So many to pick... But I will choose only a few...
Age of Empires 2
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Civilization
Doom 2
Command and conquer, before Westwood was fucked over by EA
My favorite games as a child growing up in the 90s:
Zelda OoT
Super Mario 64
Pokemon Red
Zelda OoA/OoS
Though after later playing Final Fantasy 7 in 2003 that quickly captivated me and became really special to me. It was my first Final Fantasy I ever played and one of my most cherished games to this day.
Also, while I never played the original 90s game, I absolutely adored Black Mesa and the Half Life franchise. It was damn impressive what Valve accomplished with the original Half Life back then.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Goldeneye
Donkey Kong Country 2
Baldur's Gate
Original Unreal. Ranked #1 in the world at one point for a couple weeks. Nothing compares to that game and time for me.
Super Mario World
Commander Keen
Age of empires 1
Pyramid: Challenge of Pharaoh's dream
Atlantis: The lost tales
Ski free
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
In no particular order:
THPS
Super Smash Bros.
Goldeneye
Worms
Lemmings
FIFA World Cup’98
Pokémon red/blue
LoZ: Links’s Awakening
Super Metroid
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.
Final Fantasy VI (or III as it was known then). Just a masterpiece with great music, a great story, great characters, and fun gameplay.
Sanitarium.
- 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!)
Some of my favourite that bring back good memories:
- Age of Empires II
- Caesar games
- C&C Red Alert
- Diablo
- Magic & Mayhem
- Pharaoh
- Pokémon (Yellow, Blue/Red)
- Postal
- SimCity 2000
- StarCraft
- Warcraft II
Difficult to pick a single fave. Here are the games I've spent most of my time playing back then.
On PC:
- X-Wing series (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, etc.)
- Star Control 2
- Earthsiege 1 and 2
- Starsiege: Tribes
- Team Fortress mod for Quake
- EverQuest
On arcade, mostly fighting games, and some side-scrollers:
- Mortal Kombat 1, 2, 3, 4
- Killer Instinct 1 and 2
- Virtua Fighter 1 and 2
- Marvel Vs. Street Fighter
- TMNT
- X-Men: Children of the Atom
Want to go back to the 80s? Lode Runner, Rescue on Fractalus! and Karateka. Also Gyruss introduced me to modern remixes of classical music.
I still play Civilization 1 from time to time.
And with friends, Worms 2 is a banger, and so is the cave flyer Wings
Man that's a tough one. The 90s covered a huge spectrum of games and consoles.
Perhaps at the time, Final Fantasy VII was my favorite. No other game absorbed me like it did. I spent so much time playing it. But it's aged badly now.
But as far as games that I would still go back and play? I'd say probably twisted metal 2. The game is just so good. The music, the characters, the vibe of the game.
I played so much X-Com, Civ 2, and Final Fantasy Tactics back in the day.
There is a shocking lack of Star Control 2 in here. Easily the best game I have ever played, period. It frequently gets name dropped in lists of game developers' favorite games of all time. Later space epics like Mass Effect stood on Star Control 2's shoulders to reach the heights they did.Good news! The devs released it to the open source community under the name The Ur-Quan Masters. You can play it now for free! And they're developing a sequel as we speak over at Pistol Shrimp Games
Age of Empires 2
Super Mario 64
Top is hard. Probably OOT.
Top five would be OOT, Doom, Sonic 2, crash bandicoot, and half-life.
Way too many good ones to pick from haha.
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.
I got it working on Linux just so I could play it on steam deck. Side bonus! It's so old integrated graphics can more than handle it at modern resolutions. I put that game on every laptop I own.
Old business machines are great for that purpose, snag one on recycle day, install Nobara, install Elite Force.
One day I'm going to have a dedicated LAN match room exclusively for this game.
Metal Gear Solid
Monkey Island 2 (The first one is arguably better, but 2 was my introduction to the series, so I have a bit of a soft spot for it)
The Secret of Monkey Island
still play it nowadays from time to time
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sim City 2000
Command and Conquer
Red Alert
Goldeneye
Mario Kart
NBA Hang time
Perfect Dark
MDK
Road rash
Shining force
Redneck rampage
Bottom of the 9th 99
The Shining Force series
For me it is probably a tie between Sid Meier's Civilization and Doom. Both were groundbreaking in their genres and they had immense influence on the type of games I since became interested in playing.
Definitely a tie right now between Sonic 1 or 2, which I managed to get copies of for Genesis 3 years ago when I first got a Genesis.
