The 1999 appreciation thread.

[anvi]

The 90s was a golden age for gaming but 1999 especially. See for yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_video_games

So many legends in there. Baldur's Gate expansion, Unreal Tournament, System Shock 2, Age of Empires II, Counter Strike, Jagged Alliance 2, Freespace 2, Grand Theft Auto 2, Age of Wonders, SWAT 3, Quake 3, Planescape Torment, HOMM3, M&M 7, Team Fortress Classic, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, Homeworld, EverQuest, etc

That one year alone is like a greatest hits of gaming.

Is there a place where more of these old PC Gamer mags are archived? I love looking through these and reliving a bit of PC Master Race history be it the articles, reviews or ads.

I didn't even know there was such a thing! The one the guy linked earlier in the thread is awesome. I was reading the EverQuest page earlier.

PC Gamer magazine, May 1999
https://archive.org/details/UneditedPCGamer_marktrade/PC_Gamer_060u/mode/2up

 

[anvi]

Ouch Jetfighter 4, so close.... so close...

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

If you speak the languages, PC Joker (German) and Pelit (Finnish) both have pretty good reviewers in them. Pelit in particular gives some good advice I rarely see in period publications, though that could just be their RPG guy.

 

[mindx2]

Way better: Computer Gaming World.

http://www.cgwmuseum.org/index.php

Yeah, I know about that one. Brings back memories of reading Scorpia's reviews!

 

[curds]

On the other hand, at least we don't have literally 50+ Command & Conquer ripoffs in a single year. It's easy to remember how much shit was churned out back then.

We have 50 PUBG clones and 50 Overwatch clones instead. Shitty clones of popular games are always gonna be churned out.

 

[anvi]

Sometimes they end up being better than the original thing. I remember reading about Unreal Tournament and thinking Wooow what a sad shameless theft of Quake's idea. Disgusting. Then I played a demo and and I was like wow this is amazing. And then they added a bunch of fun modes to it like the ball one, ctf, deathmatch, and then Onslaught in 2004 with the vehicles which was great at the time, and so slick. And so fast. I remember Halo players would sometimes try it and complain about how fast it was.

 

[octavius]

Everything was better in 1998.

No Facebook (Instagram), Twitter, Google, or Amazon. The only forms of "social media" were IRC and obscure forums.

And Usenet.

 

[Boleskine]

 

[anvi]

Woaa sifting through treasures from pre-decline.

 

[kangaxx]

Wish I'd kept my old PC Zones.

 

[MapMan]

 

[Pentium]

Team Fortress Classic

Tons of great TFC avis have been made, these are some of those I remember the most.
The fun was always echelons above Counter-Suck (second vid 5:20).

 

[Morenatsu.]

TFC is an incomprehensible mess of a game. To the point of not actually being all that fun.

 

[anvi]

QuakeWorld Team Fortress was the best by miles. TFC just stole it and then got famous like the gaming version of the Thomas Edison and Tesla story.

 

[schru]

QuakeWorld Team Fortress was the best by miles. TFC just stole it and then got famous like the gaming version of the Thomas Edison and Tesla story.

It wasn't stolen. Valve hired the authors of the original mod.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I mean, TFC can be fun, or at least funny, but the damage-sponge combat with tons of redundant weapons and silly explosions makes it one of those games where you don't feel like you're doing anything even while you're doing it. Also CTF kind of sucks.

 

[anvi]

You sucks! How about Unreal Tournament did you like that? And also how about 2k4 with that Onslaught mode? Did anyone play that?!

I can't believe how lame FPSs went.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I like UT. I don't like CTF.

 

[anvi]

UT felt like a game from the future at the time, it was so good and slick! CTF I only really liked it one game. Early Quake multiplayer days it was basically the only multiplayer game. And all it had was deathmatch which was mindless carnage. So CTF was a good step.

But the later FPSs didn't feel as good to me.



That's what I was all about. It was so fast it was more like racing a car while shooting. You had to infiltrate their base head on, underwater, or through sneaky jumps etc. Once inside there lots of places for the enemy team to ambush you, so you had to be badass to clear your way through, or coordinated with a team. And you had to go right past the enemy respawn room so there were moments of carnage with various grenades being spammed and stuff.

Only if you survived all that could you get down to the basement where the flag was. But it ended with a long tunnel that had such an RPG dungeon feel. And the Engineer could setup a sentry gun in there, the Pyro could fill the tunnel with fire, Demolitions guy could leave pipe bombs and detonate them with RMB as you walk past. Sniper has a long tunnel to shoot you, etc. So getting that flag and then getting back out and back to your base was the most pro heroic shit ever. Like scoring a touchdown and then making it back to your own line. It started developing into far bigger more elaborate maps, it could have been amazing. Shame Valve noobified it and made it into a game about hats. -.-

 

[Morenatsu.]

I don't know, I always felt like running back and forth gets old too quickly, and defending feels very underwhelming compared to normal deathmatch games. Of course, I've only played with randumbs, so perhaps it's just bad with bad players, but I always liked stuff like Dustbowl and such much more. CTF just feels like there's two halves of the game that are mostly disconnected from each other.

 

[Jason Liang]

The 90s was a golden age for gaming but 1999 especially. See for yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_video_games

So many legends in there. Baldur's Gate expansion, Unreal Tournament, System Shock 2, Age of Empires II, Counter Strike, Jagged Alliance 2, Freespace 2, Grand Theft Auto 2, Age of Wonders, SWAT 3, Quake 3, Planescape Torment, HOMM3, M&M 7, Team Fortress Classic, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, Homeworld, EverQuest, etc

That one year alone is like a greatest hits of gaming.

I would say nearly all of these games range from slightly to grossly overrated. The four exceptional games from 1999 would be HoMM3, SMAC, JA 2 and GTA 2. It was one of the better years in gaming but not unparalleled and not unsurpassed. Video games and computer games grew exponentially from 1987 onwards and gaming revolutionized practically every year.


For example, 1992 had-
Star Control 2
Darklands
Flashback
Ultima Underworld
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Dune 2

1993 had-
Doom
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Day of the Tentacle
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Mortal Kombat 2
NBA Jam
Master of Orion
Myst

1994 had-
UFO: Enemy Unknown
TIE Fighter
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons
Final Fantasy VI
This is not even including all the classic platformers being released on console like Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, etc...

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Thank god for prestigious GTA 2 and it saving 1999 from overrated cringe like SS2, AoE2, MM7 or AoW.

 

[Jason Liang]

Thank god for prestigious GTA 2 and it saving 1999 from overrated cringe like SS2, AoE2, MM7 or AoW.

Of the 4 (SMAC, HoMM3, JA 2, and GTA 2) GTA 2 is the game that most feels like a 1999 game. Both SMAC and JA 2 felt super dated by the time they were released, and they were. Both felt like they were released 4-5 years too late. Even JA 2 is actually overrated here on Codex.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I feel like you're being serious right now and I don't like this feeling.

 

[Nutria]

classic platformers

I know that Nazis and Communists are allowed here, but this is taking it too far.