Top 100 PC Games of the 90s!
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- The 90s saw the PC become a dominant gaming platform. While the consoles were taking over the living room, the PC proved to be an incredible, if expensive (and often frustrating if you had to deal with drivers and/or Windows) gaming platform.
It was worth it though; the gulf between the so-called PC master race and their console brothers was never wider than in the 90s, with the PC firmly taking the charge.
In this video, we present 100 of the best PC games of the 90s. Many of them have aged very well and are playable even today. A few haven't aged so well at well, but were mind blowing at the time. (I'm looking at you, 7th Guest and Rebel Assault).
This is NOT ranked by quality; these videos are presented in chronological order, according to year, and then alphabetically within each year.
Note that when it came to specific series of games, multiple entries were only shown if they were significantly different than each other. So while both Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 were great games, they were awfully similar - and there wasn't a lot of point putting both on. This also why Quake 2 and Quake 3 arena ...make the list, but not Quake I.
And to celebrate this video, here is a steam key GGCI0 7DWP6 GPM7T - if you claim it, please comment and let us know what it was!
COMPLETE GAME LIST
01. Commander Keen
02. Kings Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder
03. Rise of the Dragon
04. Secret of Monkey Island, The
05. Duke Nukem
06. Sid Meier's Civilization
07. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
08. Alone In The Dark
09. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
10. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
11. Star Control II: The Ur-quan Masters
12. Star Trek 25th Anniversary
13. Ultima Underworld
14. Ultima VII: The Black Gate
15. Wolfenstein 3D
16. 7th Guest, The
17. Betrayal At Krondor
18. Day of the Tentacle
19. Doom
20. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
21. Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
22. Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up Or Slip Out
23. Master of Orion
24. Rebel Assault
25. Sim City 2000
26. Star Wars: X-Wing
27. Syndicate
28. The Incredible Machine
29. Beneath A Steel Sky
30. Little Big Adventure
31. Master of Magic
32. Myst
33. Sid Meier's Colonization
34. Star Wars: TIE Fighter
35. System Shock
36. The Elder Scrolls: Arena
37. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
38. Wing Commander III: Hear of the Tiger
39. X-Com UFO Defense
40. Beast Within, The: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
41. Bioforge
42. Command & Conquer
43. Crusader No Remorse
44. Descent
45. Full Throttle
46. Hexen: Beyond Heretic
47. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
48. Jagged Alliance
49. Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds
50. Mechwarrior 2: 31st Centrury Combat
51. Rise of the Triad: Dark War
52. Star Wars: Dark Forces
53. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
54. Chex Quest
55. Duke Nukem 3D
56. Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
57. Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail
58. Sid Meier's Civilization 2
59. Syndicate Wars
60. Terminator: Skynet
61. Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri
62. The Pandora Directive
63. Blood
64. Curse of Monkey Island, The
65. Diablo
66. Fallout
67. Interstate 76
68. Panzer General 2
69. Quake 2
70. Realms of the Haunting
71. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
72. Theme Hospital
73. Total Annihalation
74. Baldur's Gate
75. Battlezone
76. Commandos Behind Enemy Lines
77. Grim Fandango
78. Half Life
79. Heretic 2
80. Kings Quest: Mark of Eternity
81. Myth II: Soulblighter
82. Sanitarium
83. Starcraft
84. Starsiege: Tribes
85. Thief: The Dark Project
86. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
87. Unreal
88. Age of Empires II
89. Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun
90. Descent 3
91. Dungeon Keeper 2
92. Freespace 2
93. Homeworld
94. Midtown Madness
95. Planescape Torment
96. Quake 3 Arena
97. RollerCoaster Tycoon
98. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
99. System Shock 2
100. Unreal Tournament 
Игры
I miss those times. My older brother used to buy those pc games all the time. I loved the big boxes, the thick manuals and all the leaflets. The posters were pretty cool too. Nowadays we don’t get all that cool stuff anymore
I totally feel this. That was one of the best things about buying those PC games - all the goodies! The only problem was the amount of space that it took. One of my biggest regrets is throwing away all the large beautiful boxes simply because I ran out of room.
