98 has some of my favorite games to ever come out, like:

  • Marvel vs. Capcom
  • 1080 Snowboarding
  • NFS3 Hot Pursuit
  • Tekken 3
  • Starcraft + Brood wars
  • Commandos
  • Fifa 99
  • Pokemon
  • Fallout 2
  • Half Life
  • Ocarina of Time
  • Baldur’s Gate

And many more

  • Honestly I genuinely think that 2017 might be the best year of gaming, ever. Breath of the wild, nier automata, mario odyssey, fortnite, cuphead, horizon zero dawn, hellblade: senua’s sacrifice, destiny 2, xenoblade chronicles 2, prey, sonic mania, injustice 2, divinity original sin 2, nioh, splatoon 2, hollow knight, middle earth: shadow of war, night in the woods, pubg, pyre, yakuzas 0 and kiwami, even tekken 7’s console release and persona 5’s western release if you want to count those. And that’s not mentioning the smaller indie games that were acclaimed within their circles like Absolver or the expansions for games that were critically acclaimed like Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire or Final Fantasy: Stormblood. Like, '98 is legendary for a reason but I think that as far as just, number of incredible games released we’ve never seen a year like 2017.

  • It’s obviously too early because two of them aren’t out, but this year could shape up to be way up there for RPG fans if we get what we’re being advertised. Final Fantasy XVI is a significant step into action that’s been pretty well received, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a lot people have already seen and looks like it may well be the next-generation standard for crpg open world games, and Starfield is a new IP that looks to me like it might be modernizing Bethesda gunplay in their trademark massive scale 3D open worlds.

    If Bethesda isn’t completely blowing smoke we could very realistically have three absolutely huge different styled RPGs that are the new standards for their genres.

    • I agree. TotK is probably one of the few games I consider to be almost perfect. Hogwarts Legacy was also great, and I’m currently hyped for Starfield (hoping it lives up to the hype).

      The biggest downer of the year is for me Kerbal Space Program 2, as the early access has been extremely bad in performance and low on content with no big content updates in the forseeable future.

  • Here are some more:

    • Falcon 4.0
    • Rainbow Six
    • Unreal
    • Battlezone
    • Gran Turismo

    That´s actually insane for one year!

    Back then, studios had to actually make new games to make more money. Nowadays, you make one game and then just milk it for a decade.

    • As a person who likes that kind of music and knew it before playing Fallout, it was such a pleasant surprise to me to hear this older music pop up in a much-more-modern video game.

      Think it’s worth saying that I hate FPSes but I have and enjoy Fallout anyways.

  • My favorite was 1997, I only owned a PS1 at the time, and here’s some really good games that was released that year:

    • Gran Turismo
    • Final Fantasy 7
    • Castlevania Symphony of the Night
    • Crash Bandicoot 2
    • Final Fantasy Tactics
    • Parappa the Rapper
    • Vandal Hearts
    • Mega Man X4
    • Breath of Fire 3
    • Mega Man Legends
    • MDK
    • Oddworld Abe’s Oddysse
    • Tomb Raider II
    • Grand Theft Auto
    • Klonoa
    • MK Mythologies Sub Zero

    Some other non PS1, but notable games that came out that year:

    • Diablo
    • Mario Kart 64
    • Turok
    • Goldeneye 007
    • Star Fox 64
    • Fallout
    • Panzer General II
    • Age of Empires
    • Mortal Kombat 4

    1998 was also very good

    It’s harder and harder to get a year that can produce a large number of hits, especially since AAA has become so expensive and time consuming. Even great indies take longer than usual now. The explosions of hits released between late 2022 and this year, is probably caused by Covid delaying multiple projects.

    With more game devs consolidation, and Embracer stumbling, I’m not too sure about the near future.

    • Q3A was released October 22, 2000.

      2000 is a contender for retro gaming “best year”.

      Diablo 2 (still the best one, imho)
      Q3A
      Jet Set Radio
      Baldur’s Gate 2
      Deus Ex
      Paper Mario
      No One Lives Forever
      Counter Strike
      Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver

      Anyway, late 90s early 00s had a lot of banger years with awesome new IPs dropping regularly. The last 5-10 years have been amazing for indie games, but AAA games are just fancier versions of what we already have, for the most part.