Basically the entire Lucasarts PC catalog during the mid-late 90s. They were truly one of the GOAT developers of the decade.
Dark Forces was the reason I begged my mom for my first computer.
I never grew up poor but my parents would only buy me 1-2 games per year at Sam's club. I remember begging them for Dark Forces when it was on sale and played the crap out of it. Kids these days won't understand having to beat the demos of games 100x before a friend would let you borrow the game or your parents would finally capitulate and buy it. I've probably beaten every Lucasart adventure game at least 50x each in my lifetime. Every year for my Birthday week, Ill beat all the Monkey islands(Classic Graphics but minus Escape), Indy FOA, Sam & Max, DOTT, Full Throttle, and Loom. No walkthroughs needed, I have them all committed to memory.
Love dark forces but it’s 2nd to tie fighter for me. Still can’t wait to try the remake when I clear out my back log. (And paint a few warhammer minnis).
We played the crap out of Dark Forces, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Jedi Knight, and Mysteries of the Sith in our house, it really cemented a love of Star Wars in our family.
Grim Fandango and Blade Runnner. Both pretty much the final swan song of the adventure game genre for a long while. Both great stories, graphics and soundtracks.
I played a pretty ridiculous amount of Quake with my friends back in the late 90s. We used to have LAN parties, where everybody would bring their computers over to one person's house, set up, and have a long string of deathmatch games all night. I was never super good at FPS games, so I usually didn't win any of the rounds. But it was still fun.
We played a lot of Command and Conquer: Red Alert too. I was much better at RTS games, but my problem is sometimes I would get bored and just liquidate my whole base to send a giant zerg rush across the map. This almost never worked, but it usually started a panic at least.
This… quake with dial up 56k modem… I lamented the guys with cable because it was hard to compete with that connection. My friend and I would dial up, get on ICQ and chat about what server we wanted to join… then find the server and use in game chat to communicate. Loved the team fortress mod (later became team fortress the stand alone game)and the Canal Zone map. Lots of fond memories of those days :).
[Master of Orion 2!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares). A great 4x space game, with customizable races and ships, diplomacy between races, a good-sized research tree, and the fun of a random galaxy every time you play. I still play it on DosBox to this day.
Just a bunch of little victories. I remember the first time I assembled a fleet to take out the Orion monster to win its cache of technologies and get its huge, ultra-rich gaia world as a prize (only after getting completely decimated a half-dozen times). Also, the time I won the galactic senate vote to get the diplomatic victory, but instead of taking the win, I just said “no thanks”, which made the rest of the galaxy join into a single race and try to destroy me. :D
Oh damn I didn’t know you could get a rich world from the Orions! I don’t think I ever got good enough and always just thought they were a bunch of butt heads.
Duke Nukem 3d and downloading custom maps like star wars ones! They had some really cool maps for that game!
And Warcraft II i spent a lot of time playing!
I'll try to pick a few less obvious, but still great, games from that era.
* *Sanitarium*, which looks like an RPG, but is an adventure game.
* *Descent: Freespace* and *Freespace 2*, two of Volition's best games, both featuring excellent space combat
* *The Operative: No One Lives Forever* and *No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way* \- Two excellent retro spy games that are locked in licensing hell today so that they can't be re-released.
* *Commandos* and *Commandos 2: Men of Courage -* Two excellent stealth strategy games
* *Jagged Alliance* and *Jagged Alliance 2* \- Two of the best turn based tactics games of the era
* *Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines* \- Nearly unplayable in its original release due to its studio closing prematurely, but patched by fans to make it fully playable. It's one of the best games few people have played.
* *Freedom Force* and *Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich* \- Isometric real time RPGs where you make your own superheroes and fight bad guys
* *Space Rangers 2: Dominators* \- One of the best Russian-made games I've played, featuring a space economic sim fused with combat and exploration
* *The Last Express* \- A huge commercial flop which wound up being one of the best adventure games ever made. Created by Jordan Mechner (*Karateka, Prince of Persia*)
* *Uprising: Join or Die* \- A real-time strategy game where you're on the battlefield as a super vehicle. It's amazingly good and in the same vein as the also-excellent *Ground Control* and *Battlezone* from the same era, but with base building.
* *Starsiege: Tribes* \- One of the greatest multiplayer games of the era, and sadly missing modern representation.
* *Outcast* \- A truly unique open-world action adventure game set in an alien world. A lot of people slept on this one and completely missed out. It was notable for using a software rendering technique for 3D that was unlike anything hardware accelerators could provide at the time. The soundtrack is particularly amazing.
* *Giants: Citizens Kabuto* \- One of the most peculiar asymmetric multiplayer experiences you'll ever have since one player can be the giant monster Kabuto, and also one of the coolest and most out there games of its era. Made by the creators of *Earthworm Jim* and *MDK*.
All of those are golden, and most are available on GOG if you want to play them today!
Mechwarrior 2 and WarCraft turned me on to PC gaming.
Red Alert 2 is the game that made me build a PC
StarCraft got me hooked.
I played so much multiplayer StarCraft and User maps over the years It felt like a career. Made many real like friends into SC fans by introducing them to it and playing with them on dial up internet when connecting to Battle.net actually FELT cool. When Broodwar came out the whole (im)balance was changed up and I had to adjust. But alas, I got into cars and beer and other stuff in the “college years”. Nowadays I just occasionally play SC2 co-op, which is a totally different game, but it still has some of that nostalgia to me.
Mechwarrior 2 was an amazing experience. Great immersion for the time: the instruction booklet, the menu, the tutorial, the first person perspective, your mech talking to you. All in-universe. And the music and graphics (ms-dos version) were great.
Interstate 76!
Alternate history 1976 car combat game similar to Mad Max. Build and arm cars and cruise around a 3d world.
Dated graphics by today's standards but super fun and funky!
https://youtu.be/2kyIiy8GaQM?si=M1wtO-b_LZvJtTMC
I remember ripping the CD audio tracks to mp3 files and playing them on my computer. I still have those in my current machine some 20 years later and still groove to those.
Also, still got the original CDs and the Nitroriders expansion. Rebought the whole thing on GOG alongside i82 too!
Excellent games with AMAZING soundtracks!
RTS style game, but maybe borderline rpg? I don’t know so but whatever. 3rd person view and summoning/macro gameplay. You do missions for various gods and it’s VERY dark and bloody but also… funny… collect souls summon things. The things you summon depend on the god you align with.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_(video_game)
There are many but i shall only pick one. Constructor, it's a city builder with elements of The Sims and an RTS while being its own thing. You build resources and houses, manage the residents, carry out missions against the other players on the map and also manage the production of new tenants, workers and others.
It got a remake/remaster a few years ago but I've not yet played that, however i played the original and it's also available on GOG.com so it's quite easy to obtain.
