Game of the year 1998?

[Frosal]

Half Life if it came out in 1998, I played that game more than any other game in history. Its community was also epic, so many phases, so many fads, so many mods and personalities. Just an amazing reward for a $50 purchase.

edit: holy crap 1998 was a good year for gaming.

I also remember that Jedi Knight : Dark Forces 2 was the 1998 game of the year for quite a lot of publications. That was another nice game, the first game that I played with 3D acceleration.

1997

 

[DwarvenFood]

GOTY Half-Life, but the games I played and enjoyed the most are:

Carmageddon2, Commandos and Baldur's Gate.

 

[DraQ]

Unreal.

 

[BLOBERT]

FALLOUT AND ZELDA BROS

 

[commie]

This is far better reference...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1998_video_games


That year is kind of lackluster, tbh. I guess out of that list I'd have to vote for Banjo Kazooie and give mention to Half-Life.

What? 1998 was a great year!: Fallout 2(yeah fuck you, go play DA2 if you think it's better), Battlezone, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Tex Murphy Overseer, Commandos, Unreal, Caesar III, Warhammer Dark Omen, Descent Freespace, Die By the Sword, the zenith of flight sims happened this year with CFS1, F-22, F-15, F16/Mig-29, Longbow 2, WW2 Fighters, European Air War, Falcon 4.0(barely playable but certainly ambitious), Half Life, Thief, Myth II, TOAW, Baldur's Gate , Shogo..many others.

Lord to have such 'lackluster' years all the time!

Half Life if it came out in 1998, I played that game more than any other game in history. Its community was also epic, so many phases, so many fads, so many mods and personalities. Just an amazing reward for a $50 purchase.

edit: holy crap 1998 was a good year for gaming.

Yep, must have put in hundreds of hours into the mods for HL. Truly awesome purchase.

1998 was a good year indeed, it kept going until 2000 with the last gasp of the PC coming in 2004 when Far Cry, HL2 and Doom 3 came out and held promise with their next gen engines. I mean of course that the future still looked PC centric with the focus on such technology with the hope being that other fading PC genres would get a boost. Obviously it didn't happen but that's another story.

 

[Phage]

Hindsight is 20/20 and I retract my statement of it being lackluster. I'm just not too enthralled by those titles beyond BK/Half Life/Starcraft/Grim Fandango.

It's just overshadowed in my eyes by the releases of Fallout one year earlier and System Shock 2/Planescape Torment one year later (pretty much my top 3 favorite games more or less)

Also I don't understand why I'd "go play DA2" when I literally returned that game after the first act, lol

 

[Destroid]

97-98 best gaming years (by releases) of all time.

 

[Duckard]

The only games released in 1998 that I've played are Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, and NHL 99.

I guess I'd pick NHL 99.

 

[RolePlayer]

Starcraft

This.

 

[canakin]

Goty: Fallout 2
Runner up: Commandos

 

[villain of the story]

From memory:

Freespace
Fallout 2
Grim Fandango
Unreal
Commandos
Resident Evil 2
Atlantis
Of Light and Darkness
Sanitarium
The X-Files (not a great adventure game but still very significant for its time)
Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Thief
Heart of Darkness
Shogo
Zero Critical
Black Dahlia
Neverhood
Tenchu
Baldur's Gate
Delta Force
StarCraft
Redneck Rampage 2 (forgot the actual title)
SiN
Trespasser
Journeyman Project 3
Metal Gear Solid
Half-Life
Heretic 2
Hexen 2: Portal of Praevus
Return to Krondor

Such a great fucking year. Truly no other year like that. Looking back now, I don't know how I managed to play all that shit and more and not fail at school.

Oh yes, I remember now developing a sleep disorder.

 

[Zed]

97-98 best gaming years (by releases) of all time.

1999 was best for strategy though:

Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, HoMM 3

 

[octavius]

Congratulations, Codex. You passed the test.

I saw no votesfor Zelda, Tekken 3 or other JapCrap games.

