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Comment by Sharlin | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure that 1999 was the peak year of PC gaming. Just consider the number of legendary games published that year, including but not limited to:

    * Age of Empires 2
    * Alpha Centauri
    * Baldur's Gate
    * Counter-Strike (the original mod!)
    * Freespace 2
    * Heroes of Might and Magic 3
    * Homeworld
    * Jagged Alliance 2
    * Outcast
    * Planescape: Torment
    * Roller Coaster Tycoon
    * SimCity 3000
    * System Shock 2
    * SWAT 3
    * The Longest Journey
    * Unreal Tournament

I've (re-)played several of those (BG, HoMM3, JA2, RCT, Ps:T, SS2) in the past couple of years and at some point realized that they were all released in 1999.

If you include the 1998 Christmas market, you can add at least:

    * Falcon 4.0
    * Fallout 2 (definitely should've been delayed until 1999!)
    * Grim Fandango
    * Half-Life
    * Myth 2
    * Thief: The Dark Project

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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 came out in 1999 too, both big milestones for their genres. THPS had major cultural impact and brought a whole generation of kids to skateboarding, whereas MSFS2000 was more of a technical achievement, for the first time featuring the entire globe along with virtually all charted airports, around 20 000 in total thanks to Microsoft's deep pockets. You could boot it up, sit into Concorde at Heathrow, and circumnavigate the earth.

Note that most of those games are 2D. This was an era when a major developer could take a fairly small team with a moderate budget and make a big, innovative game in a couple years.

It's just impossible in an environment where nearly every major game is expected to be 3D, action-focused, and playable on console.

One of the biggest problems with AAA games is that they are trying to be Hollywood movies rather than games. Indie games are where its at unfortunately (or fortunately) there's so many of them being published now due to the readily available unity/gamemaker/ue5 that it's hard to find the good ones in the sea of bad ones.

> It's just impossible in an environment where nearly every major game is expected to be 3D, action-focused, and playable on console.

There are quite a few counter examples of this, even glossing over mobile, but what makes you think this?

There is a segment who want those 2D games.

1999 was also an amazing year for movies. Part of me wants to blame nostalgia, but I genuinely think there was more variety and originality back then.

Reddit discussion on 1999 in film: https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/y7kaft/1999_had_a_l...

I think 2004 and 2007 were industry defining. 2004 had CS:S, Half Life 2, GTA:SA, Halo 2, UT04, World of Warcraft (!) 2007 had Wii Sports (well, that was 2006...) Halo 3, COD4, Mario Galaxy, Assassins Creed, Portal, Bioshock, Uncharted.

While those are all great, I do not think they quite measure up to 1999.

I suspect you might have been the same age in 1999 as I was in 2004. To me, the games from 2004/2007 have shaped and defined the games being released now. CoD rewrote the shooter genre and is still one of the biggest games in the world. GTA:SA is a marvel of a game on so many levels. WoW is.... WoW. And Half Life 2 gave us steam.

11?

For what it’s worth, I do think they were genre defining. I was trying to think of arguments against that statement, and just can’t come up with anything. I suspect it’s just the 5 year difference that allowed equally amazing but different games to get the same label again :)

It’s interesting that I probably have to go back several years to get a list with a similar number of titles these days.

2004 also brought Doom 3. It was significant for competing with Half-Life 2 for "best graphics" at the time. Even today, Doom 3 is still a visually stunning game.

2004 also had V:tM Bloodlines, as flawed as it was on release.

I don't agree, because subjectively, there never has been a year I haven't been utterly entertained and amazed by a completely new game. Compare that to the movies.

* StarCraft! (1998)

Yeah, but I only included ~Q4 of 1998, as I consider those games "morally" 1999 titles given the pressure to publish in time for Christmas. In any case, both 1998 and 2000 were very good years for PC gamers as well.

Brood War :)

SCV good to go, sir!

Quake 3 Arena !!!

Huh, no wonder I remember that era so fondly, thanks for pointing that out.

What the hell? My entire childhood in a single year?

Where did I get the time to play it all?

Holy fuck! You Just blew my mind. There are 5 of my top of all time games here.

Its same with '99 movies.

Maybe 99 was the peak of our civilization?

* Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun * UT99 * Medal of Honor * Tony Hawk * GTA 2

Rally Championship 2000 was released in 1999.

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