Welcome to the Video Games wing of the Shacknews 2024 Hall of Fame class. This category celebrates the games that have shaped the industry and the lives of millions of players.

When you're finished, use the Table of Contents at the bottom of the page to visit other areas of the Shacknews Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

Quake III

Quake III: Arena is the apotheosis of every deathmatch mode and feature id Software had introduced starting with Doom in 1993. So much so that John Carmack made two big decisions to support his vision: The game would require a 3D accelerator card, a first for the company and hardly ubiquitous across the industry (most games still relied on software rendering); and no single-player campaign.

Story? Characters? Id had never done much with these things anyway, so why keep up the pretense? Quake III was predicated on multiplayer. There was a single-player mode, but it featured deathmatch and other modes, such as capture the flag, against AI-controlled opponents. In essence, single-player mode was a training camp: learn the maps, learn the weapons, learn the strategies, then go online where real fun awaited.

The company’s gamble on cutting-edge tech and the growing world of esports competition paid off. The game is still played today in the form of Quake Live, which started on a web browser—hard to believe the game that required a 3D graphics card would later be installed like a plug-in—and is still available and quite popular for a game celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Arguably Quake III’s biggest fan is the man who envisioned it. “Quake III Arena was always my personal favorite id Software game,” John Carmack said in 2008 interview, nine years after the game’s release and around the time it was making a return in the form of Quake Live. “It’s such a pure activity kind of game - more of a sport than a movie. And I’m excited to have this opportunity to bring back the pure type of gaming as opposed to the ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ modern design. We have no pretensions about it being the best multiplayer game in all types of things, but for any player looking to test their [deathmatch] skill, I think Quake III Arena is the best there ever was."

Unreal Tournament

Quake III wasn’t the only FPS property to shed storytelling for a deep concentration on everything that made multiplayer gaming great in the 1990s. The first Unreal shipped with both a campaign and highly customizable multiplayer, but caught flak (presumably from a Flak Cannon) for hiccups experienced by players on less-than-ideal internet connections. “Believe me, these shortcomings are very much on our minds, and improving Internet play is the team's top priority," said Epic president Tim Sweeney in August 1998 in a public post on the company’s website. "The next patch will offer some improvements in this area, and there's more to come. After the patch, there will be a rewrite of Unreal's low-level game protocol, which will incorporate some major new bandwidth improvements, based on the stats I've been collecting lately during 28.8K and 56K gameplay lately. We aren't going to stop until Internet play is very competitive.” (The original Unreal was inducted in the Shacknews Hall of Fame Class of 2023. Read more about it here.)

Improving net code was one of, if not the primary impetus for Unreal Tournament, a game centered on online play, and one that started as an expansion pack for Unreal before Epic realized that the scope of their ambition would be better realized as a standalone game. The result was one of the most creative, customizable, and enjoyable first-person shooters of its time. It was so good, in fact, that players still engage in (mostly) good-natured arguments over which game was superior: Quake III, or Unreal Tournament. The answer: Both, for different reasons.

If Quake III is the ultimate deathmatch game, “UT99,” as it’s sometimes called, focused on being more experimental. Like its predecessor, UT’s weapons have alternate modes of fire, some of which depend on teams of players working together to boost their firepower. Mutators such as InstaGib and low gravity dramatically altered gameplay, allowing players to customize the game to suit their preferences. Maps were varied, ranging from space stations to industrial halls to wide-open spaces perfect for sniping enemies bold enough to steal enemy flags.

Besides deathmatch and capture the flag, other modes such as Assault (one team defends a base while the other attacks it) and Domination (vying for control points) made UT a worthy competitor to Quake III while also carving out its own niche in the burgeoning arena-shooter space. It’s a worthy inclusion to any LAN party, and an even worthier inductee in the Shacknews Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Over three and a half years, Capcom released three mainline Resident Evil games. By the time RE3 shipped in 1999, however, many fans were asking what could possibly follow up the instant classic that was Resident Evil 2. The PlayStation hardware was showing its age, and so was Resident Evil’s engine.

Answer: The ultimate predator.

Resident Evil 3 takes place largely in the streets of Raccoon City. You’ll explore some interior environments, but the brunt of the game happens outside in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. You need to memorize these avenues and back alleys, because Nemesis, the game’s titular antagonist, knows them well. 

In the first game, the Tyrant was a final boss. In the second, the creature—known informally as Mr. X—popped up only in certain scripted moments. Nemesis was different, and his differences made him the star of the show. Umbrella created the ultimate Tyrant: He was able to run, to fire rockets, to punch and fling you across the screen, and most terrifyingly, to follow you almost anywhere. That seemed almost unfair. Before RE3, doors were barriers that separated you from whatever shambling horror waited on the other side. Now you have to face something as dogged as Jill Valentine, RE3’s main hero.

Resident Evil 3 might be more action-focused than its two predecessors, but Nemesis is the stuff of nightmares, and he alone makes it Hall of Fame worthy. He became not only one of the most iconic characters in RE canon, but one of the most recognizable faces in gaming and in popular culture.

