PC gaming seems to be increasing at an alarming rate, with over 280 million PC gamers populating the best platform in gaming. Today, now more than ever, PC is the most profitable soil for developers and publishers alike:
- Thousands of PC games are released every year due to the indie scene gaining popularity
- New and fruitful business models makes the landscape more varied
- Niche games are able to co-exist because of PC's low development cost and digital distribution
- Developers can set up their own gaming business on PC with relative ease, the only platform that let's you do it
Indeed, all this has caused the inevitable: PC HAVE BY FAR THE BEST GAMES LINEUP IN 2009 (Better than all consoles combined?)
2009 looks to be PC's best year ever. I am not able to list all the exclusives because there's thousands of them, so here is some better known exclusives (by genre):
ACTION
Americas Army 3
Battlefield Heroes
Black Sky
Blueberry Garden
A fairytale made out of play, set in an ever-changing ecosystem. Fly away through the clouds, explore a strange world and uncover the mysteries of Blueberry Garden ? your presence could make all the difference.One of finalists for 2009 Independent Games Festival’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
Chrome 2
Collapse
Cryostasis
Delta Force: Angel Falls
Fallen Empire: Legions
Fez
Gish 2
Global Agenda
Ground Branch
Limbo
Lone Wolf: Flight from the Dark
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Natural Selection 2
Naumachia - Space Warfare
Night Game
Night Game is an action-puzzle game that focuses on providing players with an ambient gameplay experience, challenging the mind with increasingly challenging picturesque worlds.One of finalists for 2009 Independent Games Festival’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
Osmos
Quake Live
Retro/Grade
Retro/Grade is an innovative game that turns the side scrolling shooter genre backwards in time. Players are forced to dodge enemy projectiles while positioning the ship to be in the correct place to fire their lasers when their shots come back to them. One of finalists for 2009 Independent Games Festival’s Excellence in Design Award.
Shattered Horizon
Snapshot
Snapshot is a 2d sidescrolling game in which the player takes on the role of “Pic”. The player controls Pic as well as a camera that can take photos of the environment. Photos can capture objects such as boxes, enemies, and other things. The player can then use these photos to move objects around in the world to complete each level. One of finalists for 2009 Independent Games Festival’s Excellence in Design Award.
Untitled Konjak game
Zeno Clash
Zombie Shooter 2
ADVENTURE
Alternativa
The Book of Unwritten Tales
Culpa Innata 2: Chaos Rising
Gobliiins 4
Gray Matter
Heaven
Last Half of Darkness: Tomb of Zojir
Love
Machinarium
Mata Hari
Memento Mori
Mozart
The Path
Secret Files 2
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper
Simon the Sorcerer 5
Simon the Sorcerer 5 sends adventurers to a futuristic game world, in which they experience a turbulent backward journey through history in order to help Simon to recover his memory. Adventure fans will meet again many old acquaintances from earlier Simon the Sorcerer games and encounter fantastic vehicles like steam-powered space ships in the imaginative alternative universe. The innovative puzzle design demands a new approach to solving the missions even from experienced adventurers. The ambitious point & click adventure is rounded off by its crazy sense of humor and a dense story full of twists and turns.
Still Life 2
Three Cards to Midnight
Treasure Island
Untitled Fushiosphere title
The Whispered World
Legends of Zork
The Great Underground Empire has recently fallen and the land is in disarray. The Royal Treasury has been sacked. The stock market has collapsed, leading even mighty FrobozzCo International to fire employees from throughout its subsidiaries. A craze of treasure-hunting has swept through the remnants of the Great Underground Empire. The New Zork Times reports that trolls, kobolds and other dangerous creatures are venturing far from their lairs. Adventurers and monsters are increasingly coming into conflict over areas rich with loot. It's a dangerous time to be a newly-unemployed traveling salesman, but it's also a great time to try a bit of adventuring.
Legends of Zork provides online gamers with a persistent online adventure, playable from any Internet browser. Players take up the role of a recently laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer, as he explores the Great Underground Empire.
SIMULATION
Ace of Aces
Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark
Infinity: The Quest for Earth
Jumpgate Evolution
Lore: Aftermatch
Microsoft Train Simulator 2
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
Rise of Flight
The Sims 3
Spore Galactic Adventures
Gamers will experience deeper Space stage gameplay with the first Spore level expansion pack. For the first time, players' space faring creatures will be able to beam down from their spaceships to explore new planets and earn rewards for completing challenging missions.This add-on allows players to beam down to planets, play mission-based adventures and even create their own customized adventures for the first time. Each adventure has a unique reward to upgrade a space creature with special accessories -- from an Energy Blade and Stunning Charm to a Jump Jet and more. Players can fight their way to victory as a Warrior, dance with new friends as a Bard, and much more. A new Adventure Creator will allow players to build and share online their own custom missions, providing almost endless gameplay possibilities.
