The most popular urban setting games

Before million-dollar stadiums and sponsorship deals, there was Street Sports Baseball (1987, DOS)—where kids played in backyards, on cracked concrete, and sometimes next to ...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colo...

Chaos Overlords is a cyberpunk-themed strategy game developed by Stick Man Games and published by New World Computing in 1996. Set in a dystopian future, the game focuses on contro...

Metropolis offers a fascinating early vision of urban management, challenging players to build and develop a functioning city while balancing infrastructure, resources, and the nee...

Before there was Capitalism 2, there was Capitalism Plus, which basically took the original and added a few bells, whistles, and ways to fail spectacularly. It’s like being h...

Before the shades, the muscles, and the one-liners, Duke Nukem was just a guy in a 2D platformer trying to save the world from an evil scientist. It’s bright, fast, and glori...

Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon mixes detective fiction, science fiction, comedy, puzzles, and full-motion video into one gloriously eccentric adventure. Tex Murphy is a private i...

The Clue! turns the classic murder-mystery board game concept into a computer adventure with investigation, deduction, and a suitably suspicious collection of characters. The famil...

Italian noir meets circus mystery in Yellow Kid: Giallo al Circo, where you play a journalist with a yellow trench coat and more curiosity than self-preservation. The game’s ...

Adapting movies into games is always tricky, but Predator 2 gives it a shot with mixed results. You play as a cop cleaning up the mean streets while occasionally being stalked by t...

Released in 2005, Lincity NG modernizes the classic city-building formula by placing equal emphasis on economic growth, environmental responsibility, and long-term sustainability. ...

In APB (1989), you’re a cop in a little squad car with a huge attitude problem. Your job? Pull over criminals, avoid donuts, and try not to smash into every tree, wall, and p...

In Street Sports Basketball (1987, DOS), forget polished courts and referees—this is basketball played between garages, with trash cans as sidelines and pride on the line. Th...

Street Sports Soccer (1988, DOS) trades professional pitches for empty lots, with goalposts made of bricks and wild kids chasing glory. It’s messy, fast, and surprisingly end...

Miami Vice brings the stylish atmosphere of the famous television series to the world of computer games, mixing action, investigation, and crime-fighting in a distinctly late-1980s...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a criminal economist in 1980s New York, Drug Wars has your fix—pun intended. This early DOS classic throws you into t...

Released in 1984, Frogger Jr. takes the familiar Frogger concept and gives it a slightly friendlier, more educational twist. Levels are themed around letters, numbers, and simple l...

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak...

Mean Streets (1989) throws you into a gritty sci-fi detective story where neon lights, flying cars, and criminal conspiracies are just part of a normal workday. You play as a priva...

Berlin 1948 throws you into post-war Germany as a secret agent on a noir-flavored mission through a city drenched in trench coats and suspicion. It’s one part spy thriller, o...

Fievel's back, and this time it’s personal. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West lets you step into the little cowboy boots of everyone’s favorite Russian mouse as he tri...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

A gloriously grimy cyberpunk romp, Ranx: The Video Game drops you in a future where technology, attitude, and questionable hygiene coexist in uneasy harmony. Based on the French co...

Synidcate Wars takes everything its predecessor did and dials it up to an almost reckless degree, swapping the isometric restraint for full 3D chaos and giving you even more ways t...

Streets of SimCity takes the city-building world of SimCity and drops the player directly onto its streets. Instead of calmly planning roads and zoning districts from above, you ca...

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is a 1991 mystery adventure that attempts to recreate the experience of investigating a Holmes story rather than simply watching one unfold. Pl...

Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy is a 1998 cyberpunk adventure set in a futuristic city where corruption, conspiracies, technology, and suspiciously complicated secrets are all par...

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1992) is what happens when a simple beat-’em-up decides to go globetrotting. Instead of just brawling through alleys, Billy and Jimmy trav...

William Shatner's TekWar takes the futuristic crime world of the TekWar novels and turns it into a first-person shooter filled with gunfights, technology, and suspiciously dangerou...

The Third Courier is a Cold War thriller built around espionage, investigation and the decidedly uncomfortable business of trying to uncover a secret before someone eliminates you....