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings

Few real-time strategy games are as immersive as Ensemble Studios’ Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. Taking the first game’s emphasis on historically accurate periods and expanding on it, Ensemble and publishing partner Microsoft created one of the most enduring titles in the genre, and one that was guaranteed to be enshrined in the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Everything about Age of Empires II is bigger, bolder, and more captivating—all using the same game engine and code base. Thirteen playable civilizations vied for dominance in the Middle Ages, going through the usual RTS cycle of gathering resources, building towns, and raising armies to demolish opponents. Where Age of Empires II excelled was between the lines of that formula. Worker units, for instants, had personalities, making them feel more like real people than the more copy-and-paste “Acknowledged” and “Right away” responses of worker bees in other RTS titles. Female villagers work alongside their male counterparts.

A town bell alerts all villagers that they should seek shelter during an attack, offering players a way to keep these valuable units safe; those same units can serve roles in defense and offense as well, making them useful in scenarios outside of harvesting resources. Other new features included the ability to create profiles for different players on the same machine, customizable hotkeys, and a simple interface that makes using all of these robust features intuitive and logical.

“We did what it took to make [Age of Kings] a triple-A game,” said Matt Pritchard, programmer at Ensemble, in a postmortem published on Game Developer. “While the decisions to take an extra year and reset the units to an [Age of Empires] baseline were tough in the short term, they were the right decisions to make. The commitment of Ensemble Studios to exceed the quality of its prior games never wavered. To realize our goals, we added the additional programmers, artists, and designers that we needed. When we needed to stop, take a hard assessment of what we were doing, and kill our own children if need be, we did just that. We pushed ourselves hard and we came together as a team.”

SoulCalibur

In a vacuum, Soulcalibur is one of the finest fighting games ever made. Its characters are memorable, its weapons-based combat was arguably the most sophisticated yet seen in the genre, its graphics were stunning—especially on the Dreamcast—and its eight-way movement system allowed for smooth, more intuitive and realistic navigation in each arena, making for more white-knuckled contests.

But the original Soulcalibur deserves to be celebrated for more than its qualities as a fighting game. Released in Japan in August ’99 and in the US on the Dreamcast’s 9/9/99 launch date, the game featured new modes, more costumes, an extra character, and specs that propelled this home release beyond the vaunted goal of “arcade perfect.” It looked better, it played better, and it signaled the end of an era. No longer could home versions of coin-op games be forgiven for falling short of the technical bars set by their source material.

“That was that moment where I was like, oh, my God, this is arcade quality, right?” says Asif Khan, CEO and editor-in-chief of Shacknews. “That was the whole argument that was happening at the time. But to me it was better than arcade quality. I was like, oh, arcades are dead. Dreamcast felt like that moment where I really don't need to go to the arcade anymore. Because you had this gorgeous fighting game in SoulCalibur, and it was accessible so you could play it with your friends at home.”

Silent Hill

If you thought Konami expected Silent Hill to be a success right out of the gate, think again. An internal squad known as Team Silent began development in 1996. As time passed, Konami lost faith and interest in the project, and Team Silent felt like they were on the outside looking in.

This ended up benefiting them in an unforeseen way: Since management wasn’t paying much attention to Silent Hill, Team Silent had a lot more creative agency in their work. That agency led them to a guiding concept of “fear of the unknown,” more psychological horror compared to Resident Evil’s jump scares, gross-out enemies, and increasingly action-driven gameplay. The town of Silent Hill was filled with fog that was as much to accommodate technical restrictions (draw distances on the PS1 weren’t exactly far and wide) as it was to add an eerie atmosphere to the small American-style town, which was rendered in real-time 3D unlike RE’s pre-rendered and static backgrounds.

Team Silent’s belief in their project paid off. The game sold over two million copies, earning it a re-release under the PlayStation “Greatest Hits” banner. It met with mostly positive praise, with reviewers pointing out its creative way of utilizing the PlayStation hardware’s lower-end specs. Even its grainy textures fed into its unsettling aura.

The original Silent Hill grew into a franchise, but for many, the original is still the perfect example of what the series is all about: quiet moments, escalating dread, and enemies that will keep you up at night, making it a worthy induction in any Hall of Fame class.

Planescape Torment

The Nameless One pertains to the protagonist of Planescape: Torment, but not to the game itself. Far from nameless, it’s one of the best computer RPGs ever made, and one of the finest entries in the Dungeons & Dragons universe.

P:T stands out for many reasons, the foremost being its story-driven gameplay. You can clobber monsters to progress, but that’s a secondary option to using dialogue options to resolve your quests. You can even talk your way around combat counters to avoid coming to blows or employ stealth to sneak by foes. The Nameless One can travel with up to five out of the game’s possible seven companions, and conversation among them is frequent in order to learn more about them, their personalities, and their goals. Perhaps most interestingly, and playing into the game’s reliance on means of progression outside of combat, The Nameless One is immortal. That means running out of HP respawns you without penalizing you for dying—because, of course, you can’t truly die.

The Nameless One starts the story as an amnesiac. That, combined with D&D’s alignment system, makes him a blank slate for you to impose your will. Your choices make him good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and a neutral zone between those options. Alignment, companions, dialogue choices—all combine for one of the most versatile roleplaying games ever made.

P:T might not have been a commercial success, but Interplay boss Brian Fargo considered success a multi-faceted goal. “There was always a balance in running a studio between being commercial, being creative, and having your creative people be happy, and having them do things that are interesting to them,” he told me in our interview for Beneath a Starless Sky, a long read/book about the making of Pillars of Eternity and the Infinity Engine (the tech used to power P:T and other CRPGs) games. “I was willing to take creative risks from time to time in order to allow those things to happen. Planescape: Torment was clearly one of those. When it came across my desk, I said, ‘Well, that's as high concept as you get.’ But I thought that RPG players would like it, and I loved the writing and sensibility they put into the document. That got me interested in doing it.”

