By Andrew Park, Bob Colayco, and Jason Ocampo
Design by James Cheung

What are the first games that come to mind when you think about the PC games of 2004? Doom 3? Half-Life 2? Far Cry? Sure, several highly anticipated first-person shooters have been released this year for the PC, with more still on the way. With so much attention placed on the shooter genre, it's relatively easy to forget about the great strategy games that are on the way or have already come out for the PC. Games like Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots and Ground Control II: Operation Exodus have already received much critical acclaim, while others, like The Sims 2, Rome: Total War, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, promise to deliver similarly enjoyable experiences. The prevalence of strategy games on the PC platform helps set it apart from consoles, where the genre is generally not as well represented.

With so many excellent and promising PC strategy games to choose from, it can be difficult to keep them all straight. GameSpot's 2004 PC Strategy Roundup gives you an at-a-glance summary of all the top PC strategy games of this year. Use the following menu to browse the games by theme: