The most popular urban setting games

Hooligans: Storm Over Europe is not interested in subtlety. Released in 2002, it puts you in charge of a group of football hooligans and asks you to cause as much chaos as possible...

The original Grand Theft Auto drops you into a city where rules are more of a suggestion than an obligation. In Grand Theft Auto, you play from a top-down perspective that somehow ...

Grand Theft Auto 2 refines the original formula and then adds more attitude, more chaos, and more ways to get into trouble. In Grand Theft Auto 2, gangs matter, reputation matters,...

In Crazy Taxi, subtlety is for losers. Your mission: drive a cab like a maniac, pick up passengers, and deliver them to their destination faster than they can scream. Set to a punk...

Road Rash is a 1996 Windows conversion of the famously chaotic motorcycle racing game, where winning races involves considerably more than simply taking the best racing line. Playe...

Bigger, bolder, and with more statues of yourself than ever, Caesar 2 builds on its predecessor like Rome after a good tax season. Now you get to manage both cities and provinces, ...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games in 2002. It's the fourth main entry in the GTA series...

SimCity 2000 takes the original city-building formula and expands it into a much richer simulation. Players can construct roads, highways, subways, power networks, water systems, r...

When Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards debuted in 1987, it introduced one of gaming's most famously awkward protagonists. Larry spends the adventure searching...

Police Quest 1: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is a 1987 adventure game that puts players in the role of a police officer investigating crimes and following proper law enforcement p...

The Blues Brothers transforms Jake and Elwood Blues into the stars of a colorful platform adventure. Released in 1991, it sends the duo through a series of stages filled with obsta...

You are a cat. Not a cool panther or a mystical tiger. Just a good old alley cat trying to make it through a day full of brooms, angry dogs, and questionable fish. Alley Cat is a f...

In Carmageddon, winning a race is just one of three options—the other two involve mowing down pedestrians or wrecking your opponents. It’s the game your parents definit...

SimTower turns building management into a surprisingly addictive simulation in which players construct and operate a huge vertical complex. Instead of spreading a city across a map...

SimCity (AKA SimCity Classic) is the game that turned urban planning into one of the most addictive forms of procrastination ever invented. Released in 1989, it lets play...

Dope Wars is a text-based simulation game that originated as a DOS program in the early 1980s, but gained popularity in its Windows version released in 1998. The game puts players ...

The Bard's Tale is one of the great early computer RPGs, taking players into a dangerous fantasy world where creating a party is only the beginning of the trouble. Released in 1987...

SimCopter is a 1996 simulation that combines helicopter flying with the familiar city-building world of SimCity. Players pilot a helicopter through cities, responding to emergencie...

Back in 1992, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel set the bar for pixelated deduction. A famous actress is dead, and every gentleman in London seems...

If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a skyscraper-sized menace with a grudge against architecture, Rampage gives you the keys to that very peculiar dream. You pic...

The spiritual sequel to SimTower, Yoot Tower asks the important question: what if you were god, but only over elevators, sushi bars, and the occasional alien invasion? It’s a...

Softporn Adventure is a 1981 text adventure that occupies a peculiar place in computer-game history. Created during the early era of interactive fiction, it uses written descriptio...

The Simpsons Arcade Game, developed and published by Konami, is a classic side-scrolling beat-'em-up that became highly popular in arcades during the early '90s. Players take ...

Dreamweb (1994) went full dark cyberpunk, and it didn’t pull its punches. You play Ryan, a man convinced he’s on a mission from mysterious forces to kill seven people w...

There’s something oddly admirable about a game that hands you a polyester-clad disaster like Larry and says, “Go on, make him succeed.” Leisure Suit Larry 1: In t...

The 1990 adaptation of Tim Burton’s Batman hit DOS screens with a moody mix of driving, platforming, and side-scrolling bat-beatdowns. Batman: The Movie swings between genres...

In Jones in the Fast Lane, success is measured not by defeating monsters or saving kingdoms, but by surviving everyday life. Released in 1991, this unusual board game simulation ha...

Rise of the Dragon is a 1990 adventure game set in a futuristic Los Angeles where organized crime, corruption, and strange technology create a dangerous urban landscape. Players ta...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

Ever dreamt of running ancient Rome without the toga chafing? Caesar hands you the reins of a budding province and expects you to not burn it to the ground—ideally. This city...