“This game is high on my list of favorite games I’ve made,” said P:T programmer Dan Spitzley in our interview for Beneath a Starless Sky. “I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was still a pretty new programmer. That game came out around the end of '99. I'd only been a professional programmer for a little more than four years, and already I'd worked on a game that people were saying was the best ever." 

No matter how many times you’ve played the game’s story, this ending was inevitable: An induction into the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Aliens vs. Predator

Don’t confuse Aliens vs. Predator with the Atari Jaguar game from 1994. Although both games offer three campaigns—human, aliens, and Predator—the 1999 game features more diversity across the three playable-character types, more levels, more everything. AvP is as much a horror game as an action game; if you don’t break out into a sweat when your marine’s radar starts pinging, you might not have a pulse.

Although some critics found the story thin, nearly all of them praised the immersive atmosphere. That shines through single-player, but the real thrills and chills come from playing multiplayer, especially if all three character types are in the same match. Even the action is tense, with firefights often breaking out with little to no warning.

Aliens vs. Predator ’99 might not have had the graphical pedigree of other FPS games of the era, namely Quake II and Unreal, but the atmosphere more than made up for the visuals being rough around the edges.

RollerCoaster Tycoon

Arguably one of the most popular and immersive sims ever released, RollerCoaster Tycoon challenges you to complete levels by designing amusement parks. Although scenarios are preset, the wide range of ride types—from multiple roller coasters to go-karts, Ferris wheels, log flumes, and more—make every park you design feel like your own creation. Speaking of which, an in-game designer lets you build your own roller coasters, perfect for when the out-of-the-box rides start to feel stale.

There’s more to building a successful amusement juggernaut than rides, though. Rides need mechanics to service them, and your park needs to stay clean, calling for custodial staff to keep paths clean after your guests puke their guts out fresh off one of your corkscrew, physics-defying creations. And your guests will inevitably have to answer nature’s call (especially when they’ve just toured your latest haunted house). 

Perhaps RollerCoaster Tycoon’s greatest strength is its accessibility. It’s not a graphical powerhouse, yet the level of detail, especially concerning rides, heightens immersion. It’s not as overwhelming as city management simulations; anyone can understand the concept of building fun rides and managing a park. Those strengths, coupled with the virtually limitless types of rides you can build, make RollerCoaster Tycoon a welcome addition to the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Gran Turismo 2

The first time your hands pick up a PlayStation controller and boot Gran Turismo 2, the game might feel familiar—perhaps too familiar. Much of the game feel of the original title made the jump. In the sequel, iteration is the name of the game. There are more cars, more tracks, more races, and tighter vehicle handling. And of course, the visuals make you do a double take to make sure you’re playing a PS1 title.

Next Generation magazine proclaimed it the best racer ever made. It’s since been eclipsed, often by other titles in the franchise, but Gran Turismo 2 still holds up much better than expected for a 25-year-old game. From its graphics to its deep roster of vehicles and physics, Gran Turismo 2 races into the Shacknews Hall of Fame. 

Half-Life: Opposing Force

It’s not often an expansion pack can be considered better than the game it’s expanding, but Half-Life: Opposing Force gives Gordon Freeman’s adventure a run for its money. You play as Adrian Shephard, one of the U.S. Marines assigned to exterminate all alien life—and all witnesses—in the Black Mesa Complex. Fittingly, you cross paths with Freeman at least once, though you never face off with him directly.

Opposing Force brings back a few base weapon types, but many are exclusive to the expansion, such as Adrian wielding a wrench instead of a crowbar, and using night vision to creep through dark areas. Like Half-Life, the story plays out through an unbroken narrative, leaving you in control of your character during scripted events. That heightens immersion, an important detail given the greater attention to action in this marine-focused mission.

With new characters, new weapons, and a new perspective on a familiar narrative, Half-Life: Opposing Force is more than a great expansion pack. It’s a great Half-Life game, a great first-person shooter, and a great addition to the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Asheron’s Call

Asheron’s Call was released in November 1999 and holds the title of the third major MMO to be released, developed concurrently to Ultima Online and EverQuest. Although more complex than some of its peers, Asheron’s Call was deep and complex, as if tailormade for players looking for the most immersive roleplaying experience available on a PC.

Still, there was flexibility in many instances that other MMOs ignored. Players could reallocate skill points to take their character in different directions, and their class was fluid, meaning they weren’t stuck with what they chose at the outset of character creation. And the original magic system had spells that were discovered using trial and error to experiment with formulas. Monthly updates offered more narrative, more quests, and more special events, giving players ample reasons to return to the game world.

Although defunct, 17 years was a great run for this landmark MMORPG, which now holds a place in our Hall of Fame.

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Whereas Command & Conquer: Red Alert branched off from the original game, 1999’s Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun was a sequel to 1995’s breakout RTS. It brought several new features to the table, including partially 3D graphics and more gameplay features, and builds on the futuristic sci-fi setting of the first game.

Although the game functions similarly to Command & Conquer, Tiberian Sun further differentiates its factions (the Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, and Nod) through the types of strategies most effective with each. For instance, GDI excels heavier attacks while Nod players have more luck with faster, more unpredictable tactics. The isometric camera gives the impression of 3D graphics, and dynamic lighting simulates day and night cycles, deepening immersion. And, of course, it features epic and memorable cinematics, a staple of the franchise.

