Gamelist: Early 1990s.

A role-playing game ahead of it's time. A work of art in terms of graphics, storyline, UI and of course, playability. A forerunner to the isometric Diablo-style RPG. Armour worn was reflected on the onscreen character and a mannequin (showing more detail) in the UI bar. Deep, involving quests with decent and interesting dialogues with NPCs. Awesome sprite graphics (with colour-cycling, remember Ultima 6?) throughout. Everything in this game was beautifully hand-painted. An exceptionally challenging game with very extensive total playtime.

Amazing graphics, absolutely incredible sound and music way ahead of its time (SB quality on a PC speaker?!) awesome multi-part gameplay, an enormous section of the galaxy to explore, tons of alien races all with real character, customizable flagship and fleets, all round unforgettable atmosphere. I was in high school at the time, 2.5 weeks of my life, every night and right through the weekends went to this game until I finished. What a memory. And then of course, there was the 2-player melee; of all the people I knew whol played the game, I could not be beaten in that... I feel this game bears as much relevance today in terms of teaching us what truly enjoyable gameplay is, as it did in 1993.

Wonderful atmosphere in the truest early D&D style, real complexity, a beautifully presented virtual world and the feeling of truly being at home in the town you had built. Enjoyable conquests and races/classes/levels for your armies. Fantastic and definitely similar in flavour to Fantasy Empires, below.

A very full, polished game, and technological successor to Steel Empire (see my Atari ST list). This game changed Steel Empire's realm from sci-fi to fantasy and expanded the scope of the engine a great deal using the more powerful processors & greater system memory of the time. This was essentially a strategy board game UNTIL you got to battles where, almost like North and South, you were pulled into control individual units in the battle (you could switch between them, there was AI to control those you weren't presently controlling) . This was awesome enough in single player, but... there was also a 2-player split screen mode! What bliss... I remember arguments and fistfights... The strategy part of the game was interesting and as I recall, the size of the castles you built and siege weapons you installed in them would actually be reflected in the close-up battles. Also, in the strat part you could send you various heroes off on quests of different difficulties. You never saw the quests, but later you would either hear that your hero had perished or they would come back with more experience and magical loot you could share out between your people. Again there were various races and so on; as I recall you as the leader were a great hero who could get certain powers depending on what you were (correct me if I'm wrong here) eg. druid would have lightning spells to cast on enemy territories and so forth. (I remember when my level 9 elf killed 650 enemy soldiers, alone, in defense of one of my castles. Have boots of speed, magical sword & bow, will travel.)

What an epic. Some would say not as epic as Ultima VII (see below) but it definitely came close. This was before the days of things like WoW and yet it had an entire world for In being the predecessor to Ultima VII & VII, it was ultimately the true spiritual predecessor to Ultima Online, the game that pulled us forward into the age of the MMORPG. Six intrepid adventurers fight a wide range of enemies across the vast world of Britannia while seeking the False Prophet who has come to steal the Avatar's (your) glory. Tons of cool weapons & armour, tons of awesome and distinct spells to learn, plotline great, many side quests... amazing. You could even explore the seas in a little skiff or a ship! I loved Ultima III & IV, but this was truly something else. Technically speaking, it had beautiful, pixellated graphics in 320x200 utilizing the full 256 colour VGA range to it's max with magical colour cycling that was similar to that used in The Summoning (another work of art, above). In terms of music, well it was MIDI put to magical use.

Epic. I got & played this along with it's extension, the Serpent Isle. For myself, no role playing game could ever compete with this level of immersion, with the exception of the Summoning.

Very difficult, but very rewarding. It was a great idea for Origin to get onto the first person bandwagon early with this title, as the first person perspective really fit in well with Britannia's Underworld. They also adapted many of the old Ultima spells superbly. I enjoyed the rune system a great deal. This game was dark and spooky, and the music was great. I liked the feeling like you always had somewhere to go and something to do, but sometimes you couldn't help just sneaking off to explore.

