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Ahhh, computer games. This is a place to play games far to complicated to play face-to-face (although with networks, it is possible to play someone in the same room, or even right next to you. You can also play someone on Easter Island, if they have computers there). These can be far more complicated than the ones that get the bad press, like, oh, say Doom and Duke Nukem and Grand Theft Auto (though that last one kicks ass).
First off I'll cover the wargames, since that's kind of my thing. The first true war game I played was Panzer General, released in the early '90s. You control a German army group through conquests in Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemborg, France, England, Africa, Middle East, Russia, and, finally, in '46, the invasion of DC. It's a low graphics, turn and hex based game, though it's definitely one of the first mainstream wargames. Won several awards for design. There's East Front and West Front, tactical games where you command small units. I've been playing 'em off and on for about three years now, still getting the hang of it. VERY different from strategic level stuff. Both are WWII games. Then there's Sid Meyer's Gettysburg! This is an amazing game. It's a real-time game (both sides move and react at the same time on different computers, or the computer reacts on yours while you're playing). Covers all three days, amazing looking game, too, considering it's seven or eight years old. There are tons and tons of other wargames, they seem to have been making a recent comeback in the industry (hooray!).
Then there are the non-historical wargames, usually set in the future or a fantasy setting. Two of the best have come from the same company, a little one in California called Blizzard. Every single game, save their first, has won Editor's Choice Awards, and they've got several Games of the Year from PC Gamer (this is made even more impressive by the fact that they've only made a total of 6 games so far). Their best is, for me, StarCraft. A real-time strategy game (RTS) set in the distant future in another part of the galaxy. It's not a groundbreaking game, but by having three distinct, balanced races to play, all with their own technology and equipment and tactics and whatnot. Beautiful, easy interface, and Blizzard's blizzard.net gives one place for anyone anywhere with the game, a computer, and some kind of internet access to meet and play. The game is still kicking 7 years after it came out, tens of thousands of people playing at any given time around the world. Then there's Red Alert 2, made by Westwood. Also a RTS, it postulates a Soviet attack on NATO, except the Soviets have psychics and the NATO allies have cool stuff like chrononauts, guys that can teleport around the map and erase units from time-space. The units in this game are quite amusing. The Soviets have, essentially, a Lead Zepplin unit that flys around and drops bombs, as well as a giant squid that attacks ships. NATO has dolphins to hunt subs and squid. Play in real-world locations, like Washington DC, Paris, Berlin, etc. The Soviets have a cloning vat thingie that kinda breaks the game, but it's fun if you ban that.
Role-playing games on the computer. These are loads of fun, if done right. Diablo and Diablo 2 (Blizzard) call themselves role-playing games, but they're essentially hack 'n slash demon killing games where you collect treasure. Diablo 2, especially, is loads of fun, but it's still hack 'n slash. Now Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, these are awesome role-playing games. Set in Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms world, you have quests to do, and you can form a party, go off the main quest to save people guarded by stuff like trolls, raise curses, or be evil and kill everything (this usually leads to the premature death of your character, because towns have a lot of guards). Baldur's Gate 2 is a real bitch, fighting the higher level entities is not easy, and saving the game frequently becomes necessary.
One more genre I can't get enough of. Flight sims. Be they set in Star Wars or World War II, I love 'em. Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator WWII Europe (I'm paraphrasing the name, but you get the idea) is marvelous. Beautifully rendered terrain, realistic physics, and missions that, if they were never actually flown the way depicted, are very close to reality. I won't bore you with details here, but this is the very best of what computer games can be. If we ever get decent VR, a good WWII flight sim will be one of the first things I try. The flip side of "real" sims like the above is the Star Wars X-Wing series, the latest iteration of which is X-Wing Alliance. I've been playing the X-wing games since they came out, and let me tell you, time has been good to these games. The added processing power has led to amazing graphics and giant dogfights just like in the movies. The final Alliance mission is actually flying the Millenium Falcon into the 2nd Death Star to knock out the primary reactor. For Star Wars freaks like me, this is totally, and completely, one of the best things ever made. If you're not into Star Wars, you probably don't get it, and don't know what the Millenium Falcon is anyway. Trust me, it's awesome.
Oh, another space sim. Wing Commander 2. There are a great many Wing Commander games, but WC2 was the one I played. It's quite old, I can't play it anymore, it was made before Windows 3.1, and in spite of Microsoft's assurances of backwards compatibility, getting DOS games to work in anything beyond Windows 95 is a lost cause. Too bad, I still have the disc. I would love to load this sucker up and go through the whole campaign again. The ONLY problem with it is that the battles are very small, maximum of about 15 ships of all sizes involved. The graphics were revolutionary for their time, and the 3D flight sim was in its infancy. A well thought-out story was added, as well as tons of bonus missions once the regular game was finished....This one's a cult classic. It's essentially WWII turned into a space game. If anyone with any influence at Microsoft reads this, put DOS, not DOS emulation, or in the case of Windows ME, nothing at all, back into the kit. Gamers will thank you. It's really hard trying to work around your OS to play a 10 or 15 year old game.