The 90s - best gaming decade of all time?

I recently dug out my collection of old PC classics and went through some of them , and when I got to thinking I noticed almost all of the awesomest games were released in the 90s.

Games were sophisticated , had depth, made you think (or atleast work hard for that red/blue key). The 90s was the decade in witch 3d games evolved. Think of Wolfenstein , Doom , Quake and Half Life. Think of Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver.Think of Jedi Knight and Heretic 2.RTS while not taking their first steps into 3D also evolved - C&C (Tiberian Dawn ) Red Alert , StarCraft , Age of Empires , Caesar 3 , Zeus etc.

Sony got into the console market , Nintendo released Gameboy Color and Intel released Pentium 1 to 3 .

Its funny how technology advanced in the 90s.I got to installing Dark Forces 2/Jedi knight and upon installing the setup asked if I would like the "high res" features installed.Said it might slow down performance (And if I were to install it on the rig I had back around 1997 it very well might have). Turns out that meant it was direct3d enabled and the default res is 640x480 instead of 320x240.

So what are your favovite games of the 90s?

Civ 2. That game probably cost me 10% on each of my exams the year it came out. :D

I've gotten into the 90's games from around 2006 - 'till now.

I never managed to play most games wen i was younger due to life stuff, so now i'm playing everything i've missed on a high end rig., trough mods and sourceports. Also bought a SNES, PS1 and a PS2 a wile back, and i love these systems and their games.

So that's why i think games are ageless, but only expectations rise, and that itself is subjective. I can play Ultima 4, and love it, because i know what to expect and i'm not setting my standards high wen i'm playing older games.

I'm setting my standards high wen i'm expecting a current gen. game.

Simply put, the only genre that hasn't improved since the 90's are sports games.

For example, compare FIFA 99 to FIFA 11 and I'm sure most people would prefer the latter.

However, true gamers would opt for Goldeneye 007 over any modern FPS, if only for the nostalgia. Maybe not, but it would make a great Saturday night with mates for sure.

Super Metroid came out in the 90s. That's good enough for me.

Every era has been golden for me..SNES/Sega gen though was the badass RPG age.

Just recently played a few 90's titles. Rayman 2, Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 and 3. Great games

Simply put, the only genre that hasn't improved since the 90's are sports games.

paranoidpixie95

I'm not sure if I agree with that. The stealth genre hasn't really been done better than in Thief 2, the adventure genre arguably hasn't been able to top Grim Fandango, and until recently people called Starcraft the best of the RTS genre. I'm sure there are others, too.

Anyway, I do think of the 90s as the golden age of gaming, and not just because I grew up with them. I still find myself buying more older games than newer ones, as they usually provide more depth and gameplay hours than a lot of the more recent titles, at only a fraction of the cost.

[QUOTE="paranoidpixie95"]

Simply put, the only genre that hasn't improved since the 90's are sports games.

Planeforger

I'm not sure if I agree with that. The stealth genre hasn't really been done better than in Thief 2, the adventure genre arguably hasn't been able to top Grim Fandango, and until recently people called Starcraft the best of the RTS genre. I'm sure there are others, too.

Anyway, I do think of the 90s as the golden age of gaming, and not just because I grew up with them. I still find myself buying more older games than newer ones, as they usually provide more depth and gameplay hours than a lot of the more recent titles, at only a fraction of the cost.

Oh s***, I phrased that totally wrong. I meant to say this:

"The only genre that has improved since the 90's are sports games."

Otherwise my above comment would be totally useless.

I call that an epic fail... :P

Not to mention all of Rare's classics on the SNES and 64. And all those Nintendo classics such as F Zero X, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Super Metroid etc.

Random games I also remember: Rock n Roll Racing, Dink Smallwood, GTA2, Uniracers.

Gaming in the 90s was amazing! At least for me, my gaming days start as a kid in the 90s. It all started on the SNES with Super Mario World and Super Mario Allstars

I continued on the Sega Saturn and then ended on the N64 and Dreamcast in the 90s.

I did some PC gaming and off as it depending on my fathers computer, but there are a ton of PC game classics in the 90s, and I got to experience some of those thankfully

I think the 90s will always be remember for when gaming was fun and generally less complicated.

Only for people who haven't played 2000-present without pink shaded glasses on.

I wouldn't say it was the best decade, but it was a great one for sure.

My next system re-buy is actually going to be a gameboy color so I can play some of the classics on their original platform.

I definitely think the '90's was the best gaming of decade...both in terms of content and in terms of technology. It was a decade that was probably the most revolutionary time for gaming, both on a hardware and software front.

The tech innovations of the 90's brought 3D gaming, online multiplayer, online co-op, mods, downloadable content (most which was free), genre's like FPS, etc.