Accessibility made the game approachable for new players—as well as a casual audience only interested in the plot—while giving core RTS fans lots of strategies and tactics to map out. Although Tiberian Sun is more a fine-tuning of Command & Conquer’s formula than it is a fresh and brand-new experience, that was more than enough to satisfy fans of the series in 1999, and more than reason enough to induct it into the Shacknews Hall of Fame. 

Dead or Alive 2

Hailed as one of the greatest fighting games of all time, Dead or Alive 2 debuted in Japanese arcades in the year 1999 before making its way to the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 in 2000. The game is predicated on hits, throws, and holds, with a paper-rock-scissors system determining which type beats out the others. This added a deep level of strategy to gameplay beyond the elaborate combos (although those are still plentiful) and special moves prevalent in the genre. 

Another way DOA2 distinguished itself was by the safety of attacks. For instance, offense that relies heavily on strikes can be punished by throws, which are executed faster. This warns the striker to broaden their arsenal of moves rather than mashing buttons on their way to victory. Lastly, the game was beautifully animated for the time, with fluid martial arts and lavish backgrounds worth admiring. The game’s graphics hold up fairly well—not bad for a 25-year-old fighter on its sixth series installment as of this induction into the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Homeworld

One of the most critically acclaimed real-time strategy games during the RTS boom of the ‘90s, Homeworld was known as much for its narrative as for its deep gameplay mechanics. It was the first game from startup company Relic Entertainment, and was based on a vision relayed by Alex Garden to his close friends.

Although the staples of the RTS genre are the same on paper—gather resources, build armies, crush your opponents—Homeworld’s execution set it apart from its peers. The playfield is a sphere through which ships can move in any direction, adding depth to a genre populated by games that heavily relied on 2D grids. Every level advances not only your understanding of the game’s mechanics, but the story of the Kushan exiles and the Taiidan Empire.

Homeworld is the highest-rated computer game of 1999, and a welcome addition to the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

SoulCalibur

When Soulcalibur comes up, practically no one is referring to the arcade cabinet. They’re referring to the Dreamcast port, a system seller that debuted alongside Sega’s last console in Europe and North America on 9/9/99 (it released in August in other territories). Rebuilt from the ground up for Dreamcast, Soulcalibur is one of the best 3D fighters in an era bursting with them, and one of the best fighting games ever, period.

Although Soulcalibur was—and remains—popular with hardcore players, mechanics such as forgiving move buffering made it accessible to the fighting game neophyte. That, in combination with its graphics and the eight-way run that lent it a true 3D feel compared to fighters with more limited 3D movement, elevated it in the eyes of fans of the genre.

Soulcalibur was the Dreamcast’s system seller at launch, and remained a must-have title on the console throughout its short but game-packed lifespan. It’s a must-play for fans of fighting games, and a must-have for the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

System Shock 2

Part FPS, part RPG, part horror game, System Shock 2 is known as an “immersive sim,” a type of game where your choices dictate your path through the story. You can shoot and blast your way to SHODAN, the evil AI supercomputer pulling strings around you, or experiment with the environment to devise your own solutions to puzzles and problems. 

Take enemies, for instance. You can research their organs and combine them with chemicals; that research enables you to deal more damage to them in combat. You can also research weapons and items, many of which can only be unlocked for use through the research system. Whether you choose to engage with research or let your weapons do all the talking, you’ll make your way through areas thick with tension and dread, as infected crew members and other creatures shamble their way toward you while SHODAN taunts you from her lair 

System Shock 2 remains popular today thanks in part to Nightdive Studios resurrecting the IP from legal hell; the studio’s remake of the original game ignited even more interest in the sequel. It’s one of the best immersive sims ever made, and a superb entry in the Shacknews Hall of Fame.

Counter-Strike

Originally developed by Jess Cliffe and Minh “Gooseman” Le as a mod for Valve’s Half-Life (a member of the Shacknews Hall of Fame Class of 2023), Counter-Strike was acquired by Valve and spun off into a standalone game. It went on to become one of the most popular multiplayer games of all time.

The premise is simple. You play as a terrorist or counter-terrorist, earn money to spend on gear, and work to accomplish your objectives before the other team can accomplish theirs. That’s a simplistic overview—the devil is in the details. Counter-Strike is rife with tension that comes from its “one hit, one kill” philosophy. This isn’t Doom where you can soak up rockets and BFG blasts. Once you’re dead, you sit out the rest of the match while your teammates scrabble to fill the void left in your absence.

Counter-Strike only recently received a sequel, which testifies to the lasting appeal of the original. It remains popular today, and holds a special place within the Shacknews community.

Team Fortress Classic

Perhaps the archetype of a game mod that would go on to become a standalone product, Team Fortress started as a modification for Quake before its authors were hired by Valve to continue the series. Team Fortress Classic represents the first fruits of their labor.

On paper, TFC resembles the original mod in all but looks. The graphics are improved thanks to the greater power of Half-Life’s underlying tech, but the thrust of the game—two teams, two competing objectives, and character classes with unique abilities—remain intact. As popular as Team Fortress 2 was in 2007 and still is in 2024, that craze would not be possible without the fervor around Team Fortress Classic.

