Your best PC games of all time

Tbh I don't know that it would be so detrimental. The PC is "superior" in terms of horsepower. But if that was all people cared about nobody would ever buy a console.

Anyway, for this thread I just took it as "games what are available to buy on PC". Though admittedly it'd be a bit weird if someone nominated something like, say, the PC port of Sonic Adventure 2.

Sure, it's technically fine. Just feels a bit weird somehow.

Probably two things.

Gamers as a whole are cheap, but if you're on console, there's a good chance you're already paying for XBLG or PS+. To add another subscription fee on top of that is a large barrier for many to cross. Even considering that many console MMOs don't require the Gold or Plus sub to work, most people are already paying for those, so the game specific fee is an added expense.

Secondly, up until FFXIV and maybe TERA before that, there hasn't been a good control scheme for playing MMOs on a console. Even Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast offered a keyboard because communication would've been a problem otherwise, not to mention all the other key bindings.

Are the controls really that complicated? Lots of console games handle a character having multiple types of attacks with varying levels of success.

I have that one on the left. I think I've used the swappable keypad about three times in total, though I'm not an MMO guy.

My favourite games of all time are the first two Monkey Islands, so I guess I'd have to say those, although weirdly enough I've never played them on a PC (had them on the Amiga in the 90s, and then bought them again for the 360).

So with that in mind, and likewise choosing to exclude other games that I played on Amiga/console rather than PC, I'd go for...

1) Deus Ex
2) Half-Life 2
3) Civilization VI
4) Medieval II: Total War
5) C&C: Red Alert

There's probably a decent bit of nostalgia in there, although when I play modern games I often get a feeling like "this reminds me of playing Deus Ex, although I don't think it's quite as good".

Doom, Civ II, and MS Solitaire.

Just off the top of my head, favourite PC games ever - I know I'm forgetting a bunch or thinking I played them on Atari ST when I didn't.

RPGs

Ultima Underworld 1/2
Ultima 6 & 7
Dungeon Master
Dragon Age 2
Mass Effect 1/2/3
TES: Morrowind and Skyrim
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Fallout: New Vegas
Wildermyth
Cyberpunk 2077 (Sorry? But it's remarkable)
Alpha Protocol
System Shock 1

MMOs

Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft
Final Fantasy XIV
City of Heroes

Strategy

Total War: Warhammer 1/2 (and probably 3)
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 1
Dune 2
Hostile Waters: Anataeus Rising
UFO Enemy Unknown (original XCOM)
XCOM 2 (the modern XCOM 2)
Homeworld 1
Crusader Kings 3
SimCity (old version)
Myth: The Fallen Lords
Syndicate (original)

ARPGs

Diablo 2
Path of Exile
Warframe (in ye olde dayes at least, haven't played it for years)

4X

Master of Orion 2
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

FPS/TPS (inc. horror and stealth but not RPGs)

Doom 1/2 (not the rest)
Left 4 Dead 1
Rainbow Six 1/2 (the old ones)
Dead Space 1
Dishonoured 1/2
No-one Lives Forever 2
Quake 1

Airplane/spaceship sim stuff

Wing Commander 1/2
Strike Commander
Elite: Frontier (1990s)
Microsoft Flight Simulator (more or less all of them)

Other

Dwarf Fortress
Unavowed
Hades
Valheim
Risk of Rain 1
Slay the Spire
Sims Medieval (this is a terrible game but I adored it)
Gabriel Knight 1

Note - these aren't the best games I've ever played, by any means, just the ones I liked best on PC. All of them here felt pretty special to me. If I played a game more on something other than PC I didn't include it.

Theme park or champ manager 01/02

Might be my age but there's a sweet spot of a few years where we got:
Thief 1 + 2
Deus Ex
System Shock 2
Baldur's Gate (all 2 and a half)
Planescape Torment
No One Lives Forever
Half Life
Freespace 2
Quake 3
Alpha Centauri
Shogun Total War
Homeworld

Some of them have had better sequels since but that 98-01 glut was fucking brilliant for basically exclusive PC games.

I bought the Monkey Island collection on Steam last week. Humour went over my head as a kid but I always enjoyed Simon thr Sorcerer. Are the Monkey Island games as good as they're held up as?

Monkey Island 1 is a magical piece of art. Humor is quite light, but still funny in my opinion. Monkey Island 2 is less magical, but funnier, but you kind of have to like absurd humor, otherwise many jokes are probably a bit meh. I don't really remember much about Monkey Island 3, just that I liked it back when it was new. Never replayed it.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask as I'm "in the tank" as they say, but yeah, I'd absolutely say the first two hold up at least. I think maybe the controls are a little clunkier than you'd go for today (in terms of the interface and verb use), but the puzzles are really well done and the world, characters, and writing are all first-rate. I can see someone not getting on board with the humour as it's very "Americans who loved Monty Python" but I still find them genuinely hilarious and I've played them relatively recently.

I didn't get on as much with the subsequent games. 3 was okay but I found the art style off-putting; the 3D ones I think just feel too kiddie and arcadey. There was a cheekiness and just the hint of an edge to the first two games that all later ones lack.

Ugh, those respawning enemies though. Clear out a trailer with only one door, leave the trailer, them look on in wonder as hordes of baddies then issue forth.