Top 10 PC Games of the 1990s
The decade that saw the rise of the internet also saw some great games, both online and off. Remember we’re sticking to PC exclusives due to the sheer amount of quality titles. Join http://www.watchmojo.com as we countdown our picks for the Top 10 PC games of the 1990’s Check us out at http://www.Twitter.com/WatchMojo, http://instagram.com/watchmojo and http://www.Facebook.com/WatchMojo
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The should release System Shock 1 & 2 on PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series X, and Switch.
Phantasmagoria should be mentioned… Terror, sex and violence! True 90s game!
It’s an absolute crime Roller Coaster Tycoon isn’t even an honorable mention in your video…most people even today prefer it and 2 over modern games and 2 is still played to this day. An incomparable classic game!
loooooooooooooooooooooooooooolz. Halflife Nr. 2 and C&C and C&C RA not? You are funny bro.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (grateful for the mention)
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Claw
Gruntz
ClueFinders (Fourth Grade)
Carmen Sandiago (Word Detective)
oh man , you forgot Command and Conquer tiberian conflicts
Fallout 2? Honorable mentions?! That game is a classic rpg, and should’ve been in the top 5 easily!
FREESPACE 2 IS THE BEST. EVER
No Unreal so list is Unreal !
Star craft are you having a laugh total annihilation was waaaaaaay better without TA you wouldn’t have star craft
Dungeon Keeper
I don’t know if Thief the dark project deserves a place in this top 10. But I really loved it
My list is way different…
Thief: The Dark Project
Xcom: UFO Defense
Half Life
X-Wing
Quake 2
Commandos
Syndicate
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Master of Magic
Fallout 2
Where is at least 1 of the Warcraft games
Man, some of these have some stunning graphics in today’s standards.
Monkey Island 2, Day of The Tentacle, Thief, Ultima Underworld, Elder Scrolls 2, The Longest Journey, System Shock 1, C&C, and Planescape Torment are all missing.
NHL 94
Unreal tournament is just badass
am I the only one who played SimCity?
Is 1990 considered part of the ‘90s or ‘80s? Being the Calendar started at year 1 and not 0 means that the first decade of the First century ran from 1 to 10 AD and not 0 to 9 Ad, meaning that the second decade was bumped to 11 to 20 Ad, the third from 21 to 30 AD, and so on until we reach the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Mhm and JK:Dark Forces 2. Even if the following game was put at the end of 2000, I can remember Project IGI very well. Back then, both were birthday presents from one of my cousin. I remember playing StarCraft and Age of Empires. Oh boy it was fun.
Good and well-thought-out list. No matter what people are gonna complain. The only one I’m not too sure about is Grim Fandango. If I could pick only one adventure game to define the genre, I’d go for Monkey Island, Full Throttle or Day of the Tentacle.
Counter Strike 1.6 is my favorite
3:45 whats the music?
As much as I loved Myst, The Journeyman Project was way better.
Rainbow Six
1. Star-Craft
2. Half-Life
3. Doom
4. Championship Manager series
5. Myst
6. Grim Fandango
7. System Shock 2
8. Quake 2
9. Duke Nukem 3D
10. Star Wars: TIE Fighter
What about warcraft2?
Hey, Watchmojo (and Watchmojo fans)!
Ok first of all this is a very long post and is about a game I played in my childhood which I loved and I can’t seem to find it despite hours of searching so I thought I should ask you guys. I started playing when I was 2-3 years old and still see it in my dreams, but I can’t remember its name, so I would appreciate it if you help me find it out.
I was born in 1997, and apparently, my parents got this game for free when they bought their first ever PC. It was a 3d 3rd person shooter game likely developed in the 1990s. It had superb graphics, and it is to this day the most excellent game I have ever played, and amazingly, this was at the time the internet was almost non-existent in my country.
At the start of the game, you can select either of 4 characters: A muscular guy wearing a green shirt, a young average build guy wearing a (I think) yellow shirt, a girl, and a (probably) bald guy wearing a dark purple shirt who had a bat who you could send to attack enemies. There were four types of ammo in this game. Each of these characters had a primary kind of ammo for their gun: for the muscular guy: fire ammo (red colour) for the girl and the young average guy: a blue ammo that had a similar effect and sound like laser, and for the bald guy: a green ammo which had an impact like lightning and could electrify enemies. Most of the ammo you found in the game was your character’s primary ammo, but you would still find some the other ammo too (for example, if you were the muscular guy most of the ammo you would find were fire ammo, but you would occasionally find the blue and green ammo).