Spyro 2

Players used to buying games with “M for Mature” on their packaging or digital storefronts may dismiss Spry 2 as a kids’ game at first blush. In reality, there’s more to Insomniac Games’ sequel than you’d think. Although not as novel as the first game, it’s a solid platformer full of fun platforming, a stellar soundtrack, and a gradual difficulty incline designed to appeal to younger players while slowly grabbing the attention of more experienced run-and-jumpers. In fact, grabbing hold of experienced players was part of the game’s raison d’etre in light of the first game being dismissed as child’s play.

Spyro 2 stands toe-to-toe with the best 3D platforming of its era, and is still fun in 2024.

Sonic Adventure

It was the game that was supposed to change everything on the console that was supposed to change everything. Sonic Adventure may be one of the most ambitious and divisive flagship games in the history of the industry. It was the game that truly ushered Sonic into his modern 3D platforming roots (for better or worse). It was also Sega’s showpiece for the power and capabilities of the Dreamcast console, the “killer app” for the system.

People still argue to this day about whether or not Sonic Adventure’s gameplay and visuals have aged well, but at the time, it was mindblowing. It was a dream come true. Running down the docks of a coastal wharf while a killer whale smashed them to bits right behind Sonic? All of it was capital-A Amazing in 1999. No doubt, this was the door to the future of gaming. And quite frankly, it was. Sonic Adventure kicked off an awesome collection of titles on the Sega Dreamcast, many of them featuring speed and style stressed by that first engagement.

Crazy Taxi? Jet Set Radio? We may not call those games janky, but they were undeniably fast and chaotic, and you can easily argue that Sonic Adventure set that pace. Despite being a bit cockamamie by today’s gaming standards, it was the start of something grand that would reverberate through the industry for years to come.

Tekken Tag Tournament

In a time when crossover fighting games and team fighting games were quite popular, Tekken was not going to be the one flagship franchise to be left out of the trend. In 1999, Bandai Namco unleashed Tekken Tag Tournament.

Based originally on the engine for Tekken 3 and featuring every character that had been in the games up to that point, Tekken Tag Tournament was an ambitious move for the series. Not only could you play two characters and swap them out, but you had to play with their health pools quite strategically. See, the round didn’t end when you beat the whole team. It ended when you beat one of your opponent’s two characters. In that way, protecting a character on the verge of defeat by pulling them out with a tag was arguably more crucial than in other Vs. fighters of the time.

Tekken Tag Tournament would eventually get an enhanced launch on the PS2 where it gained even more praise for its upgraded visuals and music. More than that, it set a precedent for spinoffs in the Tekken franchise has us as excited for Tekken Tag games as regular Tekken.

Medal of Honor

There are a lot of shooters out there that have rightful claims to key points of video game history, but the current world of multi-million dollar cinematic military shooters can be traced back to a very specific game. In the late 1990s, Steven Spielberg was enamored with World War 2 history and it just so happened that his son was playing GoldenEye 007 at the time. Spielberg was convinced he could make a similarly dramatic experience at DreamWorks Interactive. And so began the work on the first Medal of Honor.

There was actually pushback on Medal of Honor. Its development was happening around the same time as the horrific Columbine High School shooting. There were also veterans and organizations that felt it tarnished the value and meaning of the actual Medal of Honor. It took some effort to assuage concerns, but the end result was huge. Medal of Honor established a military shooter like we’d never seen before. It would go on to produce a bustling multiplayer shooter market with the likes of future titles like Allied Assault while still offering action-packed levels like the storming of Normandy Beach and the Russian retaking of the Red Square.

Medal of Honor would serve as the launch point of many incredible games like it, including Call of Duty. In fact, Call of Duty specifically came out of developers leaving the Medal of Honor team to form Infinity Ward. As such, Medal of Honor can be looked to as the grandfather of high-budget military multiplayer shooters as we know them.

Chrono Cross

When you consider the sheer star power behind the creation of Chrono Trigger, being tasked with a follow-up sounds terrifying, but lead Trigger writer Masato Kato took up the task to create a game that followed up on that greatness. Kato didn’t have the likes of greats like Dragon Quest mastermind Yuji Horii, Final Fantasy main composer Nobuo Uematsu, or legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama, but there were quite a few of the team from Chrono Trigger that joined him in creating Cross, including art director Yasuyuki Honne and composer Yasunori Mitsuda, who would eventually go to work on the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

Chrono Cross seems to follow a story all its own from first glance. Crono, Lucca, Marle, and others are nowhere to be found as we instead follow Serge, a boy who finds himself in a time paradox between a dimension where he lives and another where he drowned 10 years prior. Helping him discover the truth behind these strange timelines and his death is the feisty thief Kid, who searches for the Frozen Flame. A massively interesting part of Chrono Cross was that it had 45 characters that each tied into the story, but it was impossible to gather all of them in one game. New Game+ allowed you to collect them all, but that meant picking and choosing carefully on one playthrough to assemble the team you want.

