PC RPG Games

I first started playing role-playing games when I was in my teens and this naturally led me on to playing PC RPG games as well. Over the years I have played many online games with a role-playing theme. This article is intended as a review of the best PC RPG games available in 2010. If there is a game you feel that I have missed, or have been unfair in my review towards it in some way please feel free to drop me a line via the comments section at the bottom of this page. We might have to agree to disagree, but the discussion is welcome.

Best PC RPG Games Review (2010)

It is probably the case that all game reviews are biased in some manner and so it is probably correct that I declare my own. Although I have played and enjoyed many PC RPG games I do have a bias towards those that played online. The simple reason for this is that no matter how good the game when played in a solitary fashion, it is always improved when there are other people around, assuming those people are not being deliberately annoying.

Free online games are all very well but it is a sad fact that when you can make another account for no cost people do not behave very well. It is because of this last fact that some of the free online PC RPG games available receive a worse rating than they may otherwise do so. The simple reason for this is that players of paid subscription games behave better as they do not wish to lose their accounts.

Now that my personal bias has been declared, my conscience is clear to start this review of what I consider to be the best PC RPG games available.

(As this page grew into a bit more than initially planned the review of the top ten games will be spread over two pages - follow the link at the bottom of the page)

What can I say about warcraft that has not been said before? I played this game for several years and enjoyed almost every minute of it. The moments I did not enjoy were due to idiot players rather than any flaw in the game itself. If you intend on playing the game there is much to be said that joining a decent guild as soon as one becomes available, as doing so will add much to your personal enjoyment.

World of Warcraft (WoW) is considered to be the biggest MMO RPG game in existence at the present time. It has millions of players (around 13 million), thousands of quests and a very large playing world which allows you to move around without any loading screens to interrupt the atmosphere. Warcraft also offers role-playing based servers so that those that wish to immerse themselves in the game can do so without people talking out of character all-time.

In common with other games on this list warcraft comes in a variety of "flavours". The basic game is commonly known as "vanilla wow", or just "Warcraft". The first expansion is called The Burning Crusade (TBC) and the second expansion is called The Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK).

There is also another new expansion due out in 2010 called Cataclysm which will revamp some of the old areas and add another five levels to the maximum level In the game.

The Elder Scrolls is a series of games that began in 1992.  The first game in the series was a game called the Elder Scrolls: Arena.  The game enjoyed some small success as it was the first game of its kind to allow players to play the kind a character that they chose to be, rather than one that the game designers had premade for them.

The second game in the series is called The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.  This is perhaps the best-known of the expansions as the game was a commercial success and enjoyed a hard-core fan following.  It should however be said that the game is also full of bugs and can at times be frustrating to play because of this.  Despite these failings it remains a great game and is probably fair to say it is a classic in this area of gaming.

The third expansion is named The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.  Morrowind was a large financial success and sold several million copies both on the Xbox as well as on the PC.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is the latest, most current, version of the game.  This was released in 2006 for the PC, Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. 

There is a new expansion expected to the Elder Scrolls series at some point in the near future, perhaps towards the end of 2010 or early 2011.  There has been much speculation in the press about whether this version of the game will be called "Skyrim" as Bethesda first trademarked the name in 2006.  Whatever the future brings, the Elder Scrolls has had a significant positive effect on the design of role-playing games on the PC for many years now and for this reason it is a strong contender for top spot in this review.

Neverwinter Nights is PC RPG game that is based upon the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. NWN and NWN2 are set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, which is a traditional medieval style fantasy world.

There have been two main releases of the game which are known simply as Neverwinter Nights (NWN) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) as well as a number of smaller expansions and fan created content. Allowing fans of the game to create modules for the game and distribute them to other players has kept NWN fresh, as this new content comes in a variety of forms (including rule changes to the basic game).

Expansions for NWN2 include Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate. All expansions received basically favourable reviews. The expansions add further class and character development options and new content.

NWN was released in 2006 and has won a number of computer software awards including Gamespot's "Best Story Award", beating The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion into second place.

It must be said however that the graphics in Oblivion are better overall. Neverwinter Nights also suffers from a number of small bugs that patches have seemed unable to remove as yet. None of these are game breaking, but they can be frustrating at times.

Overall, Neverwinter Nights is a good PC RPG game, built upon a well known game system (D&D) and is well worth a look.

No article dealing with online PC RPG games would be complete without mention of Everquest (EQ). Everquest is a 3-D fantasy game released by Sony online entertainment in early 1999. The game has been in constant development since that time with the latest expansion "Underfoot" being released in December 2009.

Underfoot was the 16th expansion of Everquest and has can perhaps be imagined a game that has been around this long and has undergone this much development has made its mark in the MMO RPG game world. Many people attribute much of today's online gaming slang to development within the EQ community. In fact, most of the MMO language used by raiding guilds in Warcraft today originated in EQ.

Everquest 2 brought in many changes to the game in an effort to avoid some of the criticism of the original game. For example death penalties were reduced and players could now make items that would allow for repair of armour. Some other aspects of npc behaviour were improved also to stop excessive "kiting".

Everquest and EQ2 are both huge and immersive online PC RPG games with hours of content and thousands of quests. My favourite of the two is EQ2 as overall it is a more player friendly environment with less grinding.

The basic game requires a credit card to play like many subscription MMO's, but comes with 30 daays free play included. Game expansions can beshop bought or downloaded from the game website.

Ever fancied getting caught up in the midst of a battle between heaven and hell?  If you have Diablo might be just the PC RPG game you!  Originally developed by Blizzard entertainment in 1997, Diablo has undergone another two incarnations and several expansions.  The game is the usual fantasy dungeon bash and the graphics aren't the best, but where the game really scores is in gameplay and ease of use.

Diablo is controlled by mouse clicks on the screen to move and attack, but learned spells can be assigned to hotkeys.  This makes most things in the game very easy to accomplish and makes gameplay fast paced.  A refreshing change if you like dungeon bashing!

The innovation that Diablo brought to the online gaming community did not end with the point-and-click interface.  Another option within the game is to set a character as being "hard-core".  Such a character, if killed, cannot be resurrected and the player will lose all equipment that he was carrying unless another player has looting switched on.  This novel idea was introduced in Diablo 2 and is definitely not for the fainthearted.

Despite its age, Diablo 2 still has a large and loyal following.  With the upcoming release of Diablo 3 due sometime this year (2010) the tradition of fast paced dungeon bashing looks set to continue for some time yet.

Well, that almost brings this hub to an end.

When I started this review my intention was only to merely do a whistle-stop tour of the top 10 PC RPG games available at the present time. It has turned into a bit more than that and has taken me quite a while to achieve. I hope you like the results.

If you have got this far and still want to know more about PC RPG games try either of these PC RPG Games links

I will do a second page tomorrow with another top 5 RPG PC games to finish the subject off. If there is enough interest I will also do a more in depth type of review of the games mentioned on the pages. Only time will tell.

Update: OK, so by "tomorrow" i actually meant in two weeks time, but better late than never, yeah? Even for the most avid gamers real life sometimes gets in the way...

As promised here is the link to the second part of my hubpage series - PC RPG Games