- Half-life
- the Doom games
- the Quake games
- Shogo
- POD
- Outlaws
- Soldier of Fortune (it was released in 2000 tho but it’s almost the 90’s lol)
There are too many to mention, but the top five for me in no order:
- SimCity 2000
- Baldur’s Gate (1&2)
- Final Fantasy VI (or III, as we called it in the States)
- Doom II
- Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara
And I’d still play any of them to this day.
- Counter-Strike
- SiN
- Delta Force
- Baldur’s Gate
Counter-Strike overtook the others by a mile in the 00s but in the 90s I probably enjoyed Delta Force more actually.
Wait I forget about consoles:
- GoldenEye 64, opened my eyes to FPS I guess
- Wave Racer 64, was the staple racer in our household
- Quake
- Thief
- Metal Gear Solid
- Half Life
- System Shock 2
Honourable mention to Final Fantasy 7, and Zelda Ocarina of Time. They might have been great when released, but I don’t think they’ve aged well.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Goldeneye
The Shining Force series
Diablo
Doom
Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis
Lotus
Earthbound!
A lot of the greats have already been mentioned by others, but Myst (1993) and Riven (1997) deserve to be up there.
Not only for the immersive worlds you got to experience through masterfully crafted imagery, sound and music, but also combined they held the record for best selling game series until they were surpassed by The Sims.
- Ultima series, especially Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld I & II
- Myst series
- Hexen
- Doom
- Quake
- Duke Nukem
- Postal and Postal II
- Diablo and Diablo II
- SimCity and Simcity 2000/SCURK
- Civilization series (still play!)
Rogue Squadron!
Gotta get that RAM expansion for the 64!
Commander Keen
Age of empires 1
Pyramid: Challenge of Pharaoh’s dream
Atlantis: The lost tales
Ski free
- Frontier: Elite II
- Quake
- Command & Conquer
- Civilization
- Quest for Glory
- Simcity
- Doom
- Wolfenstein
- Prince of Persia
- Syndicate
PC:
- Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis
- Day of the Tentacle
- The Monkey Island trilogy
- Sam and Max Hit The Road
- Full Throttle
- Loom
- X-Wing
- TIE-Fighter
- The Dig
- Space Quest 4 and 5
- Quest for Glory 3 and 4
- Beneath a Steel Sky
- Broken Sword 1
- Flashback
- Out of this World
- Prince of Persia 1 and 2
- Test Drive 3
- Ultima VII
- Doom and Doom 2
- Twinsen’s Adventure
- Descent
- Syndicate
- MDK
- Interstate ‘76
- Command and Conquer
- Age of Empires
- SimCity 2000
- SimTower
Console (NES/SNES):
- Mega-Man 3
- Super Contra
- Ninja Gaiden 2-3
- Dr. Mario
- Battletoads
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master
- Captain Skyhawk
- Kiwi Kraze
- Base Wars
- Batman: Return of the Joker
- A Boy and his Blob
- Whomp’Em
- Yo! Noid
- Fester’s Quest
- Bart vs. The Space Mutants
- Caveman Ugh-Lympics
- Ghostbusters 2
SNES
- Super Mario World
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
- Chrono Trigger
- Pilotwings
- Starfox
- Zelda: A link to the Past
- Donkey Kong Country
- F-Zero
- Street Fighter 2 Turbo
- ActRaiser
- Castlevania 4
- Super Mario Kart
- Secret of Mana
- Megaman X
- Final Fight
- NBA Jam
- Contra 3
- Axelay
- Super Bomberman 2
- Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose
- Prince of Persia (Mechner’s favorite)
- TMNT: Turtles in Time
- Zombies Ate My Neighbors
- Star Wars trilogy
- Out of this World
- Joe & Mac
- Disney’s The Lion King
- Battletoads in Battlemaniacs
N64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Super Mario 64
- Mario Kart 64
- GoldenEye 007
- Star Fox 64
- Diddy Kong Racing
- Donkey Kong 64
- Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
- WipEout 64
- Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
- Killer Instinct Gold
- Gauntlet: Legends
- Cruis’n World
Syndicate was glorious
Truly was, incidentally Satellite Reign is a spiritual successor to it, and it’s pretty fun.
I think those adventure games deserve the accolade considering they really were the pinnacle of the genre, and it hasn’t even really continued since then.
They died with the transition to 3D and have resurrected and blossomed into a lot of new games and subgenres like with Disco Elysium, the Tell Tale games, The Talos Principle, Life is Strange, Monument Valley, VA-11 Hall-A… even The Stanley Parable is a point and click narrative driven game.
Good call on The Stanley Parable; it does have a similar fun, nonsensical style like the old Lucas games. Disco was very interesting and I enjoy the Tell Tale games, but those don’t really scratch the same itch. The others I’m ignorant about.
At any rate, those old gems still feel like the pinnacle of the genre to me.
Interstate 76
Oh, yeah, this game is cool, I loved playing it when I was a kid, the car combat was really nice, I would love a modern game like this.