Chrono Cross never quite reached the heights of Trigger, but it was a very interesting Square Enix RPG on its own that helped tie up loose ends of the universe and give us interesting callbacks to cool characters. It also helped boost the careers of several creatives who would go on to work on a variety of popular franchises still running today. Chrono Trigger couldn’t have been an easy act to follow, but Chrono Cross most certainly gave us something memorable.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

There’s an argument to be made that Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is the most important game of the franchise. Yes, Street Fighter 2 popularized the franchise and genre. Yes, Street Fighter 4 brought it into the modern 2.5D era. Yes, Street Fighter 6 is the best-selling game of the series by far. However, Street Fighter 3 has a rare combination of contributions to the franchise that makes its argument as the peak point of the series so far strong.
For one, it is easily the best animated 2D Street Fighter, representing some of the series best when it comes to sprite design, backgrounds, music, and effects. Very few other fully 2D games top it for looks, even today. For another, it’s extremely well balanced. Players have mostly sorted out which characters are best in 3rd Strike, but that doesn’t stop specialists from making even the supposed worst characters shine. Most would consider Yun, Chun-Li, Makoto, or Urien to be the top tiers, but at EVO 2024, we saw a Hugo make Top 6 and there were quite a few Remy’s in the mix despite the character being considered a bottom tier.

Finally, we can’t talk about 3rd Strike without talking about how it revolutionized fighting game esports. The famous EVO Moment 37 in which Daigo Umehara used Ken to parry Justin Wong’s Chun-Li through an entire super before countering with his own combo took Street Fighter 3 from a great game to a legendary game, and the fact that we’re still seeing love and surprises this many decades speaks volumes of how good 3rd Strike is and what it has meant to fighting games as a whole.

Shining Force

When we think of early strategy RPGs in gaming, many fans will likely recall games like Fire Emblem or Heroes of Might and Magic first, but if you were a Sega Genesis kid, there’s likely another that had your interest: Shining Force. This fantasy strategy RPG was first released in 1992 and established a solid foundation on which Sega would create a number of further titles in the same vein.

Funny enough, Shining Force isn’t even the first game of the Shining series, although it was the first to take on a strategy approach. Shining in the Darkness preceded Shining Force in 1991 on the Sega Mega Drive, but despite being successful, it was a first-person dungeon crawler far removed from what we would come to know of the franchise. When it came to Shining Force, lead developer Hiroyuki Takahashi has said that he was tasked with trying to figure out how to make Dragon Quest-style battles more fun. In an interview in May 2012, Takahashi recalled that it was an obscure Japanese PC game called Silver Ghost that gave him the idea of control multiple units on a field singularly and strategically.

The result ended up being a rich and enjoyable tactical experience in which players used different classes of characters to engage in diverse combat, leveling and collecting new skills, as well as eventually being promoted to stronger units. Player expression was quite incredible in Shining Force where you could collect around 30 characters, but could only utilize 12 of them in battle at a time. Shining Force is so beloved that it has been re-released several times over in Sega collections and even on Nintendo’s Switch Online + Expansion Pass game libraries. Games like Fire Emblem and XCOM may have taken the baton of strategy RPGs and run with them, but Shining Force will always have a place as one of Sega’s early innovators in the space.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

When it came to platformers in the opening volley of 3D gaming, it was mostly happy-go-lucky stuff like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and the like. Grimdark aesthetic wasn’t as saturated throughout the medium as it would be in coming years, but Eidos Interactive and Crystal Dynamics were about to make an offering that would open the door to darker adventures for years to come: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.
Soul Reaver is a collaboration of ill-fated partners Crystal Dynamics and original series creators Silicon Knights. It was also one of the first major projects of legendary gaming executive Amy Hennig, who served as a director, producer, and writer on the project in one of her first notable positions of leadership in gaming. The team wanted to create a darker 3D platformer inspired by old vampire mythology. For its part, Silicon Knights sought to create a thinking action-adventure that adults would want to play.

The partnership between Silicon Knights and Crystal Dynamics soured through development and ended up in a legal battle. In the result, Silicon Knights barred Crystal Dynamics from using much of its work and research. As a research, certain content was removed from or hidden Soul Reaver and players felt the game was unfinished. Thankfully, it did well enough that Crystal Dynamics would be able to go right into a sequel to solve Soul Reaver’s cliffhanger ending. The Legacy of Kain set a precedent that 3D platformers don’t have to be pretty. Its bloody story of betrayal and redemption is an incredible one and earned the love of fans who cheered it on to an anniversary remaster in 2024 by Aspyr.

Final Fantasy 8

No game should ever have the misfortune of following something as popular and iconic as Final Fantasy 7, but it’s not as though Square Enix was about to pack it up and call it quits after producing one of the most popular RPGs in the world. Nope, Final Fantasy 8 had to happen, and while it might be one of the most contentious in history for its place after 7, a myriad of strange systems unique to it, and its time-bending story, it’s also the source of a lot of good gaming that has its own special place among the series.

Final Fantasy 8 was a series of firsts for the series, though it was Yoshinori Kitase’s third Final Fantasy game as director with Hironobu Sakaguchi advising and creating content as executive producer. For one, Final Fantasy 8 was the first game in the series to move to completely regular height character models, leaving the cartoonish chibi characters behind completely. It was also the first time a Final Fantasy game was developed with a direct line of communication between Japanese and American studios helping to smooth the globalization and translation process. Finally, Final Fantasy 8 had the distinction of being the first game to feature a card game mechanics in Triple Triad. Developed by programmer Kentarow Yasui, it not only played on the popularity of trading cards at the time, but allowed the developers to break up the monotony between cutscenes and action.

Ultimately, whether it was Final Fantasy 7’s lingering success, Final Fantasy 8’s numerous advances, or a myriad of other factors, the game ended up being one of Square Enix’s best-selling games in the series for years to come. Squall, Rinoa and company may not be the most beloved of the Final Fantasy universe, but few will ever forget the first time they saw the game’s beautiful intro cinematic and the adventure that followed.