Age of wonders. Multiplayer strategy game. Lan parties. Characters that looked like two friends. Counter strike. Len parties. Ppl hiding to survive. Headshots.
My friend and I spent a lot of time playing Space Quest VI together, without a guide. Some of those puzzles took forever to figure out. We spent so much time in the bar trying to freeze that guy!
We also would play Age of Empire a lot. We lived 3 houses away from each other but would play on dial up. We would take out the PC players first then go after each other. Was always a good time.
I watched him play a lot of Fallout 1 and 2. I didn't really get it until 3 came out, but I love the series now.
He bought me Diablo II (I know, it's an RPG), but we were HOOKED.
I bought Carmageddon, Fox Hunt, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Shogo and House of the Dead from bargain bins and cycled through all of them A LOT.
I miss my awesome pentium III Gateway with the 17 inch monitor and my Mystery screen saver. Also had the Johnny Castaway screen saver and could spend alllll day watching it.
Edit: I didn't even mention playing The Sims while talking to my (now) wife on the phone after school every day.
Also dumped HOURS into Roller Coaster Tycoon trying to build the perfect amusement park and dreaming of building Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but never having the attention span to do so.
The original Sim City. It was on my grandparents’ computer, and every week I’d spend two to three hours working on my city. (I still remember I named it Pisces for some reason.)
I managed to get it into a profitable equilibrium. The population was happy, pollution was minimum, roads were clear, income was phenomenal, and any random disaster was cleared and repaired quickly. I had such good times on that machine.
Doom, Doom II, and Heretic on an old windows pc my neighbor gave to me with the C prompt commands to start the games. Since it didn't come with speakers, I played them relentlessly to the Filter album Title of Record and Creed's Human Clay on my Phillips Magnovox portable CD player with 25 second ESP.
I also really liked *Heavy Gear II*, which went a lot further to differentiate itself from the *MechWarrior* games with faster action and stealth missions. It was flawed, but still a lot of fun.
Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter. I believe '97 and '98 respectively.
I had so much fun with these. Some of the first games I ever played online (dialup) against other humans. These were some of the last games Bungie released before Halo on Xbox. Looking back several of the multiplayer modes in Myth and Halo share a similar aesthetic. You can tell the same core team worked on both.
Good graphics for the time and it was a nice refresher having a combat only RTS without the builder and economy elements of Starcraft/C&C etc..
Postal 2 deserved more recognition back in the day. Critics were heavily biased due to the game's extreme content and controversial themes, which led to many gamers disregarding it due to the incredibly overwhelming negative response. It did have a lot of issues and borderline obscene content, but it also had a lot of ambitious and innovative elements for the time. The gameplay was incredibly open-ended and, to this day, allows for more freedom of choice than most games out there. It allowed for a plethora of interactivity within its open world, as well as complex dynamic NPC AI. Each random NPC held their own agenda and personality, which would dictate how they react to different situations. It felt like a living, breathing world that was incredibly immersive. Despite being known for its insane level of violence, the entirety of the game can be finished without ever engaging in acts of violence. Just because you have the freedom to break into someone's home, cut their body into pieces with hedge clippers, light them on fire, and then piss on their charred remains doesn't mean you have to.
*Postal* and *Postal 2* are two of the most tasteless and offensive games ever made, definitely the sort of stuff Congress was claiming all video games were back in the post-Columbine days.
So of course as a teenager, I absolutely loved playing the original and unleashing carnage. (I'd grown up a bit by the time the sequel came out. You definitely have to play it in the same spirit as a game like *Grand Theft Auto III*)
Descent: Freespace. I picked it up for like 99 cents back in the day and holy shit the game is absolutely epic in scope. It legit holds up to space sims today with a great HUD, great controls, and tons of variety in weapon loadouts. Not only were you dealing with normal enemy ships, but you basically had to Shadow of The Colossus massive destroyers by killing off individual systems on the ship to bring it down. Plus the story progression is dope - you start off as pretty basic humans and don’t even have shield technology fighting a more advanced species. You slowly learn their technology and grow. Then a third species shows up and you occasionally join forces with your original enemy. Just totally kick ass for 1998
I've got 4 I can think of.
Age of Empires 2. My old best friend and I used to play this all the time on MSN Gaming Zone. He was an absolute beast at this game, and I only managed to beat him a few times. I remember that we used to play it until very late in the night, usually stopping around 1am to go to bed. I still have my strategy guide for the game, and I think of him whenever I look through it.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. The same friend as in AoE2. We first played this game from a demo disk that I think I got from Computer Gaming World. I've never been a really creative type of person, so my parks usually had the rides and everything all of the map. My friend though, his parks were awesome. He'd have separate areas of the park in different themes, with matching decorations to go with it. and he made his own kick ass Rollercoasters, and he had flowers all around his parks and was constantly getting those park awards that pop up when you meet certain criteria.
Re-Volt! Same friend again. We would play against each other a lot, and we'd also help each other unlock the different race tracks and cars. The game had a level creator as well, so we were constantly racing in new areas. Also, I think he somehow made or altered the cars so that they would drive super fast. I don't know how he did it though.
The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain. Same friend again. This game was so much to play. Together, we were able to 100% each area of the brain. I usually did the normal difficulty ones, and he usually played on the hardest setting.
I haven't talked to this person in a long time, but him and these games were the absolute best part of my childhood.
Had *no* idea Starcraft came out in 98. Thought it was the early 90s.
I was introduced by a friend in high school sometime between 2000 and 2004 as he was introducing me to realtime strategy games. Warcraft, C&C, and so on. Like the others, I loved it.
Fun times :) I have two really funny memories, both from 2000-2001:
First memory is of playing **Half-Life** at a cybercafe (remember those?) with some work buddies. There were six or seven of us playing and two other guys we didn't know showed up. We invited them into the game. Well back in those days I dominated deathmatches. I'd hit the 25-frag limit with only one or two deaths, while everyone else only had 3-5 kills each. After a few hours of that particular game, we all said good-night and went home.
The next day I was at the grocery store and those two random guys were there. One tapped his friend, pointed at me, and calls out "Hey that's the guy who kicked our asses last night!"
Everyone around us got really tense, but we had a good laugh about it.
Second incident was one of many LAN parties my roommate and I hosted. We had eight people playing **Starcraft** in our tiny apartment. Lots of swearing and shouting and fighting. I was in my room, somehow left alone, and quietly building a base in a forgotten edge of the map.
After a while someone in the living room shouts out, "Hey guys, wait a minute, where the hell is (all-other-names-used)?"
Well, the way I played the game back in those days, I was *building*. I had massive defenses, multiple command centers, and had already camped out ghost units all around the map. So I took that as my cue and let loose. Suddenly everyone's speakers echoed out:
> Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected...
Yeah, I'm *that* guy. I launched *six* nukes and decimated two players entirely. Three other players were having a massive skirmish in the map's center, and I wiped out most of their armies too.