Storm of War: Battle of Britain
The Tomorrow War
Universe Online
Venture Dinosauria
Dinosaurs live in our collective imagination as the end of things - the crumbling bone, the violently deceased. We imagine flesh ripped from scales and meteors scarring the earth. Through dinosaurs we imagine our own extinction - grey, dusty, lifeless.
If you were to look to the sky a year before the meteor came hurtling from the sky, what would you see?
If you were to peer through the foliage, would you notice the teeming life in the valley beyond?
Venture Dinosauria is about the chaos and color of life on Earth in the first days of flowers, in the last days of lizards.
STRATEGY
Anno 1404
Battleforge
Cities XL
Comman & Conquer: Red Alert 3- Uprising
An epic single-player campaign, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 -- Uprising is a stand-alone title that catapults players deeper into the Red Alert universe, giving them more of the action-packed gameplay they have been clamoring for while offering a gauntlet of new and compelling challenges with the new Commander's Challenge mode. The game takes players into the aftermath of the epic battles in Red Alert 3, with the Soviets still reeling from a crushing defeat, the Empire of the Rising Sun desperately trying to regain both honor and identity and the seemingly victorious Allies finding themselves in the midst of corruption and deceit within their own ranks.
In addition to four mini-campaigns, one for each faction and one bonus campaign centered on the origins of the Empire of the Rising Sun's commando Yuriko, Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising will also introduce the new Commander’s Challenge, enabling the players to test their skills against a set of nine commanders from different territories and difficulty levels in 50 unique challenges with their own special rules and unique conditions. In true Command & Conquer fashion, top Hollywood talent (including Gemma Atkinson and Ivana Milicevic) delivering the gripping story in full HD live-action cinematics.
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Demigod
Disciples III: Renaissance
Empire: Total War
Grand Ages Rome
Grand Ages: Rome, the follow-up to Imperium Romanum, is a city-building game for PC. The player takes the role of a Roman patrician, a nobleman, who has just started his political career. His ultimate goal is to become the Governor of Rome. Throughout the game the player can develop his game character by gaining favor with various historical figures such as Julius Caesar, Pompey and Octavian. The benefits provided by these relations are carried over not only for the rest of the campaign but also in free-build maps and multiplayer scenarios.
Hearts of Iron III
League of Legends: Clash of Fates
Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment
Solium Infernum
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
SPORTS
Football Manager Live
Now fans can play their favorite football game in a live online game environment. Users set up competitions, get updates via email and text, and each victory is rewarded with World Ranking points, which are generated by an algorithm that is intended to treat each player fairly, not just reward those who spend the most time online. Fans can even create custom leagues and cups via ad-hoc and can invite other players to participate by using a chat room.
RPG
Age of Decadence
Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships
The Broken Hourglass
Deathspank
Diablo 3
Drakensang: The Dark Eye
Dungeon Party
Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG, the sequel to the original Guild Wars series and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.
The Guild Wars 2 story is set about 250 years after the events in the Eye of the North expansion. The continent of Tyria will be drastically changed from its original form. These changes will be caused by an ancient race of powerful dragons resurfacing after millennia of slumber. The first of the dragons, called Primordus, was already debuted in Eye of the North, whose main antagonist, the Great Destroyer, was one of his generals. After defeating the Great Destroyer, the player views a statue of a Dragon apparently coming to life. This dragon arises and takes over the underground network of Asuran tunnels under the continent of Tyria, driving the Asuras to the surface. Subsequently a number of other dragons resurface; one rises about the sunken holy city of Arah in the ruined human kingdom of Orr, and severs the sea route between the only intact human kingdom Kryta and the Factions continent of Cantha; another arises to the south of the Crystal Desert, cutting off the link to the Nightfall continent of Elona; a third arises in the Far Shiverpeaks of Eye Of The North and uses its icy minions to push the Norn south into the previous land of the Dwarves.
King’s Bounty: The Princess
Mysteries of Westgate
Not the Time for Dragons
Reluctant Hero
Warrior Epic
PUZZLE
Auditorium
Constellations
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Deep Blue Sea
Farmlands
FEIST
Unique puzzle platformer, which was awarded Best Overall Game and Best Visual Design at the Unity Awards 2008.
Fool and his money
Guitar Rising
Overflow
Subversion
RACING
Metal Drift
Metal Drift is a team-based online vehicular combat game featuring drift-tanks that battle it out in a futuristic arena setting. The game features 56 different tank configurations with various weapon and upgrade selections to choose from, as well as 5 different arenas, each with their own racing lines and boost tunnels. In addition, the drift-tanks have a unique energy system that allows the pilot to direct acquired energy into a speed boost or to power up weapons for extra damage.
Turismo Carretera
Zero Gear
A physics-fueled multiplayer kart combat game
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