Samba de Amigo

The Dreamcast launched with a full-blown lineup of games, but one of its most memorable titles came shortly after its release. A few months after Dreamcast sales began, Sega and Sonic Team released a rhythm game called Samba de Amigo in arcades and later to Sega's console.

Samba de Amigo was one of the first games to utilize a pair of maracas as a peripheral. Players would follow the on-screen cues and the rhythm of dozens of songs to bring some Latin flavor to their living rooms. It was a bold experiment that paid off for Sega, which continues to release Samba de Amigo titles to this day. While the maracas peripheral was eventually phased out for future releases, Samba de Amigo helped pave the way for future music games to adopt this idea, such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Super Smash Bros.

After more than a decade of introducing fans to a diverse roster of heroes and mascots, Nintendo got the idea to have them all fight each other. Nintendo and Kirby studio HAL Laboratory brought together some of the publisher's most recognizable faces for its first official fighting game. However, this wasn't a traditional 1v1 fighter like Street Fighter or Tekken. Instead, it was one of the world's first platform fighters, where up to four players could battle across various stages for supremacy.

The original Super Smash Bros. broke many barriers for Nintendo and gaming as a whole. Beyond introducing players to the idea of platform fighters, this game was the first to bring together Nintendo's most popular franchises. Bringing together characters from a single publisher into a massive crossover was an idea first popularized by Capcom, but Nintendo would spend the next two decades iterating on the idea as a way to celebrate video games as a whole. Today, Super Smash Bros. has brought together dozens of characters from a multitude of franchises, including ones beyond the Nintendo umbrella. But it all started with the Nintendo 64 original and its humble 12 characters.

Pokemon Gold & Silver

If Pokemon Red and Blue introduced the world to Nintendo's pocket monsters, Gold and Silver cemented it as one the company's biggest franchises, arguably bigger than Mario and bigger than The Legend of Zelda.

Gold and Silver challenged Pokemon trainers to face a new set of eight Pokemon gym leaders while also catching an additional 100 Pokemon, bringing the National Pokedex total to 251. It also refined the series' mechanics, in many ways for the better. The Special stat was separated into Special Attack and Special Defense, two new Pokemon types were added, Pokemon could be bred for the first time, they could hold items, and a day/night cycle added new ways to search for and catch Pokemon.

If that wasn't enough, a second quest would take players back through Kanto, the region from Pokemon Red & Blue, and take them in search of the original game's protagonist for an epic showdown. While Pokemon games have aimed high in the decades since Gold and Silver's release, few have managed to hit their heights in terms of combining new features with old content. For many, Gold and Silver is still the Pokemon series at its absolute best.

WWF WrestleMania 2000

After setting a new standard for the way professional wrestling video games were made with the release of WCW vs. nWo: Tour and WCW/nWo Revenge, THQ and developer AKI Corporation made the jump from World Championship Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) with WWF WrestleMania 2000.

With the WWF hitting a new peak in popularity at the time with the Attitude Era, AKI Corporation was now able to apply its acclaimed game engine to stars like "Stone Cole" Steve Austin, The Rock, and Triple H, among many others. There was also some room for growth through one of the WWF's most popular match types: the Royal Rumble.

While there aren't too many gameplay differences between WWF WrestleMania 2000 and WCW/nWo Revenge, the former offered a new Create-A-Wrestler Mode. It allowed players to not only create their own custom wrestler with their own distinct look, music, and entrance, but the option to edit existing wrestlers as well. It was another phenomenal effort from this development team and one that would somehow be topped the next year.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

While Firaxis Games had built its reputation on the Civilization series, the studio's work in 1999 aimed straight for the cosmos. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri was originally designed to be a spiritual successor to the Civilization series, but one that took players out into the outer reaches of the universe.

Alpha Centauri offered the classic 4X gameplay that the Civilization series has become known for over the past three decades. Players are challenged to build a thriving colony on unknown worlds while living in peaceful coexistence with other human factions and alien lifeforms. There's a great emphasis on exploration, diplomacy, and development.

What sets Alpha Centauri from its predecessors, even to this day, is its sci-fi playground. It presents a universe similar to what Star Trek would present in terms of scientific advancement, as well as the challenges of creating a peaceful environment with foreign species. It was a novel peek into mankind's future and its potential.

Pokemon Snap

As Pokemon began to cement itself as a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, Nintendo began work on the series' first spin-offs. While many were centered around the spirit of its monster-battling roots, Pokemon Snap went in an entirely different direction and unlike any games had taken to that point. Rather than focus on battling, this game was about establishing the natural world of Pokemon, as well as the habitats and behaviors of the original 151 pocket monsters.

Players were witness to the thriving Pokemon world through photography and tasked with taking pictures of Pokemon going about their natural routine, similar to the way that nature documentaries venture to an exotic locale to observe the native wildlife. It went a long way toward emphasizing that each Pokemon species was truly unique and further helped players decide on a favorite.

On top of that, it established that photography could be used as a central gaming mechanic. Since Pokemon Snap's release, numerous games have adopted photography as a side activity. Some games, like TOEM: A Photo Adventure, have even built on the foundation that Pokemon Snap originally established.

