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

I was playing a lot of Half-Life, Counter-Strike betas, WipEout XL until Wip3out came out in 1999, Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears, FF: Tactics, and G-Police. I miss Psygnosis

WipEout wrote:

I was playing a lot of Half-Life, Counter-Strike betas, WipEout XL until Wip3out came out in 1999, Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears, FF: Tactics, and G-Police. I miss Psygnosis :cry:

Wait, you played the wipeout games!? I would have never guessed.

Hmm; that was Sophomore year of college. I was obsessively into Heroes of Might and Magic III that school year, but that didn't come out until early 1999. Before that, I think I was still playing an awful lot of Fallout and Fallout 2.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Rob_Anybody wrote:

The Dreamcast was released in 1998, and while I never owned one, I had friends who had them and spent many hours plugged in front of a Dreamcast in my college days.

Dreamcast in the US was released 9/9/99. How can you forget such a date?

eh, whatever. Like I said I never owned one, but spent many hours in college in front of one. And certain, uh, activities I was involved in then make it difficult to accurately remember specific dates.

This is what doomed my high school years.

FF:T came out in 98' ? Yeah I played that one for years, countless times. Wow!

mrtomaytohead wrote:
WipEout wrote:

I was playing a lot of Half-Life, Counter-Strike betas, WipEout XL until Wip3out came out in 1999, Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears, FF: Tactics, and G-Police. I miss Psygnosis :cry:

Wait, you played the wipeout games!? I would have never guessed.

IMAGE(http://imgur.com/rnecS.jpg)

Year 1998 was spent analyzing guard patrol routes in deep deep shadows. Also, I lost my eye to a nymh-b*tch named Viktoria.

So is 1998 week over?

Cheeto1016 wrote:

So is 1998 week over? :(

@Certis Shawn Andrich
We've had our fun. Site is back to normal, but 1998 week continues unabated! More awesome stuff to come. #GWJ

Via tweeters.

Parasite Eve. I remember seeing the commercials for it and being blown away. At that point I had my first "real" job (student technical support in college, a big fat $7.15 an hour or something) and hadn't learned responsible credit management; so I ended up picking up a Playstation and Parasite Eve over Christmas break and burning through much of it in my parents' basement.

I'm glad other people are owning up to Final Fantasy VII, too. In retrospect there were better games, but at the time it's what I played; I wasn't making that much money and each purchase was weighed heavily, and they were the ones with the pretty TV commercials. Between that and Parasite Eve I turned into a giant JRPG fanboy.

I reserved my PlayStation a year before the console was even released for the sole purpose of playing Final Fantasy VII. I can recall the day the game was released, I woke up at 4am with anticipation. I had it reserved at Babbage's in the local mall and forced my Mom to drop me off all the way across town after school to pick it up. I even got a FFVII T-shirt and Cid keychain for my pre-order. That was the greatest gaming day of my life.

beeporama wrote:

Parasite Eve.

I still wish I'd gotten a chance to play this one before I sold off my PlayStation. Oh well.

Metal Gear Solid is my pick for 1998, though Half-Life and Ocarina of Time certainly come close.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
beeporama wrote:

Parasite Eve.

I still wish I'd gotten a chance to play this one before I sold off my PlayStation. Oh well.

Well, you've played Vagrant Story, right? It's like that one except that, since they use guns in Parasite Eve instead of swords, the battle system actually makes sense!

I remember splashing out on "Dune 2000" when it was first released (which I guess would have been 1998) because I'd picked up a super-cheap copy of "Dune 2" that year and absolutely loved it. Somewhat of a disappointment in hindsight, but hey, at least I'd picked up a £1.99 copy of 1996's "Terra Nova" the same year which was brilliant fun.

Checking wikipedia, it turns out the awesome "Blazing Star" was released in 1998 on the Neo Geo, didn't get to play that until much later (2000 or 2001 I think) when we'd managed to get it running on an emulator. "Pay attention to backward" and "The Demon's Criff" will stay with be forever.

Also something that all began in '94

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Metal Gear Solid is my pick for 1998, though Half-Life and Ocarina of Time certainly come close.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
beeporama wrote:

Parasite Eve.

I still wish I'd gotten a chance to play this one before I sold off my PlayStation. Oh well.

Well, you've played Vagrant Story, right? It's like that one except that, since they use guns in Parasite Eve instead of swords, the battle system actually makes sense!

I remember being scared off of Vagrant Story, like, an HOUR in, because the battle system seemed so complex and unforgiving.

A big part of Parasite Eve is the aesthetic. It was fairly linear and not enormously challenging; but the look and the music and the story are very unique. Hopefully it will see a PSN re-release in the U.S.

It was probably Jane's WWII Fighters, actually.

Half-Life for me. One of my favorite gaming memories is finding out how good the AI was when I ducked behind a crate and soldiers laid down suppressing fire while chucking grenades at me. This was at a time when most enemies in FPSs did little more than rush straight at you, and tactics consisted of backing up behind a corner and mowing them down as they walked into your sights.

my friends and I used to play Half-Life Deathmatch all the time. Once we discovered Polycount.net and the bevvy of custom player models, we all downloaded the Kermit the Frog model and made a "wall of Kermits" with rocket launchers. Good times.

WipEout wrote:

I was playing a lot of Half-Life, Counter-Strike betas, WipEout XL until Wip3out came out in 1999, Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears, FF: Tactics, and G-Police. I miss Psygnosis :cry:

Didn't like G-Police that much, but I really liked the Colony Wars series. I think Vengeance was a 1998 title.

I played MGS that year, Ocarina too, but Rogue Squadron was my sh*t once December hit. My Star Wars fever was at its zenith pre-release of that crappy movie, and that game was quite a thrill.

ExitPursuedByBear wrote:

Half-Life for me. One of my favorite gaming memories is finding out how good the AI was when I ducked behind a crate and soldiers laid down suppressing fire while chucking grenades at me. This was at a time when most enemies in FPSs did little more than rush straight at you, and tactics consisted of backing up behind a corner and mowing them down as they walked into your sights.

Then look at HL2, where the enemies walk into your sights. It got better in EP2 which is why the combat there was way more fun than in the previous HL2 releases, but the poor AI is part of why I didn't like HL2 as much. There's not as much to the combat.

I totally agree, kyrieee. The AI in HL2 was a big step backward.

MyBrainHz wrote:
Khoram wrote:

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.

Agreed, it was definitely 1997 (my Junior year of college, I feel your pain)

Agreed, unless you played the Play Station release, like I did.

Katy wrote:

I'm pretty sure that in 1998, I was still playing a lot of Age of Empires.

Ditto.

Gran Turismo was HUGE for me, otherwise I'll echo MGS and Ocarina of Time.

clever id wrote:

Gran Turismo was HUGE for me, otherwise I'll echo MGS and Ocarina of Time.

The Manic Street Preachers/Chemical Brothers intro sends shivers down my spine to this day.

Apparently Rainbow Six also came out in '98 (and is available on GOG).

This really may have been the single best year in gaming ever. Both from the standpoint of amazing things that came out and the fact that the games that did come out laid the groundwork for everything that's come since.

oilypenguin wrote:

Apparently Rainbow Six also came out in '98 (and is available on GOG).

This really may have been the single best year in gaming ever. Both from the standpoint of amazing things that came out and the fact that the games that did come out laid the groundwork for everything that's come since.

I would love to see the sequels, Rogue Spear, Urban Operations and Black Thorn come out on GOG. I still own hard copies, but they don't work on Vista.