Introduction

2010 was a pretty good year for games. It’s easy to complain about there not being enough good new games these days, but when you sit down to make a list like this, it quickly becomes apparent that there are more than 10 contenders that immediately come to mind. That makes things difficult, not even accounting for the good games that weren’t on my radar and/or simply slipped my mind.

Some other sites have a panel of judges that come up with a preliminary list of titles and then rate them according to a predetermined set of criteria after hours of lively debate. Here at FiringSquad… it’s just me, referring to reviews I’ve written and recalling memories of playing games this year. As such, it should go without saying that this list is based almost entirely on my own tastes and preferences, and you are more than welcome to agree or disagree. Feel free to post your own thoughts in the comments section.

Without further ado, I present to you the Top 10 PC Games of 2010:

#10 - Napoleon: Total War

NTW is basically a standalone expansion to Empire, but brings many new features and improvements, such as multiplayer drop-in battles (allowing you to fight against human players in your campaign skirmishes) and new weather and physics effects. It also contains the closest thing to a story-driven single-player experience a Total War game has ever had. The narrative based around Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise through the ranks of the French military is interesting, but ultimately doesn’t change the gameplay very much.

With that said, the best fun is still in the sandbox world domination mode, which actually has a narrower focus than in previous games. In NTW, turns are the equivalent of two weeks instead of six months, and the map is constrained to a more detailed European landscape. Because of this, Empire is still worth playing for its grander scale, both in regards to the wider span of time and inclusion of India and the Americas. You can get both games (plus all of their respective DLC) in a GOTY bundle that was released a couple months ago.