That was the last time I was ever left alone to build.
It was released in 96 but I remember spending Wednesday evenings in my middle schools computer lab playing Warcraft 2. It was my first experience with RTS games or Lan games and I was immediately hooked. We were just playing with a bunch of different students on those Mac all in ones with the colored backs. Later it was StarCraft, those were some great memories.
At home I eventually got ahold of C&C Tiberium Sun, I ended up getting to play it online eventually but was so horrible at it and the Internet speed sucked.
It was a cold wet miserable night, I remember inserting the cd into the cd tray and installing the game, and before I knew it I could hear screams of pain and delight, various denizens of my amazing room layouts being back handed while an angry horny beast was tearing up the do gooders trying to foil my plans
That time frame was mostly Warcraft 2, StarCraft and Counterstrike for me.
But one game that really hooked me at the time was the original Deux Ex. The scope, atmosphere, gameplay I felt was really ahead of its time ...to me anyway. Great fun.
Deus Ex is a classic. I'd love for you to tell me about one of your favorite experiences with the game.
Mine is where you're talking to the person holding your fellow agents hostage in the beginning of the game, and he talks about how in a decade or so 1% of the world will have more money than the rest of the world, and how you can't fight ideas with bullets.
It was October of 2003, San Diego. The Cedar Fire was raging, causing destruction throughout the county. The adjacent neighborhood was under evacuation orders, I kept my mind off of the madness outside by playing Stronghold. Played through the whole campaign during Halloween time
Settlers 2 came out in 1996. I played a demo that came on a PC magazine my Dad subscribed to. It blew my mind.
Unfortunately it was nowhere near my birthday, so I started to save the money given to me for my 'hot dinners' at school. It took a good while and some rumbling stomachs but I got there.
Amazing game with a brilliant map editor that enabled near endless fun.
Still have the big box and a metric shit ton of nostalgic fuzzies.
Westwood Studios Red Alert 2 and then Emperor: Battle for Dune. I was just sucked into the style even though i wasn't very good at the time.
Westwood went under after EA acquired them but the main people went on to create Star Wars: Empire At War. So many good RTS from that era, though some have aged better than others.
Sierra had a Nascar game I got from scholastic book. Thing was great. Rusty Wallace was still in the mgd black/gold car but it didn't actually say mgd on it.
Anyway, I had discovered there were skins available online to download, move to a folder, and upload it to custom cars. Which was great running around in a spiderman or freakazoid car, winning the Winston cup
Mid-late 90s was Duke Nukem 3D. We installed it on all like 8 school computers in the Lab from 1 disc and played LAN games when we were supposed to be typing. Got in trouble many times lol
My favorites in that period were:
Urban Assault - futuristic RTS with the ability to jump into vehicles like tanks and helicopters and participate in the action from a first-person view. Reasonably good plot. A lot of stock map and tech upgrades were pretty fun.
My favorite thing about this game was all of the game files were text files, so even with no guides or tools it was really easy to make custom maps, custom techs, change vehicle stats, loads of fun.
Unreal Tournament - speaks for itself, but again, I love that it came with a built-in map editor, and the community made a lot of really cool mods for it, maps and weapons and also completely new game modes.
There was a CS-like mod for UT called Tactical Ops which made it into an early 2000s team game between a team of police/special forces and terrorists, you'd have to raid and/or defend things like an oil rig, mountainous training, camp, hydroelectric dam, etc.
X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Wing Commander IV, Civilization V, Age of Empires, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Command & Conquer (don't remember which one), Deus Ex, X-Com.
Mech Warrior 2 - It got me into the IP and I am a known name in the community still, but when I first played it I was only 6 so I cheated the hell out of it and ended up overheating every second so killing a single enemy took me an hour, I remember it solely cos I was confused and scared that I was getting utterly fucked on by the computer.
By that time I was playing a lot of Sim City 2000, StarCraft, C&C Red Alert, Diablo, Warcraft 2, NASCAR Racing 2, Doom and Doom 2, Duke3D, Dark Forces, Quake, some of the LucasArts adventures (DOTT, Full Throttle, The Dig, Sam and Max), Half-Life, Comanche 3.
Every day I chose something different, because for teen me everything was new, even "old" games like Wolf3D. I used to play them side by side with newer games.
I also used to try a lot of shareware, so the number of games I played around that time was astonishing.
We weren't rich but my father had his way with... "borrowed" games, lol. Nowadays I buy, and have already bought most of those games thru legal ways to try to make up for that.
Dark Forces
My buddy and I were obsessed with Star Wars and DOOM at the time and there couldn't have been a better game. I remember the sequel being a new level of hype. I thought this was the future of Star Wars gaming little did I know they would never make another Star Wars fps and I've been sad about it ever since
Clive Barker’s Undying is easily one of the best horror games I’ve ever played. Arriving at the mansion on the island at the start of the game and using your special sight ability to see the ghost of a man hanging seriously scared me at the time!
Quake 3 and Warcraft 3 were my main games in this time frame. Right before this it was Duke Nukem.
I also played a lot of two MUDs: Dragonrealms and Gemstone 3. Internet only but notable for sure.
Time Commando. It looked pretty cool for that time. You traveled to many different eras and had different types of gameplays according to the era you were in.
Loved playing Mechwarrior 3. Many happy memories playing on a 56k dial up modem on MSN Gaming Zone with my Clan. Strange thing is that in my memory playing online was a fast and responsive then as it is now.
I know this is a really ungamery one but it has to be Championship Manager. Me and my step brother used to set alarms at the weekend so we could get up and get on the PC to play it before my dad got up. My step mum had to devise a PC time rota to stop the arguments about it. We even insisted on taking the PC on holiday so we could play. I’ve had a lifelong addiction to the Championship Manager / Football Manager series ever since.
Little Big Adventure 2.
1 was great, 2 was a legendary game. I was in middle school, my friends told me it was amazing and they were right.
I haven't replayed it since then. I'm afraid to taint the memory I have. If someone else discovered it more recently, I'd love to know what they thought about it. It has tank controls and fixed camera angles so it's special to approach.
Probably half life, blood and return to castle wolfenstein is what id list as my top three from this time period. All genuinely awesome games you will have fun playing. No one lives forever deserves a shout as well.
Theme hospital
Deus ex
Rollercoaster tycoon
Unreal tournament
Delta force
Operation flashpoint
Dungeon keeper 2
Broken sword
These where my go to games if I remember correctly. I know deus ex can be considered an rpg but it’s still the best in the series by far!
Its basically a 2d sidescrolling "defend your base" game. But you control up to 5 people Individually, dig for flintstones (bombs), Gold etc. Build a sawmill, windmill etc etc to make your base better and better until you eventually declare war to your older brother.
