One of the biggest misconceptions I hear about PC gaming is that to be a PC gamer, you have to spend upwards of $1000 to be able to play the latest games. While the dollar amount is generally overestimated, I find that most people don't realize the PC is 100% backwards compatible; you don't have to be able to play the latest and greatest games. There's plenty of great games from the oft forgotten past of PC exclusivity that your secondhand Pentium III or laptop can handle. Here I'll list a few and describe them a bit, and their system requirements.

Deus Ex

You've probably heard of this one. To be fair, it's not a PC exclusive, a PS2 port exists, but the PC version is much superior. I can recommend this game to anyone who likes to play a game with their brain turned on. The shooting action isn't frantic in this game. It feels more like an adventure game, the world is highly interactive and there are so many ways to accomplish your missions without even firing a single bullet. It's a very intelligent, very unique game. It was also published in 2000, which makes it a bit ugly by today's standards, but easy on the hardware.

System Requirements:300 MHz Pentium II or equlivalent, Windows 95/98, 64 MB RAM, DirectX 7.0a compliant 3D accelerated video card 16MB VRAM, Direct X 7.0a compliant sound card, Direct X 7.0a or higher (included), 150MB uncompressed hard drive space, Keyboard and Mouse

Similar Games; System Shock 2, Thief

Age of Mythology

I'm not a big RTS fan, as a matter of fact, this is the only RTS game I have ever played through and beaten. It's a great game, though, and I can highly reccomend it to all, both the RTS veteran and those not familiar or inexperienced with the genre. The story mode is pretty unique among RTSs in that the story is focused on a few select characters instead of some historical log, and is actually pretty good. The backdrop of Ancient Mythology provides a great atmosphere to the game, and the expansion only makes things better. You have to try it.

System Requirements: One of the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows 98 Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Microsoft Windows 2000 Microsoft Windows XP Note Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows NT are not supported. 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM. Approximately 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard-disk space. 16 MB 3D video card is required; 32 MB video card is recommended. DirectX 8.0-compatible sound card with speakers or headphones. Multimedia computer with a Pentium 450 megahertz (MHz)-or-higher processor. 4x CD-ROM. Microsoft Mouse or other compatible pointing device.

Similar Games: Warcraft III, Civilization II Test of Time

Cave Story

It brings tears to my eyes that people yet haven't played this game. It's TOTALLY FREE, available as a download from a plethora of sources for a variety of operating systems. I think people are put off by freeware games because they lack the overall quality and attention of most commercial games, but this game contradicts that. There's an actual story, and it's good. Big explorable world. Boss fights. Awesome platformer/shooter gameplay. Original graphics and music. This is basically the game everyone would be telling you to get for your DS or something, except it's free and you can download it now. So do it.

System Requirements: Windows 98, 2000 or XP, DirectX 5.0+, Mac OS X 10.3.9, AmigaOS 4, Linux (by fan conversion)

Similar games: Commander Keen

Myst

Adventure games are a peculiar genre, almost completley exclusive to PC. Either you like them or you don't, but I think everyone should try them at least once. Especially if you've liked console games like Zack and Wiki, which stem from the populated PC adventure scene. A good place to start is Myst, which is a legendary game in the industry, and pretty old. The story is deep and fairly original, and you may find yourself sucked in trying the mind-boggling puzzles and liesurly exploring a beautful world full of creativity. This sort of thing may not appeal to everyone, I'll admit, but like I said, you have to try it at least once.

System Requirements: Windows 3.1 - MS/PC-DOS 5.0 386DX 33Mhz (486 recommended) 4MB RAM (8 Recommended) Super VGA (640 x 480, 256 colors) with compatible drivers CD Rom drive (double-speed drive or higher recomended) Mouse and Hard drive

Similar Games: Exile, Monkey Island


Finding these shouldn't be too difficult despite their age. You can check Steam or Gametap for some older games, Ebay is also always an option. Heck, some of them are so old the original devs don't care and they're being openly distributed on the internet.

So, I guess you can talk about these games here, or recommend other games that can play even on crappy hardware. My point simply is: you don't need a monster machine to play some killer apps.

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