The game starts in outer space; if you fell off the platform, a scream animation of the character was played, and you died. You began by climbing some walls and picking some ammo for your character. The enemies were mostly small bats at this point, and you could even destroy rocks, or if you had the fire ammo, burn some plants (they were grown on the walls).
By pressing the space key, you could place a gray mine bomb, and by pressing (I think) the Ctrl key, you could roll a brownish bomb on the ground towards enemies. You could also attack enemies by punching and using the handle of your gun as a weapon. You could also choose the speed you wanted to run or walk.
The game was very detailed and consistent. For example, if you walked on a metallic surface, the sound of your footsteps was very different from when you were walking on a rocky surface. Also, there were lots of lots of puzzles you should have solved to get to the next area. E.g. you had to find a minecart and place it under a broken roof in a specific way, get on top of it and jump the upper roof.
I remember that the levels (especially the later ones) were very challenging and almost no hint was given on where you should have gone next. For example, I remember a level similar to a maze and every time I played that level, I got stuck finding the way because every hallway looked the same. Also for each enemy, you had to use a different strategy to defeat them (some were prone to fire, etc.).
Under your health bar(red colour, located in the button top side of the game screen), you had some kind of special power bar (in blue). By pressing different buttons together and using your special power bar, you could unleash many different creative special attacks and powers. E.g., I remember you could create a circle of fire around yourself that prevented enemies from harming you for a limited time.
Also, you could trade some of your health bar to fill your special power bar and vice versa.
You could fill your health bar by picking up small red energy bars; they were like a very tiny version of Saturn. Similarly, you could fill your special powers bar by picking up very similar bars with the difference being that they were in blue instead of red. I also remember that I loved walking in water, and I loved its sound effects. You could even swim in the water!
You could save this game at different assigned points (in a circular platform), and you could have multiple save files. However, when you started the game, you had a fixed number of lives (number of times you could die) and unless you collected some objects similar to shiny starts, you could not get any more lives (even if you progressed to the next level) and these starts were very hard to get as they were either hidden in unconventional areas or were placed on elevated platforms and you risked falling off into the darkness (space) and losing a life to get a life. So there were many times I had to start the game from the begging just to do better on the levels to accumulate more lives in fighting harder bosses.
The level I got stuck in and never got passed it, was fighting a giant dragon. After getting a boat ride from a random across the very dark water, you arrived at the shore, and there was a small door that would open to where the dragon was sleeping. As soon as you entered, the dragon would wake up and attack you with its tail or fire.
I still can’t believe this advanced game was developed in the 1990s, and I am even more shocked that no one is talking about this game on the internet!
I have searched for hours to find this game, but all I saw were games like Doom. In my opinion, this game is probably the most underrated one in the world.
It is part of my childhood, so I would forever be thankful to you if you could find me the name of this game.
Thank you so much for reading this long post and for your help!
Wow 5 years
Monkey island? Comandos? …….. worst top ever
Umm…. Where is road rash
Honorable Mention to StoneKeep – it was PC gaming world Game of the Year for 1996. It took the old dungeon crawler formula to a new level with great graphics, live actor sprites, a very good soundtrack and great atmosphere.
no tomb raider????? seriously????
Prince of Persia? Oregon Trail??
I got my first PC any recommendations?
I’m a single player gamer.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m a priest but Doom should be number 1. 3rd is an insult
Doom-D2, Quake-Q2, System Shock 2, Half Life, Duke Nukem 3D, Panzer General………….Oh GOD…..The memories!
Ah man what about The Neverhood, that one was good.
You put Diablo on the main list, but not Baldur’s Gate? What’s up with that?
Surprised Warcraft III didn’t make the list….
Thief!!!
#1 for me was definitely Half Life!! Fallout and C&C should be in there too!
Fallout 1 or 2 Shoud be in this list
Rollercoaster tycoon?????????????????????????????
Captain Claw?
You missed IGI1
x com should be in the list
The secret of monkey island should certainly be in the top 10.
where is Dune 2 from 1992? :O