A better Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game than the official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game.

First of all, this game is gorgeous. Mike Singleton really knew his way around the ZX Spectrum and was able to use its very limited hardware to create a game with a surreal and ethereal aesthetic that's incredible to this day.

No content just flexing his technomancy visually, Singleton also proved that the Spectrum's 16 KiB of RAM was more than enough to create a deep, engaging and complex mix of adventure and strategy. Imagine you're in the middle of a big battle from the Lord of the Rings books, controlling massive armies against the forces of Mordor - but you can also just zoom in and take control of a individual hero like Aragorn or Legolas and try to convince other lords to join your cause or sneak in Mount Doom to try and destroy the One Ring and end the war. That's how playing this game feels like.

(OR you can just turtle all your armies in a single fortress and mow down the incoming waves of enemies until there's not a single one left and just walk into Mordor afterwards. Now that's something the Fellowship didn't think of!)

The perfect Interactive Fiction for people who sucks at Interactive Fictions. There are almost no puzzles and the focus is boundless exploration, not mapping. It would probably be called a "walking simulator" if it was released nowadays, but it puts many of these games to shame in scope, detail and engagement.

The few life sims I played feel like a dollhouse on steroids. You're not really simulating life, you're just making up dramatic stories with your digital dolls. Which is all fine and good, I loved playing with dolls as a child and even nowadays I have tons of fun playing with dolls and figurines with my nephew.

Alter Ego, on the other hand, really tries to simulate a life, with all the its ups, downs and embarrassings. Sometimes it's all very mundane, but don't be mistaken: the Alter Ego doesn't pull any punches and touches on some topics that other games wouldn't dare even today.

Sierra is infamous for its obtuse adventure games full of dead ends and unsolvable puzzles. Although it's true to some extent, it's unfair to remember the Studio just for that. Sure, some of their games had a ton of bullshit, but even their most infuriatingly hard games were immersive little worlds that rewarded careful exploration. The old text parser interface may be finicky at times, but it encouraged a lot of experimentation and the point system, fair from being an atavism from older times, was a clever way to always point you at the right direction.

Imho, The Colonel's Bequest is the Sierra game where the strongest points of their design principles really shine, with very little bullshit to tarnish the experience. It's a shame it's not as famous as King's Quest or Space Quest.

I like combat-focused RPGs as much as the next guy, but sometimes all I need is a RPG focused on dungeon crawling, puzzles, towns, NPCs, treasure hunting, exploration - anything and everything besides combat.

The Quest for Glory series explicitly blurs the lines between Adventures and RPGs to create a true role playing experience. I have yet to play the rest anything past the second one, but I can confidently say that Trial By Fire is quite successful at its intent. Unlike QFG1, it leans more heavily the "adventure" side of the equation, to its own benefit: there's no need for grinding and much less busywork and all quests can be solved in smart and interesting ways. Just remember to use the manual and the map that comes with it. There's a reason they came with the game.

If a quasi-metroidvanian take on Asteroids does not interest you, maybe one of the greatest soundtracks the Mega Drive has ever conceived should suffice.

I read somewhere that Sid Meier's take on sequels is to divide it on three parts: 1 third of the game will be just like the previous game, 1 third will be greatly expanded upon and 1 third will be dedicated new mechanics and ideas. I don't know how true this saying is (it may be apocryphal or I may be misremembering something), but I think it explains why every Civilization is, at the same time, endearingly familiar and whole unique.

Colonization, on the other hand, feels like it was made before this (hypothetical?) rule came up. It closely resembles its predecessor, with a huge focus on the micromanagement of your colonies and the logistical optimization of your nation. It scratches a kind of itch that only Civ1 tried to scratch, an itch that by design no other Civ will ever try to scratch.