Then you had the introduction of original ips at the time that are still defining franchises and definitive of their genres to this day....Half-Life, Resident Evil, Planescape Torment, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft, Silent Hill, Diablo, Fallout, Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Rainbow Six, Medal of Honor, Elder Scrolls, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart, Civilization...the list goes on and on.

Not to mention the re-invention of other franchises with games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64, which the template those games introduced in re-inventing those series is still basically followed to this day.

The independent developers were thriving....you didn't have stuff like Day 1 DLC milking customers.

Hell...look at the releases of 1998 alone, and it almost reads like a list of games that are to this day are considered among the best of all time across a wide-range of genres. Original ips like Half-Life, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Rainbow Six, Unreal, Banjo-Kazooie, Thief, Baldur's Gate were introduced.
...then you had the re-invention of series with Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
...not to mention great sequels like Fallout 2 and Resident Evil 2.
...that's just the year 1998 alone.

I agree games were more exciting back then. In the last decade all we got were pretty graphics and polishing old concepts, but not very many really innovative games.

And we've seen the jump from 2D to 3D graphics which was a jump that technology will most probably never repeat again.

90's had a few good games for me like Oot,MGS1,RE1,RE2,FF7,Super Mario 64,Killer Instinct, and Chrono Cross (technically it was released in japan in 1999 and took em a year to port it to NA).

While the 90's were good, I have to say this last decade was a lot better

Final Fantasy VII,VIII and Metal Gear Solid, Heroes of Might and Magic III

I recently dug out my collection of old PC classics and went through some of them , and when I got to thinking I noticed almost all of the awesomest games were released in the 90s.

Games were sophisticated , had depth, made you think (or atleast work hard for that red/blue key). The 90s was the decade in witch 3d games evolved. Think of Wolfenstein , Doom , Quake and Half Life. Think of Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver.Think of Jedi Knight and Heretic 2.RTS while not taking their first steps into 3D also evolved - C&C (Tiberian Dawn ) Red Alert , StarCraft , Age of Empires , Caesar 3 , Zeus etc.

Sony got into the console market , Nintendo released Gameboy Color and Intel released Pentium 1 to 3 .

Its funny how technology advanced in the 90s.I got to installing Dark Forces 2/Jedi knight and upon installing the setup asked if I would like the "high res" features installed.Said it might slow down performance (And if I were to install it on the rig I had back around 1997 it very well might have). Turns out that meant it was direct3d enabled and the default res is 640x480 instead of 320x240.

So what are your favovite games of the 90s?

miless

I believe it was. You had many of the best of 2D and many of the best of 3D in the same decade. It also saw the creation of a number of new genres - RTS, FPS, 3D fighting and plenty of innovations in established genres. There were also a number of hardware innovations, from controls to 3D cards and graphics. The way I see it the 80s was the birth of modern home entertainment, the 90's was when it was refined and the 00's was when it ran out of ideas. Ok perhaps that is being too harsh of the 00s. The early 00s were very good but near the end it got a bit stale.Strakha

I agree 100% with you guys......To me, the 90's thru the early '00's was the peak period (the Renaissance or Golden era) of PC and console gaming. The current generation of games have a tendency to be mostly flash and little substance (not all but many) when compared to titles from this earlier period. Some of my favorites are (among many)...Half-Life, GTA III, Quake, DOOM, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Total Annihilation, FarCry, Max Payne, StarCraft, AoE II, Civ II & III, RTCW, Enemy Territory....And the Oddworld Series (2D).....

*+

true gamers would opt for Goldeneye 007 over any modern FPS, if only for the nostalgia. Maybe not, but it would make a great Saturday night with mates for sure.

paranoidpixie95

Anyway, to get on topic, I think it's widely agreed upon that 1996-2001 was the golden age of gaming.

SNES Vs Sega Genesis the best fight ever and it was in the early 90s.

The 90's is when I got into gamin on the regular.

Games like SF2, Killer Instinct, The Mortal Kombats, and Doomon the Snes.

Then I move on to the PS1 with games like The Tekken series, Resident Evils, Gran Tursimo, Doom, and few others.

The 90's were the the best gamin era for me.

Transport Tycoon and Age of empires...:) They kicked a**..:)

While there's games from the past I still enjoy to revisit and play I always find the best time of gaming to be in the present. I've been an avid gamer since the Atari 2600 days and I've consistently enjoyed each generation of gaming more then the last. I'm enjoying this current gen immensely with fantastical graphics, superb sound, exciting gameplay, online gaming, achievements/trophies, etc., etc.Archangel3371

Same here. I'm been gaming for 34 years and gaming is better than ever. Nostalgia is a powerful force for some people though, causing them to cling to a particular time period like atoddler to its mother's skirts and blinding them to the existence of quality games.

DO YOU REMEMBER GUYS OF THIS GAME :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBzY8XJ2Oq8&feature=related

Without to much thought, YES.