Top 5 best games in the world

SOME OF OUR FORUM regulars out there may have seen, or indeed participated in, the latest rating thread to surface in our General Gaming forum. I know what you're thinking, and you're right - these threads pop up frequently and almost always contain games you either hate, or simply never played. Or worse, were released exclusively for the Macintosh.

It's rare to agree with another person over what is essentially a matter of intense personal preference, and believe me, I don't expect to change your mind with what you're about to read, but as I've picked up a new soapbox it'd be a shame not to climb on it and make some sweeping statements.

Those expecting technological tour-de-force titles like Crysis or Unreal Tournament will be disappointed. Some of these games don't even require 3D acceleration. They all require a great attention to detail however, and each offers virtually limitless gameplay.

In a departure from conventional list etiquette, these games are presented in chronological order, oldest to newest.

This was 1984's equivalent of Crysis. No, really. Elite
Originally released in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers, Elite drafted, proof-read and then printed the rulebook for every space trading sim that came after it. Released two decades before Freelancer and occupying about as much disk space as this article, Elite elevated you to the position of Commander aboard a Cobra Mk III inter-planetary trading vessel, stationed at Lave spaceport.

Written by just two men - David Braben and Ian Bell - Elite took two years to develop. Braben and Bell both were undergraduate students at Cambridge University during this time, and presumably being computer enthusiasts in the early 80's they would have had their pick of the ladies. But instead, they chose to avoid distraction and code what would become one of the most popular multi-platform games ever; Elite was eventually released for the Acorn Archimedes, Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, IBM PC, MSX, NES, and ZX Spectrum.

Don't hit the round thing, it's actually a planet. The reason Elite holds so many fond memories is that I played it on my first real computer, a BBC B Micro. Incidentally, they actually sold more than 150,000 copies for this platform, which worked out to be more copies of the game than there were BBC B computers, giving rise to the theory that technologically illiterate people were purchasing the game without actually realising a computer was required.

Sadly, I never made it to the status of "Elite", although I'll never forget the first time I docked with a space station instead of hitting it, exploding, and redistributing the contents of my ship over deep space. Next time you fire up a game of EVE Online, you'd do well to remember not necessarily where it all started, but where it was first perfected - in the wire-framed, 8-bit world of a Cambridge computer class.

Sid Meier's Civilization
Long before Will Wright showed us the joy, and tedium, of watching aimless computer generated Sims leading lives almost as exciting as our own, Sid Meier was hard at work making what would become perhaps the most highly rated history simulator of all time.

Loosely based on a board game, Civilization was released by MicroProse in 1991 to rapturous applause from every quarter - it won the Origins Award for strategy in 1992, and was voted the top computer game ever by Computer Gaming World magazine in 1996.

Strangely enough, a board game has been made from the computer game, neatly completing a circle of oddity.

If your eye is drawn to the undefended city, you've played this before. Despite trifling gameplay issues (such as militia units defeating battleships due to mathematical odds rather than tactical ability), there simply wasn't any game that came close to the addictiveness of what Sid Meier had produced. My parents actually bought an Amiga 500 so I would play Civilization at home, rather than having to have to pick me up from my friends house because it was too dark to cycle home.

For a long time, it was the only game I played - in actual fact I've lost months of real life to Sid's little foray into empire building. Not many people can say they've started on Earth as the English and defeated every possible civilization on "Emperor" prior to 0 A.D., but if I told you how long it took, you might consider becoming fluent in Mandarin a more worthwhile use of that time.

I vividly recall endless debates in Third Form economics class - was it better to lay siege to a large city and attempt to sabotage the city walls? Or should you push everything towards science research and hit it with a nuke? Were the Mongols really backward, or was pumping out about a billion Phalanx units all part of their strategy?

Stalin: mass murderer, or a victim of poor nasal hygiene? Any teacher overhearing talk like this in our post 9/11 world would probably feel the need to inform various security agencies; to us, it was far more intellectual - nay, exciting - than any supply or demand curve drawn on a crusty blackboard. Sid Meier taught us not only geography, but history, politics, military strategy and engineering, and just when you thought you had the game nailed, you could up the ante and try the next difficulty level, where you'd learn a thing or two about humility as well.

Civilization will always be proof that you can have all the shader models, rag-doll effects and DirectX 10 you like, but to elevate a good computer game to legendary status, you're going to need a compelling, balanced and believable foundation, along with clearly defined goals.

Sid nailed it back in 1991 - very few have come close since.

Half-Life: Counter-Strike
Wait! Hold it right there! Before you close your browser window in disgust, allow me to play devils advocate just for a second. The first time I played Counter-Strike, it was a largely unknown modification for Half-Life, in its third beta. There were no wallhackers, n00bs or AWP-whores. The colt rifle had a scope, bunny-hopping might have existed, but nobody knew about it, and Jenny Shipley was still Prime Minister.

Bad day in Basra. A friend of mine had downloaded it, and considering we all played a fair bit of Half-Life Deathmatch back then, nobody thought twice about installing it and playing a few rounds.

Of course, a few rounds became hundreds. Which in turn became thousands, and by the time I finally looked up from my screen it was 2004.

I don't really think anyone could have predicted the global phenomenon that Counter-Strike would become. It's not often a game modification from the community actually becomes more popular than the host game itself, not to mention the effect it must have had in driving broadband uptake in the early part of this decade.