Nowadays my PC library is all based on Steam - so ... nothing physical. And the rare times I do buy a physical console game - you literally just get a case and the disk - not even a manual!
@@GaryRetroGamer No physical items means that anyone can turn off your internet services and you will have nothing. Think about it. No physical items = no freedom. Same with money...
@@betulaobscura No doubt. I am not a fan of a digital library; would rather have the physical media!
Those boxes have awesome cover art and the boxes are superb. I'm glad I kept them, including the manuals, posters, and even the disks.
What a huge difference a decade can make. Seeing the crude graphics and simple game mechanics at the start of the decade and seeing it evolving in sophistication right in front of my eyes as the hardware specs are constantly improving in near lockstep is amazing to behold.
A decade? a year was enough, look at the jump between 1997 and 1998
man, your work is absolutely awesome! I love this channel!
1998 what a good year, it was definitely the breaking point.
As a 90s kid this was an absolute golden era that will never come back.
Kids today will say the same about the 2020's in 30 years
@@fershredas 18 year old, i literally bought a PS1 to play older games and use PCEM
The Incredible Machine was awesome, they used to install it on computers at primary school libraries because it was said to encourage creative thinking. A lot of kids would make stuff like slingshots or catapults, and were never allowed to recreate their work in real life.
As for Unreal Tournament, we have that to thank for nearly every arena/multiplayer shooter having some voice over killing spree announcer letting everyone in the match know that someone has like a 25 kill streak.
Unreal and quake 3 set the bar for 3d shooter games for the future, since now i do not see any new gameplays
A superb list well done! A few more that I loved during this decade were Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Grand Prix Manager, NHL 96, Screamer, Shogun: Mobile Armour Division and AVP.! Great times.
Timelapse, Fallout 2, Need for Speed, Mig-29, etc.
I love your channel, you should start making this compilations by genre also!
What a nice compilation of good old games. I got goosebumps. Remember the cozy atmosphere the game shops had in the 90s?
Your channel is awsome. A lot of wonderful memories and experiance. Great job! I'am waiting for more...:)
Damn....i was born in 86.....this video is my childhood :D So awesome.
Amazing video!
A great list, and thanks for taking the time to put this together. It must have taken you hours. I'm surprised Freelancer wasn't on your list, personally, I thought that game was ahead of its time.
Thanks for the kind words and glad you enjoyed the video. Freelancer was totally an amazing experience but was actually released in 2000, and so just missed the 90s cutoff date, sadly.
@@GaryRetroGamer Great video! I played a lot of Lords of the Realm II
I know its 2 years late but amazing vid no crap just game footage and sound.. seriously you just took me back to my childhood for 20 minutes thank you
It's never too late to say something nice. Thank you for the kind words!
What a fantastic list, so many memories, some I still play to this day.
Didn't expect this... Awesome!
Ultima Underworld II was influential on me, it felt very atmospheric at the time, as did games like System Shock, especially the 2nd in the series.
Please Add: The Longest Journey, in part 2, or do you consider it in the 2000s?
Awesome video BTW
1998 was an amazing year for PC gaming!
yes
Awesome video. Can't wait for best PC games of 2000-2009!
Civ IV .. thaz all
@@thomashelbo1432 suuuuuuure
awesome compilation
I am so glad you put #63 in there... I had so much fun playing BLOOD when I was a kid. The animations of setting people on fire was really cool, and there were some really cool other features in the game like a working mirror.
Very nice!! Tks a lot!
