Absolute must play PC games.

[Doombard]

god i loved TA.. more than starcraft rip cavedog

[Spira]

hmmm

my short list would probably be..

The Monkey Island series
Red Alert I & II
Starcraft
Diablo II
Laura Bow II (sorry, i used to love point and click story adventure games)
Legend of Kyrandia series
Civnet
Star Control II (one of the best games ever, imo)
N (yes, that jumpy-ninja flash game)

[Nal]

yeah Ive played and beat both of the max paynes, I guess I was mostly looking for a really good RPG.

Try Ys - The Oath in Felghana. Pretty decent action jRPG. I believe it's the 7th or so part in the Series , I haven't played the others but it didn't seem like the Stories are linked so you can play it just fine without knowing the previous parts.

[Kyo]

Try Ys - The Oath in Felghana. Pretty decent action jRPG. I believe it's the 7th or so part in the Series , I haven't played the others but it didn't seem like the Stories are linked so you can play it just fine without knowing the previous parts.

Thanks Nal.

[Isiolia]

If you want an RPG, I would look for Neverwinter Nights Diamond (includes all the expansions and then some). The thing with NWN is that it's made to have user-created modules to play through. The official campaigns are decent, but you can get a lot more content if you want. As it's an older game, it should run fine...whereas Neverwinter Nights 2, like The Witcher, is a bit more recent and may be a little much for your machine.
It's not an MMO, as was mentioned. It does allow for a multiplayer server, so some people did run "perpetual worlds" using that. However, it's perfectly fine as a single player game, and is a good intro to the DnD PC RPGs (which comprise many of the better titles on the platform).

I'd also second/third/whatever Deus Ex. It's partly RPG I guess, as you do have decisions that affect things in the game, and a level up system of sorts.

You could also look at adventure gaming, which is an underrepresented genre these days anyway, but if you're coming from a console background they're even scarcer. Lucasarts has many, along with Sierra, though finding them and getting them to play may be a chore.
There have been some good ones in recent years as well, such as the Longest Journey (first one at least), and Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit outside the U.S.).
Some older ones, some already mentioned - Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, King's Quest series, Space Quest series, Phantasmagoria (first one), Gabriel Knight (first two at least), etc.

It was a very popular genre in the early/mid 90s, until Myst came along and reduced it to a Hypercard slideshow of pretty pictures.
You can find a bunch of them on abandonware type sites, ie
http://www.abandonia.com/en/game/Adventure
http://www.the-underdogs.info/genre.php?id=3

If the stat/combat aspects of RPGs are more your thing, then the PC has a lot of strategy/RTS games that may appeal. One that'd stand out to me would be Warcraft III, though basically, anything Blizzard made is gold. Command and Conquer stuff is generally good too.
Civilization, at least the classic ones, is worth a try as well. Or there are still hex based war games all over.
Again, you can find many of the "classics" at least mentioned on the linked sites, if not available to download.

[Katlan]

Lucas Arts adventure games: Monkey Island series, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle to name a few.

omg monkey island!! I loved that series :3

[Shinryusan]

Homeworld (Original, and maaaybe Homeworld: Cataclysm, but stay away from H2)

seminal 3D rts, with a plot that ripped off Battlestar Galactica before anybody knew what the fuck it was.

A+

[Elesirdur]

Homeworld (Original, and maaaybe Homeworld: Cataclysm, but stay away from H2)

seminal 3D rts, with a plot that ripped off Battlestar Galactica before anybody knew what the fuck it was.

A+

Homeworld was an amazing game. While strictly not the first 3D RTS game, I think that was a Bungie title actually, or maybe 'Ground Control', it was the first space RTS to fully utilize the Z-axis and give games a real taste of proper space combat. Not that you would ever realistically find it, but Homeworld had probably one of the best pc game manuals ever. It weighed in at about 50-75 pages and it was almost all backstory and art. The writing and story in Homeworld was fantastic, and the manual gave the writers a chance to show off the rich and wonderful story of the Kushan and how their society came to discover the lost HyperSpace Core and build the Mothership. Lots of mods out for the game as well too.

[Asharah]

If you like the Baldurs Gate RPGs and its sort Arcanum is another good one to look into.

Though ive found it a pain to get hold of myself.

>=(

[Elesirdur]

If you like the Baldurs Gate RPGs and its sort Arcanum is another good one to look into.

Though ive found it a pain to get hold of myself.

>=(

Arcanum was steampunk-cool before steampunk was cool. I never really got much into the game, but the setting was a lot of fun which kind of made up for the middle-of-the-road RPG elements. (nothing really amazing or new)

[Amele]

Arcanum was steampunk-cool before steampunk was cool. I never really got much into the game, but the setting was a lot of fun which kind of made up for the middle-of-the-road RPG elements. (nothing really amazing or new)

steampunk was always cool! arcanum just happened to be the first major exposure most people had to it.

[Hitoshura]

Anyone remember that Lucas Arts game Outlaws? It was a first person shooter, I never did play the final game, only the demo. :[

[Elesirdur]

Anyone remember that Lucas Arts game Outlaws? It was a first person shooter, I never did play the final game, only the demo. :[

That was actually a pretty fun game; used the Dark Forces engine if I recall. The hand-drawn looking sprites gave the 2.5D game a the appearance of a comic book - could even see it as a bit of an influence on later cell shaded games. Not really a great game, but as a western shooter it was a nice departure from the standard sci-fi Space Marine™ shooter fare of the day.

[Muzner]

Deus Ex is definitely worth your time to try playing.
Arcanum was one of my old favorite RPGs.
Diablo 1 & 2.
Total Annihilation was good as well, I still play it at work when I'm bored.

[rithridan]

If you like platform games and corny ones at that you should google "I wanna be the guy". Maybe add "game" in there somewhre if you aren't getting the right hits. It's a platform game where you will literally die a couple hundred times before you get the hang of it

I found it pretty corny and funny with all the references to other well known platform games (or just old games in general) and for sure its a challenge to beat even on the easiest setting

[SamanosukeShiva]

I'm surprised nobody says crysis yet, is it really that bad or the requirement just too high?

[Charismatic]

It's not an absolute must play... that doesn't mean bad though.

[Elesirdur]

I would say that Crysis could be a must-play game to truly see what PC games are capable of from a graphical and technical standpoint. There are certainly games that have been mentioned in this thread because they excel at storytelling or highly-polished gameplay mechanics, so I think it's reasonable to include technically proficient titles.

[Kiarax]

Yeah, the only thing Crysis really has going for it is that it's pretty. There's a multitude of better FPS's out there. But if your computer can run it it's worth a playthrough just to appreciate how pretty it can be. Also who doesn't love choking Koreans?

[geno]

I had a lot of fun on crysis, but I can't deny that a great deal of my appreciation came from being able to run it on High/VeryHigh without lag. I don't think I would have played it if it wasn't so goddamn pretty, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still pretty fun at times.