My personal favorites in no specific order and no preference on the system:
- Metal Gear Solid
- Sonic 1&2
- M1 Tank Platoon
- F-Zero
- A link to the past (Zelda)
- Test Drive 3
- Duke 3D
- Dune 2
- Ultima 7
- Stunts 3D
- Comanche (All parts)
- Delta Force
- Hind-E
- Sim City 2000
- FF 8 &9
- TFX
- GTA 2
- Transport Tycoon
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
Heroes of Might and Magic III
The ones I played the most were:
-
Heroes of Might & Magic
-
Civilization
-
Genghis Khan ][: Clan of the White Wolf
-
ZZT
-
Final Fantasy 6
not in order, mind
-
Super Mario Kart and NHL '94
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Mechwarrior 2. Controlling a heavy mech was 90s af.
And I can still hear the startup sequence in my head. Reactor online Sensors online Weapons online. All systems nominal.
TOCA Touring Car Championship
Gran Turismo
Syphon Filter
Zelda OoT
Super Mario World
Doom
TIE Fighter
Diablo
The one i played the most was probably super mario world
My favorite snes game
But ocarina of time was great too.
For pc id say, red alert or diablo.
Homeworld and Half Life for me: both were just awesome. I spent a very long time in both.
backyard baseball
I don't really know what to pick so I'm going to go with something kind of obscure, "The Adventures of Bouapha: Spooky Castle". The gameplay is a little hard to explain but it kind of plays like Zelda but you can pickup upgrades for your main weapon that allows it to be thrown in many directions and it has sub-weapons that can either be found or dropped by enemies and they have limited ammo.
I actually forgot this game existed until itch recommended me "Hamsandwich", which is a free and open-source collection of updated versions of a bunch of old Hamumu Software games. There are mods available for specific games and it's available for Linux, Windows, MacOS, Android and any other OS/device that can play the online version.
Technically 2000, but Sacrifice. It's still one of the most unique games I've ever played, and is my top wish for a remake/remaster.
It's a hybrid action RPG and RTS, which isn't completely unheard of, but even in its niche genre it's unlike anything else. You play a wizard with a range of both spells and summonable units, which can be ordered around to a limited degree, or more commonly used as a personal escort. Both the units and your own spells are very creative, and the higher level ones can be ridiculously powerful. In a glorious early celebration of terrain deformation, many of the high level spells will create volcanoes, mountains, craters, or even gaping voids in the already surreal landscapes. The story mode is also very weird and funny, with some top level voice actors.
Can't decide between at least:
Homeworld
Frontier: Elite II
Warcraft II
Burden of the Crown
X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance
It's between Final Fantasy Tactics and Suikoden II. I think it goes to the latter.
Baldur’s Gate. That game blew me away.
The 90s were peak gaming for me - a lot a creative things were going on, new genres being explored. And we were spoilt for choice with all the blatant piracy.
But if I had to choose one game that really blew me away, that would be Thief.
- Frontier: Elite II
- Quake
- Command & Conquer
- Civilization
- Quest for Glory
- Simcity
- Doom
- Wolfenstein
- Prince of Persia
- Syndicate
Armored Core Project Phantasma.
I've always been a Nintendo fan, and their first- and second-party catalog from the 90s is phenomenal:
- Zelda OoT / MM
- Goldeneye / Perfect Dark
- Super Mario Bros 64
- Mario Parties
- Banjo Kazooie / Tooie
- Pokémon Red / Blue / Yellow
- Pokémon Stadium
Outside of Nintendo, the standout titles for me are:
- Crash Bandicoot
- Spyro
- Metal Gear Solid
- FF VII & VIII
Sid Meier's Colonisation, my 10 year old laptop that I replaced last year only had enough power to play that game and I put so many hours into it when I didn't have access to my main pc. It's just a shame that my new laptop doesn't upscale dosbox the same way my old one did but I think that's just because of the differences between MacOS and Windows.
(Edit: wrote the wrong game series somehow)
My top favorites, can't decide which one is the best:
- Dyna Blaster / Bomberman
- Commander Keen
- Skyroads
- Hero's Hearts
MGS 1 for obvious reasons.
Blitz and NBA street 1&2 were definitely some faves.
Jet Moto series.
Jet grind radio had so many hours sunk into it.
Resident evil 1-2 was absolutely terrified of these games but couldn’t stop playing and quickly became a favorite of me and my dad.
- 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)
Flashback. There's something cinematographic in that old Delphine gem.
Subspace - Meet people from all over the world, and then kill them.
