapons. Like all of Valve’s games, Left 4 Dead 2 is best played on the PC. The DLC packs are all free for PC users and help flush out more of the story and the overlap between the events of Left 4 Dead and the sequel.

3 | Minecraft

Minecraft is a continually evolving game that, technically, still hasn't left beta. But that hasn't stopped a hardcore community from springing up around this do-it-yourself world-creation tool. You can make your own dungeons, share your blocky with friends, or just mess around with the game's tools to create music videos or unique mods.

There are enemies to fight and resource to harvest on a daily basis, which feeds into the addictive quality that makes MMOs and RPGs so popular. But the game's constant growth is what ensures that it will keep garnering more and more fans. With every new patch, there's more to do and more to explore in Minecraft.

2 | Portal 2

When Valve’s original first-person puzzler hit PCs back in 2007, it was one of the year’s unexpected successes. A wickedly incisive puzzle game with an outstanding sense of humor, it was the standout entry in the already excellent Orange Box, and one of the most talked-about games of the year for many, many reasons. Portal 2, released earlier this year, is everything that made the original Portal great, but amplified tenfold.

Portal 2 introduces some noteworthy new elements to the traditional Portal formula, and with the addition of a cooperative mode that sees two partners problem-solve together (with the integration of PC-to-PS3 cross-platform Steamworks, no less) and an extended cast of hilarious characters. All in all, it improves on everything that made its predecessor great. Plain and simple, Portal 2 is a must-own for any PC gamer.

1 | Team Fortress 2

First released in 2007 for the PC, Team Fortress 2 is actually a sequel to the 1999 Half-Life mod Team Fortress Classic. After nearly 10 years of development, the game went from being a gritty war simulator to an interactive Pixar movie that’s coming to kill you.

But don’t let Team Fortress 2’s unique cartoonish graphical style fool you: this is one intense game. Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter pitting two groups of mercenaries against each other. Each map has different objectives like capturing the flag, or holding territory, or delivering a mine cart full of explosives towards an enemy’s base.

The free game has frequent updates, lots of player customization, and a fixation on hats. It’s one of the best (and most popular) PC games out there.