1998 Week? Fine. What are your favorite games from that year?

Since my effort to organize an evening of X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter got hijacked by multiple people immediately upon thread creation (is there an achievement for that?), wax philosophical about possibly the best year for PC gaming ever.

Itsatrap wrote:

1998 was a very, very, VERY good year for gaming:

Baldur's Gate
Descent: Freespace
Diablo
Fallout 2
Grim Fandango
Half-Life
Metal Gear Solid
Rainbow Six
StarCraft
Thief: The Dark Project
Total Annihilation

You should generalize the topic and encourage us to pick and play any one game from 1998. (And then you should stick to the theme—1998!—not 1997 (XvT) or 1999 (XWA).)

And you should tune in next week for another episode of Lobo's What You Should Do, a recurring exercise in folly and futility!

Lobo wrote:

You should generalize the topic and encourage us to pick and play any one game from 1998. (And then you should stick to the theme—1998!—not 1997 (XvT) or 1999 (XWA).)

And you should tune in next week for another episode of Lobo's What You Should Do, a recurring exercise in folly and futility! :-)

IMAGE(http://captainhindsightsays.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/captain-hindsight.png)

Let's see if I can dig up my copy.

1998 was a very, very, VERY good year for gaming:

Baldur's Gate
Descent: Freespace
Diablo
Fallout 2
Grim Fandango
Half-Life
Metal Gear Solid
Rainbow Six
StarCraft
Thief: The Dark Project
Total Annihilation

Didn't I-War Come out in 1998? That's reasonably close to XvT as it too is set in space and you get to fly ships. Except, the ships have inertia. And it's impossible.

In reverence of 1998 I may very well finish my playthrough of MGS4. Wait, I'd have to turn on my PS3.

Nevermind, I'm out... I'll honor it all with a single game of StarCraft 2, where I'll burn a zergling in effigy.

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Thief_The_Dark_Project_boxcover.jpg)

a real 1998 gem...

However, I recently tried to reinstall it under Win7 but had no luck.

For my pick I'll definitely have to go for my beloved Fallout 2 - in the top o' the heap for me along with System Shock 2 (though I think that may have been 1999).

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/f2.jpg)

You might be able to download XP mode for Win 7 and see if you can install it on there. Video might be real sketchy,though.

Fallout 2 wins the year.

Once you pick up XvT and XWA, go visit the XWA Upgrade Project for the best looking flight sim this side of... wait for it... Tatooine.

As far as a Zone replacement, look up GameRanger. There's another one but I can't remember the name.

General Crespin wrote:

Once you pick up XvT and XWA, go visit the XWA Upgrade Project for the best looking flight sim this side of... wait for it... Tatooine.

As far as a Zone replacement, look up GameRanger. There's another one but I can't remember the name.

Crispy, the thread got hijacked! we'll talk on steam later =)

Honestly, it's a tie for me between Baldur's Gate and Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.

chrisg wrote:

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Thief_The_Dark_Project_boxcover.jpg)

a real 1998 gem...

IMAGE(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3/36150/1188471-second_scruffy_2_super.jpg)

1998 is the year I switched back to being a predominantly PC gamer. It was the year I stopped using the family computer (such a cute idea nowadays) and bought my first computer. Now that I finally had an up-to-date PC, I immediately got hooked on Thief and Half-life.

chrisg wrote:

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Thief_The_Dark_Project_boxcover.jpg)

I enjoyed quite a few 1998 releases including Diablo, Descent Freespace, Die by the Sword, Half-Life, Starcraft, and Age of Empires: Rise of Rome (expansion pack).

Out of those 1998 releases, it's really tough to pick a favorite, or even the one I spent the most time with.

However, if you include pre-1998 releases, I easily spent the most time still playing and loving original Quake ctf online. This would continue until early 2000.

Wow, that really was a good year. StarCraft and Myth II are the 1998 releases I've played the most. Descent, Unreal, and Ocarina of Time were mostly spectator sports for me.

Metal Gear Solid completely blew me away - I loved that game.

Okay, it was released on Halloween in 1997, but the game that owned my soul for all of 1998, and 1999 for that matter was:

IMAGE(http://football.snakeops.com/Kali/image016.jpg)

I was out of the PC loop in '98, so my favourite would be Metal Gear Solid. Man, I played the crap outta that one.

I tend to forget that Unreal and Half-Life came out in the same year. I didn't own a PC until a year later, so I was insanely jealous at the time.

Hey, listen!

IMAGE(http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2010/01/Most%20annoying%20sidekicks/NaviTheFairy--article_image.jpg)

There were good console games in 1998 too, elitist jerkfaces.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Hey, listen!
There were good console games in 1998 too, elitist jerkfaces.

Resident Evil 2
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Final Fantasy Tactics
Xenogears (which I still haven't unsealed!)

...Silent Hill comes out at the very beginning of '99.

Also on PC - Shogo: M.A.D.!

chrisg wrote:

However, I recently tried to reinstall it under Win7 but had no luck.

Might be of help: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthrea...
(also, tafferpatcher for Thief 2)

This is all I can remember:

- Parasite Eve
- Resident Evil 2
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Xenogears

Metal Gear Solid. I rented it and bought it the next day. Played through it twice back to back. I don't think I have ever done that since or I know I haven't with another Metal Gear game.

Diablo was 1997. I'm pretty sure because I almost failed that semester because of it, and it was my last in college. Thank goodness.

It's a tough choice but I have to pick
IMAGE(http://www.gamereactor.se/media/forum/se/2763949_83.jpg)

The atmosphere in HL was just amazing. There hadn't been an FPS before it that tried to create such a believable environment. I've played the game so many times now that the magic is lost but I haven't played the demo since it came out so I can still recall that experience. Very few games have given experiences so groundbreaking. Sadly it's hard for someone who didn't play it back then to appreciate why it stood out so much. I think there was a collective fascination for it the kind of which can only happen with something very new. Or maybe it's just my fascination for it that was exaggerated by me not being so old. It was a game in the right place at the right time.

Maybe I'm alone in thinking that the game still holds up really well but I enjoy replaying it with some frequency. The combat is so great, I love playing around with all the unusual weapons like tripmines and satchel charges. HL2 on the other hand I don't enjoy replaying nearly as much, overall I think its gameplay is inferior, by a lot. Also, without HL there's no CS which I've played tens of thousands of hours of (yes).

IMAGE(http://www.forest.impress.co.jp/article/1999/03/03/game25_half-life1.jpg)

FFT, Xenogears...and FF7. Yeah, I said it, and I mean it! It may have been a 97 game, but I played in in 98.

It didn't come out in 1998, but I'm pretty sure I played Q2 right up until Q3Test came out in spring of 1999.

Hmm.. I really liked Apocalypse on the PSX, the Bruce Willis buddy game similar to ONE. But 1998 also brought Blasto with Phil Hartman, an awful terrible game.
Also Rally Cross 2 (PSX) was in 1998, several hours of silly fun watching the Suicide Mode on Replay.