97-98 best gaming years (by releases) of all time.

1999 was best for strategy though:

Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, HoMM 3

Let's not forget Age of Wonders.

 

[DakaSha]

Zelda and Tekken3 are both great games for-what-they-are™ gtfo
Zelda is an amazing Action Adventure and tekken an amazing 3d beat em up. Being known and having sold a lot on consoles dont make them autoshit. Neither does them not being RPG's or strategy. Even being japanese doesnt make them shit (makes it harder though)

Personally id have to go with fallout2. Just because i played it the most. If i were as old as i am now back then maybe id choose something else. Fo2 had a lot of flaws (its still great game regardless)

 

[Destroid]

There were some kickass jap fighting games that year though, Bloody Roar and Bushido Blade 2.

 

[catfood]

Easily for me. It's my favourite game of all time. Of all tiiiiiiimeee!!!

Though there were so many great games released that year that it's very hard to chose one.

 

[Akasen]

I vote for "Hey You Pikachu!" because it was a highly innovative game at the time and introduced many things to gaming like the usage of a mic and cruelty to animals in video games!

But seriously, I can't vote. I would want to vote for Legend of Zelda: OoT but I feel there was something in 1998 that my childhood may have missed due to lack of internet and awareness of actual games.

I will mention that did not play Orcarina of Time till like 2004 or 2005 BTW. I basically did not know what video games really were until 2006 when I Todd Howard lulled me into buying TeS IV Oblivion which rocketed me into PC gaming but has torn me apart ever since I realized what Oblivion really was.

 

[Phage]

Akasen, did you actually play any of the games mentioned in this thread?

 

[Disconnected]

Back then I think I would have said Dark Omen, with Thief a close second.

Now I'd say FreeSpace, with Thief a close second.

 

[octavius]

Zelda and Tekken3 are both great games for-what-they-are™ gtfo
Zelda is an amazing Action Adventure and tekken an amazing 3d beat em up. Being known and having sold a lot on consoles dont make them autoshit. Neither does them not being RPG's or strategy. Even being japanese doesnt make them shit (makes it harder though)

I must admit I may have an irrational hatred for jap games. I hate the cartoon characters, general childishness and extreme formulaity that pervades 99.99% of all jap games.
I checked out Ocarina of Time on MattChat since "everyone" was raving about it even 10+ yards after its release. There may be some excellent game mechanics in the game, but just looking at the cutesy characters and the childish cartoon world makes me nauseaus. Maybe when I was a pre-teen I might have enjoyed it.

 

[DakaSha]

eh i can understand that. zelda games are awesome though (if you can see past the gayness)
I grew up playing them so it doesnt bother me. I still dont think its only nostalgia though. shigerus games (franchises rather) really were just awesome (again for what they are)

 

[DakaSha]

I vote for "Hey You Pikachu!" because it was a highly innovative game at the time and introduced many things to gaming like the usage of a mic and cruelty to animals in video games!

But seriously, I can't vote. I would want to vote for Legend of Zelda: OoT but I feel there was something in 1998 that my childhood may have missed due to lack of internet and awareness of actual games.

I will mention that did not play Orcarina of Time till like 2004 or 2005 BTW. I basically did not know what video games really were until 2006 when I Todd Howard lulled me into buying TeS IV Oblivion which rocketed me into PC gaming but has torn me apart ever since I realized what Oblivion really was.

Play the games mentioned in this thread. i bet a lot of people envy the fact that they cant relive the golden era.
Pc games of the 90's are to modern games what Warner brothers cartoons are to... well modern cartoons :-/ (this includes the shit i loved in the 90's which was franky shit compared to bugs bunny)

 

[Grunker]

I would play Thief if not for the goddamn fact that it is impossible for me to get the installer to run properly on Windows 7

 

[MetalCraze]

TTLG forums are your help

 

[Grunker]

TTLG forums are your help

I've tried all the solutions (the main one being the one where you use "Run..." and an extension) but to no avail. The installer doesn't pop up