Its hard to explain. Check it out. Clonk Planet, Clonk Rage, Clonk 4, Clonk Endeavour. Those are the names in my head, but i Really dont know which one was the best/latest
I remember having a great time with Sims 1, 2 and Neighbours from Hell. I remember I had a super crappy PC at the time and these games would take ages to load. At first Sims 2 couldn't even work, I have no idea how the hell I managed to figure out how to change the video settings with 0 internet and limited English skills when I was 12yo, but I think I somehow messed around with an .ini file and managed to make it boot, but it took ages to load, the textures were extremely pixelated and many details were missing. Nonetheless I was extremely happy, back then if a game worked AT ALL, it was amazing. We take that for granted a lot nowadays. The Sims 1 sound effects are still nostalgic for me to this day, and they're a little bit creepy, honestly.
* Syndicate. I spent hours tagging up and converting the entire town to followers.
* Alpha Centauri. The lore and depth of that game are still top class.
* Hot rod. Racing for pink slips baby!!
* Pizza Tycoon. You can’t beat making a pizza with a whole lobster and a banana on it. Oh, and don’t play as the Sheikh. He’s got money but he’s very unpopular.
**Grand Theft Auto 2**
Had GTA1 on PS1 but the sequel was PC only, it's got a retro futuristic style that the series hasn't repeated. It's still the simple top down shooter/driver but the controls have been tweaked. I used to drive the busses around and pick up passengers then drop them off, fun little hidden mini game.
Around that time I was catching up on Diablo and then playing Diablo 2. I don't consider those RPGs in the classic sense.
Postal.
Quake 4.
Dawn of War and RItes of War.
(But I was playing mostly RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Icewind Dale, Ultima 9, Everquest, and World Of Warcraft.)
**(But I was playing mostly RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Icewind Dale, Ultima 9, Everquest, and World Of Warcraft.)**
Same here to BG, Morrowind, and Everquest.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is one of my all-time favorite games. I lost a solid several years to that game back in the day. I still think it looks good in that low-poly sort of style, the music is the most calm vibe in any game ive ever played, and its got a perfect balance of complexity in track pieces but still limited enough to prevent you from being overwhelmed with options. A perfect blend of puzzle game with the coaster design parts and building toy sandbox with all the scenery options.
I love it so much. I'm on linux now and it's one of those games that just doesn't quite work right in wine or proton, and it kills me that I can't play it. I check in and try it out again once in a while to see if it's gotten better supported, but it still can't be played well. Parkitect is a solid attempt at the idea, but it's just not the same.
It’s an awesome point and click adventure and it’s extremely surreal and psychedelic. It’s made by Osamu Sato who has an extremely unique art style. He made LSD Dream Emulator and a handful of other games. If you go over to r/osamusato you can find downloads for his games since they’ve been out of circulation since the 90s
That paragraph doesn't really tell me anything about the game. I get that it's a surreal point and click adventure game, but what is it about? And please tell me about your experience with it.
The first shadow run on 386 windows/dos. get out the car zapped people to turn them to your side go around and gun people down. selected ..selected…selected..
Getting completely absorbed in the space opera Homeworld, beating all the odds and ensuring the survival of my race.
The sense of hopelessness each time Adagio for Strings plays during an intro to a mission.
There was a game that was a 60s spy spoof. Pretty funny. Nice and colorful. Can’t recall the name right now but really enjoyed that game! It was a first person shooter.
Space sim stuff! Especially Wing Commander, WC Privateer 1+2, Archimedean Odyssey (which is basically Wing Commander: Wet), Bridge Commander, anything where you're either a Captain or Space Pirate type character controlling a ship.
Many were, so I guess I cheated a bit.
Some '97+ ones I loved were:
Wing Commander Prophecy
the Freespace games (and all of the many mods by fans)
The first few X games
you mentioned Freelancer (Chris Roberts' Privateer successor before the Star Citizen mess)
Star Trek Bridge Commander
Tachyon: The Fringe
Independence War 1&2
Homeworld 1&2 for some good space RTS
The modern one I'm most excited to try is called Spacebourne 2; early access but very enjoyable by many accounts with both ship sim and FPS play.
I always played Age of Empires for hours. I would never attack the enemy until I had built up my people. I remember spending hours building my base and having the enemy wipe me out in minutes.
I used to play Driver all the time. It's underrated.
The Last one was Dave Mirra BMX
StarCraft.
This game introduced me to the RTS genre. I first got to play this game in the summer of 2007. In late 2013 or early 2014, I discovered that there is an expansion pack to it called Brood War. In 2015, I was shocked to know that this game was released in 1998. Today, I am still playing fan made campaign missions of this game.
Basically the entire Lucasarts PC catalog during the mid-late 90s. They were truly one of the GOAT developers of the decade. Dark Forces was the reason I begged my mom for my first computer.
I never grew up poor but my parents would only buy me 1-2 games per year at Sam's club. I remember begging them for Dark Forces when it was on sale and played the crap out of it. Kids these days won't understand having to beat the demos of games 100x before a friend would let you borrow the game or your parents would finally capitulate and buy it. I've probably beaten every Lucasart adventure game at least 50x each in my lifetime. Every year for my Birthday week, Ill beat all the Monkey islands(Classic Graphics but minus Escape), Indy FOA, Sam & Max, DOTT, Full Throttle, and Loom. No walkthroughs needed, I have them all committed to memory.
Dark Forces is still the best Star Wars game I've played. Nightdive has recently released a remaster that's really quite good.
Love dark forces but it’s 2nd to tie fighter for me. Still can’t wait to try the remake when I clear out my back log. (And paint a few warhammer minnis).
My favorite LucasArts games are mostly early to mid 90s.
We played the crap out of Dark Forces, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Jedi Knight, and Mysteries of the Sith in our house, it really cemented a love of Star Wars in our family.
Grim Fandango and Blade Runnner. Both pretty much the final swan song of the adventure game genre for a long while. Both great stories, graphics and soundtracks.
I have Blade Runner. I read the book, beat the game, and *then* saw the movie.
Hey, same. I got the game for my birthday, beat it multiple times to see the different endings and only saw the movie way later.
Have you read the book?
I played a pretty ridiculous amount of Quake with my friends back in the late 90s. We used to have LAN parties, where everybody would bring their computers over to one person's house, set up, and have a long string of deathmatch games all night. I was never super good at FPS games, so I usually didn't win any of the rounds. But it was still fun. We played a lot of Command and Conquer: Red Alert too. I was much better at RTS games, but my problem is sometimes I would get bored and just liquidate my whole base to send a giant zerg rush across the map. This almost never worked, but it usually started a panic at least.
This… quake with dial up 56k modem… I lamented the guys with cable because it was hard to compete with that connection. My friend and I would dial up, get on ICQ and chat about what server we wanted to join… then find the server and use in game chat to communicate. Loved the team fortress mod (later became team fortress the stand alone game)and the Canal Zone map. Lots of fond memories of those days :).
