Your Top 5 1990s PC games? With a description of why you picked them

[Mike 01Hawk]

In no particular order

 

The 7th Guest (so many great memories of this game... from spotting it in stores when I was down in San Antonio for a HS Band Trip, to picking it up @ Babbage's at the local mall, to calling PC Brand to upgrade my 386 to a 486 and single speed CD-ROM to the Sound Blaster "Combo" pack that had a Double-Speed CD-ROM + SB16)

 

Doom (SHAREWARE!!!! Amazed they could stick all that on what was it.. 1 disk? When I SAW the imp THRU the grate at the end of the 1st level, I was like... holy crap!!! This blows away anything I've seen before on a console!!!!)

 

Monkey Island 2 (Atmosphere, mood, humor, music, insanely hard puzzles that I kept on bugging my PC friends the next day at school on how to solve)

 

Out of This World (MAINLY atmosphere, but also the lovely gameplay... also amazed it fit on 1 disk)

 

Wing Commander I/II (fond memories of calling up Origin support to have them walk me thru my Autoexec/Config setup so I could get the... get this.... the $20 SPEECH!!!! Add-on to work!!! SPEECH!! IN A GAME!!!! WAHOOO!!!!!!)

[MFoolsRun]

In no particular order:

Grim Fandango The whole package is flawless. The voice-acting, motif, storyline, characters, all of it. It's a perfect game.

 

The Last Express A sadly under-played game. The Escapist did a really good story on it a little while back. It was mostly the plot and the interaction between the characters that kept me playing this one.

 

System Shock 2 I get tired of run-and-gun shooters. I'll play for a few levels and then stop playing and never go back. System Shock 2 was different. It was freaking scary. Even just standing listening the the audio logs of the former crew was scary. Great game.

 

The Dig Yes I know my list is adventure-game centric, but this one really struck me. My brother, sister and I used to play Lucasarts games as a team and we'll still occasionally just randomly say to one another, "It's a rod, engraved, five geometric shapes!"

 

Diablo My first real good online gaming experience. I'd played Quake 2 online a bit, but that's just random anonymous people firing rockets at each other --Diablo almost forced you to interact with the other players via text-chat. I often played with real life friends, but we'd leave our games open and let other users join. The built-in matchmaking service, Battle.net, was the icing on the cake of a great, totally replayable game.

[vdub_bobby]

Warcraft II - simply a great game. C&C was the first great RTS, but Warcraft II is a better game and was insanely fun playing with 7 other people over a LAN. Ahh, college computer labs in the days before security!

 

StarCraft - Take a great game and make it better in every possible way. Didn't play as much (any?) multiplayer with this one, but still fantastic.

 

Doom - what to say? Brilliant game. Also very fun to co-op the levels.

 

Scorched Earth - strategy, realistic (sort of) physics, a sense of humor, a million options. Almost endlessly replayable.

 

Lemmings - also has a great sense of humor, well-designed levels, and a lot of fun.

 

Sim City missed the cut by a year (1989).

[Ghost Soldier]

Phatasmagoria-A great point and click adventure. I played this game at a friends house and was hooked on the whole adventure themed games. Still my all-time favorite computer game.

 

Phatasmagoria II Puzzle of Flesh-Another great point and click adventure.

 

The Beast Within-Very challenging point and click adventure with excellent FMV cutscenes. The acting was decent in the cutscenes as well.

 

7th Guest-Sole reason I bought a CD-I was to play this game on the big screen after playing on the PC. A beautiful game with a decent story and excellent graphics.

 

Doom-One of my all time favorite FPS. Couple some Doom, with some Duke, and alittle ROTT and you have the three best 90's FPS on the PC. I wasted many a sleepless nights playing doom to the wee hours in the morning.

 

Here are a few of my other favs.

 

11th Hour

Shivers

Redneck Rampage

Carmageddon

Mad Dog McCree

Edited March 14, 2008 by Ghost Soldier

[+DamonicFury]

X-Wing - An amazing space simulator that completely excited and challenged the hell out of me back in 1992.

