Blog #7 --------------------- 1995 to 1999

1995: There’s not much notable about this year. It was 1 year after the Playstation came out, so many games are being released for it, but the majority are still for the SNES. One big game that came out this year for neither console was Warcraft 2: Tides of darkness, released by blizzard. It was a much more refined version of Warcraft and was very popular.

1996: Following my theme from last week, Kirby Super Star was released for the SNES in this year. This game was one of the last major releases for the SNES, and is said to be one of the best games in the Kirby franchise. Kirby’s Block Ball was also released in May of this year for the Game Boy, it was more of a ‘Breakout’ clone than an actual Kirby game.

1997: This year is a very important year for gaming, not because it was the beginning of the Fallout series, but because it was the year that many of the people in our class were born. Although maybe Fallout was a bit more important. The game had its own game engine made for it by Tim Cain. It took him 6 months, but after it was developed, he had 30 people working on it for 3 years to make Fallout, an RPG series that is arguable the most popular of its kind today.

The game Introduced the SPECIAL system, which was a new way to keep track of character statistics. It stands for: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. The player and every NPC in the game would have their own unique set of stats, which would constantly be changing throughout the game, and determine the outcome of certain situations.

1998: A huge game was released this year, which I really hope wasn’t covered in the presentation. Blizzard released Starcraft, which might not have been very popular, but it started the franchise that eventually released Startcraft 2, which is one of the most played games in the world.

Also in 1998, only a year after the initial release of Fallout, Fallout 2 became available on Windows and Mac. This one took plays approximately 80 years after the first game ended. Although the game has essentially the same graphics as its predecessor, it has a much larger world to explore.

1999: The year that the perfect score on Pacman was reached, only 19 years after its initial release. This year, a company that used to actually make games, valve, released the first version of Team Fortress. It was just a modification on Quake, and used the same engine, but focused mainly on competitive team games, such as capture the flag, and featured 9 classes to choose from.

Finally, one of my favourite games that I grew up playing the sequels to: SoulCalibur. From a technical point of view, this game was a big jump for fighting games because of its 8 way walking. For me, I’m not sure why, but it’s the only fighting game I’ve ever enjoyed. Although if they hadn’t removed Amy in Soul Calibur 5, I might actually play it.