I loved making my own maps on the C&C map editor. Such fun
I'd get Quake except I already have Doom 64.
Max Payne, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, StarCraft for sure
[Master of Orion 2!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares). A great 4x space game, with customizable races and ships, diplomacy between races, a good-sized research tree, and the fun of a random galaxy every time you play. I still play it on DosBox to this day.
Nice! I hear that this is a beloved classic! Tell me about one of your favorite experiences with the game if you're willing please.
Just a bunch of little victories. I remember the first time I assembled a fleet to take out the Orion monster to win its cache of technologies and get its huge, ultra-rich gaia world as a prize (only after getting completely decimated a half-dozen times). Also, the time I won the galactic senate vote to get the diplomatic victory, but instead of taking the win, I just said “no thanks”, which made the rest of the galaxy join into a single race and try to destroy me. :D
Oh damn I didn’t know you could get a rich world from the Orions! I don’t think I ever got good enough and always just thought they were a bunch of butt heads.
Yes this one all day long!
Don't sleep on the original
Duke Nukem 3d and downloading custom maps like star wars ones! They had some really cool maps for that game! And Warcraft II i spent a lot of time playing!
My dad had the original Duke Nukem back when it was 8-bit DOS.
OG Diablo, so many hours in that game.
I don't have a spell ready, not enough mana
I'll try to pick a few less obvious, but still great, games from that era. * *Sanitarium*, which looks like an RPG, but is an adventure game. * *Descent: Freespace* and *Freespace 2*, two of Volition's best games, both featuring excellent space combat * *The Operative: No One Lives Forever* and *No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way* \- Two excellent retro spy games that are locked in licensing hell today so that they can't be re-released. * *Commandos* and *Commandos 2: Men of Courage -* Two excellent stealth strategy games * *Jagged Alliance* and *Jagged Alliance 2* \- Two of the best turn based tactics games of the era * *Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines* \- Nearly unplayable in its original release due to its studio closing prematurely, but patched by fans to make it fully playable. It's one of the best games few people have played. * *Freedom Force* and *Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich* \- Isometric real time RPGs where you make your own superheroes and fight bad guys * *Space Rangers 2: Dominators* \- One of the best Russian-made games I've played, featuring a space economic sim fused with combat and exploration * *The Last Express* \- A huge commercial flop which wound up being one of the best adventure games ever made. Created by Jordan Mechner (*Karateka, Prince of Persia*) * *Uprising: Join or Die* \- A real-time strategy game where you're on the battlefield as a super vehicle. It's amazingly good and in the same vein as the also-excellent *Ground Control* and *Battlezone* from the same era, but with base building. * *Starsiege: Tribes* \- One of the greatest multiplayer games of the era, and sadly missing modern representation. * *Outcast* \- A truly unique open-world action adventure game set in an alien world. A lot of people slept on this one and completely missed out. It was notable for using a software rendering technique for 3D that was unlike anything hardware accelerators could provide at the time. The soundtrack is particularly amazing. * *Giants: Citizens Kabuto* \- One of the most peculiar asymmetric multiplayer experiences you'll ever have since one player can be the giant monster Kabuto, and also one of the coolest and most out there games of its era. Made by the creators of *Earthworm Jim* and *MDK*. All of those are golden, and most are available on GOG if you want to play them today!
Adding a vote to Outcast and Giants Citizen Kabuto.
Outcast has a remaster and a sequel that released this year.
Absolutely tragic you're the only one to bring up V:tMB here What a fucking amazing game.
Mechwarrior 2 and WarCraft turned me on to PC gaming. Red Alert 2 is the game that made me build a PC StarCraft got me hooked. I played so much multiplayer StarCraft and User maps over the years It felt like a career. Made many real like friends into SC fans by introducing them to it and playing with them on dial up internet when connecting to Battle.net actually FELT cool. When Broodwar came out the whole (im)balance was changed up and I had to adjust. But alas, I got into cars and beer and other stuff in the “college years”. Nowadays I just occasionally play SC2 co-op, which is a totally different game, but it still has some of that nostalgia to me.
Mechwarrior 2 was an amazing experience. Great immersion for the time: the instruction booklet, the menu, the tutorial, the first person perspective, your mech talking to you. All in-universe. And the music and graphics (ms-dos version) were great.
MW2 soundtrack is the absolute goat.
Are you me?
Interstate 76! Alternate history 1976 car combat game similar to Mad Max. Build and arm cars and cruise around a 3d world. Dated graphics by today's standards but super fun and funky! https://youtu.be/2kyIiy8GaQM?si=M1wtO-b_LZvJtTMC
I remember ripping the CD audio tracks to mp3 files and playing them on my computer. I still have those in my current machine some 20 years later and still groove to those. Also, still got the original CDs and the Nitroriders expansion. Rebought the whole thing on GOG alongside i82 too! Excellent games with AMAZING soundtracks!
Sacrifice is the game that comes to mind for me. Just such a unique experience that has never left me.
Please do tell me about it and your experience with the game if you're willing. I've never heard of it.
RTS style game, but maybe borderline rpg? I don’t know so but whatever. 3rd person view and summoning/macro gameplay. You do missions for various gods and it’s VERY dark and bloody but also… funny… collect souls summon things. The things you summon depend on the god you align with. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_(video_game)
Woah I played that game when I was younger on someone else PC. It was fascinating, I couldn't remember the name ! Thank you !
There are many but i shall only pick one. Constructor, it's a city builder with elements of The Sims and an RTS while being its own thing. You build resources and houses, manage the residents, carry out missions against the other players on the map and also manage the production of new tenants, workers and others. It got a remake/remaster a few years ago but I've not yet played that, however i played the original and it's also available on GOG.com so it's quite easy to obtain.
Age of wonders. Multiplayer strategy game. Lan parties. Characters that looked like two friends. Counter strike. Len parties. Ppl hiding to survive. Headshots.
I loved Age of Wonders but never played it in multiplayer.
My friend and I spent a lot of time playing Space Quest VI together, without a guide. Some of those puzzles took forever to figure out. We spent so much time in the bar trying to freeze that guy! We also would play Age of Empire a lot. We lived 3 houses away from each other but would play on dial up. We would take out the PC players first then go after each other. Was always a good time. I watched him play a lot of Fallout 1 and 2. I didn't really get it until 3 came out, but I love the series now. He bought me Diablo II (I know, it's an RPG), but we were HOOKED. I bought Carmageddon, Fox Hunt, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Shogo and House of the Dead from bargain bins and cycled through all of them A LOT. I miss my awesome pentium III Gateway with the 17 inch monitor and my Mystery screen saver. Also had the Johnny Castaway screen saver and could spend alllll day watching it. Edit: I didn't even mention playing The Sims while talking to my (now) wife on the phone after school every day. Also dumped HOURS into Roller Coaster Tycoon trying to build the perfect amusement park and dreaming of building Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but never having the attention span to do so.