 

Doom - An huge step forward from Wolfenstein 3D, the graphics, gameplay, and mood of this game were unlike anything before it. The sound deserves special mention... the music, the sounds of the weapons, the screams of the monsters really added to the experience.

 

Master of Orion - Great space strategy game that invited you to conquer the galaxy

 

Tank Wars (predecessor to Scorched Earth) - enormously fun strategic shooter that I have many pleasant memories of playing with my college dorm buddies

 

Dune 2 - Yes, it's been improved on immensely by C&C, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc. but at the time it came out, it was quite unique and a blast to play.

[StanJr]

Might and Magic: Mandate of Heaven- Still maybe one of the greatest RPG's I've ever played. When I first bought it, I was up 3 days and nights in a row just to get past the first dungeon and early portions of the game. I even moved my couch over to the computer so I could nap a bit while my girlfriend took a turn.

 

Lemmings 2- Very fond memories of playing this game with my dad (a real old school gamer!) and getting so frustrated at the puzzles, then thrilled when we would figure it out. The Tribes aspect made for a variety of game experiences.

 

Star Wars Rebellion- A great strategy game with depth and gameplay like I had not before encountered. I still play it a lot. (this was in the 90's right? seems more recent?)

 

Magic the Gathering: Showing my nerdom here, this game did a good job of being an RPG that included the card game that I was kind of obsessed with the first couple of years it existed. Plus, it was hard to find anyone who played the game after a while, so the AI was fun to challenge. The expansion pack was pretty good for it as well.

Terminal Velocity It's a really simple space shooter, but man I could put that in at any time and just blast away and have all kinds of fun.

[MFoolsRun]

Terminal Velocity[/b] It's a really simple space shooter, but man I could put that in at any time and just blast away and have all kinds of fun.

 

I've always felt like Terminal Velocity would make a really good multiplayer game, if you added Privateer-style trading and piracy into it. Nice little casual thing.

[AtticGamer]

Doom and Doom 2 - Classic satisfying blasting.

Dungeon Keeper - A fun and original RTS.

Alone In The Dark 1,2,3 - The first survival-horrors with lovely pre-rendered backgrounds.

Alien Trilogy - Good Doom clone, a blast to play and faithful to the movies look.

MDK - Humorous fantastic shooter with amazing visual worlds.

[thomasholzer]

1993 Return to Zork...Why did I pick it...need you ask? A new Zork game, with real people. I even purchased a brand-new single-speed CD Rom just to buy and play this game on the NEW CD media. Excellent title.

 

1993 El-Fish...a make-your-own game from the makers of Tetris, it's gotta be good.

 

1992 Stunt Island...seems that I liked the make-your-own game genre in the early 90s, these games kept me amused for weeks.

 

1992 King's Quest VI...this was without a doubt the favorite of mine from the whole series. But I forgot the tea (I think), so I couldn't finish the game.

 

1995 Atari Action Pack...I wrote to Activision in 1994 asking, why not put all your VCS games onto PC? So they did.

 

honorable mention:

The Fool's Errand (1990)

X-Com

David Wolf: Secret Agent, not quite 90s (1989)

Day of the Tentacle (1993)

Spycraft the Great Game (1996)

Under a Killing Moon (1994)

Edited March 14, 2008 by thomasholzer

[SRGilbert]

Well, I admit I didn't get too much into PC gaming until around 1998, but I played when ever I could.

 

The Incredible Machine - Loved the point and click nature of it.

 

Wolfenstein 3d - Kicking Nazi butt, what else?

 

Duke Nukem 3D - Kicking alien pigcop butt, what else?

 

Dark Forces - Kicking stormtrooper butt, what else?

 

and, the suprise game of the decade for me.....

