Lemming42 makes a critical error by failing to mention whether he's only referring to PC gaming, or gaming in general.
Regardless he's wrong on the year. 1998 was good, but it doesn't hold a candle to 1991 and/or 1992.
If Lemming meant gaming in general it's 1991, otherwise it's 1992. My argument on both years is the same: The gaming market was vastly different, especially when compared to 1998.
Zed Duke of Banville has done a good job of justifying 1991 on both fronts. That year there were literally over a dozen gaming platforms active and getting retail releases, including the PC. A proverbial smorgasbord of gaming for new systems and old. Two of the biggest releases of that year (
A Link to the Past and
Street Fighter 2) also ended up being two of the greatest games ever made and two of the most influential titles in gaming. It was also the year the first graphical MMORPG was released, and the Super Nintendo was released in the U.S..
But for PCs the real golden year is 1992, for two reasons: Firstly that several big gaming platforms became discontinued on January 1st, which cleared the market of older systems and allowed the survivors to flourish (especially the PC), and secondly that the PC became the first platform to meet the much-desired Multimedia standard, and could play back video and audio on a level comparable to home television. A few of the surviving platforms had managed to grow and become stronger through the years (notably the Amiga and Apple Macintosh) but none of them had done so on the scale that the PC had been doing for the past 11 years, going from a standardized monochrome office tool with 256kb of RAM (at best), to a multi-purpose home computer capable of 256-color VGA graphics and playing digital sound. 1992 was the year that the PC snatched the crown from the Amiga as the leading home computer, by both having a solid userbase and the most powerful hardware. And almost as if on cue, the first games that utilized the top-end of PC hardware arrived on the market, most notably
Ultima Underworld and
Ultima 7.
Wolfenstein 3D also made a splash by showing that the PC was capable of first-person rendering with modern graphics
and at a good speed. The world was the PC's oyster, and the feast was about to begin.
Now let's jump ahead to 1998. Compared to the start of 1992 the gaming market has seen massive changes. Amstrad and Atari have closed up shop on the computing front and Commodore is a near-lifeless corpse, guarded zealously by die-hard Finns. SEGA is about to be taught a lesson that'll see it later departing the console market, leaving the PC, the N64 and the Playstation vying for the gaming market. Thanks to
Doom's release four years prior everyone is raging about 3D and polygon graphics, with no room or quarter being given to any other forms of gaming except the most hardest of franchises, most notably RTS games. On this front the PC has a clear advantage, and many of its releases for the year demonstrate that all too well. And yet, something is missing from before. The market has grown much tougher, more edgier. The air of innocence that had permeated gaming back in 1992 is gone, the flora of gaming has been outright culled to make room for the new juggernauts of gaming. The age of the AAA titles was about to begin. Many advancements and improvements have been achieved, but the price has been high indeed. The PC gaming market had felt this in the past two years, but fortunately 1998 was when this started to turn around a bit, that people realized that jagged polygons alone won't make a game. The Incline brought by both 1998 and 1999 didn't turn the tide, but it delayed it somewhat. 1998 was also the year that Microsoft began development on the X-Box console, and as the X-Box is the Single Worst Thing to happen to gaming in general, it is nigh-impossible to give the year 1998 the top award for Best Year in Gaming (for the 90s).
. I'll get around to it someday...