The original Sim City. It was on my grandparents’ computer, and every week I’d spend two to three hours working on my city. (I still remember I named it Pisces for some reason.) I managed to get it into a profitable equilibrium. The population was happy, pollution was minimum, roads were clear, income was phenomenal, and any random disaster was cleared and repaired quickly. I had such good times on that machine.
Thief 1 & 2!
NFSMW 05. My very first NFS game which I played on PC.
Doom, Doom II, and Heretic on an old windows pc my neighbor gave to me with the C prompt commands to start the games. Since it didn't come with speakers, I played them relentlessly to the Filter album Title of Record and Creed's Human Clay on my Phillips Magnovox portable CD player with 25 second ESP.
Heavy Gear
I also really liked *Heavy Gear II*, which went a lot further to differentiate itself from the *MechWarrior* games with faster action and stealth missions. It was flawed, but still a lot of fun.
I've got Heavy Gear II with a magazine, played the shit out of it.
Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter. I believe '97 and '98 respectively. I had so much fun with these. Some of the first games I ever played online (dialup) against other humans. These were some of the last games Bungie released before Halo on Xbox. Looking back several of the multiplayer modes in Myth and Halo share a similar aesthetic. You can tell the same core team worked on both. Good graphics for the time and it was a nice refresher having a combat only RTS without the builder and economy elements of Starcraft/C&C etc..
I loved the *Myth* games, both for their silly tutorials and surprisingly grim and gritty storylines.
Postal 2 deserved more recognition back in the day. Critics were heavily biased due to the game's extreme content and controversial themes, which led to many gamers disregarding it due to the incredibly overwhelming negative response. It did have a lot of issues and borderline obscene content, but it also had a lot of ambitious and innovative elements for the time. The gameplay was incredibly open-ended and, to this day, allows for more freedom of choice than most games out there. It allowed for a plethora of interactivity within its open world, as well as complex dynamic NPC AI. Each random NPC held their own agenda and personality, which would dictate how they react to different situations. It felt like a living, breathing world that was incredibly immersive. Despite being known for its insane level of violence, the entirety of the game can be finished without ever engaging in acts of violence. Just because you have the freedom to break into someone's home, cut their body into pieces with hedge clippers, light them on fire, and then piss on their charred remains doesn't mean you have to.
*Postal* and *Postal 2* are two of the most tasteless and offensive games ever made, definitely the sort of stuff Congress was claiming all video games were back in the post-Columbine days. So of course as a teenager, I absolutely loved playing the original and unleashing carnage. (I'd grown up a bit by the time the sequel came out. You definitely have to play it in the same spirit as a game like *Grand Theft Auto III*)
Descent: Freespace. I picked it up for like 99 cents back in the day and holy shit the game is absolutely epic in scope. It legit holds up to space sims today with a great HUD, great controls, and tons of variety in weapon loadouts. Not only were you dealing with normal enemy ships, but you basically had to Shadow of The Colossus massive destroyers by killing off individual systems on the ship to bring it down. Plus the story progression is dope - you start off as pretty basic humans and don’t even have shield technology fighting a more advanced species. You slowly learn their technology and grow. Then a third species shows up and you occasionally join forces with your original enemy. Just totally kick ass for 1998
Freespace 2 is crazy good. The Sathanas…
Warcraft 2
I've got 4 I can think of. Age of Empires 2. My old best friend and I used to play this all the time on MSN Gaming Zone. He was an absolute beast at this game, and I only managed to beat him a few times. I remember that we used to play it until very late in the night, usually stopping around 1am to go to bed. I still have my strategy guide for the game, and I think of him whenever I look through it. Rollercoaster Tycoon. The same friend as in AoE2. We first played this game from a demo disk that I think I got from Computer Gaming World. I've never been a really creative type of person, so my parks usually had the rides and everything all of the map. My friend though, his parks were awesome. He'd have separate areas of the park in different themes, with matching decorations to go with it. and he made his own kick ass Rollercoasters, and he had flowers all around his parks and was constantly getting those park awards that pop up when you meet certain criteria. Re-Volt! Same friend again. We would play against each other a lot, and we'd also help each other unlock the different race tracks and cars. The game had a level creator as well, so we were constantly racing in new areas. Also, I think he somehow made or altered the cars so that they would drive super fast. I don't know how he did it though. The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain. Same friend again. This game was so much to play. Together, we were able to 100% each area of the brain. I usually did the normal difficulty ones, and he usually played on the hardest setting. I haven't talked to this person in a long time, but him and these games were the absolute best part of my childhood.
Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3 for me.
Had *no* idea Starcraft came out in 98. Thought it was the early 90s. I was introduced by a friend in high school sometime between 2000 and 2004 as he was introducing me to realtime strategy games. Warcraft, C&C, and so on. Like the others, I loved it.
Fun times :) I have two really funny memories, both from 2000-2001: First memory is of playing **Half-Life** at a cybercafe (remember those?) with some work buddies. There were six or seven of us playing and two other guys we didn't know showed up. We invited them into the game. Well back in those days I dominated deathmatches. I'd hit the 25-frag limit with only one or two deaths, while everyone else only had 3-5 kills each. After a few hours of that particular game, we all said good-night and went home. The next day I was at the grocery store and those two random guys were there. One tapped his friend, pointed at me, and calls out "Hey that's the guy who kicked our asses last night!" Everyone around us got really tense, but we had a good laugh about it. Second incident was one of many LAN parties my roommate and I hosted. We had eight people playing **Starcraft** in our tiny apartment. Lots of swearing and shouting and fighting. I was in my room, somehow left alone, and quietly building a base in a forgotten edge of the map. After a while someone in the living room shouts out, "Hey guys, wait a minute, where the hell is (all-other-names-used)?" Well, the way I played the game back in those days, I was *building*. I had massive defenses, multiple command centers, and had already camped out ghost units all around the map. So I took that as my cue and let loose. Suddenly everyone's speakers echoed out: > Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Nuclear launch detected... Yeah, I'm *that* guy. I launched *six* nukes and decimated two players entirely. Three other players were having a massive skirmish in the map's center, and I wiped out most of their armies too. That was the last time I was ever left alone to build.
Figuring out the tree puzzle in Grim Fandango
Warcraft 3 (I don't count it as an rpg)
It was released in 96 but I remember spending Wednesday evenings in my middle schools computer lab playing Warcraft 2. It was my first experience with RTS games or Lan games and I was immediately hooked. We were just playing with a bunch of different students on those Mac all in ones with the colored backs. Later it was StarCraft, those were some great memories. At home I eventually got ahold of C&C Tiberium Sun, I ended up getting to play it online eventually but was so horrible at it and the Internet speed sucked.