 

Nerf: Arena Blast! Man, I know it was just a licensed dayglo port of the Unreal Tournament engine, but what a FUN game! It breaks my heart to know that this game never got it's day in the sun. Unfortunately, for those who remember, UT was a BEAR to run back in the day (1998), even on a decent computer, and NAB was no different. I can imagine all the kids who got the game only to find it ran like shit on their parents Packard Bell from Walmart. Even if they did get it running fine, mechanically, the game was almost exactly like UT, so it was fast and kinda tough for a little kid to play. I'd love to see this game get remade for a modern console where things like system specs wouldn't matter anymore.

 

I guess I'll add Unreal also as a lot of great games have been built on it. I remember when it came out and some of us at Staples where I worked looking at the system specs and saying "400+ meg of hard drive space required? What the hell?"

[maibock]

John Madden Football - the ability to design your own plays left me with endless hours of making wacky(yet effective) offenses

 

Lemmings - just loads of fun

 

Red Alert - finally able to play army men on the PC

 

Age of Empires - the discovery of multiplayer made this game playable for years on end

 

Conquest of the Longbow - a simple yet charming adventure game

[Atariboy]

Grand Prix Legends - Is still considered the top racing simulator among fans of the genre, and its hard not to like something that trys to simulate the 1967 Formula One season.

 

 

Half-Life - My favorite first person shooter, I've played through it and its expansions many times and wasted hundreds of hours playing the Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat mods for it.

 

 

SimCity 3000 - High point of the SimCity series in my opinion, I still play it to this day.

 

 

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time - Very interesting adventure game that I replay every few years, and has a great setting and multiple endings (After 10 years I don't think I've even seen them all yet).

 

 

NASCAR Legends - The 1970 NASCAR season made for a great setting for a videogame and was more entertaining than Papyrus's contemporary NASCAR titles of the time, though I enjoyed those as well.

 

Edited March 21, 2008 by Atariboy

[oesii]

Same reason for all of these; I had a FPS problem on the PC, even spent a couple of years in competitive clan gaming for Q1/Q2/Q3.

 

1. Doom/Doom 2

 

2. Quake

 

3. Quake II - Mostly Rocket Arena mod

 

4. Quake III

 

5. Duke Nukem 3D

[PressureCooker2600]

Fallout & Fallout 2 - One of the best series in video game history......only marred by that shitty foray into console gaming known as Fallout: BoS.....and soon to be redeemed by Fallout 3.

 

Starcraft - Best times I ever had with a RTS game. Thank you, Blizzard. I spent many nights building maps, playing multiplayer, enjoying the campaigns, etc.

 

Aliens vs. Predator series - Best FPS' to grace the PC, IMO.

 

Dark Forces - Really engaging storyline that tied well with the Star Wars Extended Universe. Fun gameplay for the times. Anyone remember the hidden Ewok easter egg?

 

Day of the Tentacle - Not as fun as it's predecessor, Maniac Mansion.....but has a charm all it's own. Wish they would make another one.

 

Honorable Mentions:

Age of Empires series

Star Wars: Galatic Battlegrounds series

Shogun series

Ultimate Doom

Magic Carpet

Theme Park

King's Quest 6

Space Quest 4

[opeygon]

wargames -- this is the funnest pc game i've ever played. it's got strategy, and lots of action. plus cool graphics and sound effects. i've played it over and over and over for the last ten or eleven years. it never gets old to me

[accousticguitar]

Front Page Sports Football Pro by Dynamix is my favorite pc game. The graphics are lousy, and the game crashes once in a while, but it is fun to play. It is not overly complex like the Madden football games. The game has a lot of features for its time. I can watch a game being played out on the computer screen like it was a real football game in the NFL (and no commercials either). I still have a league going where a couple friends come over and play it with me once in a while.

[Cap5750]

Same reason for all of these; I had a FPS problem on the PC, even spent a couple of years in competitive clan gaming for Q1/Q2/Q3.

 

4. Quake III

 

LOL. I STILL play this one. Even if it's just to run around with the gauntlet hitting the kiddies who think they can just run straight at me.