When EA, Blizzard,Star Wars was awesome,and fallout was rpg.
fallout is still awesome
@@koffing2073 fallout 4 is good,but isn't good as fallout 1,2,3 and New Vegas . 76 isn't rpg
Well back then game companies held the belief that financial success would result from developing a product that gamers would enjoy thoroughly, and therefore buy in great numbers. That financial success fueled the next games and the cycle of striving for quality and entertainment thrived. A few years ago companies got on board with the commie agenda to make all forms of entertainment vehicles for social change. If quality dropped and the game suffered critically and financially, it could simply be attributed to “problematic, toxic gamers” and the big flop would be explained as being too progressive for evil, backwards thinking consumers. So now when 1 in 20 released games are entertaining, it doesnt matter to the companies as long as there is a utopian message delivered, dlc content drives down quality and drives up consistent income. Imagine if the “bad guys” won in world war two, and in jurrmannee all shows, books, movies, songs, toys, and games were designed to be “pro-bad guy agenda.” It wouldnt matter how poorly designed or boring those games would be, as long as their “country’s leader” approved of the message, it would keep being made as such. Gamers are not being catered to by companies. Now, companies cater to other interests at the expense of the gamer. Game executives actually despise gamers today. In 20 years, the goal is to have one huge socialized game developer responsible for every game ever made. This tax payer subsidized, single party development company will have no more need to even pretend to make fun, interesting, unique games, instead they will simply release incessant sequels, all equally “forward thinking” in their message, comically diverse, and specially formulated to be as boring as it is inoffensive. Games like duke nukem or grand theft auto will be nothing more than mountain sized heaps of melted plastic, and simply referring to the historical existence of such problematic game titles will be construed as H8 speech. And before anyone says that im being melodramatic, understand that i am hispanic 90’s gamer from los angeles with an english lit degree. Im no conservative, just an angry lower middle class gamer who used to live for gaming back when it was flawed but pure. Us 90’s gamers dreamed of what gaming would be like decades in the future. Instead of every game today being as good as red dead redemption, most of them today feel big middle fingers from companies who can afford to ignore the players’ comments. “Oh you dont like that the 4th iteration of star wars battlefront is inferior to previous entries? Well you just sound like an orange man voter. F off and give us more money!”
Gaming is better than ever
@@RogersGirl88 A lot of what you said is true but standards for video games were much lower back in the 90’s. It was also easier to develop games back in the 90’s. I will give you Majoras Mask for example. It only had like a 1 year development cycle.
Like I said though most things you said were spot on. We live in a world where we just get loads of watered down sequels that people foam at the mouth over.
Nice one. I think I got around 70 of these titles =) Nostalgia overload. =)
I was going to comment "you forgot Unreal Tournament" then saw number 100; ah ha.
Dope list!
5:30 I played this 20 years ago, when I was 2 years old. Thank you for including it!
Duke nukem 1 2 and 3d, doom, full throttle, hexen, decent, rise of the triad, star wars dark forces, quake 1, 2 and arena were played over and over 😍
This was great fun. Big love to ‘War Wind’, ‘Dr. Riptide’ and ‘Jazz Jackrabbit’ too.
Great video! (I really like that you included the names of the companies that created each game). Makes me think.. I just don't understand the need to make games hyper realistic nowadays. To me, there was something cool about games being somewhat abstract and that the characters would remain unscathed through fights and all. And just as another poster said, they were much more varied in how to play the games - their structure... I just think the experience was altogether more fun
You should definitely make a part 2 (still on the 90's).
I know it's a personal list, but no Quake 1 really hurts my soul...
For the most part, I tried to keep only one entry per series; the only exceptions I made were when there was a significant difference between multiple entries in the series (e.g. between Command and Conquer and Tiberian Sun). With Quake, there wasn't much of a difference between it and the sequel, which came out very soon after the original. I'd love to make a part 2, but it will really depend on how much traffic this video gets!
@@GaryRetroGamer Kinda late, but Quake 2 had nothing to do with Quake 1 before late development stage, even title was different. So if some should've been missing, it's Q2 while Q1 was revolutionary for the entire PC gaming and 3D graphics.