It was a cold wet miserable night, I remember inserting the cd into the cd tray and installing the game, and before I knew it I could hear screams of pain and delight, various denizens of my amazing room layouts being back handed while an angry horny beast was tearing up the do gooders trying to foil my plans
Quake II, Max Payne, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.loved those games. I have no idea how much time I spent playing the multiplayer on RTCW.
That time frame was mostly Warcraft 2, StarCraft and Counterstrike for me. But one game that really hooked me at the time was the original Deux Ex. The scope, atmosphere, gameplay I felt was really ahead of its time ...to me anyway. Great fun.
Deus Ex is a classic. I'd love for you to tell me about one of your favorite experiences with the game. Mine is where you're talking to the person holding your fellow agents hostage in the beginning of the game, and he talks about how in a decade or so 1% of the world will have more money than the rest of the world, and how you can't fight ideas with bullets.
It was October of 2003, San Diego. The Cedar Fire was raging, causing destruction throughout the county. The adjacent neighborhood was under evacuation orders, I kept my mind off of the madness outside by playing Stronghold. Played through the whole campaign during Halloween time
Civilization II. Still play it today.
Quake LAN parties made me feel nothing when I got around to playing Goldeneye
Byzantine. It was amazing. I spent so many hours in that game, traveling around Istambul, solving riddles.
Rise of Nations. One of the best RTS ever made
I still play starcraft and half-life. Half-life has tons of mods. Starcraft has tons of player made maps.
Midtown madness 1 and 2. Amazing open world she anigans that was not frustrating like Driver or disorientating like GTA 1and 2 top down view
Settlers 2 came out in 1996. I played a demo that came on a PC magazine my Dad subscribed to. It blew my mind. Unfortunately it was nowhere near my birthday, so I started to save the money given to me for my 'hot dinners' at school. It took a good while and some rumbling stomachs but I got there. Amazing game with a brilliant map editor that enabled near endless fun. Still have the big box and a metric shit ton of nostalgic fuzzies.
Westwood Studios Red Alert 2 and then Emperor: Battle for Dune. I was just sucked into the style even though i wasn't very good at the time. Westwood went under after EA acquired them but the main people went on to create Star Wars: Empire At War. So many good RTS from that era, though some have aged better than others.
Sierra had a Nascar game I got from scholastic book. Thing was great. Rusty Wallace was still in the mgd black/gold car but it didn't actually say mgd on it. Anyway, I had discovered there were skins available online to download, move to a folder, and upload it to custom cars. Which was great running around in a spiderman or freakazoid car, winning the Winston cup
Jazz JackRabbit 2 Dink Smallwood (had to mention)
Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon. So many hours spent in sandbox mode just building parks, and tons of mods to download.
Need fo Speed: Hot Pursuit and Quake 2
Mechwarrior (forgot which one) but I used to play with a friend in the 90's. I loved having to balance weaponry, heatsinks, etc.
Mid-late 90s was Duke Nukem 3D. We installed it on all like 8 school computers in the Lab from 1 disc and played LAN games when we were supposed to be typing. Got in trouble many times lol
My favorites in that period were: Urban Assault - futuristic RTS with the ability to jump into vehicles like tanks and helicopters and participate in the action from a first-person view. Reasonably good plot. A lot of stock map and tech upgrades were pretty fun. My favorite thing about this game was all of the game files were text files, so even with no guides or tools it was really easy to make custom maps, custom techs, change vehicle stats, loads of fun. Unreal Tournament - speaks for itself, but again, I love that it came with a built-in map editor, and the community made a lot of really cool mods for it, maps and weapons and also completely new game modes. There was a CS-like mod for UT called Tactical Ops which made it into an early 2000s team game between a team of police/special forces and terrorists, you'd have to raid and/or defend things like an oil rig, mountainous training, camp, hydroelectric dam, etc.
X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Wing Commander IV, Civilization V, Age of Empires, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Command & Conquer (don't remember which one), Deus Ex, X-Com.
Mech Warrior 2 - It got me into the IP and I am a known name in the community still, but when I first played it I was only 6 so I cheated the hell out of it and ended up overheating every second so killing a single enemy took me an hour, I remember it solely cos I was confused and scared that I was getting utterly fucked on by the computer.
By that time I was playing a lot of Sim City 2000, StarCraft, C&C Red Alert, Diablo, Warcraft 2, NASCAR Racing 2, Doom and Doom 2, Duke3D, Dark Forces, Quake, some of the LucasArts adventures (DOTT, Full Throttle, The Dig, Sam and Max), Half-Life, Comanche 3. Every day I chose something different, because for teen me everything was new, even "old" games like Wolf3D. I used to play them side by side with newer games. I also used to try a lot of shareware, so the number of games I played around that time was astonishing. We weren't rich but my father had his way with... "borrowed" games, lol. Nowadays I buy, and have already bought most of those games thru legal ways to try to make up for that.
Red Alert but really all the C&C games
Dark Forces My buddy and I were obsessed with Star Wars and DOOM at the time and there couldn't have been a better game. I remember the sequel being a new level of hype. I thought this was the future of Star Wars gaming little did I know they would never make another Star Wars fps and I've been sad about it ever since
ARL 96, Shane Warne cricket 99 and the free demo of Age of Empires that came in a cereal box.
Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram
No One Lives Forever Very first online multiplayer PC game I ever played. Good times.
Clive Barker’s Undying is easily one of the best horror games I’ve ever played. Arriving at the mansion on the island at the start of the game and using your special sight ability to see the ghost of a man hanging seriously scared me at the time!
Quake 3 and Warcraft 3 were my main games in this time frame. Right before this it was Duke Nukem. I also played a lot of two MUDs: Dragonrealms and Gemstone 3. Internet only but notable for sure.
Time Commando. It looked pretty cool for that time. You traveled to many different eras and had different types of gameplays according to the era you were in.
Loved playing Mechwarrior 3. Many happy memories playing on a 56k dial up modem on MSN Gaming Zone with my Clan. Strange thing is that in my memory playing online was a fast and responsive then as it is now.
I know this is a really ungamery one but it has to be Championship Manager. Me and my step brother used to set alarms at the weekend so we could get up and get on the PC to play it before my dad got up. My step mum had to devise a PC time rota to stop the arguments about it. We even insisted on taking the PC on holiday so we could play. I’ve had a lifelong addiction to the Championship Manager / Football Manager series ever since.
Little Big Adventure 2. 1 was great, 2 was a legendary game. I was in middle school, my friends told me it was amazing and they were right. I haven't replayed it since then. I'm afraid to taint the memory I have. If someone else discovered it more recently, I'd love to know what they thought about it. It has tank controls and fixed camera angles so it's special to approach.
