1990 games

Heralded for its turn-based combat system, Final Fantasy VII is now more popular than ever because of its remake. Fans may have already played the remake, but what about the original? It's a complete package with an intriguing story, arduous turn-based battles, and significant exploration. The Valve Corporation is a developer recognized for continually raising the bar with releases.

The original Half-Life first released in as a PC exclusive. This game revolutionized the genre with its level design and gameplay.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System saw many groundbreaking hits. Many consider Super Mario World one of the platform's best games. The ability to complete any given level in a myriad of ways made Super Mario World stand out. It has a significant learning curve, but overcoming obstacles in Super Mario World is the focus of its enjoyment. As usual, Princess Peach plays the damsel in distress as Mario tries to save her.

The introduction of Yoshi, the iconic green dinosaur, was a revolutionary change for the series. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time offers exploration and boss fights with a gripping story, and puzzles that add layers of enjoyment to the game.

Ocarina of Time 's soundtrack is considered one of the best of all time. This is a game that has a sizable cult following and features one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time: Link. Sometimes, it's impossible to beat the original. Regardless of personal preference, both games are masterpieces.

Krogan played a huge role in the original Mass Effect Trilogy and most likely will in Mass Effect 4 too, though they come with extra challenges now. Naive, passionate, and modest.

It was one of the defining games of the s fighting game circuit. Its crowning jewel was the King of Fighters franchise, which was updated annually with new fighters and features. Of all the '90s iterations of this series, '98 still stands at the top. Though it lacks a storyline, KOF '98 makes up for it with a focused, diehard approach to fighting mechanics. It's essentially a fantasy pool of SNK fighters thrown into the mix in order to create the ultimate dream team.

SNK somehow managed to elevate the formula to new heights, thanks in large part to a spectacular character roster. The second Tekken game capitalized on the newfound success and attention given to blocky 3D fighting games like Virtua Fighter , while building on its own legacy. The result was one of the most popular fighting games of the decade, hitting just a few years after 2D hits like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat became household names.

In many ways, Tekken was a step up from Virtua Fighter, its spiritual parent. Combat was fluid, dynamic, and much different from the typical formula of the decade. Combos took precedence, and that would help influence future 3D fighting games yet to come, including subsequent Tekken sequels. Famed developer Rare got into the fighting game field in when they developed Killer Instinct , which can best be described as a hybrid of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.

It gained notoriety and acclaim for doing something different, while also offering one of the most robust and creative character sets in gaming. Though it never achieved the same status as other hits of the decade, it is still a household name with longevity attached to it. Killer Instinct prioritized over-the-top combos as a staple game feature, essentially claiming the mechanic for itself.

But what had not been established is how the most common game genres, including platformers, RPGs and adventure games, would carry over into the new medium. The next three years would see three titles that did exactly that: define for the industry how to carry old genres into 3D. The launch title for the Nintendo 64 is among them. Super Mario 64 is one of those rare well, not if you read my lists games that truly redefines an entire genre, and shapes the gaming industry as a whole.

For years, platformers were the most popular game on home consoles, but it was unclear how the gameplay would translate to a 3D environment. Super Mario 64 answered that, demonstrating Nintendo's brilliance in game creation once again as it redefined the platformer genre for a 3D generation while simultaneously creating a great game.

That's a pairing that shouldn't be underappreciated: many of the most revolutionary games are actually not great games themselves, but introduce singular concepts that become important in later releases. Super Mario 64 possesses that rare combination of both creating and popularizing many elements that would go on to become mainstays throughout the gaming industry. Pong and Super Mario Bros.

With a nod to the other great titles of the year, there's no doubt about the game of the year for I won't rehash for you all the reasons why Final Fantasy VII was so popular, so acclaimed or so great: if you want to know, you can read any of the or so top ten lists that mention the game, or my own unnecessarily in-depth review of the game. Final Fantasy X, released a few years later, would change that answer, but for several years Final Fantasy VII set the standard for how to do a 3D RPG: still backgrounds, 3D characters and a full-motion camera on the battle sequences.

There's no way to count the game's influence; it's often forgotten that so many features that are just assumed to be standard for 3D RPGs were actually innovations of Final Fantasy VII, including the notion of a full-motion camera and pre-rendered FMV videos. Now, 12 years after the game's release, it's still popularly considered at least one of the top two games of all time, sometimes considered second only to the 3D transposition release of the following year.

While was a quieter year than , it still has more than its fair share of notable releases, continuing in the legitimization of the gaming industry as something more than just a niche industry: Mario Kart 64, the 3D sequel to the SNES Super Mario Kart and one of the Nintendo 64's most popular games; Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, one of the most popular titles on the console; Star Fox 64, another of the console's most popular games and a cult classic; Ultima Online, considered by some to be the father of the modern MMORPG; Fallout, one of the most popular PC games of all time; Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the most popular Castlevania game yet released; the cult classic SaGa Frontier; the fourth Mega Man installment and the first on a non-Nintendo console; and the original games in several acclaimed series, including Grand Theft Auto, Age of Empires, Gran Turismo, and Total Annihilation.

By far the most notable other release, though, was GoldenEye While it did not revolutionize the genre, it played a key role in popularizing it, and was easily the runner-up for game of the year Now this one's a toughie. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the obvious choice, and it certainly deserves the title.

The difficulty in choosing it has nothing to do with the game itself: it deserves it. The problem is that, like those NBA greats in the mid-'90s, its excellence naturally has to overshadow many other more-than-deserving games. Several games release in would have made game of the year in almost any other year excepting, of course, the previous two. The list of releases reads like a top ten lists itself: this year saw the release of StarCraft, one of the most popular games of all time over and above those other games often labeled as 'one of the most popular games'; Metal Gear Solid, an absolutely revolutionary action game and the first 3D incarnation of one of gaming's most popular characters ever; Half-Life, by far the most advanced, most popular and most realistic first-person shooter released at the time; and of course, the original Pokemon games, which have gone on to spawn the most commercially successful game-based franchise of all time, succeeding in realms where previous video games never manged to touch like television shows and movies.

Any of those four games could easily be game of the year in almost any other year. For another look at the quality of releases in , just look at the list of games forced down to the second tier: Resident Evil 2, Tekken 3, Fallout 2 and Turok 2, all sequels to wildly popular video game franchises and great games in their own right; Panzer Dragoon Saga and Xenogears, twoof the most underappreciated RPGs of all time; Unreal, the next great first person shooter and shooter engine; the original Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, an influential action shooter; Banjo-Kazooie, Nintendo's proof they could make a great platformer without a plumber; the original Baldur's Gate, a popular PC role-playing game; Spyro the Dragon, Sony's second attempt to brand its franchise with a mascot; Grim Fandango, a graphically distinct game; and Thief: The Dark Project, another excellent early example of a stealth video game.

After three years of hit after hit after hit, the gaming industry got together and collectively said "hey y'all, this is exhausting. Let's take it easy for a year. Categories Pages with script errors Pages with broken file links Use dmy dates from August Articles with invalid date parameter in template Pages using div col with unknown parameters Commonwealth Games in multi-sport events Sports competitions in Auckland International sports competitions hosted by New Zealand Commonwealth Games in New Zealand Commonwealth Games in New Zealand sport Gymnastics competitions in New Zealand January sports events February sports events s in Auckland.

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