Best PC game era ever?

[Supertanker]

I'm ready to pronounce this the best era ever in PC gaming. With NWN, MoH:AA, and JKII, the game makers have knocked off three of the "games I've always wanted" from my list in about six months! Before this, only X-wing/TIE Fighter, Mechwarrior2, Combat Mission, and Operation Flashpoint had fulfilled items from that list.

Freedom Force was close, but did not have enough freedom to wander the city. I'll need something like "GTA3 with superpowers" before I can mark off the Superhero Game, but it is probably in the works somewhere (maybe City of Heroes?). Nevertheless, an honorable mention for FF.

There are also a few great games I didn't know I wanted (like GTA3, Day of Defeat, and the Max Payne Matrix Mod), and ones that are improved versions of old favorites (AOW2 over MoM). Happily, there are so many good games I can't keep up.

[Jason Becker]

I'm sure most people will say some period in the past(5,10,15 years ago).

I do think this year is definately turning into one of the better ones in awhile.

[mtkafka]

I think this year, so far overall, has been the best. Yeah, it might not have the BEST GAMES EVAR! quality (in any other year alot of these games would_, but something about the quality of the recent titles and the amount they have been releasing at, well its good to be pc gaming right now is all i can say.

hope it lasts awhile though. I fear a drought after the xmas season.

etc

[Mark Asher]

This is shaping up to be a banner year. Not sure if it beats 1994 yet:

- Dark Legions (a personal favorite)
- Jagged Alliance
- Magic Carpet (where's my remake with multiplayer that isn't LAN?)
- Master of Orion
- Star Wars Dark Forces
- Star Wars Tie Fighter
- System Shock
- Warcraft
- Wing Commander 3
- X-COM

All classics and some of the best ever, with perhaps the exception being Dark Legions.

[mtkafka]

Dark Legions? I remember that name... too lazy to look it up. What is that game? Sounds cool!

Anyway, that list does look great. But it isnt til now that we realize its a good year huh? I bet in 1995 they looked at 1994 like we look at 2001, or maybe not.

etc

[Anonymous]

Morrowind and GTA3 do it for me alone. All along I've been an advocate for non-linear gaming (and before now my descriptions of what it would be like were flight sims and Daggerfall). Now we're seeing what it can do. Even outside of the non-linear gameplay constructs we also see a, for computer games, remarkably mature aesthetic vision in both games. The next big step will be incorporating dynamic storytelling and mission generation engines and better non-combat AI routines.

If Medieval Total War pans out as promised, I'll finally have the dynastic RPG-Strategy game with the killer tactical engine I've always wanted. RoTK meets Hollywood production values.

[Dave Long]

1998 is the best year in PC gaming in recent history. Half-Life, Grand Prix Legends, Starcraft, Baldur's Gate, Battlezone, Caesar III, European Air War, Dethkarz, Die by the Sword, Falcon 4.0, Fallout 2, Grim Fandango, Heavy Gear II, Heretic II, Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, Panzer General II, Railroad Tycoon II, Sanitarium, SiN, Starsiege, Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, Tribes, Thief: The Dark Project, Rainbow Six, Viper Racing, Warlords III: Darklords Rising, Descent: Freespace and Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate were all released that year.

Throw on top of that what came in late 1997 like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Jedi Knight, Dark Reign, Curse of Monkey Island, Quake II and others which people were still playing heavily and 1998 was a banner year for computer gaming. It's probably the best overall year for quality and for longevity. People are still playing Starcraft, Half-Life, Grand Prix Legends, Grim Fandango, Railroad Tycoon II and so many games that have relied on the engines and gameplay pioneered by these games. It was a year that created franchises and saw a couple come to an unfortunate end like Falcon 4.0, Heavy Gear, Starsiege and Warhammer 40k. It was the last truly big flight sim year because EAW and Falcon 4.0 sold well despite F4.0's problems and EAWs long term development.

1998, it can be argued, is really the year that 3D accelerators came into their own and everyone had a Voodoo card of some sort in their machines to play these games. Overclocking was the rage as I recall I got my Celeron 300A and overclocked it to 450 that Fall. NVIDIA made their first real splash that year with the RivaTNT which is what I built my 300A around, though I kept the Voodoo for the few Glide games left.

No, this year has been ok, but sentiment on a lot of the "big" games this year is very divided. Dungeon Siege, Freedom Force... all have mixed opinions. All those games I listed up there, if you played them, you probably consider a lot of them classics with a few exceptions. Some took some patching, but in the end they're all almost mandatory to your collection. They're often all cited when referring to new efforts in their genres. Just look at that list!

--Dave

[Ben Sones]

I didn't care much for Dark Legions, actually. It was a great concept--kind of a modern remake of Archon--but they ruined it by giving far too many of the pieces special movement abilities (flying, or teleportation), which made strategic movement on the board essentally meaningless. I love that type of game, though. I wish someone would take another crack at it.

This year would be a stellar game year even if it ended tomorrow. We've already had a deluge of fantastic titles. Hopefully the trend will continue.

Past years that were good for games? 1994 was probably the best in recent memory, as Mark said. I'd add Myst, DOOM II, Mission Critical, Panzer General, Superhero League of Hoboken (loved that game), and Wings of Glory (a highly underappreciated game) to his list.

'93 was also a great year. Not as good as '94, but not too shabby:

Betrayal at Krondor
Day of the Tentacle
DOOM
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Prince of Persia II
Stronghold (yes, I really liked this game quite a bit)
Ultima Underworld II
Warlords II
Privateer

[Dave Weinstein]

Master of Orion came out in 1993, not 1994.