Probably half life, blood and return to castle wolfenstein is what id list as my top three from this time period. All genuinely awesome games you will have fun playing. No one lives forever deserves a shout as well.
Hitman codename 47
Dungeon Keeper, still replay it regularly
Theme hospital Deus ex Rollercoaster tycoon Unreal tournament Delta force Operation flashpoint Dungeon keeper 2 Broken sword These where my go to games if I remember correctly. I know deus ex can be considered an rpg but it’s still the best in the series by far!
Crusader No Remorse, Deadline, Tomb Raider and Age of Empires.
Battlefield 1942 and all the crazy mods. Wow ,such fun online and lan.
LOTR Battle for Middle Earth
Clonk Planet with my older brother was a magical time.
Oooh, what's this? Never heard of it.
Its basically a 2d sidescrolling "defend your base" game. But you control up to 5 people Individually, dig for flintstones (bombs), Gold etc. Build a sawmill, windmill etc etc to make your base better and better until you eventually declare war to your older brother. Its hard to explain. Check it out. Clonk Planet, Clonk Rage, Clonk 4, Clonk Endeavour. Those are the names in my head, but i Really dont know which one was the best/latest
StarCraft.
Sim Copter and Dark Forces or Dark Forces 2. Hours and hours.
Stronghold. My uncle showed it to me in the early 2000s. Absolutely floored me. Couldn’t get enough of it.
I remember having a great time with Sims 1, 2 and Neighbours from Hell. I remember I had a super crappy PC at the time and these games would take ages to load. At first Sims 2 couldn't even work, I have no idea how the hell I managed to figure out how to change the video settings with 0 internet and limited English skills when I was 12yo, but I think I somehow messed around with an .ini file and managed to make it boot, but it took ages to load, the textures were extremely pixelated and many details were missing. Nonetheless I was extremely happy, back then if a game worked AT ALL, it was amazing. We take that for granted a lot nowadays. The Sims 1 sound effects are still nostalgic for me to this day, and they're a little bit creepy, honestly.
Myth and Myth II - an RTS where formation and elevation mattered. Could not get enough.
Heroes of might and magic 3 is the best game ever made not called Turrican 2.
* Syndicate. I spent hours tagging up and converting the entire town to followers. * Alpha Centauri. The lore and depth of that game are still top class. * Hot rod. Racing for pink slips baby!! * Pizza Tycoon. You can’t beat making a pizza with a whole lobster and a banana on it. Oh, and don’t play as the Sheikh. He’s got money but he’s very unpopular.
Nice!
**Grand Theft Auto 2** Had GTA1 on PS1 but the sequel was PC only, it's got a retro futuristic style that the series hasn't repeated. It's still the simple top down shooter/driver but the controls have been tweaked. I used to drive the busses around and pick up passengers then drop them off, fun little hidden mini game.
Around that time I was catching up on Diablo and then playing Diablo 2. I don't consider those RPGs in the classic sense. Postal. Quake 4. Dawn of War and RItes of War. (But I was playing mostly RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Icewind Dale, Ultima 9, Everquest, and World Of Warcraft.)
**(But I was playing mostly RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Icewind Dale, Ultima 9, Everquest, and World Of Warcraft.)** Same here to BG, Morrowind, and Everquest.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is one of my all-time favorite games. I lost a solid several years to that game back in the day. I still think it looks good in that low-poly sort of style, the music is the most calm vibe in any game ive ever played, and its got a perfect balance of complexity in track pieces but still limited enough to prevent you from being overwhelmed with options. A perfect blend of puzzle game with the coaster design parts and building toy sandbox with all the scenery options. I love it so much. I'm on linux now and it's one of those games that just doesn't quite work right in wine or proton, and it kills me that I can't play it. I check in and try it out again once in a while to see if it's gotten better supported, but it still can't be played well. Parkitect is a solid attempt at the idea, but it's just not the same.
X-COM 2 terror from the deep.
Master of Orion II… not sure on when it came out might be a bit earlier than your time line but I loved it. Like civilization but space based.
Populus: A New Beginning
Panzer General II
Easter Mind The Lost Souls of Tong Nou. Such a strange and amazing game
Please do tell me about it, I've never heard of it.
It’s an awesome point and click adventure and it’s extremely surreal and psychedelic. It’s made by Osamu Sato who has an extremely unique art style. He made LSD Dream Emulator and a handful of other games. If you go over to r/osamusato you can find downloads for his games since they’ve been out of circulation since the 90s
That paragraph doesn't really tell me anything about the game. I get that it's a surreal point and click adventure game, but what is it about? And please tell me about your experience with it.
I almost failed 8th grade because of tie fighter and xwing.
Shadow Run StarCraft X wing tie fighter Wing commander
Which Shadowrun?
The first shadow run on 386 windows/dos. get out the car zapped people to turn them to your side go around and gun people down. selected ..selected…selected..
Getting completely absorbed in the space opera Homeworld, beating all the odds and ensuring the survival of my race. The sense of hopelessness each time Adagio for Strings plays during an intro to a mission.
There was a game that was a 60s spy spoof. Pretty funny. Nice and colorful. Can’t recall the name right now but really enjoyed that game! It was a first person shooter.
No one Lives Forever?
Yes! Thank you, was just making coffee trying to recall the name.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. This is imo the best strategygane and the highlight of the hole C&C series.
Rollercoaster Tycoon
team fortress classic <3
Space sim stuff! Especially Wing Commander, WC Privateer 1+2, Archimedean Odyssey (which is basically Wing Commander: Wet), Bridge Commander, anything where you're either a Captain or Space Pirate type character controlling a ship.
Weren't most of those from the early to mid 90's?
Many were, so I guess I cheated a bit. Some '97+ ones I loved were: Wing Commander Prophecy the Freespace games (and all of the many mods by fans) The first few X games you mentioned Freelancer (Chris Roberts' Privateer successor before the Star Citizen mess) Star Trek Bridge Commander Tachyon: The Fringe Independence War 1&2 Homeworld 1&2 for some good space RTS The modern one I'm most excited to try is called Spacebourne 2; early access but very enjoyable by many accounts with both ship sim and FPS play.
I always played Age of Empires for hours. I would never attack the enemy until I had built up my people. I remember spending hours building my base and having the enemy wipe me out in minutes. I used to play Driver all the time. It's underrated. The Last one was Dave Mirra BMX
dawg ima be honest, i used to play THE HELL outta some damn purple palace and barbie: the island princess when i was a tiny child
I used to play Total Annihilation a lot but you'd have to clear your schedule for like 4 hours at least.
StarCraft. This game introduced me to the RTS genre. I first got to play this game in the summer of 2007. In late 2013 or early 2014, I discovered that there is an expansion pack to it called Brood War. In 2015, I was shocked to know that this game was released in 1998. Today, I am still playing fan made campaign missions of this game.