So after taking much of 2020 to look at some of the best games for several different home console systems of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, it only seemed natural to kick off 2021 with a list of the best of the best.
The results are based off of 5 participants:
Crabmaster2000 EZ Racer DisposedHero Fokakis79 Wempster
Voters were encouraged to list all their best games if they couldn't get it cut to 20, and a few lists took advantage of that. Games from all systems released as 5th generation consoles (N64, Playstation 1, Sega Saturn) and prior were eligible. Japan exclusives were also eligible, along with PC titles released in 1999 or earlier.
In all, there were 89 games that were considered among the best of the early video game generations, and rather than list the also-rans separately, I thought it woulld be fun to list every game in order. My thought is that all these games are considered exceptional by at least one person, so if your looking for ideas for something to try, it might be for you as well.
Before getting to it, thanks to those who participated this month, and all who made lists in 2020. It's been a lot of fun, and look forward to a lot more in '21! If you're a GameCube fan, check out the link for the next list coming up- http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?topic=19495.0
So here are your Top 20...er top 89 games as voted on by RFGen members!
In 2010, one of the fastest rising games in terms of popularity on the planet was Minecraft. Ten years later and one of the biggest games on Earth is... still Minecraft. An insane number of people have bought and played this game since its days in early alpha, and now its had well over a decade of continuous development. Minecraft continues to get some major updates long after its official 1.0 release that brought it out of its beta. So, what are some of the changes that have come over the years? And how have these updates and continuous development kept both a large number of long time players interested, and continued to bring in new players?
Posted on Dec 13th 2019 at 01:00:00 PM by (Pam) Posted under video, review, fmv, PC
The 7th Guest was developed by Trilobyte and released for PC on April 1st 1993. It's an adventure game that focuses almost entirely on puzzles and uses live action video clips to tell the story as you progress. The game has an interesting development history and is notable for its place in pushing PC video game technology forward. This video takes a look at that history, the legacy of the game and how it holds up today.
The Journeyman Project was developed by Presto Studios and released for Mac in 1993. The following year an enhanced version was released called The Journeyman Project: Turbo which was compatible with Mac and Windows. This Turbo release is the one being highlighted today. The original release was developed and published by Presto Studios, with the Turbo release being published by Sanctuary Woods. This version would also see a Japanese release published by Bandai. A few years later in 1997 a full blown remake of the game was released called The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime.
While I certainly remember the hype behind The Blair Witch Project and the marketing campaign that led many to believe the film was found footage of real events, I never watched the movie back in the day and truthfully have still never seen it. However, as a huge fan of the survival-horror genre, I couldn't help but feel intrigued when the trailer for a new Blair Witch game was first shown last summer. Thanks to the game being easily available to play, I didn't wait long after its release to give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised overall.
The World of Darkness is a trio of settings for supernatural and horror tabletop role playing games. It was originally developed as the background setting for the original 1991 release of Vampire: The Masquerade. The series gained some popularity in tabletop circles as an alternative to a rather scant selection between an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu and the Ravenloft setting of Dungeons and Dragons. While Ravenloft is medieval and Call of Cthulhu is set in the 1920's, the World of Darkness is mostly our own modern world with plenty of supernatural details added into the recipe, with some spinoffs set in various historical eras.
Vampire: The Masquerade is the most popular game set in the World of Darkness, but some other popular releases include Hunter: The Reckoning, Mage: The Ascension, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The naming convention becomes easy to identify quite quickly. Multiple video games have been released in the World of Darkness, including three focused on Vampire: The Masquerade. The first one was an action RPG developed by Nihilistic Software and released in 2000 called Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. This game was a modest success, enough to greenlight a sequel. Troika Games developed this sequel, called Bloodlines, with Activision publishing both Redemption and Bloodlines, both exclusive to PC.