Out of the Park Baseball

Typically, baseball titles would put players into the cleats of a Major League Baseball player. Out of the Park Baseball went in a totally different direction, testing players' managerial acumen. Originally created by USA Today reporter Sean Lahman, Out of the Park Baseball was crafted to build on his love of baseball statistics. After feeding hardened baseball aficionados with the Lahman Baseball Database, Lahman built on that idea to create Out of the Park Baseball as a text-based simulator where fans could play out seasons to their hearts' content and also engage in offseason activities.

Out of the Park Baseball has continued to improve on its core concept over the past 25 years, sprucing it up from its simple text-based roots to a full artistic presentation. Starting in 2016, the series received official licensing from Major League Baseball, making it MLB's baseball simulator of choice.

Yu-Gi-Oh (TCG)

Japanese anime was rapidly gaining popularity overseas in the late 90s. Kids growing up in that time period became enthralled with series like Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh was first published as a manga in 1996 and captivated so many readers that it became an official trading card game in 1999. Konami has been bringing Yu-Gi-Oh fans in Japan since 1999 and has been doing so worldwide since 2008.

With a rule set primarily based on the Duel Monsters story arc, Yu-Gi-Oh has demonstrated incredible staying power, remaining a popular 1v1 card game to this day. Fans have continued to collect new sets throughout the years while also staying true to the series' most popular cards, like Dark Magician and the five-piece Exodia.

Alongside Magic: The Gathering and The Pokemon Trading Card Game, Yu-Gi-Oh's influence on future card games has been undeniable. Its fantasy setting and imaginative card design helped pave the way for future trading card titles, whether they be a physical game like Disney's Lorcana or a digital experience like Blizzard's Hearthstone.

Crazy Taxi

Racing games, specifically ones found in arcades, were typically a competitive experience. Players were hitting the pedal to the metal to try and get to the finish line ahead of the CPU or other players. Crazy Taxi did something wildly different and instead tasked players with being a wacky cabbie. (Or if you're of a younger generation, a primitive Uber driver.)

Crazy Taxi's formula was delightfully unique. The idea was to pick up passengers and drive them to their destination with no regard for the rules of the road. All that mattered was getting the passengers where they needed to go before time ran out and earning some cash in the process. Whether it was the arcade version with its steering wheel cabinet or the home release on Sega Dreamcast, Crazy Taxi got its hooks into players in a way few racers of that time had.

Its formula was also so unique that few entities in gaming have attempted to replicate it, including original publisher Sega.

Pokemon Stadium

Pokemon Fever was in full swing around the world when Pokemon Stadium launched for the Nintendo 64 in the late 90s (Japan) and early 2000s (international). While the polygonal character models are unimpressive under a modern lens, they blew our minds at the time. The jump from sprites to 3D models was an evolutionary step for the franchise, giving new life to the original 151 creatures.

Pokemon Stadium was also part of the first wave of notable Pokemon spin-off games. Released in close proximity to Pokemon Snap, this battling-focused game provided an experience that ran parallel to the mainline games. Allowing players to transfer Pokemon from the Game Boy games to their N64 was unbelievably cool technology and set the groundwork for modern features like Pokemon Home.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

Before the Persona series had made a name for itself as a massive, world-renown franchise, it was a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei (another world-renown franchise). Persona 2: Innocent Sin was ATLUS’ second installment in the series and established the formula of introducing new protagonists with every new entry.

Persona 2 refined the exploration and turn-based combat features introduced in the first game, which would become series staples. It also featured the Rumor mechanic, which remains one of Persona 2’s unique characteristics. The Persona series and ATLUS have seen a lot of evolution since 1999, and it’s clear that a lot of that growth started with Persona 2.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is the most important skateboarding video game in the history of the industry. The game was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision in September 1999. THPS combined a lot of real life skateboarding tricks with more arcade-like combos and gameplay modes creating a perfect pick up and play experience.

THPS originally released on PlayStation, but saw ports to N64, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, and even N-Gage. The game’s wild success led to several sequels and even a remake of THPS 1+2 that was released a few years ago.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater set the bar for all future video games with the perfect combination of a great soundtrack, addicting gameplay, and a reverence for the sport of skateboarding.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer

The Nintendo 64 console era was full of some truly amazing racing games, many of them developed and published by the Big N. While a lot of those titles focused on showcasing four player multiplayer, Star Wars Episode 1: Racer created a solid single player experience featuring three unique modes alongside a two-player splitscreen multiplayer mode. 

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer aimed to capitalize on the hype from the first Star Wars prequel film’s release earlier in the year 1999. The game included a lot of characters from the movie and was reviewed quite favorably. 

Now this was truly podracing like gamers had never seen before, with ports to many other platforms to come.

Grand Theft Auto 2

Grand Theft Auto 2 was developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games in 1999. The game launched on PlayStation and Windows and saw later ports to the Sega Dreamcast and Game Boy Color. The game featured a top-down view of a made-up town called Anywhere City. It was a bit more of the same as the original GTA game, and did receive mixed reviews, but it does stand out as the game made before the transformative GTA 3.

Mario Golf

A classic Nintendo 64 title from the Camelot devs, Mario Golf was another game that showcased the fun of playing together with friends on the console. The game had excellent gameplay mechanics, challenging players to tactically choose when to use the 6 Power Shots available to them. The series has gone on to have a few hits and misses, but many fans of the Mario sports titles hold this specific entry to be one of the very best. That is when they aren’t spamming “Hurry up already!”