Nostalgic Game Review
In this second part of the 3-part finale of the column, we are getting into what I considered (personal opinion only) the golden age of PC gaming: 1995 – 2001. The era was kickstarted by both hardware and software advancements: Intel’s Pentium processors, ATI, nVidia, 3Dfx and a lot of competitions and innovations on graphic cards, and Microsoft unleashing DirectX (and arguably comparable open source alternative, OpenGL), meanwhile, games are getting prettier, more complex, and bigger that necessitate larger storage medium which was assisted by ‘CD-ROMs’ (the famous battle of Blu-ray vs HD DVD was still a few years away)… all these translated to much more variations in gameplay and genre that meets the needs for any kind of gamers. So today we will be covering games in wide spectrums of gameplay for this reason.
Again, these games fall into a special category since they are either 1) ones I had fond memories of, but didn’t play enough to really write a full article for; 2) ones that are already widely reviewed and I don’t have much to add.
By walking through these games with me, I hope to shed some light on the history of game design and reflect on how gaming technologies have evolved.
Without further ado…
Warcraft II (1995 PC)
Most people nowadays probably only know of Warcraft due to WoW, but this game was what propelled Blizzard into the fame… they later followed with the whole StarCraft series while continuing to build a ‘world’ of Warcraft. This game’s gameplay is pretty much the predecessor of all the free-to-play resource management mobile games nowadays. Remember all the great quotes and sounds as you commanded your people? Absolutely love it!
Quake (1996 PC)
What a year, 1996! After id Soft achieved success by the Wolfenstein and Doom with the quasi 3D FPS experience, and 3D Realm released Duke Nukem 3D in January, providing an unique experience continuing the quasi-3D rendering, id Soft opt for the technical innovative route, unleashing the full 3D rendered world of Quake. This later started the real 3D FPS battle as Unreal engine jumped into the ring. I still remember the excitement when I first used a nail gun!
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996 PC)
Before Chris Roberts started the well crowdfunded Star Citizen and continue to push the technical limits to create the insane game world (and perhaps that should be the real metaverse), he created the Wing Commander series at Origin (later acquired into EA), and this gem was star-studded with Mark Hamil (Luke Skywalker!), Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Star Trek), John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings), Tom Wilson (Back to the Future). So the game definitely became more like a movie and less like a game (with noticeably shorter missions) yet, it is just impressive!
Dungeon Keeper (1997 PC)
This is at the time the first game where players get to play the villains who build a dungeon managing bunch of dominions, and wage wars against the incoming waves of invading ‘heros’. The premise of the gameplay was appealing, the art style was very pretty and unique, and it’s technically innovative as it allows you to switch between top-down and first-person perspective to tour the world you’ve created. This series fortunately was also moved to mobile too 🙂
Diablo (1997 PC)
Need I say more? The game that started the whole hack and slash genre, bundled with beautiful cinematics and hilariously impossible hidden cow levels (ok, the latter two are truer with Diablo 2 and later)
Half-Life (1998 PC)
This game started the whole Half Life franchise (which everyone knows we will never see an ‘end-game’ published yet still secretly wish it), and made possible the idea of ‘story driven’ FPS (actually System Shock in 1994 was known for this, but I didn’t play that) Valve continued to develop the game, and Steam, and eventually became the huge ecosystem today.
Silent Hill 2 (2001 PC)
Oh, yes, this game definitely made an impression with its use of shadow, [lack of] lighting, fog, sound effect… and some of the well known villains in the series such as zombie nurses and pyramid head… I was impressed and just too scared to really progress much with the game :p
Grand Theft Auto III (2001 PC)
It’s a FPS, it’s an adventure game with mobster missions, it’s a taxi driving game, it’s a racing game where you get to enjoy the in-dash radio music… it’s the game that defined the series and its open-world genre!
That’s it for this episode of Nostalgic Game Review! Thank you for visiting!
Stay Tuned…
It’s super easy to follow my updates:
- If you use any feed readers (e.g. Feedly): Subscribe to my site’s RSS feed
- If you are a Medium user, follow me or my publication. Optionally you can adjust your email preference to get my updates via emails