Imagine you had the option to leave this world, and live in the game universe of your choice.
Where would you go? Who would you to choose to be? Would you want to be an explorer, or a God? A hero, or a Mage? A Gangster,or a Cop?
Here’s my list of the 10 best PC Games I dream I wish I could be a part of.
10: Civilisation V
“Typical, brings a knife to a gunfight.”
Choose to be a God and why wouldn’t you? Gods are awesome. There’s no feeling quite like it. I remember playing the first Civ. on my Amiga 500 way way back in the day when you had to swap disk 1 with disk 2 at the end of every turn; no not DVD disks, but 3.1 inch, floppy disks. Each turn took about 5 minutes to complete. When I think back to all the time I must have wasted waiting on the original Civilisation to load between turns…Well, anyway…The original looks terrible now but that’s why the Gaming Overlords of the Universe gave us Civilisation V, which looks a lot better and loads a lot faster. The question stays the same though; would you choose to be a God? It’s kind of tempting, isn’t it?
That's actualy a really famous painting, don't you know.
9: GTA V.
I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky....
But not GTA IV. I just didn’t like it; it was a terrible port to PC. Fortunately, GTA V is awesome. GTA V is everything we gamers have come to expect from RockStar North. Go anywhere, do anything, kill anyone; steal cars. Being in GTA V would be mind-bendingly brilliant. The world is such that everything would be familiar, and yet surreal at the same time. It would be like real life, but better. You could do all the things in San Andreas that you would never dare to dream of in real life. Think about it. If ever a game was made for CO-OP play, then GTA is the one. Pulling heists with your buddies is just about the most fun it’s possible to have online. What I would love even more though, is managing to pull off just one heist without it ending in a hail of gunfire, exploding cars, and a lot of collateral damage.
When perfectly planned heists go completely tits up in the air...
8: NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED (The good ones….)
Sunday drivers...
This game is essentially the "Fast and the Furious," but without all that pointless dialogue or stupid pointless plot twisty stuff that always seems to dog the movie franchise. There's a little petrol head in all of us that just wants to live in the world of customised high speed underground car racing. Admit it, it’s hard not be drawn into the high stakes, highly stylised burning rubber world of Need For Speed. You want to be part of the community where the party never seems to stop, the chicks are always hot, and the cops will as happily kill you as try to stop you using legal methods. The cops in this game are f****** mental. In many ways it’s just like real life: Wake up, win a race in a clapped out standard saloon car, and then instantly have the cash to buy the kind of sports car you could only normally dream about in your wildest fantasies.That’s pretty much the way most people get their hands on the latest M class BMW, isn’t it?
At 88 miles per hour, police cars will automatically go Back...To...The...Future...
7: Car Mechanic Simulator 2015
Just kidding.....
This is a real game, apparently.
Who plays these games? Apparently CMS2015 will feature ‘auctions,’ and a ‘photo’ mode. Wow.
7: DRAGON AGE I + II
Fight dragons, they said. It'll be fun, they said.
Live in a world of Dragons, in an age of Dragons. The clue is in the title.
Fantasy;- check.
Dragons;-check.
Magic;- check.
Awesome world;- check.
Enough said;- check.
6: World of Warcraft.
Is that bow a purple?
Work, work, work. So yes the game is 10 years old and it’s losing something like a 100,000 subs a month but if you had to choose to live in a game world, then Azeroth would be a nice place to start. If only I could remember what my old email address was so I could log back in and play my old Night Elf hunter one more time, do one more raid and solo Zul'Gurub, for real, on my own. It was the sheer scale of World of Warcraft that blew me away. I know now massive game worlds are taken for granted but back in 2005/2006, World of Warcraft was something else. I remember the time it took almost an hour for me and my buddy Steve to meet up, as we ran, flew and took boats from one side of the game universe to the other just so we could do one dungeon together. Four hours then we waited at the entrance to the Scarlet Monastery for a full dungeon group. But you know what, we didn't care, because it was all fun. If I could have been my character for real back in the day, I would have jumped at it. I probably still would.
Damn, I think we lost another subscriber. That was your fault that was.
5: Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance:
Kessel Run legend: Lando who?
Some people, ok everyone, say that Tie Fighter was the better game. Not me. F*** ‘em.