Those with popular Counter-Strike servers were revered as the Gods they were. Entire communities (not entirely dissimilar from the one you're reading this article on) were created to satisfy the incessant craving for frags, born out of hunched shoulders, furtive eyes, a black dot in the middle of your screen, and a keyboard with two missing Windows keys.

Someone set up us the bomb! Counter-Strike has always had a huge appeal to a great number of people, but unfortunately it's also despised by an equally large number of ex-players, who think nothing of trolling forums and insulting people who happen to be more likely to hit their mouse button a fraction of a second faster. Although the game itself largely invites these criticisms, it will always be remembered as the one-time most popular online game in the world, and despite a huge number of patches and tweaks, it's still great fun to play today, although really it's best on a LAN with your mates.

At least then you can accuse them of screen-watching and convince yourself it'd be a different story if you were sitting three feet closer to the switch.

Diablo II
The original Diablo lept onto the scene in early 1997, scaring the bejesus out of late-night RPG fans everywhere. Coupled with the buggy hacker's delight known as Battle.Net, you could experience unfair gameplay in an entirely new fashion, utilising your phone line and a screeching modulator-demodulator unit, which everyone just referred to as a "modem". The juxtaposition of demonic possession and a satanic-sounding electric box set the scene for what was a roaringly good hack 'n' slash title, admired by many, and perfected by few.

Nevermind that you couldn't actually reach the original Diablo's level 50 cap, and settling for level 49 required a time investment akin to rebuilding the Great Wall of China using only your teeth, Diablo II was always going to happen.

Come 2000, happen it did. With a character level cap of 99, enormous outdoor battlefields, hundreds of new monster variables and thousands of weapon permutations, Diablo II was everything we'd hoped it would be. Gone was Griswald's crusty "Well, what can I do for ye?" comment every time you went to vendor trash, in Diablo II you actually got to kill him. How cool was that?

The inventory was never big enough. Perhaps the single biggest master stroke employed in Diablo II, and absent in the original Diablo, involved random loot distribution algorithms. Now, I've never figured out the attraction of gambling. Every year, hundreds of families are torn apart by breadwinners overindulging on the gee-gees, pokies, slots, and other suggestively titled electronic devices designed to take your money. Enough of my money is taken from me each week as it is, but enough about income tax - in Diablo II, every single kill is a lotto ticket because you just don't know what's going to drop. Will this skeleton give you the topaz you need to socket your helm for extra magic find? Or will he drop a low quality buckler?

The statistics were mind-boggling. Players became fanatical about getting the tiniest possible edge in finding rare and unique weapons. Every possible game attribute was discussed, and even myth became reality with the new Cow Level.

This is going to hurt in the morning. Every patch added more content to the game, and a huge expansion (Lord of Destruction) padded out weapons and armour, and added another boss. Ladder-only weapons for dedicated online players became available, and even when Blizzard nerfed every single character with the 1.10 patch, they did it in style by introducing ability synergies to offset the damage.

Every good RPG that has followed Diablo II owes, in part, at least some of its success to this title, it's a game you can keep coming back to because there will always be some kind of loot that you absolutely have to have.

My next, and final title will therefore come as no surprise.

World of Warcraft
A friend introduced me to Blizzard's behemoth MMORPG World of Warcraft back in the summer of 2005. I've never met a heroin dealer before, but I suspect the sales patter is much the same - "just try it bro, if you don't like it, cancel your subscription, eh?" Yeah, right.

The problem with World of Warcraft is that it's technically an awesome game. It really encapsulates the "massive" attribute of a massively multiplayer online game. You can, once a specific level has been reached, literally go anywhere and do anything. The reason this is a problem is because invariably you will - and unless regulated, it can actually take over your life.

My glowing spells bring all the boys to the yard. Regulation, for me, came late one night as I sat atop my epic mount in the middle of Orgrimmar, and realised I'd had enough. You can actually have too much of a good thing, you can get sick of not seeing the sun for several days at a time. You can get sick of being wiped in Molten Core because one of your idiot team mates dropped at the wrong time, and you can certainly get sick of paying Blizzard for the privilege.

After uninstalling World of Warcraft, and re-discovering the game of real life (the graphics are awesome, by the way) I couldn't shake the impression that the past four months had shown me the future of social interaction.

Any World of Warcraft player can tell you about the game, and it's not hard to find one - there are over nine million out there. But it takes an ex-WoW player to tell you that unless we're careful, the future could consist of n00bs and gold farmers. Guilds and loot. A single unified virtual currency, and talking to your flatmates over a headset.

World of Warcraft is a very, very good game - perhaps the best game there is - but it's more than that. It's a veritable no-man's-land, a staging ground between the real world, and the virtual world that is growing at an exponential rate, whether we choose to admit it or not.

The guided tour of Gore was rubbish. It's a world that has been created to entertain and amaze, but ultimately, it exists to satisfy shareholders - something to remember before we ply Blizzard with too many awards.

It is absolutely staggering to me that over the course of my short lifetime, technology has progressed from wire-framed space simulators to entire living, completely interactive worlds that can be explored.

And we're not done yet. This year we'll see the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and Spore, two titles continuing the boundary-pushing legacy of the titles I've chosen in this article.

Next year The Sims 3 will no doubt amaze us further. If we can go from Elite to World of Warcraft in twenty years, then I'd like to get my pre-order in for The Matrix: Real Edition.