 

As for others, I have to agree....7th Guest was a fantastic game. Great story, great puzzles and took advantage of the "power" available at the time.

 

I wouldn't list just one FPS, but just use the word ID. It spawned a who new generation of video gaming that still exists today.

 

In the same way, I'd list EA Sports. I mean, isn't it crazy that there are people out there now who play John Madden football for a living?!?

 

And I guess I could continue that by saying Blizzard. Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft. Not my cup of tea though I do have a copy of Diablo laying around somewhere that I played a few times. I gave it up though after I learned of a "nasty" bug in which you could drop items on the ground to give to others WITHOUT losing your own copy of whatever it was.

 

Other games that come to mind:

 

Myst

Kings Quest

Monkey Island

Alone In The Dark

Sim City

 

Oh wait...we're supposed to list only 5. Oh well.

[PressureCooker2600]

Another Honorable Mention:

 

the much forgotten classic that needs an update: Battle Bugs

[Ryanw]

1. Myst - An amazing experience, had some of the best visuals I had ever seen and is the only game that actually made me feel I was in another place when I played it.

 

2. Lords of the Realm 2 - Only game from this list I still play regularly

 

3. Starcraft - My first online game, was never great but it opened up a whole new world of gaming

 

4. Nascar Racing - I spent more time playing this game then any other on the list. As a kid I went through the entire 30ish race season multiple times.

 

5. RollerCoster Tycoon - Kinda doesn't belong on this list, but a game I spent countless hours on nevertheless

[tyranthraxus]

Fallout (1997) - terrific post-nuke RPG game with a great skill system and story. The game a had a lot of comedy within it and a terrific 1950s inspired 'look'. I also remember the manual being quite well made as a mock "Survival Guide".

 

Wing Commander (1992) - I remember this being a game that sold a lot of 386s. Besides great sound, graphics and game play, it was all the little things that put it over the top. The voice addition was a thrill back then, and I loved the shipboard activity.

 

Duke Nukem 3D (1996) - Its hard to pick a single FPS but this would be the favorite of mine. Playing it was a lot like playing one of those tasteless 80s action movies complete with one liners!

 

Civilization II (1996) - Improved on everything from the original, making it a more complex game but not going to far in micro-managing.

 

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (1996) - This spin-off was a nice improvement of the original MW2 engine. I was more of a fan of the original MW which had you working as a mercenary. This game returned to that with a vaster selection of Mechs than the previous two game while maintaining all the action of the series.

 

Honarable Mention: Empire Deluxe (1993) - spent a ton of time doing to hot seat multiplayer on this one but just not as memorable compared to the others in terms of wow factor.

[thomasholzer]

How could I forget Mechwarrior? Excellent games:

[PressureCooker2600]

Fallout (1997) - terrific post-nuke RPG game with a great skill system and story. The game a had a lot of comedy within it and a terrific 1950s inspired 'look'. I also remember the manual being quite well made as a mock "Survival Guide".

 

I still keep my Survival Guide on the top shelf of my bookshelf. I loved it THAT much. I was such a Fallout junkie.

[tyranthraxus]

Nice Mercenaries collector box and original Mechwarrior. I didn't know that they made a collector box for that game. Other than that swank watch, does it have any other interesting stuff with it?

[thomasholzer]

Hey thx,

yes, a long sleeve T-shirt, a poster and 3 postcards...and a game too

[2600Lives]

1. Fallout 2 - Took everything that made the first game great and made it even better.

 

2. Fallout - Nothing to be said, really. One of THE best games on any platform, period.

 

3. Grim Fandango - Still unlike anything else out there.

 

4. Baldur's Gate - This one still holds up today as far as RPG's are concerned. Great characters populate this game.

 

5. Diablo - I still play Diablo 2 to this day. After beating it numerous times on all difficulty levels, it's really fun to get an item editor and make yourself a ring that allows you to summon EVERY ally available.