The Top 5 RPGs and 12 Best PC RPGs of All Time
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If only to provide a point of comparison to your own personal list of the best role-playing games ever conceived, I'll go ahead and link you to a new "Top 5 Role-playing Games of All Time" article on MWEB Gamezone as well as a new "The Twelve Best PC RPGs of All Time" article on Hardcore Games. There are a few titles that overlap across the two editorials and their top two picks are staples for this sort of thing:
Planescape: Torment is a video game masterpiece that is second to none. It is a turn-based RPG that is difficult, rewarding and extremely addictive. It turned many RPG conventions at the time on their heads to create a world that is stunning, beautiful and most importantly, unique.
The game offers the most memorable party characters, the best video game story ever told and a haunting soundtrack, all working in tandem to deliver a game that was way ahead of its time.
Planescape: Torment is more than a game; it is truly a work of art that tells a tale of a man whose search for immortality led him to find pain, regret and torment. Party members develop their stories with the player's character while leveling up and progressing throughout the main quest rewards the player with unique progression options.
Even to this day, 15 years since the release of Planescape: Torment I have yet to find a game that comes close to this work of art.
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Baldur's Gate II is typically viewed as a no-brainer entrant on these lists. In fact if you type (Best RPGs of All Time) into Microsoft Word, Clippy will appear and say (I see you're talking about the greatest RPGs of all time. Did you remember Baldur's Gate II?)
I've read a claim before that stated Baldur's Gate II is the greatest conventional RPG of all time. While that may not sound very sexy, it does have an air of truth about it. Baldur's Gate II often plays out exactly as a perfect game of Dungeons and Dragons might play out. That is to say it offers a world of adventure featuring infinite possibilities and restrictions based largely around your own lack of imagination.
And much like that perfect game of Dungeons and Dragons, playing Baldur's Gate II is an experience you will remember for years to come, and reminisce fondly about with any who shared your experience for all that time. It is that quality above all others that best explains Baldur's untarnished legacy.