@@GaryRetroGamer As already mentioned, Quake was a revolution and perhaps the top influencer in the whole 90's game industry, in such a good list is totally incomprehensible not being here... Quake 2 it's a footnote compared to it.
Yes well i miss final the fantasy games, the might and magic games(not heroes of might and magic), Earthsiege 2 and so on.
Great list. 👍
nice ! There are so many game in 90s ... GTA, LBA2, Lemmings, Settlers, megarace, death rally,
Command and Conquer, Half-Life and Starcraft. Those were the days!
Exactly. And Counterstrike as a Half-Life Mod.
I was waiting for Quake 3 💜💜💜💜 I believed it should be included. 👍🏼 Good job.
Let’s face it, the late 90s/early 00s were the golden age of PC exclusive gaming
1998~2003
Excelent! as always! also, where is time Commando? xD
Holy fuck yes. I was like 6 when I played that and it was so fun going throw differe t timelines and getting different weapons. But also where the fk is Star Command Revolution.
Very good list. Kinda wish they were in ranked order.
Little Big Adventure looks way ahead of its time. First PC game I bought after the demo impressed me. No LBA2 on your list?
So many fantastic games.... I love the 90s :D .
No championship manager!!?? Great channel btw 👍👍
Old games were much different from each other with different gameplay mechanics. Nowadays if you beat 1 game, you can say that you beat them all. Modern gamers judge games only by the cover, how it looks
yeah;/and idc bout how it looks i care bout mechanics
because now it cost a lot of money with a large crew so taking risks can ruin a company
@@koffing2073 if the modern games had more gameplay and less cinematics, they would not cost that much. Take for example Mario Odyssey or new Zelda, they dont cost as much as Uncharted 4, but they are much better in terms of innovation and gameplay. Modern AAA developers sell you the same game every time with just different locations and plot, that;s all. Such games were called Total Conversions in 90s, nowadays they are called New Games: same engine, same gameplay, different character skin and levels, just a modification
It’s true there’s less innovation, less risk taking. It’s the reason tactical shooters disappeared.
Graphics and processing was not as good back then so developers had to get creative and find different ways to make the game fun. It makes the game feel kind of more authentic , like a craft. A wonderful box of chocolates with each game 👌
I'm gonna enjoy this!!
That StarCraft menu music in the intro brought a smile on my face lol
God, how I miss Tribes, Tribes 2, Tribes Vengeance, and the last one Tribes Ascend. R.I.P
We didn't get a PC until 1999. One of the first games we got for it came with a demo disc from Eidos which included Thief. I immediately fell in love with it and ended up buying it for my birthday that year. It is still do this day one of my favorite gaming experiences
I have that one on my shelf now lol. Tomb Raider along with FF7 Demos and more!
Thief is incredible, an amazing series!
@@delrachdubal yeah I think it did come with Tomb Raider lol That and Delta Force were the first 2 pc games we got back in the day. I really miss Thief. Such a great game
Great video. There are some titles missing though, like Icewind Dale, HoMM3, GTA or Tomb Raider
Well idk about the others but Icewind Dale was released in 2000, so its not 90s game
@@Balnazzardi yeah, i was sure it was released in late 1999
I got a bunch of these demos from CGM magazine. I just played alpha centurion again and it holds up!
Grew up with these games.. this is real nostalgy, golden childhood :)
You know the video is gonna be good when it opens with starcraft 1 music.
Grew up with mid/late 80'ies - 90'ies gaming. Some good memories in this video, consider my self lucky 😎
Especially about age today lol
Fallout, Diablo, Commandos, Half life, Starcraft, Thief - in the span of 2 years!!
I still play some of those games and I can tell they are better than many new releases.
Quality list of games !!! 👌💪👍
Big on the nostalgia. TIE Fighter ... that was a good game ... always wanted a revisit to that game. I know fans made a higher-resolution version of course.
