Print Article: Top 5 Games of 2006



		Top 5 Games of 2006 December 20, 2006 John JCal Callaham

Summary: Once again we have our innovative and original top games lists to summarize what you saw and what you might have missed this year. Check out some entries that may surprise you!

Introduction Page:: ( 1 / 3 )

That doesn’t mean that 2006 was a terrible year for the PC gamer. There were a number of games that caught my attention this year that offered up more than just an entertaining way to spend several hours in front of my LCD monitor. These games truly provided that extra special something that made them stand out from the crowd. I decided to offer up my own picks for the top 5 best PC games released this year. One of the big trends of 2006 was downloadable titles and it’s no coincidence that two of my picks are primarily distributed in the US using Valve’s Steam service. Steam has evolved into perhaps the best way to give developers and publishers big and small a way to provided downloadable games.

Let’s get to my picks. Feel free to debate my decisions; that’s what these lists are for, after all.

5. The Ship (Outerlight)

First person shooters in my view were in a bit of a rut in 2006; games like Prey and Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Battlefield 2142 were competently done (and Prey’s use of portals was a neat gameplay trick) but there was little that was truly innovative from the big publishers. Enter small UK developer Outerlight which began as a mod team for Half-Life 1 that released The Ship via Valve’s Steam service. This Source engine based game took the multiplayer first person shooter and turned it on its ear with its setting (a series of ships ranging from river steamboats to Titanic style ocean liners) and its mix of first person action with RPG and adventure elements. Basically your goal is to hunt other players while they hunt you on board these ships. You don’t usually use firearms but rather items that you might find on board ships, like axes or even letter openers. The Ship makes you kill off your assigned target while keeping your kill hidden from prying eyes. At the same time you have to eat, sleep and even go to the bathroom on board in order to stay alive, while also keeping an eye out for a player that might have you as his or her target.

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Outerlight’s art style for The Ship is definitely not of the realistic variety but its 1920’s art deco visual adds to the uniqueness of this game. Outerlight has also been constantly updating the game with new features and a few weeks ago offered up a separate single player oriented version of the game which deals with game reviewer’s one real complaint. Happily enough, a free trial of the full multiplayer version of The Ship will be available for play for anyone beginning December 22 and ending December 26. If you haven’t tried out this game this is the perfect opportunity.

Four to Two Page:: ( 2 / 3 )
Another UK developer, Introversion Software, released their latest game earlier this year and I have to say that a week doesn’t go by when I don’t click on the shortcut on my desktop or laptop to play this small but hugely addictive game. In a nutshell, Defcon has you fighting either the PC’s AI opponents or real people online in a thermonuclear war game with a graphical style that has more than a passing resemblance to the war map seen in the classic film Wargames. Making a game based on such an edgy premise could have been problematic for Introversion but the final result is a game that looks simple on the surface but has a ton of replayability and strategy involved.

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Defcon reminds us that the independent developer doesn’t need to spend a ton of money on next gen console and PC hardware to make a game that is fun to play and can appeal to the hardcore gamer. Defcon also has a ton of options for people to make their own custom games and mod teams are making alterations that turn Defcon into vastly different titles. There’s simply no reason not to buy and play this game if you enjoy strategy games. We hope Introversion continues their push to make new and innovative titles.

3. Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (Stardock)

Turn based space strategy games have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence in 2006 with titles like Sword of the Stars and Space Empires V being released this year. However developer/publisher Stardock delivered perhaps the ultimate product for this style of game when it released Galactic Civilizations II early in 2006. It’s one of the few games out there that we don’t mind the omission of a multiplayer mode; GalCiv 2 presents AI that keeps you on your toes as you build and expand your space empire through the choices of one of eight different civilizations. The 3D graphics and the support for many styles of gameplay (military, tech, diplomacy and more) add to the depth that Stardock has added to this game.

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Stardock has also been generous with content additions and changes since the full game was released and of course the developer is currently beta testing the GalCiv2 expansion pack Dark Avatar for release early in 2007. It’s also one of the very few PC games that shipped with no copy protection on the game disk; a huge step up that we wish other game publishers would follow.

2. Company Of Heroes (Relic/THQ)

A World War II RTS game? Oh crikey … did we really need another one of these products taking up space on store shelves? They have been all over the place in the past few years and most of them are somewhere between average and awful. Leave it to developer Relic, makers of innovative games like Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, to make this tired genre feel like a all new battlefield (no pun intended). From the truly impressive 3D graphics that make you feel like you are there on the battleground of Europe, through the amazing AI, to the use of capturing points on the map to gain more units and resources for your troops, this game makes the once boring click fest that other RTS titles have look old fashioned.

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Other aspects of Company of Heroes that make it stand out from the crowd include its highly destructible environments that actually influence gameplay rather than becoming just a graphical trick. Concentrating on just two playable sides, the Axis and Allies, looks like it made Relic focus more on making the gameplay the best it could be rather than spend a lot of time developing a ton of different sides and units. The end result makes Company of Heroes the clear standard for all RTS games to come in the next year.

The number 1 game Page:: ( 3 / 3 )
Developer/publisher Bethesda Softworks has had a lot of success with the three previous Elder Scrolls games and the third game in the series, Morrowind, really is one of earliest examples of a true open world style game. Beth Soft has learned from making the first three games for Oblivion and as a result the fourth Elder Scrolls series is by far the best in the line and in my view is the clear winner for the best PC game released in 2006. The fantasy world depicted in Oblivion is vast and it also happens to be one of the best looking games released this year. You immediately have the option to make your playable character in Oblivion pretty much however you want. While you can focus on the main storyline, Oblivion gives you the option to just go nuts after the first hour or so and explore and take on the entire game world of Tamriel if you want.

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It helps that combat, both in melee and in magic modes, is fast and furious rather than the slow and tedious way most RPGs handle these aspects. Production values are high (getting Patrick Stewart among others to be voice actors for the game was quite a coup) and if you happen to play through the entire content of the shipped version of Oblivion you have the choice of downloading the paid extra content from BethSoft or download any of the free third party mods that people have made for Oblivion. I’m not normally an RPG fan but its hard to turn yourself away for just one more hour playing this game and that’s why I’m selecting it as my pick for best PC game of 2006.

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