Rolling the clock back to 1998

1995 was a good year to be a gamer, that was until 1998. 1998 dwarfed all other years for game releases on the PC and on consoles. Gamers were trapped in a happy medium of many consoles and the PC. Games like Half-Life, Starcraft, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil 2 were released. But the Goozex Report has to ask two things, what will these games be remembered for? Can next year top 1998?

[kube00]

Hours of wasted time in Half-life...

[Redempteur]

i made a slight calcul

I spent in HL , cstrike and day of defeat , opposing force over 450 hours .... that's a lot ...

Another good thing about HL is that he doesn't needed a very good pc to run back in the day .. so a lot of people could enjoy it ....

[Redempteur]

oups sorry about the spelling mistake *didn't need *

98 was such a great year

[Method]

Easily the greatest year for video games ever. The only other year that even begins to come close is 2004.

[JudoChinX]

Such a huge year. Looking down the road 12 years later, these franchises are still as, if not more important than they were upon release. Starcraft is one of my top games of all time.

[JimmyJames70]

Yeah, I started playing games much later. I didn't even know there was a Rainbow Six until the Vegas series started.

[El_Colombiano]

You and 30 some odd million other gamers.

[UltimateIdiot911]

Really? My first Rainbow Six game was well Rainbow Six. It was a great game though my memory of it is a bit fuzz on it since I was around 9 or 10 at the time.

[kube00]

Yea the original Rainbox 6 has not held up well...

[Handhelds_FTW]

Wasn't only huge year for gaming, but for the electronic music genre as well.

[Freak of Nature]

Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus....

[Whoooop]

Original Rainbow Six got me into PC gaming and Resident Evil got me into hardcore console gaming...

Mario got me into gaming overall... :)

[tdrules]

1998 was the year I was at an after school club and someone gave me a pad and I played Metal Gear Solid for the whole afternoon.
*sigh* those were the days...

[ZedoMann]

Starcraft in 1998 Starcraft 2 in 2010/2011/2012.

[Narutone66]

an amazing game. I don't mind the long development time as long as it's an amazing game. I still shake my head when some fan boys complain about the long development time of GT5.

[kube00]

Yea I bet most of us had more time back then as well

[HOSe]

ocarina of time, the best game ever

[BigKev45]

A bunch of youths in here.

[Jamescagney]

Yeah 1998 was a good year for gaming. You didn't have so many snail brained fanbois on the internet as well, that was good. Although a lot that you see today had only been born around that time.

[Kushan]

Only because they simply hadn't FOUND the internet. I still have arguments today about which was better - the PS2 or the Dreamcast. Sure, the PS2 sold (a lot) more, but the Dreamcast allegedly had better games.
Personally, I just stuck with PC gaming. You know, back when it actually had good exclusives.

[Jamescagney]

I'd have to say the ps2 was better overall, I think the game libary was far more diverse and had the better games (eventually), but I loved the Dreamcast as well and have fond memories of it and its games, especially Jet Set Radio and Shenmue.

Having said that, the Dreamcast is the only console that is relevent in this topic seeing as it's about 1998.

[Narutone66]

DreamCast and PS2. I bought the DC first because it was cheaper and I was impressed with graphics and gameplay of Soul Calibur. The PS2 was very expensive when it first came out. I bought it a few months later for the GT-series games. Both DC and PS2 still works and I game on them once in a while now as my time are taken up by PS3, PSP, and family life. My children plays the Wii and the GC during weekends though.

[Squall_Leonhart]

I LOVED THIS YEAR!!! Had to be one of the best, especially having the Pizza Hut PS1 demo and playing it non-stop waiting for games to come out like MGS, Cool boarders 3, Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped and the main game that I love to this day as well, Final Fantasy VIII! (Although it didn't come out untill 1999) still though I loved that demo. It opened my eyes up to marvelous games that I enjoyed/loved. MAN I MISS MY CHILDHOOD!

[table]

cool boarders 3 was a ridiculously good game.

[kewlkat007]

I literally live on my PC/PS/N64 and dabbled a little bit on others...Sega..etc

Oh yeah I was in-love with Ocarina of Time. The sweet tune of "Zoras Domain"....Riding Epona all over Hyrule...bliss

[kube00]

Glad you guys liked this one, I'll do 1999 or 2000 next

[ktchong]

Baldur's Gate. Fallout 2. Thief. Unreal.

Technically, Final Fantasy VII was also released in 1998, (i.e., end of 1997 for PlayStation, and 1998 for the PC.)

In 1998, PC has hi-resolution graphics, but Final Fantasy VII (due to the limitation of the original PlayStation) was blocky and ugly. PC games like Diablo (released near the end of 1997), Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2 were in high-res -- and years ahead of Final Fantasy VII.

When I first played Final Fantasy VII, I was appalled by its primitive graphics, blocky characters and limited gameplay -- i.e., Final Fantasy did not even let players choose or customize characters, choose dialogues, or choose different ways to approach and solve problems!

But I forced myself to play Final Fantasy VII because I wanted to find out what the buzz was about. I played it until the flower girl (Ariel?) got killed, then I finally gave up. I just could not play the game anymore. I was just not having any fun. I just did not want to waste any more time on a game I did not enjoy while I could play play Diablo (1997), Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2, StarCraft and Half-Life at the same time.

I can never understand why Final Fantasy VII was so overrated, when there are so many way superior games (all on PC, of course) that were released in the same time frame.

[zagibu]

Well, FF7 was more of an interactive story, than a game. I loved it.

But I also loved Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2, Half-Life...

[hulud86]

YAY its 1988. I'm young once again!