Nice VIdeo .. Thanks you !
those pc speaker sound is so nostalgic. My early 90s pc games are floppy based with a 486 dlc 25mhz with 2 megs of ram.
Awesome top 100:D Even PC has solid game library:D
Commandos behind enemy lines, Army men 2, Chaos engine are my childhood games.
Big like Gary 👍
When I was in elementary school, I played a shooting game that started with Q. In it, you had to fight flying dragons or monster insects. At that time, my computer did not have Internet access and I couldn’t speak English. So now it’s hard for me to even search in English to find that game. A tower-shaped helmet shooting warrior game!!!
PC gaming was really rough in its early days, but here you see the beginnings of its rise to glory. So many classics from this era, and most of them hold up.
when consoles were superior machines haha
I'd trade this era of DLCs, microtransactions and shameless money grabbing attitude of gaming companies from today to get back to the 90s. I also want to trade this era of TikTok, PC culture and surveillance state from today to the 90s freedom.
Fantastic nostalgia C&C, XWING and XCOM 😁
OMG! i claimed Blood: Fresh Supply ! its kinda like Doom , i love it ! ty Gary !
LOL - that's funny because "Blood" is actually in this video - 12:25. A great game. Thanks for letting us know what it was, and I hope you enjoy the game!
Hi, did someone remember a old Adventure-Action game where the action takes place in the Middle Ages but sometimes it shows the caracter dreaming in a bed in modern days. The action starting in a cave-temple first object to get a torch, third person view.
Later in the game you get the ability to swap into a faceless creature similar to Void ( Dota 2 ) but dark color and spikes instead hands, it helps you move objects and fight
I never really was a PC gamer, my parents didn't own a computer. But, when I got my Playstation in 97, I became a hardcore Sony Console gamer.
I would like to add atleast Hidden & Dangerous (1999) and Outcast (1999) to this list...not sure if it had original Age of Empires there either.
Anyhow playing games in 90s had something magical to it....I know im never able to experience something like playing the newest and most hyped/talked games as it was back then when I was still under 10 years old....playing Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft II, Age of Empires, Half-Life, Hidden & Dangerous, Outcast for the first time.....that was something else and something that no game today could make me feel. Part of it is is growing too old and the "been there, done that feel" with video games even if I still do enjoy playing games, but when you were younger and game development took giant leaps forward each year in 90s....it was something else and those days are not coming back
I totally feel this. Every time you saw something *new* that developers created - your mind was blown; early FPS to early 3D games, to open worlds and so on. While modern gaming is still good fun, it lacks that "woah, I've never seen that before".
You identified one of the things that this video tried to capture; every year - games evolved, often by huge technological (and gameplay!) leaps. Doing a similar video from say 2010 to 2020 wouldn't show much of a difference between the first year of the decade and the last year of the decade...
Also, Hidden and Dangerous and Outcast were great games! However, they aren't remembered with the same importance as games such as Diablo and Quake - which is why this video exists: ruclips.net/video/Htu5O6_Ar80/видео.html (hint: H&D and Outcast are both on it)
@@GaryRetroGamer indeed. The last time I was truly excited about new games was during the first couple of years of 7th console generation so around 2006-2007. After 2007 I started to fall of from the newest game releases and around 2008 I actually started to focus on older games I had missed over the years and thats what Im still doing to this day and my gaming backlog had just grown and grown 😅
I do play some newer games on PC from time to time (like right now Iron Harvest which is "only" 2 years old ) but mainly older titles on both PC and consoles.
