The Very Important List of PC Games, Part 3

The third part of the Very Important List of PC Games series on Rock, Paper, Shotgun opens up with Far Cry 2, at which point it already risks losing me. But it goes on to discuss System Shock 2 (Importanceness: Moderate), Anachronox (Blip), Pathologic (Subversively so), Jagged Alliance 2 (Yes) and Baldur’s Gate I and II (Maybe).

It wasn’t Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2’²s unwieldly, mutant size that made them landmark games. No, it was what they did with the content. Bioware did something far more impressive these Advanced Dungeons & Dragons-driven games than simply making them long- they brought them to life with incidental details, with side quests that could have comfortably been the plots of lesser RPGs, with more party relationships than you’d expect from Prince after a gig. They added and added to these worlds of theirs, until they had a game where as rigid as the central plot was, it still felt like your story. As much as I adore Mass Effect 2, that’s not something I feel Bioware has repeated since.

I think they’re starting to lose me on what exactly the point of these editorials is. It’s not a list of classics or important games as much as “games I like”.