The 90s was arguably the era in which the video games industry went through its biggest shift, making the intrepid journey from pixels to polygons. But going back to many of the polygonal games of the late 90s is a traumatic experience - with those jagged, low-poly graphics feeling like they're stabbing at your eyeballs. However, the true spirit of 90s PC gaming can be found in the pixelated titles of the mid-nineties, where hardware had become so powerful, developers could go all out in delivering incredibly detailed, fast-paced, and beautifully refined game engines. These now-legendary PC games were rife with offbeat humour, memorable soundtracks and uncannily realistic (for the time) graphics, so here's a list of the best of them, a tribute to those who spent countless hours gaming away on beige PCs and hefty CRT monitors...
9. Cannon Fodder
Another DOS classic from Sensible Software, Cannon Fodder was not only a fantastic squad-based war shooter, but a brilliant satire of war in the vein of M*A*S*H. I remember spending hours on end shooting downed enemies, resulting in them bouncing around like fleas while grunting and yelping until such time as I decided to let them rest in peace. Canon Fodder wasn't all fun and games though. The fact that fallen squaddies died permanently, only to be commemorated throughout the rest of the game by gravestones - as recruits came in to replace them - was one of the first times that a game actually made me reflect on the one-way trip that is slipping off the mortal coil. Jon Hare and Richard Joseph's score is also one of the most memorable video game soundtracks from this 90s too, swinging between the bouncy and the wonderfully melancholy recruitment track ('Narcissus'). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLOT1QeOJAc
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
