Here are the rules. Like last time, these Time Capsules aren’t intended to be a definitive list of the best games from any given year. They’re all personal favourites, but the most important thing is that they’re all games we’d recommend people play today. They might be the best example of its genre, or they contain some kind of valuable lesson for future generations of game designers. It’s also this specific version we think people should play, too, so remasters and remakes may mean that certain games are missing from their original release year (and we’re going by PC release dates here, naturally, not when they first came out more generally).
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Developer:Troika GamesPublisher:ActivisionWhere can I buy it?Steam,GOG
The thing is, Bloodlines offers so much choice – so many ways for you to succeed or, indeed, fail – that it’s still one of the truest RPG experiences on PC. You really do get to play that role how you want. Until you get railroaded into gunfights a bit later in the game, you can go basically zero combat. You can sweet talk your way through problems, or explore and find shortcuts into buildings where you can find passwords for door codes. Add to that the writing, which makes characters feel really alive in that they’re as likely to tell you to fuck off as they are to say hello, and some amazing set pieces, and the fact that it somehow feels like a really sexy game even though all the character models look like haunted parking inspectors… it’s a really heady combination. Honestly, if one of us didn’t pick Bloodlines we’d be in for it. Happy to take one for the team, in this case.
Developer:ValvePublisher:ValveWhere can I buy it?Steam
Seriously, attempting to get through Ravenholm without firing a single bullet to get the Zombie Chopper achievement remains one of my favourite and most memorable gaming experiences to this day (and it still eludes me, goddamnit, as I always find myself backed into a corner with no choice but to whip out my shotgun because my last sawblade pinged off to goodness knows where and I don’t want to erase valuable hours of progress). I’ll get there one day, but until then, anyone for a game of hoops with Dog and Alyx?
Ed:I used to have a tatty World Of Warcraft Prima guide I’d flick through, even though I didn’t own the game at the time. This was how desperate I was to graduate from Runescape to a fantastical adventure that promised my young self adefinitive MMO experience. One with snazzy visuals where you’d get to play as a dwarf hunter or undead rogue and make something of yourself in an Azeroth practically spilling over with players.
Back in those Vanilla days,World Of Warcraftdidn’t have baggage. Azeroth was vast, but not like, home to countless regions and isles and such. It was less streamlined, too. No entering menus and teleporting over to dungeons in a flash. You’d have to find folks and send whispers, then hop on your mounts and meet outside. I liked that it encouraged me to step out of my shell and interact with folks. My first ram mount cost me everything, too! And it only unlocked at level 40, a whole 20 levels later than WoW nowadays.
Mainly, though, levelling was slower in Vanilla WoW but encouraged exploration. Instead of barreling through Azeroth, you’d spend more time in its nooks and crannies, squeezing EXP out of every little sidequest. Eachding!felt like a real milestone. Thankfully, World Of Warcraft Classic is still around and I’d highly recommend giving it a go if you’re after an MMO that’s a time capsule in itself. It captures World Of Warcraft as I remember it best, an MMO adventure that set the benchmark.
Developer:Pandemic StudiosPublisher:LucasArtsWhere can I buy it?Steam,GOG,Origin
Hayden:While I adoreBattlefront 2old and new, I still end up playing the originalStar Wars: Battlefrontthe most. You don’t play as the heroes or fly around in space. Instead, you play as a regular old trooper on some of the best maps I’ve ever seen, running around to capture command points and kill the enemy team. Rhen Var: Harbor and Tatooine: Dune Sea are stone-cold classics that I still swoon over today, and simply gunning down droids as I ran around as a clone was mesmerising for little me.
The lack of playable heroes also makes vehicles much scarier. Without a lightsaber, an AT-ST is a terrifying beast that could turn the tide of the battle in seconds if you don’t start planning a counterattack. While Battlefront 2 does a great job of portraying flashy battles with space cruisers and force users, Battlefront 1 is best at making you feel like part of Star Wars at its most basic and exciting level. You’re just a regular rebel soldier desperately fighting to protect Echo Base from the Empire, with no chance to just become Luke Skywalker and destroy the enemy team. That’s an experience that I definitely want to preserve.