In 2005, Capcom released Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. Capcom made their entry into the world of High Definition gaming a memorable one, as Dead Rising was like no other game before it. There were a few years around and following the release of Dead Rising where zombies would rule the roost, as games from both large developers like Capcom themselves, Valve, and Activision, had games or popular game modes that had a heavy emphasis on zombies. This popularity also coincided with the rise of indie games on the PC market, and zombie games thrived there for a few years until fatigue inevitably set in. Most of the biggest zombie games and modes were first person shooters, whether it was Nazi Zombies from Treyarch's Call of Duty games, Left 4 Dead, or Killing Floor, running around and shooting zombies made quite a bit of sense.
Capcom is not known for first person shooters, and instead designed Dead Rising in a completely different manner based around what it did know and had recently experimented with. Dead Rising has a third person perspective where combat is more focused around melee weapons. Guns do exist, but they are clumsy to aim and not particularly powerful until the player has completed one of the most difficult challenges in the game, which unlocks the most powerful gun, and overall weapon, in Dead Rising.
[img width=500 height=500]https://i.imgur.com/3O42iJw.jpg[/img] 2B holding 9S with a 3rd character you don't need to know about yet.
The year is 2003. The PlayStation 2 is lighting up sales charts the likes of which no console had ever seen before. It was now a few years into the console's lifecycle, so games were starting to really flood the market. Square Enix released a game called Drakengard, the first game directed by a now well known eccentric, Yoko Taro. One of the design elements of the game included multiple endings, one of which seems rather nonsensical at first. (The following will include heavy spoilers to one of Drakengard's endings, and the reason for this detailed description will follow soon after.)
In 1995 LucasArts released an adventure game that was a little different from anything they had developed before. It deals with motorcycles, mechanics and murder. It's Full Throttle! I teamed up with the Adventure Game Geek to give you two opinions for the price of one. We played the recent remastered version of the game, though do compare it to the original.
It's a new year and with that comes New Year's resolutions. In January, the Playcast Crew resolved to play Night School Studio's indie darling, Oxenfree. In this month's Playcast join hosts, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) as they discuss the game's story, its mechanics, the music and sound, and get super philosophically deep into the game's overarching question: "If you could go back and change a decision in your life, would you?". In this episode, the guys also discuss their gaming related New Year's resolutions, their thoughts on Nintendo's latest creation, Nintendo Labo, and their current literary consuming endeavors. How does Oxenfree compare to other freedom of choice titles like those developed by Telltale Games? What's in the game's title? And what "weird" hang-up does Rich have when it comes to playing remakes? The answer to these questions and many more in this month's episode of the RF Generation Playcast. You won't want to miss it!
Some of you may have noticed that this episode has arrived a bit earlier than usual. The reason is because our good friend and site member, Kevin (Buried_on_Mars), who some of you may know from the show or follow his podcast Retro Fandango, is doing a 48 hour Twitch charity fundraiser this weekend. Shawn and I discuss the fundraiser on the show and we wanted to make sure to get the word out to our listeners in time, since the broadcast is this weekend. Please be sure to listen to this portion of the show and to learn more about Kevin's goal, please check out the following link: https://buriedonmars.word...ream-on-february-10-11th/
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on this game on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the game more. We hope you enjoy our show. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen!
I have been hearing for years that The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is one of the finest JRPGs to be released in recent years. As a huge RPG fan, this high praise obviously piqued my interest, and despite never giving the Sony PSP the attention it deserved, it put Trails in the Sky on my radar as a game I should play. With the recent release of Trails in the Sky the 3rd in North America bringing the series to my attention once again, I have finally played the initial entry of this prestigious series!
As video games become an aging hobby, it becomes more difficult to grasp the beginning of its tale, or the history and growth of it in general. This does not just mean its actual history, but also its dominant theories of design. For example, when many gamers talk of role playing games, only two dominant styles are generally brought up: The consolized Japanese designed role playing games, and the historically more mechanically complex and open, Western designed role playing games. Despite the fact that these two schools of design are considered different enough to be easily categorized, they share a common ancestor in tabletop games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons. While Dungeons and Dragons has been around since the 1970's, it has evolved and is almost unrecognizable in comparison to its earliest version, as the company that originally created the game went bankrupt, was bought out, and its creator has passed away.