--Dave

[Chris Floyd]

Ouch. Dave makes a strong case for 1998. Just recalling Mysteries of the Sith is enough to put JKII in perspective (I thought JKII was pretty weak myself).

Still, maybe what we're seeing here, from 1994 to 1998 to 2002 is some kind of four year cycle of quality. Interestingly, the games we're talking about are from a pretty diverse group of developers. A few publishers (Lucasarts) pop up each year, but in these cases it's pretty clear that the dev teams are substantially different (Hollis, Chan, Raven, etc in the LA case).

Anyone have the skinny on 1990? I'm too lazy to look it up on MobyGames.

[Dave Long]

There hasn't been a year like 1998 for me. I couldn't afford to get everything I wanted that came to the PC that year. I was still buying stuff from '98 as recently as last year. I still haven't played Die by the Sword and often think of picking that up. It's an incredible year in PC gaming history. The most amazing thing to me from that year is just how many of those games turned into franchises or had their engines drive two or three more games (often hits as well) up to two or three years afterward.

It's one of the main reasons I gravitated away from consoles from 1997 through to September 1999 when Dreamcast hit. The PC was the only place for me to play the best games back then.

I might also note that all the games from 1998 on that list have aged extremely well. You can pick up any of them today and they're still good looking and super playable. Since some are still being sold and played regularly, it really speaks to the quality and longevity of the games of '98.

--Dave

[Jason Becker]

I stopped reading Dave's post after he listed Sin.

[Desslock]

Yeah, this is definitely the best year in PC gaming since 1998. 1999 was also an excellent year -- it's just been the past two that have been comparatively weak. There've been a ton of big releases this year, and almost all of them found some pretty vocal advocates even if they weren't universally praised:

- Medal of Honor
- Freedom Force
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Morrowind
- Neverwinter Nights
- Dungeon Siege
- Grand Theft Auto 3
- Warlords Battlecry 2
- Jedi Knight 2

..and now with WarCraft 3 on the verge of release, and Age of Mythology, No One Lives Forever 2 likely to make it out by the end of the year, that's already an amazing year. More solid games than the 1994 list, in my opinion, and there may be more to add to the list (especially if any of the online RPGs make it out this year)

[Doug Erickson]

This is one of my favorite years, for sure.

Despite the disappointment of Jedi Knight 2 and Dungeon Siege, I've played and loved:

- Disciples 2
- Morrowind
- Freedom Force
- Age of Wonders 2
- Warlords Battlecry 2 (!)
- Neverwinter Nights

On my plate in the "good but don't drive me to fits of euphoria" I include Soldier of Fortune 2, C&C Renegade, and Warcraft 3.

Around the corner is Unreal Tournament 2003.

I also still play Kohan" Ahriman's Gift regularly.

[Alan Au]

Highlights from the MobyGames listing for 1990:

Bane of the Cosmic Forge
Carrier Strike
Champions of Krynn
Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars
DragonStrike
Elite Plus
Eye of the Beholder
Hero's Quest: So You Want To Be A Hero
King's Bounty
Links: The Challenge Of Golf
Populous
Powermonger
Railroad Tycoon
Secret of Monkey Island, The
Secret of the Silver Blades
Star Control
Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Wing Commander

- Alan

[Anonymous]

I'm down with '98, but Mark might be right about '94 being the "best year evar!"

A few he left out:

-Descent
-Doom 2
-Myst (hey, upon relase, it was pretty amazing!)
-Warlords II

It was also a banner year for consoles. Particularly with the one-two RPG punch of Final Fantasy III (6 in Japan) and Phantasy Star IV.

[Murph]

I haven't been as heavily into the gaming scene as a lot of you guys. I was playing in '98, but not passionately. I've only played a handful of the games on the '94 list, and only a couple more than that on the '98 list. I think I started getting "serious," as it were, about '99...I got married, and got a "real" job, that allowed me the finances to support the habit. (Or at least, moreso than before.) I suppose I have only really been following the industry for the last 2 1/2 years or so. As such, this is definitely the best year I can remember, and I've missed some of the most critically-acclaimed games this year, too.

Any year with Jedi Knight II, Freedom Force, Neverwinter Nights (which may be my personal favorite game ever), Warcraft III a couple weeks (or less) away, and NOLF 2 coming soon is a banner year in my book.

I had a lot of games I loved from last year (Civ 3, SimGolf, Arcanum, BG2:TOB...And was NOLF last year or year before?), but they can't stack up to what I've already got, with two more games I've really been anticipating still on the way.

What a great time to own a PC.

[Aszurom]

In reference to Dark Legions and the whole Archon genre of games...

I would like to take a moment to drop a GIANT FRIGGIN HINT to all the developers lurking in the forum. Especially those with a StarWars license - you know who you are.

Fire up EP.IV in your VCR (because George is a bastard and hasn't given us a DVD) and take a VERY CLOSE LOOK at the M. Falcon's chess table. You know you want to make it, and you know it would sell like mad. Hell, it could be a web-playable game. Just remember... let the Wookie win.

For that matter, the AI opponents could be other SW characters. Sit across the board from R2 or Chewie in a cantina or something. If Broussard makes it, there'll even be strippers in the cantina. The possibilities are endless.

[Murph]

How come nobody's ever done that yet? I could be mistaken, but I think, if you're an uber-geek, you can find the rules to that game that they're playing.

I'd play, I think.

[Anonymous]

Az - I've herad they're supposed to have that holo-chess thingy game in SW Galaxies. Maybe not at launch, but sometime down the road.

Raph, I know you're here - can you confirm/deny?