Developer:Epic Games, Digital ExtremesPublisher:AtariWhere can I buy it?Steam,GOG
Liam:More games should have a Lightning Gun. What a brilliant idea for a weapon. It’s a sniper rifle, right, but (and stick with me on this one) instead of shooting bullets it fires - wait for it - a bolt of lightning. The fury of Zeus himself, distilled into a single beam of instantaneous death. There’s none of this “bullet drop” nonsense when you’re wielding a Lightning Gun. No holding your breath to steady your shot. There are just three simple steps: Click. Crack. Death.
But influence and legacy aside, Cave Story simply was - and is - a good game. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s charming, it’s challenging, it’s exciting, it’s pretty, it sounds great, it is great.
Developer:Firaxis GamesPublisher:2KWhere can I buy it?Steam,GOG
Ollie:Sid Meier’s Pirates!is a special case, and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only person who feels this way. When you actually think about it, Pirates! is merely a collection of fairly simple minigames, sailing together under the banner of an open-ended tale of exploration, romance, debauchery, and plunder. And yet I’m not sure I’ve ever played a game that offers me such excitement at the prospect of starting a new save file, even after so many years and so many playthroughs.
Perhaps leaving aside the buried treasure minigame, the other activities that form your life of piracy and adventure are all remarkably enjoyable even by today’s standards. If nothing else, their simplicity works to their advantage. They are as familiar as they are exhilarating, as comforting as they are dramatic. The sheer glee I feel when I’m sailing down the Spanish Main and I catch a glimpse of the fabled treasure fleet heading towards a major port… Ah, it’s just wonderful. Hunting down the top ten pirates in the Caribbean and defeating them in fencing duels; engaging in ship battles and manoeuvering your ship in the perfect position for a devastating broadside; Casanova-ing your way across the Mexican Gulf, trying to find the most beautiful governor’s daughters to dance with; all these are definitive gaming experiences of my childhood.
Don’t mistake that simplicity for a lack of challenge, though. As time goes on, your character gets older, and they can’t move as quickly as they did in their 20s. Your overall goal - to track down the evil Marquis Montalban and save your long-lost family members - is a goal which requires a lot of work, and some of it can beveryhard work if you play on the higher difficulty levels. And who can resist, when you see just how much straighter and more confidently your character holds himself as you flip through the different difficulty levels at the start of a new game? Magic.
Developer:Garry Newman/FacepunchPublisher:Garry Newman/FacepunchWhere can I buy it?Steam
Sometimes I worry that all the gurning face poses and rocket-propelled ragdolls that GMod’s sandbox tools allow, if not encourage, might leave it dismissed as a toy for the wilfully stupid. That would be unfair. From humble beginnings, it’s grown to encompass almost everything that’s special about PC gaming: the openness, the willingness to experiment, the realisation of creativity, the ability to spawn in two hundred explosive barrels and shoot them until Windows crashes. And I know Watch Dogs marketing ruined the I word, but just look atgm_constructand tell me it isn’t iconic.
What also separates GMod from other sandbox games and mods is the diversity of what’s been crafted with it. Later years would see enterprising users create entire games-within-a-game, like Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt (the latter in particular has had its concept borrowed by several AAA games as side modes). Personally, I’ve wrung uncountable hours of enjoyment out of Garry’s Mod-created videos and webcomics, and I’m fairly sure there’s a mini-generation of animators who started posing GMod ragdolls and are now making much more polished material with more sophisticated tools.
Many such GMod works are crude, and most of the older ones aren’t nearly as funny to me as a grown man as they were in my teens. But for the most part, I’m glad they exist, as I am for the myriad of other images, animations, comics, games, and minigames to which Garry’s Mod has given life. If that kind of creative spirit isn’t worth preserving, I don’t know what is.