And thats what I likely am going to do for the rest of my life because I have so hopelessly fallen back from newer releases, like 15 years....I know Im never able to catch up with the backlog so Ive stopped even thinking about it, I just play whatever I want to play and I dont mind it being older games 😂
In fact I just got interested about replaying some older classics Ive not played in years like Project IGI games, No One Lives Forever games, Hostile Waters and Jade Empire as well as some older games Ive not yet ever touched like Jagged Alliance games, Desperados games, Icewind Dale games and so on
No MDK 1? I think it's a good game still, was a bit taxing on my old computer back then haha
I'm currently streaming some of these games that I grew up with, i started from the Atari 2600 :) so maybe my kids will see the gamer I was .. thanks for video :) )
Yo recuerdo mi primer juego que regalaban en la compra mensual de una revista de pc, el juego era Age of Empire y era buenisimo
as an 80s baby this genuinly made me smile. Thank you so much
so many of my childhood/youth games they all looked much better in my memory XD but the list is missing some gems like resident evil, dune 2000, silent hunter, the settlers, anno 1602
Gotta love this era
Man, 90s PC gaming was all about Descent. God I played the hell out of those games,lol.
that starcraft ambiance in the beginning took me right back to 1999 lol
Crazy how Quake II came out in 97 and by then other games were still using the Doom engine. Progress was crazy fast back then.
Games really developed at a fast pace in just 7 or 8 years of that decade
This was the golden age
11:37
I recognize those sound effects from somewhere, from another PC game, where are they from? It's a very recognizable sound but I can't put my finger on it
When it came to the games on the list, the only one I remember playing in the 90s was Chex Quest.
Lands of lore was amazing
Best compilation so far. No one remembers Sam n Max Hit The Road? Unless I missed it.
Just glad you put Ultima 7 in there.
Man this video came up just when I found my old pentium 4 PC
Talk about coincides
Saw that thumbnail with halflife at like 79 and thought you were ranking them omg
Have been trying to find a game for years with no luck if anyone can help. Early/mid 90’s Ms-Dos/PC pretty vague but some dude in a desert, maybe a solider. All i can remember is being attacked by a snake or there was twisters/ sand storms that you got sucked up in. Also remember a tent you entered and could collect things.
You need to make a video like this but with 2000 games please at least until 2010/2005
It started with commander Keen so I was absolutely keen all of a sudden in hitting that like button
Ahhhhhh the nostalgia
Best top list so far!
I would add Steel Panthers strategy and Blade Runner adventure game.
Great!
I might add that these games on the list are truly PC games.
Many top lists are full of games that could be on SNES, Amiga, C64, PS1, etc..
Sad that Time commando didn't made the list. Honorable mentions on The dig, power slide, carmaggedon, Microsoft flight simulator, Screamers, NFS II and III, Oni, Daikatana and Worms.
i'm looking for a late 90s game called either ragnorrock or Valhalla. it was a fps type with old melee weapon types, i ran a server for in 1999.. but damnd if i can find it.
Wow what great memories, brings it all back, who needs sleep eh :)
Glad to see Little Big Adventure.
Great list of games! But no Quake 1 or Doom 2?
Nice selection! The ones I thought should be on the list were! On this front for #100 I read Epic was shutting down UT99 server access...until they can get it on steam and make you pay to play it online (again). I still play UT 99...there are a lot of people still playing...and will continue EPIC or not!
Quite a nice selection, but anyone who knows the 90s knows that it was also the heyday of simulations. Here is a pair example.
Aircraft: RedBaron, Aces of Europe, Aces of Pacific, A-10, SWOTL, Apache Longbow,LHX, etc
Boats: Gunboats, SilentHunter1+2, Aces of the Deep, Uboat Burning Steel
Yeah, that's a fair comment. I purposely avoided putting simulators on this list because simulators just aren't popular anymore and are mostly forgotten. But you are totally correct - in the 90s, sims were huge. However, that will be corrected in an upcoming series of videos....
I wish there was a remaster of Descent 3, to me the underrated masterpiece of the series.
command & conque , my best childhood memory
I still cant find that one game I used to play as a lil kid😭
Unreal Tournament & Unreal were deff my favorites. Starcraft n Diablo as well.