Although titles like Bloodwych had come before, Dungeon Master was, in a sense, the originator of this early genre (which has since disappeared due to the advent of true 3D). Similar to Eye of the Beholder, this was more scary and potentially a lot more dififcult. The spells lent a lot more to the complexity of the game than they did in Eye. This game had more to be concerned about as well, like food, water and light. In this sense, it was similar to Shadowlands (see my Atari ST gamelist).

An absolute work of art. Rivalled only by number 2 of the series. A 2D first-person party-based RPG. Cool story, cool characters, fearful combat, awesome spells, and the true feeling of AD&D which SSI & Westwood studios managed to impart to all games they were licensed by TSR to create. The music in general MIDI was superb on PC; on the Amiga, it was absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend this game for play even now, followed up immediately by it's sequel.

See description of Eye of the Beholder above. A whole new story, characters, monsters, scenery, dungeons to explore. And a deadly archenemy to defeat. You can also bring in your characters from Eye of the Beholder (1), carrying all of the powerful equipment they had gained as well as their experience levels. Again, the most beautifully hand-painted graphics you can expect to find anywhere. Westwood's artists showed similar skill with other titles like Dune, Dune II, and Lands of Lore.

Doom on steroids. Action for those who truly have a grip on 3 dimensions. It was too difficult for many of my friends, except for one other who, like me, understood the 3D maps and control method. We were evenly matched in the brilliant deathmatch this game had to offer.

There is nothing, nothing like the precise feeling of the simple physics in Doom. It is like a deadly ballet. I remember the movement , the graceful arcs and the momentum of your weight carrying you around the next corner. And the countless hours and days I spent deathmatching this with friends, enemies, random people at school and so on... I'm sorry guys, but while the Quake (1) atmosphere was good, the gameplay will never match Doom for me. It's funny how FPS are rarely able to be as atmospheric as this one was, anymore. I played more deathmatch than anything else but even in building my own maps, this game just reeks of a dark, netherworld kind of a feeling. Staring at those skies in doom and looking at the dull-coloured textures and the hard lines makes you feel like you're in a limbo, a world you'll never get out of. They always talk of IDs technical achievements, but really - this game was a work of Dark Art... (As an aside, there was another game I remember that had a similarly dark feeling, but was otherwise not as good a title as Doom -- it was called Witchaven.)

Essentially the storyline sequel to Heretic, AFAIK. I still long to finish this with someone in co-operative mode. I almost did, with different friends on two different occasions. I feel this game very nearly was ahead of it's time. Not the engine which was mostly Doom recycled, but in terms of complexity, and those *little things* that just polish a game so perfectly. Hexen nearly had it all.

In watching a talk given by Will Wright (available somewhere on this site) Bill Budge is mentioned along with his famous Pinball Construction Set. They say this introduced a whole new era of gaming where players could edit game content. Well, for me it was this game that did that -- build a whole 3D stunt racing track and then race it against any car you like? You're kidding me right? This was incredible. You built your own virtual world and then you went into it and could explore it as freely as you wished. And as for the racing itself -- what a rush!!!

I am busy playing this as of this writing (Jan 2008). Nothing's changed. I wish I could get my hands on the source for this game, it is truly a masterpiece. I cannot go into detail about the game here, there is too much to it, but if there is one game on this list that I URGE you to look, it is UFO/XCOM 1. AFAIK, this game effectively spawned a genre (yes there were simlar titles back in 80's already eg. Six Gun Shootout), viz. the Commandos series, Gears of War, etc. But this was the one that really showed people what fun a third person tactical shooter can be.

Although it is painful to play the original today as the UI style for RTS games has changed so much, one must remember -- this is father of the entire RTS genre. This game landed with a splash due to it's fantastic point and click command system, resource management, many and varied unit types with three different sides, and of course, the wonderful atmosphere imparted by Frank Herbert seminal novel, Dune. A newer, more playable version with multiplayer options is available at http://d2tm.duneii.com/.