Best video games of the 90's

The nineties was a decade that is remembered for many things; from Grunge to Britpop and The Usual Suspects to Saving Private Ryan.  But one of the things that really defined the decade and had a lasting effect on young adults growing up in that time was video games.

In today’s world of Toshiba LED TVs and high-end graphics, people may forget the old classics that paved the way for the contemporary gaming experience. However, there are still some old loyalists that swear by the video games of yesteryear. These are gamers who, in this age of new computer games like 'Lockdown', eagerly anticipate the launch of the next game in the 'Street Fighter' gaming series (which was one of the most popular video games of the nineties). There are others who spend most of their waking hours playing 'Halo', but will still take out some time from their schedule in order to help Mario complete his quest to save Daisy.

Major gaming companies of today have recognised the fact that some games will never go out of fashion and as a result, they have not only re-launched the video games of yesteryear but have also refreshed some of the old games with new storylines. Considering the enormous output of video games churned out by the companies in the nineties it is an exceptionally difficult job to pick up the best among them. However some of the games listed below (it is a random list) have been immensely popular and still remain endearing in today’s world:

• Tetris
• Super Mario World
• Final Fantasy VII
• Golden Eye 007
• Tekken II
• Resident Evil
• Street Fighter II Turbo
• Tomb Raider
• Dr. Mario
• Donkey Kong Land
• WWF Warzone
• Spyro the Dragon
• Metal Gear Solid
• WWF War zone
• Sonic the hedgehog
• Diddy Kong Racing
• Pokemon Yellow

If one has to choose the most memorable character or franchise from the above list, Mario would be an automatic choice. Even a movie was produced in order to capitalize on the popularity of the game, but sadly it turned out to be a cinematic disaster (poor old Bob Hoskins!). However a lot of popular video games were made into movies during the nineties: A karate kicking superstar of the stature of Jean Claude Van Damme was roped in to play a character from the popular video game Street Fighter alongside the diminuative Kylie Minogue in a movie by the same name; Angelina Jolie etched her place in Hollywood history thanks to her performance as Lara Croft the massively popular video game heroine. Popular movies were also made into video games, for example Golden Eye 007, which was released after the worldwide success of Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as James Bond.

One of the oldest yet one of the most popular games of the nineties was the puzzle game Tetris, which was designed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984.The classic scenario of correctly placing building blocks in the right place at the right speed, with no help from a pallet inverter! The game’s availability was not limited to only video game consoles but was also accessible to people using handheld gaming devices so you could play in the bath or childrens bunk beds, today however it is available in most cell phones, portable media players, PDAs, etc. In Electronic Gaming Monthly’s 100th issue, Tetris was listed as the greatest game of all time.

In the year 1998, Acclaim Entertainment released the video game WWF War Zone for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. In doing so, Acclaim Entertainment merged two of the most popular phenomena of that decade- professional wrestling and video games. Two years prior to this, WWF In Your House had been released but it did not became as popular as WWF War Zone because unlike the latter, the former was not a 3D title. The 3D game with new features like ‘create a player’ mode became as much a rage as the television show. The game also had video clips of WWF events.

Like Lara Croft and Mario, another widely recognized and loved video game character was Donkey Kong from the 2D, side scrolling platform video game called Donkey Kong Country. Other characters from the game like Diddy Kong and King K. Rool became popular icons of that decade.

The role-playing games Pokemon Red Version and Pokemon Blue Version became a raging success after their first release in Japan in 1996 and their subsequent release in other places over the following years. Another role-playing video game that achieved mammoth success was Final Fantasy VII, developed by Square Enix. The story line was elaborate, the game unfolded against the backdrop of a futuristic world that corresponded with the epic visions of postmodern science fiction writers of that time.

Most of these video games were edged out by newer games that came out in the first decade of the third millennium. However, the old games and their memorable characters still evoke a nostalgia of sitting at the dining room table with your joystick stuck on the surface (as much as they'd stick!) that strike a chord in the hearts of even the most hard core gamers. Although nowadays you can probably play at work without anyone noticing and use up some business electricity instead of your own!