After watching Star Wars for the first time everyone wanted to join the rebellion, fight the Empire, and fly the Millennium Falcon: That’s right, the Falcon. Everyone wanted to destroy the Death Star: That’s right, the Death Star. No, you don’t get to be a Jedi but let’s face it, after the prequels who’d want to be. The life of a Jedi just looks so boring. Who wants to be a celibate for all eternity? “OOOhhhh, lightsabers, the force flows through me, but oh God, I live like a chaste monk.” So, no Jedi’s.This is a Star Wars flight simulator without all the boring bits of normal flight simulators. Fly X Wings, Y Wings, A Wings, B Wings, and of course, the Falcon; and get to do it all while taking on the Empire, one Tie Fighter at a time. What more could you ask for in a game, or indeed another life?
It plays a lot better than it looks...
4: Any TOTAL WAR game.
Medieval Total War: “ Medium sized evil, apparently.”
Create an Empire, Conquer the world, and fight massed battles.
I love this game. It’s just all too easy imagining yourself trying to conquer France, fighting off the Germanic hordes, and putting down rebellions. You never forget the epic battles where you won despite the overwhelming odds or the wars where the fate of your entire Empire hinged on the outcome of one rain soaked battlefield. You can almost feel the dust in your hair, smell the blood on the battlefield, and hear the historian writing your name into legend. You can’t ever forget the feeling either when you actually win the campaign. It’s just such a momentous event. All that effort, all those dead comrades and fallen generals. It’s a mesmerising experience and one not soon forgotten.
Top Tip: No matter what country you choose at the beginning, always make sure you invade Scotland if you get the chance. The Highlander units you can build there get ridiculous bonus stacks if you can charge them down a hill at the enemy. Just saying.
3: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. (And, Morrowind and Oblivion.)
“I come in peace.”
If you want to live in a world where you are free to do as you wish, go wherever you want, murder, help people or kill them with an AK-47, you should play GTA. If you want to do the same thing but with swords, then Elder Scrolls is the world for you. The realm of the Elder Scrolls is just so vast and beautiful that you want to take the time to explore it at your own leisure. I still load the game and go there sometimes to de-stress, climb mountains, sit by lakes, become a vampire, take on Daedric Lords, and loot corpses; you know the usual type of things you do to relax.
The relaxing air of the country. Breathe it in
2: Star Trek Online:
Set phasers to "Peace through death.”
So the game itself is I think, more of a missed opportunity than anything else. But it is Star Trek. You do get your own Starship. You can make it look like whatever you want. You can kill Romulans. You get to go to ‘Red Alert.’ And you get to fire phasers, raise shields, scan anomalies, and travel in space. Also you get to fly to the neutral zone...Oh come on, it’s the neutral zone. Everyone wants to enter the...Think about the opportunities, that’s all I’m saying. Final word: It’s Star Trek.
When Neutral zone treaties go wrong
1: Lord of the Rings Online
I fear the river is inpassable.
Hobbits, Elves, Middle Earth. Kill Orcs, visit Bree, go to the Mines of Moria, do epic quests. I could see myself spending a lot of time in Middle Earth. It's Tolkien isn’t it! You could get to be part of the Ring’s story, albeit a minor one. But I would still rather be a footnote in Lord Of The RIngs, than a major character in Twilight. And you can be a wizard, kind of a Rune Keeper anyway. Who wouldn't want to be the ultimate glass cannon? I'll let you in on a little secret: My Rune Keeper could have totally taken Gandalf in a fight. In fact, I reckon I could probably have taken on Gandalf, and Sauron at the same time and won. I was that good. Anyway, it's Middle Earth! Why would you want to live anywhere else?
Select weapon "Fishing Pole." Are you sure?
Contestants at the annual Orc vs Dwarf Dance off competition
There has to be an easier way to cut the grass.
Well, there’s another top 10 done and dusted and consigned to video game history.
I appreciate it might not be to everyone's tastes but this was all pretty personal to me. Science Fiction and Fantasy were core parts of my teenage life so it’s no surprise that they featured highly on my list of games I'd want to be in. And in the end aren't all games about escapism and fantasy anyway?
What game would you want to be a part of though?
As always, we really want to know, so log in/sign up, whatever, and give us your top 10.