One of the first online multiplayer games. It has a very long skill curve, and a ton of variety in game types.
It's still alive in Steam as Continuum!
There are so many... Here are some that I probably spent the most time with:
- Master of Orion
- XCom (the original)
- unreal tournament
- Elder Scrolls Daggerfall
- Falcon 3.0
- Mechwarrior 2
Shattered Galaxy, it marketed itself as an mmorpgrts. The depth of gameplay was fantastic. While the graphics look a little dated, I would still play it if there was any server population left.
Seven kingdoms
I don't think I can choose between games like Alpha Centauri, Marathon, Chrono Trigger, Homeworld, Quake, Counter-Strike (I played the beta in '99, does that count?), not to mention King of Fighters '98, Half-Life, Star Craft... wow it really was the golden era of gaming wasn't it?
I loved the game Tomba! 2 The Evil Swine Return, it was creative, intricate, and very far ahead of its time, I would love to see the series get a reboot or a remaster
I liked the Marathon series for Mac and the Twisted Metal series for PS.
The Secret of Monkey Island Super Metroid Yoshi's Island
Can’t pick a favorite. But I will say the one I return to the most often is Super Metroid
There were a lot of games released in the 90s. It would take 2-3 per genre to start getting close.
Picking just one single game... I guess I'll go with Fallout 2
Tekken 3. Late 90s but I spent HUNDREDS of hours playing it.
Star fox 64
Syndicate and Wing Commander Privateer
So many amazing games to choose from such as all the D&D based ones, Morrowind, the SimCity ones and the Championship Manager games, but my absolute favorite was Fallout 2 for sure!
Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
Rebel Assault
Simant
Happyweed
Sonic Adventure.
If 1998 in Japan and 1999 everywhere else is too close to the '00s (and in the context of what SA1 meant for the Sonic franchise I wouldn't blame you,) Sonic CD.
Feeling happy and enthusiastic
Zoo Tycoon and Everquest!
I tried Project 1999 for Everquest, but the change in culture from 1999 to now is just...a lot. I'd enjoy it again if I could get my friends to play, but I think it'll be too old school for everyone.
So unfortunately I didn't play video games until about 2001 when I turned 5 and got an N64 for my first Christmas in the USA. The game itself is from 2000 though.
Mickey's Speedway USA for the N64.
Goddamn I loved that game. I have so many fun memories with it.
Everquest. Also my favorite game from the 2000's, 2010's and 2020's
Ape Escape!
Titanic: Adventure out of Time The game had quite the ambiance (Smethelles awkward FMV face & that haunting D deck music still haunts my dreams sometimes). In addition, I really liked the laid back mystery solving gameplay that it provided... I feel like it was pretty unique and haven't found anything that quite scratches that same itch.
Also, sim tower.. That game is just awesome.
Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri - it was the Crysis of its time, in that whatever computer you had, you needed a better one to be able to play it.
Also, we all decided that the atrocious acting in the FMVs was deliberate, so that's okay.
Banjo-Kazooie
Earthbound!
PC: Descent. Full 6 degrees of freedom movement. Fantastic.
Permanently Deleted
Mega Man Legends!
Buzz aldrin's race into space I was already a geek at that time
Albion
In no particular order, these are the games I played the most back then.
SNES
- Super Bomberman II
- Stunt Race FX
- Super Mario Bros
- Yoshi's Island
PS1
- Gran Turismo 2
- Spyro 1 & 2
- Crash Bandicoot series
- Twisted Metal 2, 4
- Jet Moto series
- Coolborders series
- Pro Skater series
- Einhänder
PC
- After Dark Games
And a couple of nearly-90s favorites,
PC
- 4x4 Evo 2
- Red Alert 2
- OG Halo
WILLY BEAMISH
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.
The entire Dreamcast catalog. Specifically Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone 2, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure 2, Berserk: Gut's Rage, Spawn: In the Demons Hand, Phantasy Star Online, and so many more great ones.
Honourable mention: Seaman
Toy Story 2 for PSX.
How did I not see a mention for Super Mario 3??? That game changed everything for me. That game with all its easter eggs was just magic as a kid.
Permanently Deleted
Doom 2 Wolf3D StarCraft Warcraft 2 Chrono Trigger F15 Strike Eagle 2 (might be late 80s though) Super Mario World Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) Sonic
Of all those, StarCraft on BattleNet changed my life. What an amazing thing, to play against people from around the world. So it's hard to rank when we're mixing platforms and online and whatnot.
